RAOB Halloween Invitational Story 2023
La Danse Macabre
by
D. J. Belt
Synopsis: Music is the language of the soul, it’s said. On Halloween night in a Romanian village, it’s the language of both the dead and the undead, as friends Lotte and Anna discover to their fascination and horror.
Copyright: Story and characters are mine. The music: La Danse Macabre, composed by Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921), and first performed in 1875.
Comments, etc.: I’m hiding out at dbelt@mindspring.com. If you want to, write and tell me if the story worked for you. I always appreciate hearing from you.
While I was searching for an idea for a Halloween story, I happened upon this musical composition of perhaps seven or eight minutes. I’d heard it before, but this time it really thrilled me. Hey, when a story idea speaks, I listen. So, turn down the lights, get your hot mug of whatever, put this music on in the background, and have fun. I wish all of you a wonderfully scary and delightful Halloween!
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Lotte had worked all afternoon to prepare the village’s inn for a traditional Halloween night. Here, in this area of Romania, time stood still, it seemed. When she was a child, wide-eyed and bursting with excitement, it was this way. Now, she was an adult and found herself responsible for ensuring that the tradition was observed in her father’s inn. It didn’t matter whether the calendar read 1670, 1770 or 1870; in Romania, tradition was everything.
Wheat stalks, gourds, and wildflowers had been placed in decoration around the inn. Fresh candles and newly-filled oil lanterns sat, waiting to be lit. On a central table, baked rolls were piled on a platter, treats for children who would visit through the opened door later this evening. Their childish excitement always delighted the inn’s regular patrons, often older men who assuaged their loneliness with conversation, a stein of ale, and a pipe full of aromatic tobacco.
The village’s homes also greeted the children with treats and kind words, as did those at the inn. As children in every land do, they would persist in their exuberant, chattering adventures until well past dark, when the adults shepherding them, often no more than older teens themselves, would hustle them home with whispered threats of demons and the dead roaming the streets in the late hours. For any doubters, the church bell would toll when that time neared, warning all to scurry home, lock their doors and shutters, and avoid the risen dead, the disembodied spirits, and the eerie noises which were wont to haunt the dark hours as the realms of the living and departed melded together on this one night every year.
Lotte smiled in amusement at the stories, even as she remembered how those same tales thrilled her with delight and fear as a little girl. Just the same, she glanced up to reassure herself that the old, ornate crucifix just above the inn’s main door was in its proper place, the place it had occupied for as long as she could remember. It stared down at her, a symbol of protection against malevolent spirits both human and inhuman in a dangerous world.
Halloween. A night, as Shakespeare said, ‘when churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out contagion to this world’. Even as she scoffed at memories of her childhood fears, she muttered a saint’s name as she touched her forehead, then returned to her duties.
Old Renvic, near the fireplace, needed a refill on his stein of ale. A widower and the father of her dear friend, he was a welcome fixture in the inn. Lotte lifted the empty stein from the table, refilled it, and returned it to the table with a smile. He nodded thanks, placed a coin on the table, and spoke to her between puffs on his pipe.
“So,” he said, “I’m surprised that my Anna is not here helping you tonight.”
“She’s tending to the village children tonight,” Lotte said, as she dropped the coin into her apron pocket. “I’m on my own, just me and Papa.”
“How’s your grandma? Is she still sick?”
Lotte nodded. “She seems weak.”
“She’s getting on in years. What does the doctor say?”
She shrugged. “What can he say?”
“Quite so,” old Renvic agreed. “Sometimes, I wonder what we pay him for.”
“I’m going to check on her later, after the children come by.”
“It will be dark. You be careful out there, Lotte. Especially tonight, of all nights.”
“I will. Thank you.” She smiled at his concern, then began checking on the other tables as her father, noting the impending dusk, prepared to light the candles and lanterns and dropped another log into the inn’s massive fireplace.
