The Dead Hold a Party
by Norbert Kovacs
With no living human anywhere in a two-mile radius, we spirits had a ball at the forgotten mansion that Halloween afternoon. A procession of us in our ghostly frocks and suits made a big show of marching in through the house's grand entry, as if we must be the country gentry out to be seen and noticed. Old Lucifer impressed with his hair up like a black pitchfork from the fires of hell. All the pale ladies turned to gawk at Queen Mab in her billowing if faded gown. Drowned Emily showed well in her dark bodice and long skirt, ready to remark on her once famous suicide. The Barnsley Witch got looks for the bed-warmer she used to replace her head that had gone missing some other year. The spectacle of everyone dressed as they were created this strange excitement among us. Queen Mab cried out in an over-pressured shriek when she went to embrace the skeletal Druid. "How have you been, dear sir?" she said, giving him a huge smile. "I haven't seen you in ages." She barely knew the fellow, truth be told, but she was eager to seem she did, just as she had with friends in life.
From the window over the entry, we saw the upstairs ballroom blaze with ethereal fire as the spirits already arrived made their party indoors. Their airy voices and light banter drifted down to us through the cracked window panes along with the jaunty music performed by the players resurrected for the day. The spinning of faded, but yet vigorous forms could be spied revolving around the room, though not one airy step touched the dusty floorboards. Laughter burst forth amid the music as if to fill and enliven the old room. During the heat of the dance, the clarinet player opened the side window and marched onto the afternoon air, piping with spirit and fearing no fall (being without substance, of course). Red Molly, suddenly inspired, leaped out after him. "Lah, what a thrill this music gives," she cried as she went swaying arms side to side, almost as lively as she'd been before the plague took her. On her tail came centuries old Annie Thompson. "Just look at me go," she said, taking a huge stride through the air, her transparent arms raised in abandon. Little Johnny Appleton, the carter's boy, came last in the group. He felt awkward when he found no one following him; it was almost as bad as when he'd been left buried at the cemetery. So, he turned back to call, "Come on out, everyone!"
Soon, spirits were riding up through the air by the bedroom wing of the mansion. The field fairies in the group spread their wings wide, beckoning the once living who sped past the fearful, dark facade of the abandoned house. Quickly, they reached the very top of the roof where fairy and spirit gathered to look on the sun, shining large against the pale sky. Robin Goodfellow, the famed wood spirit, called, "Who doesn't feel like we're on top of the world here!" A fairy beside him arched her wings in joy. The spirits of the long dead smiled, relishing the sun as they could. Yet they knew the light was the briefest of pleasures. Like the rest of us who had died, they were soon due back in the realms of perpetual darkness. We had lost the privilege of life and the open possibilities for love, endeavor, and even grief that come with it. The most we could do now was wish to experience those things as our earthly selves again, however happy we were at the mansion.
BIO: Norbert Kovacs lives and writes in Hartford, Connecticut. He has published fiction recently in Blink-Ink and The Ekphrastic Review. His website: www.norbertkovacs.net.