The Bone Waltz

Donovan Grimmer prowled the moonlit fog, whisper-wailing his thoughts into autumn’s death weather like some kind of bashful banshee.

“Flowers, flowers,” he crooned. “Surely Mick planted flowers out here...”

He was scouring the scraggly meadow behind his friend’s country property. Stumbling through leaf-covered sinkholes. Dodging dicey brush skeletons. Tripping over half-buried boulders.

“Oh, show me a rose. Grant me a tulip! I need flowers, here, Mick.”

Mick owned the country cottage that currently painted Donovan’s back with the glow of a hundred lightbulbs and candlewicks. It was a posh house—arrowhead-shaped, wide-open floor plan, walls of windows—an architectural aphrodisiac. Mick, 30 years older, was an absent host (some business up north), but he OK’d the lodging after Donovan called earlier that week:

Looking to impress a girl, Donny-boy? Sure-sure, use the chalet. I might be in Chicago, so— Oh, wait! There’s a thingy that night, um…

A thingy, Mick?

Never mind, I’m sure it’ll be fine. Gotta go, Donny-boy. Wipe your feet—

The phoneline beeped to death.

Donovan wiped his feet and made himself at home in the vacant luxury, then called his ex half a dozen times, leaving several voicemails:

Emily, I’m at Mick’s place… Emily, I’m making dinner... Emily, you should come over… Emily, we belong together!

She answered only once, but he failed to clock her wild sigh, and the sarcasm that followed:

Oh, Donovan, let me guess: you’ll greet me with a bouquet and try to erase the past?

I’m making your favorite…

Well, then, I’ll be right there.

Another triplet of beeps killed the call.

Now Donovan was hunting the meadow in a panic. “She’ll leave if I don’t have flowers. There’s gotta be something out here…”

And there was. A single marigold.

It was the only thing blooming in the fog—a pumpkin-shaped flower growing wild through a twisted tangle of shrubbery bones, sprouting through a groove in a stone. Nothing else survived the fall assault. Just that one, bright, fire-tinted marigold.

“Well, that shouldn’t be there. On a rock…” Donovan plucked it, snapping its stem. “But you’ll work, won’t you?”

The wind replied shhhhhhhh and stirred up a death rattle of tree branches. Hollow clickety-clacks in stereo, as if the trees were donned with bamboo windchimes. Donovan bit his tongue and squinted at shadows.

“Hello? … Emily?”

When no one answered, he raced back to Mick’s empty house as though he had minutes to live.

He set two places on the dining table, poured two glasses of wine, carved two slices of meat pie, and garnished the scene with the marigold floating in a crystal chalice.

He thumbed a text: It’s ready. Are you almost here? And hit send.

And he waited.

And after Mick's grandfather clock tick-chopped the heads off a thousand seconds, Donovan raised a glass to the emptiness. “To us,” he said, but did not drink. Instead, he rose from his seat as a pair of headlights flooded the house.

An engine died. Footsteps smashed crispy leaves. The front door creaked open and a large shape filled the space…not Emily (she was skin and bones by comparison). Donovan slumped with the chalice in hand.

“Donny-Don-Don, my boy,” said the shape, closing the door.

“Mick,” Donovan said, matching his host’s timbre. “Mickey Moose.”

Mick was a round mountain of a man covered in gray hair—old enough to have seen it all, which he must have…because he was scarred with a permanent, sardonic smile. Life was a joke. And only Mick knew the punchline.

“What?” Mick said. “Your face. You look hangdog to see me. Whatchu got there?”

“Nothing.” Grimmer stared at the marigold and shook his head. “I was expecting…”

“Emily?” Mick shook his head. "She is...otherwise engaged."

“How do you know?”

“She called me, Donny-boy.”

Donovan checked his phone. "She must have lost my number.”

“Not yet. Doesn’t quite have the heart to block it.”

“Block me? That’s stupid.”

“Isn’t everything?” Mick gripped his guest by the shoulders, spilling chalice water on the hardwood. “I’m so glad I got back before it started… Has it started yet?”

“What?”

“Didn’t I tell you?” Mick eyeballed the kitchen. “What’s that smell?”

“Dinner. I…” The younger man sighed. “I made dinner for Emily.”