**********
Dusk had settled, and the inn had become noisy and smoky from the mix of human activity, the burning candles, the fireplace, and the pipe smoke. Children chattered with excitement as they displayed their costumes and snuck baked rolls from the platter set out for them. Old Renvic was especially delighted with the proceedings. He praised a child’s costume, then asked, “So, can you tell me why we wear disguises on this night?”
The child’s answer was emphatic. “It’s so the dead don’t see who we are, Grandpa. Everyone knows that.”
“And what would happen,” he asked in amusement, “if the dead recognized you?”
The child’s eyes widened as she answered, “They’d chase us and catch us!”
“They’re waiting for you out there,” Renvic teased. “You’d better have a pastry before you go, just to protect yourself from them.”
Renvic’s daughter, Anna, about the same age as Lotte, gave a playful swat to the seat of the child, then said, “It’s time to go home. Say good-bye to Grandpa.”
“G’night, Grandpa,” the child called out as she ran toward the door, pausing to snitch one more roll from the tray.
Renvic said, “I’d feel better, Anna, if you’d go with Lotte tonight when she visits her grandmother.”
Lotte appeared at her elbow. “Anna doesn’t have to, really.”
Anna brightened. “I’ll come back later, after the children are safely inside. Besides,” she added as she patted Renvic on the shoulder, “I’ll have to check on my Papa to make sure he’s not too far into the ale to walk home alone.”
“It’s a deal,” Lotte said. “We’ll see you then.”
“Tell Anna that I’ve been behaving myself, will you?” Renvic said to Lotte. “She doesn’t believe me when I say it.”
“He has,” Lotte affirmed. “From time to time.”
“I’m too old to do much else,” Renvic muttered. “Now, thirty years ago…”
“And I’m too married to misbehave,” Anna said. “So, it looks like you get to have all the fun, Lotte.” She herded several children toward the door with a clap of her hands and some words, then looked back at Lotte before she left. “I’ll see you later.”
Lotte nodded as she collected some coins and empty ale steins from a recently vacated table. “Later,” she echoed.
**********
The inn had quieted from its noisy celebration of Halloween night. The children had long ago left the inn and the village streets, and the darkness outside deepened, lit only by flickering streetlamps and the moon’s light. Lotte’s father, tending the fireplace, watched her don a light woolen jacket. “I wish you wouldn’t go tonight,” he said. “Your grandmother will be fine until morning.”
“Anna’s coming with me,” Lotte said. “And anyway, I’m worried for Grandma.” She placed a hand basket on a nearby table. “I’m bringing her some food.”
He smiled at that. “As you say, then.”
Anna entered the inn’s main door, left open to air out the inn after the evening’s revelry. “Ready?” she asked.
“Not quite,” Lotte said. She pointed to the inn’s bar. “We need to protect ourselves against evil spirits.”
Anna shot a puzzled glance at Lotte. “How do we do that?”
“With good spirits, silly.” Lotte filled two small copper shot glasses with liquor. “Drink up. It’s cool outside.”
They each downed a shot, then a second one. At her father’s gentle remonstration about ‘drinking all his liquor’, they giggled and headed for the door arm-in-arm as Lotte snatched up the hand basket.
“Take a lamp, at least,” her father insisted, as he held out a lit lantern. Anna plucked it from his hand as Lotte gave a cheerful ‘Thank you, Papa,’ to her father. He watched them go and allowed himself an indulgent smile as he resumed puttering about the inn, preparing it for the next day’s visitors.
**********
The streets, normally with a little of the day’s residual activity at this hour, were strangely silent. Doors were closed and many windows were shuttered, although other windows glowed with light and chimneys issued smoke trails, visible in the moonlight. Wisps of fog were gathering just above the cobblestones, adding an eerie accent to an already spooky night. Somewhere in the distance, the yowl of a cat echoed in the street, causing Anna and Lotte to cling more tightly to each other’s arms and quicken their pace. Anna finally broke the silence with a question.
“Where does your Grandmama live? Is it far?”
“No,” Lotte said. “Edge of the village, one of the little farms. We go past the church, then it isn’t much further.”
