The Graveyard Book by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-08-11T10:41:53+00:00

“Now the Lady on the Grey

Leads us in the Macabray,”

sang Liza Hempstock, before the whirl of the dance took her off and away from Bod. They stomped to the music, and stepped and spun and kicked, and the lady danced with them, stepping and spinning and kicking with enthusiasm. Even the white horse swayed its head and stepped and shifted to the music.

The dance sped up, and the dancers with it. Bod was breathless, but he could not imagine the dance ever stopping: the Macabray, the dance of the living and the dead, the dance with Death. Bod was smiling, and everyone was smiling.

He caught sight of the lady in the grey dress from time to time, as he spun and stomped his way across the municipal gardens.

Everyone, thought Bod, everyone is dancing! He thought it, and as soon as he thought it he realized that he was mistaken. In the shadows by the Old Town Hall, a man was standing, dressed all in black. He was not dancing. He was watching them.

Bod wondered if it was longing that he saw on Silas’s face, or sorrow, or something else, but his guardian’s face was unreadable.

He called out, “Silas!” hoping to make his guardian come to them, to join the dance, to have the fun they were having, but when he heard his name, Silas stepped back into the shadows and was lost to sight.

“Last dance!” someone called, and the music skirled up into something stately and slow and final.

Each of the dancers took a partner, the living with the dead, each to each. Bod reached out his hand and found himself touching fingers with, and gazing into the grey eyes of, the lady in the cobweb dress.

She smiled at him.

“Hello, Bod,” she said.

“Hello,” he said, as he danced with her. “I don’t know your name.”

“Names aren’t really important,” she said.

“I love your horse. He’s so big! I never knew horses could be that big.”

“He is gentle enough to bear the mightiest of you away on his broad back, and strong enough for the smallest of you as well.”

“Can I ride him?” asked Bod.

“One day,” she told him, and her cobweb skirts shimmered. “One day. Everybody does.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

And with that, the dance was done. Bod bowed low to his dancing partner, and then, and only then, did he feel exhausted, feel as if he had been dancing for hour after hour. He could feel all his muscles aching and protesting. He was out of breath.

A clock somewhere began to strike the hour, and Bod counted along with it. Twelve chimes. He wondered if they had been dancing for twelve hours or twenty-four or for no time at all.

He straightened up, and looked around him. The dead had gone, and the Lady on the Grey. Only the living remained, and they were beginning to make their way home—leaving the town square sleepily, stiffly, like people who had awakened from a deep sleep, walking without truly waking.

The town square was covered with tiny white flowers.

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