Mick let a cycle of heavy breath pass, fingertips digging into Donovan's flesh. “What’d you cook?”

“Her favorite.”

“What’s her favorite? I hardly know her.”

“And yet she called you?”

"She thinks you'll listen to me. Prove it, Donny-boy."

Donovan flushed. “Meat pie.”

“Mmmm.” Mick chuckled and rattled his friend with a shake. “I’m glad you’re here. Stay as long as you want! But, Emily? It’s time to move on.”

Donovan snorted. “What did you mean, before? What’s starting?”

“Hmm? Oh! Lovers reunite tonight.”

“Well, that was the plan...”

“No-no, Donny-boy, I meant, the hunter’s moon came out.”

“I didn’t notice. It’s all foggy outside.”

For one second, Mick’s smile wavered. “You went outside? Where? Out back?”

“I almost broke my leg in your meadow. It’s full of rocks. Why not hire a service to clean it up? You could plant a helluva garden. With flowers, Mick.”

The old man’s grin came back twice as wide. “Ohhhh, well that meadow is for planting, yes. But not for growing. Those weren’t rocks you stepped on—”

Shhhhhhhhh… The wind rushed through the house, ruffling Mick’s gray hairdo.

Donovan turned to see the front door knocking against the wall, wide open. “You didn’t latch the door.”

“Maybe,” Mick said, his round face like a jack-o’-lantern, “maybe not.”

“Okay, Mickey Moose, you got me curious.”

Mick tiptoed to swaying portal and poked his head outside. “Do you hear that?”

Donovan Grimmer shrugged. “No. Windchimes?”

“Maybe… Maybe not.”

Bang! went the door as Mick slammed it shut. He walked past Donovan, never unlocking his eyes, never lowering his wicked-jack grin.

“What?” Donovan shrugged again. “You never used to smile like that.”

“Must be this house. What do you think of it?” Mick gestured all around. “Your first time here, right?”

“Um…” Donovan followed Mick to the dining room. “Spiffy cottage.”

“Uh. It’s more of a chalet, Donny-boy…”

“Oh, Mick, I really didn’t mean to insult your money—”

“…It’s big, it’s oaky…”

“Well, now you’re describing a cabernet.”

Mick waved a hand. “Hey. Do you believe in ghosts?”

“Do I believe in ghosts?”

“Sure-sure.”

Donovan dropped the chaliced marigold onto the table. “Do flowers believe in water?”

“That’s…” Mick stopped. “I’m not sure how to answer. …Yes?”

“Why isn't Emily com—” Donovan whipped left. Something tapped the window. But the house interior was too bright, the outside too dark. All he saw was his own reflection in glass.

Mick noticed. He circled the table, letting the moment dangle. Finally, he said, “Do you feel like you’re being watched?”

“No,” but Donovan didn’t sound honest. “Who’d be watching?”

“Outside?” Mick tried to sound nonchalant, but his eyes sparked with electricity. “Just Christoph and Victoria.”

Donovan spread his arms. “Who?”

“Christoph and Victoria.” Mick paused, waiting for his guest to ask.

“Okay, but like…who?”

“Well, they were lovers. And they died. I never told you?” Mick gripped his guest by the arm and dragged him across the house to the back patio. “They’re buried somewhere…out there.” He rapped the glass door with his knuckles. “That’s no meadow behind us, and you weren’t stepping on rocks. Sunken tombstones, Donny-boy. That’s an overgrown graveyard back there. Untouched for a hundred years. And no one around here is fool enough to mess with it now.”

Donovan’s sudden, shrill reaction almost shattered all the wine glasses. “Poppycock!”

“Well, I made up the names—their stones are too faded to read, but…” A fiendish glee possessed Mick. He pranced around the house, turning off lamps and track lights, saying, “When the moon rises over a foggy night…like tonight…their skeletons break the earth to reunite in darkness.”

“Skeletons.” Donovan got dizzy keeping up with his host’s twirling. “How romantic.”

“Christoph offers a flower: ‘May I have this dance?’ Victoria accepts with a swoon. And they spend the night waltzing over their graves…holding each other so close, their bones collide.” Mick danced with the ghostly air, crooning: “Click… Clack… Clickety... Clack…”

The chalet windows reflected a mountainous Mick striding and bobbing.