Anna’s eyes grew wide. “We have to pass by the cemetery, too?”
“Of course.” She noted Anna’s expression, then laughed. “We’ll be fine. It’s a while yet until the church bell rings.”
Anna seemed uncertain. “As you say,” she muttered, although she was not reassured. Lotte noted Anna’s reaction and decided to have some fun.
“We can cut through the church’s cemetery,” she suggested. “It’s quicker that way.”
“Oh, God no!” Anna said. “Look at it. It’s so spooky. The dead rise tonight, and that’s where they stay.”
It certainly did appear spooky. Lit only by moonlight, with wisps of fog thickening around the tombstones, statuary, and mausoleums, it boded ill to any living people. It was an artist’s picture of the realm of the dead. “Oh, Anna,” Lotte said. “It’s fine. The church bell hasn’t rung. Come on. It’ll save precious minutes and steps. Besides, I’m tired and my feet hurt.” She nudged Anna toward the entrance with a well-placed finger in the ribs.
“Well…” Anna allowed Lotte to drag her in the direction of the open cemetery gate. The hard-packed dirt road through the cemetery seemed to beckon them to enter. “All right,” Anna said, with a sigh of resignation. “But let’s hurry. I don’t like it.”
“We have plenty of time,” Lotte teased. “Besides, you’re wearing your cross, aren’t you?”
Anna touched her chest and felt the little cross hanging on a delicate chain. “Yes,” she said. “So what?”
“Vampires,” Lotte teased. “They rise at dark.”
“Now you tell me. It’s already dark.”
“But I’m told that our crosses protect us.”
“I’m liking this less and less,” Anna observed. “But where do they rise from?”
“Graves,” Lotte whispered in a sinister voice. “Like these, all around us.”
“Oh, Lotte! Stop it!” squealed Anna, as she pulled on her friend’s arm to hurry them along. For a moment, they walked in silence, until Lotte clasped Anna’s arm even more tightly and spoke again.
“They seek out young women like us, you know,” Lotte said. “The priest told me so.”
“Lotte!” Anna exclaimed, then cast a glance at her friend’s face. She couldn’t tell whether she was joking or serious. “Why?”
“Why did he tell me?”
“No, Lotte. Why do they seek us out?”
“Oh. Well, because we’re young. It’s said that vampires are darkly beautiful creatures. If you see one, you can’t help but be mesmerized by them.”
“Darkly…beautiful…” Anna mused over that thought, then asked, “And what happens when they mesmerize you?”
“Ooh, do you want to find out?”
“Well…” Anna raised an eyebrow as she thought about it, then allowed herself a smile.
“You’re a naughty girl,” Lotte chided. “Look, there’s Grandma’s house. We’re almost there.”
**********
The fireplace crackled, and the spiced tea warmed Lotte and Anna. As usual, Lotte’s grandmother was in prime form as a storyteller, making the most of the girls’ visit and their company. “Vampires?” she said, sipping her tea as she thought about the lore. “Well, yes. They used to be in this part of Romania, you know. This was their ancestral homeland.”
“Have you ever seen one, Grandma?” Lotte asked.
“Oh, back in my youth, before you were born,” Grandma replied. She smiled in amusement as the girls’ eyes widened. They both leaned forward to listen as she continued her tale. “Then, they were more plentiful.”
“What happened to them?” Anna asked.
“Many were killed or fled because of the vampire hunters.” She looked at Lotte. “Your grandfather was one, you know.”
“A vampire?” Lotte asked.
“No, silly. A vampire hunter. He rescued me from the clutches of one.”
“Are vampires…darkly beautiful, as Lotte says?” Anna asked.
“Oh, yes.” Grandma placed her teacup aside and leaned forward. As the light from the fireplace flames reflected on her face, she turned her head and pulled her long hair, now white, back to reveal two scars on the side of her neck. “She had me in her power, you see. I was helpless to do anything else but adore her and obey her. And yes, she was darkly beautiful. Her black eyes pierced one’s mind, and her voice was like the low hum of the cello. Her skin was alabaster white and silk to the touch, and her hair was raven black. And about her, a most exquisite fragrance lingered.”
