The party

"The parties at this cemetery are just like all the other cemeteries... a hot, fractured mess. Except that, here, everybody's rich."

Dolores' voice hung in the still air of Joan's sealed dovecote grave, bemoaning, not the banalities of heaven or hell, but the terrible tedium of having to attend yet another of the cemetery's frequent social functions.

"Oh, come," laughed Joan. "It's not so bad."

"Easy for you to say." Muttered Dolores. "You were cut in two parts, not four. I can barely hold myself together as it is, and all these prim and proper ladies want powder, rouge, an elegant dress... well, they can go roll in their own dust!"

"That's why I told Joe he could have his own dovecote." Laughed Joan. "He worked hard enough to have us both comfortably settled."

"Liar," grumbled her husband good-humoredly from the dovecote beside hers. "You just don't want to sleep with me cause I've got mold now."

"Come now. If you dress handsomely and comb your hair, I'll give you a kiss." 

After doing up her face as simply as she get away with, Joan Young pushed open the stone slab of her dovecote and began to sew herself together with the white thread and needle she kept in her dress pocket for the purpose.

"Dolores, I'll go help you with your sewing when I'm done. Be a dear, and don't complain so much."

It was a still, warm night, filled with the sounds of crickets and a few lightning bugs floating around the cemetery. Joan brushed off her dress and took a deep breath— she no longer needed to breathe, but she liked feeling the night air fill her papery lungs.

The two dovecote corridors began to fill up with residents. They were all occupied with the same task, since the dovecotes were too cramped for the business of putting oneself together. The elegant ladies all used thread and needle, as well as some of the gentlemen, notably the physicians such as Joan’s husband, John. The ladies helped the children with their own reconstruction, but other, less refined residents— namely, the military men—used anything, even cement, to clap themselves quickly together.

Joan deftly finished her sewing and was about to go find Dolores among the crowd, when her husband grabbed her wrist and waist and kissed her passionately, for all the other residents to see.

Joan laughed. “Joe! For God’s sake.”

“I combed my hair. See?”

Joan returned her husband’s kiss, never minding the disapproving murmurs around her. They were used to them now, the residents, and they only complained out of habit. You can’t teach dead dogs new tricks, Joan thought.

“Let me go find Dolores. Behave yourself, now.”

John Johnston blew her one last kiss. He tripped over the coins and flowers outside his dovecote— as he always did— and shuffled off to help the children with their sewing.

The great garden’s residents were also coming out of their graves— those rich enough in life to afford a plot, once valued at 25 gold pesos, or even a mausoleum, which was stupidly expensive; Joan did not even remember the price. The residents of the garden did not have any sewing to do and came out fully dressed, powdered and perfumed; they had, after all, their own private rooms to prepare in.

Little Ignatius Torres was making a fuss again; Ana Cañedo had hurried over to comfort him but wasn’t having much success. The gentlemen buried under the central mausoleum were already arguing over the previous century’s politics, and Emmanuel Gomez, the cemetery’s architect, was sitting on top of his mausoleum, swinging his feet and contemplating his chef-d'œuvre from the best corner of the garden.

“Now, Dolores, hold still.” Joan clucked. “Or I’ll prick you.”

“My dress needs mending, too.” Dolores lamented.

“You should have started working on that as soon as we got the invitation.” Joan laughed.

“I was too shocked at receiving it. After pointing out Nicolasa’s unibrow last time, I was convinced I’d be spared from an invitation to the next party.”

“They can’t not invite you. It wouldn’t be neighborly.”

“They say worse things to each other ever day, that’s what it is.”

“Yes, Lola dear, but they do it with more style. You’ve got to learn the language.”

“God save me from someday speaking like one of those squawking hens. ¡Jamás!”

The music was starting under Joseph Clement’s direction. Joan hummed along, finished sewing Dolores up and returned to her husband’s side.

“What are you doing?” He grinned. “Go say hello to our neighbors.”

“Without you? I’d rather eat dirt.” Joan said firmly.

“Well, you’ve done that before,” Her husband retorted smilingly, but did not insist.

It was a challenging thing, to get along with this motley crew who— if not born— had died with silver spoons in their mouths and, in many cases, the terrible parasite that was fame. Not one of the living would speak so well of Peter Galván, for example, if they knew how prone he was to sneaking into other ladies’ graves unsolicited. And if they knew how that great poet Aurelius Gallardo chewed with his mouth open… well.

Joan knew her husband’s reputation as a great, charitable doctor would guarantee respect from the garden’s residents; but if she dared step out alone, they would eat her alive.

And the children… It was appalling how many of them were here without their parents, exposed to the venom of so many questionable adults. Joan herself had ensured nearly a century earlier that the children each had a reliable godparent. But the process of choosing said godparents had nearly started a war in the cemetery.

“Dolores is right,” Joan whispered to her husband. “I still haven’t recovered from the last party… Jules Roudet fired his musket at the Remus couple over carrot cake, for God’s sake. Can’t they stay in purgatory like reasonable people? God knows they have more than enough penance to do.”

“My dear,” Laughed John Johnston. “They’re our penance.”

Joan burst out cackling.

“Come,” John took his wife’s hand. “I hear August is finally uncorking that wine of his that he’s always going on about.”