He stopped and hovered over the last bright lamp, his face now a campfire demon. “I’ve heard the bone waltz every month since moving in. Every moon brings a mist. Every mist carries a shadow play of dancing bones. And sometimes, between a jig, I feel their hollow sockets peeking in, watching me. I only take one look…and hardly ever see a thing. But, oh Donny-boy, never…take a second look. You won’t like what happens.”

Donovan rubbed the goosebumps off his arm. “Why not?”

“There’s a price for seeing the face of death.” Mick held up one hand, then the other. “Maybe they show you how you die. Maybe they kill you right then. Don’t believe me?”

“Not especially. Prove it.”

“This house isn’t so old. But it’s had a lot of owners in its short life. What do you think of that?”

“I think it’s too late to ask the county clerk for records.”

“Too many peeks. That’s what I think, Donny-boy. The dancing dead have potato-chip power...you can't stop with just one look. So, if you hear the bone waltz tonight, it’s best to just close your eyes.”

“That’s a good story, Mick.” Donovan tried straightening his spine. “But if it’s true, why stay? Why not sell this house tomorrow?”

“It’s comforting. At my age, you get more calls from coffinmakers than from friends. When I hear the bone waltz, I know life doesn’t end when the lights go out.” Mick killed the last lamp on cue, then whispered, “You know, once…I took a second look.”

A sweat bead snailed down Donovan’s cheek. “What’d you see?”

Mick gestured: come closer. “I saw…”

Donovan leaned in.

“PIE!” It was an earsplitting shriek in the quiet dark.

Grimmer screamed and fell backwards over a footstool. Mick—now a cackling loon—ran for the kitchen and chopped a thick slice of meat pie with a slasher’s knife.

“Let’s eat, Donny-boy!”

Donovan didn’t say a word for five minutes. He sat next to Mick and watched him shovel in pie by the forkful.

“Oh!” Mick smacked his lips and licked his teeth with every chew. “Mmm! You’re hired, my boy. Stay forever! Cook me to the grave. My heart is destined for a meat-sweat death. Maybe you could be my hangman… Oh, come on now. Don’t look at me like that. I had to do it. I had you going; it was funny! Look, I’m sorry. Did you notice I left Emily’s place at the table? I mean, she’s not coming, but…you never know, Donny.”

“Lovers reunite tonight?”

“Hey-heyyyyy! You got it!”

“This is ridiculous.” Donovan threw his napkin over his plate. “I’m calling her.”

“Donny, I love you, but you’re borderline.”

“Borderline?”

Mick opened his mouth and dragged the word through the air. “Stalkerrrrrrrr.” Then he chuckled and scraped his plate for meat pie morsels. “Listen…plenty of fish, you know what I mean?”

“She told me, ‘I’ll be right there.’”

“She told me, made me promise to tell you. She said, ‘Tell him, Mick...tell him to leave us alone.’”

“You’re one-hundred percent wrong—” To his left, in the wide dark space, Donovan caught a shift in the shadows. He studied the gloom, squinting. A pair of dim candleflames swayed one way, then the other.

Like two shining, curious eyes.

Mick’s plate scraping quit mid-scratch. The grandfather clock filled the silence with thunderous ticks and tocks.

Donovan shook his head, shaking off the figment of a white face materializing in all that dark. Impossible. A matrixed delusion. “Wrong,” he whispered. And the candleflame eyeballs blinked. He took a breath to speak, but his jaws snapped shut when he looked to his host.

Mick was frozen like a wax figure, fork hovering over the plate. His jack-o’-lantern grin vanished, replaced by a dead-eyed stare. Both eyes locked upon the marigold floating in its chalice.

Donovan cracked his lips to ask, “What?”

"Where did you get this flower?”

“I found it outside. In your mead—well…your graveyard. Growing on top of a stone. There must have been a crack in the rock going all the way through to the dirt. Why?”

“Christoph,” Mick whispered, refusing to turn his eyes upward.

“Your skeleton ghost… What about him?”

“He’s inside the house.”

Donovan sighed. “No, he isn’t.”

“Yes, he is.”

“No. Where?”

