The graveyard book

“Not bad,” said a pert voice from the Potter’s Field, behind him. “Not bad at all.”

But when he turned to look, there was no one there.

CHAPTER FIVE

Danse Macabre

SOMETHING WAS GOING ON, Bod was certain of it. It was there in the crisp winter air, in the stars, in the wind, in the darkness. It was there in the rhythms of the long nights and the fleeting days.

Mistress Owens pushed him out of the Owenses’ little tomb. “Get along with you,” she said. “I’ve got business to attend to.”

Bod looked at his mother. “But it’s cold out there,” he said.

“I should hope so,” she said, “it being winter. That’s as it should be. Now,” she said, more to herself than to Bod, “shoes. And look at this dress—it needs hemming. And cobwebs—there are cobwebs all over, for heaven’s sakes. You get along,” this to Bod once more. “I’ve plenty to be getting on with, and I don’t need you underfoot.”

And then she sang to herself, a little couplet Bod had never heard before.

“Rich man, poor man, come away.

Come to dance the Macabray.”

“What’s that?” asked Bod, but it was the wrong thing to have said, for Mistress Owens looked dark as a thunder-cloud, and Bod hurried out of the tomb before she could express her displeasure more forcefully.

It was cold in the graveyard, cold and dark, and the stars were already out. Bod passed Mother Slaughter in the ivy-covered Egyptian Walk, squinting at the greenery.

“Your eyes are younger than mine, young man,” she said. “Can you see blossom?”

“Blossom? In winter?”

“Don’t you look at me with that face on, young man,” she said. “Things blossom in their time. They bud and bloom, blossom and fade. Everything in its time.” She huddled deeper into her cloak and bonnet and she said,

“Time to work and time to play,

Time to dance the Macabray. Eh, boy?”

“I don’t know,” said Bod. “What’s the Macabray?”

But Mother Slaughter had pushed into the ivy and was gone from sight.

“How odd,” said Bod, aloud. He sought warmth and company in the bustling Bartleby mausoleum, but the Bartleby family—seven generations of them—had no time for him that night. They were cleaning and tidying, all of them, from the oldest (d. 1831) to the youngest (d. 1690).

Fortinbras Bartleby, ten years old when he had died (of consumption, he had told Bod, who had mistakenly believed for several years that Fortinbras had been eaten by lions or bears, and was extremely disappointed to learn it was merely a disease), now apologized to Bod.

“We cannot stop to play, Master Bod. For soon enough, tomorrow night comes. And how often can a man say that?”

“Every night,” said Bod. “Tomorrow night always comes.”

“Not this one,” said Fortinbras. “Not once in a blue moon, or a month of Sundays.”

“It’s not Guy Fawkes Night,” said Bod, “or Hallowe’en. It’s not Christmas or New Year’s Day.”

Fortinbras smiled, a huge smile that filled his pie-shaped, freckly face with joy.

“None of them,” he said. “This one’s special.”

“What’s it called?” asked Bod. “What happens tomorrow?”

“It’s the best day,” said Fortinbras, and Bod was certain he would have continued but his grandmother, Louisa Bartleby (who was only twenty) called him over to her, and said something sharply in his ear.

“Nothing,” said Fortinbras. Then to Bod, “Sorry. I have to work now.” And he took a rag and began to buff the side of his dusty coffin with it. “La, la, la, oomp,” he sang. “La la la, oomp.” And with each “oomp,” he would do a wild, whole-body flourish with his rag.

“Aren’t you going to sing that song?”

“What song?”

“The one everybody’s singing?”

“No time for that,” said Fortinbras. “It’s tomorrow, tomorrow, after all.”

“No time,” said Louisa, who had died in childbirth, giving birth to twins. “Be about your business.”

And in her sweet, clear voice, she sang,

“One and all will hear and stay

Come and dance the Macabray.”

Bod walked down to the crumbling little church. He slipped between the stones, and into the crypt, where he sat and waited for Silas to return. He was cold, true, but the cold did not bother Bod, not really: the graveyard embraced him, and the dead do not mind the cold.

His guardian returned in the small hours of the morning; he had a large plastic bag with him.

“What’s in there?”

“Clothes. For you. Try them on.” Silas produced a grey sweater the color of Bod’s winding sheet, a pair of jeans, underwear, and shoes—pale green sneakers.

“What are they for?”

“You mean, apart from wearing? Well, firstly, I think you’re old enough—what are you, ten years old now?—and normal, living people clothes are wise. You’ll have to wear them one day, so why not pick up the habit right now? And they could also be camouflage.”

“What’s camouflage?”

“When something looks enough like something else that people watching don’t know what it is they’re looking at.”