“Standing right behind you.”

Several pendulum-swung tick-tocks passed before Donovan said, “If I turn around, and you laugh at me, I'll smash your head in.”

"That's not how I go."

"There's no one there, Mick."

“Prove it.”

Donovan turned and saw…nothing. Just the house soaking in dark shadows.

Mick’s laughter came on like an old smoker’s cough—a rasping gasp, low and scratchy, all wheeze and phlegm. It broke apart into a dozen breathy barks, then died. “Ohhhh, Donny-Don-Don, what have you done?”

“Damn you, Mick,” said Donovan. “Goddamn you.”

The master of the house spoke with an eerie calm, his grin returned tenfold. “I’d feel sorry for you, Donny-boy, but this is just…so…doggone funny.”

“Goodnight, Mick.”

“Goodnight, goodbye, so long forever.” Mick tapped the chalice with a fingernail. “If I were you, I’d give it back.”

Donovan jumped from his chair, snatching the marigold in its chalice, thrusting the glass like a crucifix. “What? What? This? Scare me some more. Tell me a ghost story about this flower.”

“I did.” Mick rose to his feet. “That marigold belongs to them. It’s how they find each other on misty, moon-filled nights. And you stole it right off their rooftops, didn’t you? Just like calling Emily ten-thousand times a night since she moved on... You're always driving wedges into other people's happy endings, and never suffering one consequence. Well this time, Donny-boy, there’s gonna be some blowback. I can't help you.”

“Mickey Moose, what a friend...”

“You plucked their marigold and changed the ritual. Never disrupt the wild things, son. They've come for it. And probably for you. No flower, no waltz, no rattling bones. Get it?”

From the shadowy right, a jangle of clicks. From the candlelit left, a chatter of clacks.

Mick gestured to the darkness. “Those don’t count. I’m sure it’s just the house settling. Give. It. Back.”

“Goodnight, Mick!” Donovan Grimmer spun for the front door.

“Goodbye, Mick!” He yanked it open and dove into the foggy light of the hunter’s moon.

Mick leaned out the door and said, “So long forever,” with just a pinch of tantalizing humor. A candy man hinting at the sour center of a sweet treat.

Donovan turned back to throw the chalice at Mick's head, but he stopped with his arm pulled back. The doorway was empty. Mick's rasping, lunatic laughter faded as he ran through the belly of his house.

Shadows wiggled from the glow of disturbed candles.

A long stretch of silence weakened Donovan's outstretched arm, making it tremble. The sound of footsteps drew him back around. He turned...slowly...the marigold held like an offering before him.

On the driveway, in the mist, a bone-thin shadow appeared.

“Emily?”

He didn't really believe it was her. Emily was a petite beauty, but this creature had zero meat. And its name was (perhaps) Victoria.

Still, asking was better than screaming.

“Emily?”

The shadow did not reply.

But all around, he heard a bone percussion, split in half, separated.

Behind him, from Mick’s open doorway—

Click… Clack…

In front, along the driveway—

Clickety… Clack…

The chalice slipped from Donovan's hand and shattered on the leaf-strewn pavement. But his fingers, cupped in shock, caught the pumpkin-shaped bulb of the marigold and saved it from falling. He squeezed his eyes shut, like a child under the covers wishing all the bad things would go away.

He opened his eyes and looked a second time.

Two skeletal shadows now lurked in the mist, side by side.

Donovan tried to speak, but croaked. A paralysis of boogeyman fright sabotaged every gear in his body. Unable to run. Unable to scream. Unable to say, I still don't believe. All he could do was stand there and continue to hold the stolen marigold…

…As hollow eyes set their sights. As skinless toes cracked the concrete path. As two bone-corpse lovers drifted from the vapor.

He tried to bargain: I promise I'll leave Emily alone. But, again, no sound passed his lips. Not that it would've helped. This wasn't a punishment for tormenting his ex. And he knew it. This whole thing really was over a flower.

An ashen claw swished.

The marigold vanished from Donovan’s hand.

A voice—dust-filled and long dead—broke the silence and stopped a beating heart with five scritch-scratched words.

“May I have this dance?”

And the bone waltz drummed the night.

Click… Clack… Clickety… Clack…