“Did you love her, Grandma?” Lotte asked.
“It was quite impossible to do anything else. Oh, the things I saw in those days. No one would ever believe me, were I to talk of it.”
“What happened to her?” Anna asked.
“My Anton, he rescued me by killing her. That broke her hold on me, and I saw her then for the evil creature that she was. He carried me to the village to recover from my captivity, and we became dear friends.” Grandma smiled at some long-ago memory. “Eventually, we married.”
“Was Grandpa Anton darkly beautiful, as well?” Lotte teased.
“He was a bit of a handsome rascal,” Grandma recalled. “And that didn’t hurt a thing.” As the girls snickered at her joke, she glanced up at the clock. “Oh, it’s late. You two must go home. The church bell’s likely to ring before long.”
As they stood and headed for the cabin’s door, Lotte asked, “Grandma? What happens if we’re out after the church bell rings?”
Her grandmother’s expression became serious. “What happens, dear, is la danse macabre. The spirits of the dead rise and take form, and to the strains of underworldly music, the disembodied forms dance in a wild, hideous carnival of lust and celebration for one night.”
“You speak as if you’ve seen it,” Anna said.
“I have, dear. Go, now. Don’t dally. Be safe.” She gave each of them a peck on the cheek, then shooed them out the door. “Good night, and go straight home,” she admonished. She watched them scurry down her front path, and when they reached the dirt road, she shouted after them, “Don’t take the cemetery path!” The girls said nothing in reply, but merely waved back as they disappeared into the darkness. She watched after them for a moment, then quietly spoke the name of a saint as she touched her forehead. A moment later, her door thumped shut, and she pushed the bolt solidly home.
**********
“What did your grandma yell?” Anna asked.
“I couldn’t hear,” Lotte replied, as she pulled her friend in the direction of the church and its adjoining cemetery.
“Oh, no!” Anna said. “The cemetery again?”
“We haven’t much time,” Anna protested. “This is the quickest way.”
As they entered the cemetery, the church bell began tolling. In the quiet night, the sound seemed uncommonly urgent. Anna grasped Lotte’s arm. “Oh! It’s the bell. Run, Lotte. And hold up the lantern so we can see the road.”
They ran down the hard-packed dirt road with the lantern held high, their breathing and footsteps sounding in counterpoint to the tolling of the church’s bell. About halfway through the cemetery, the bell stopped tolling. In the sudden, heavy silence, strains of music began echoing through the monuments and mausoleums. Rhythmic and dark, with minor chords and a haunting theme, it caused the girls to stop running. Frozen in place, scarcely daring to breathe, they clutched each other’s hands and listened.
“That music, it’s coming from the church, Lotte. Look, the windows are open, and a light is on.”
“What does it mean?” Lotte asked.
As if in answer, the shrill screech of a violin pierced the night just behind them. Lotte and Anna jumped in unison. As their feet hit the ground, they turned. Behind them, a woman stood, holding a violin in one hand and the bow in the other hand. She spread her arms wide, laughed, and said, “It means, dear, that it’s time for la danse macabre.” As she drew near, she tapped each one on the shoulder with her bow and added, “And since you’re here, you must join us.”
Lotte stammered a little, then blurted out, “You’re … beautiful!”
“Yes,” Anna said. “Who are you?”
“I am the spirit of the night,” she answered. Her voice had a smooth, mesmerizing quality about it, as if it was its own stringed instrument. As she drew even closer, her black eyes invited them to return the gaze and held them immobile.
“Ah, we should be getting…home…” Anna said weakly.
Lotte pointed at Anna. “Yes. What…she…said…”
“You must join the revels,” the violinist replied. “I insist.” She pointed toward the church as she raised the violin to her neck. “Let the music surround you, captivate you, command you.” She drew the bow across the violin’s strings, and the result had an almost intoxicating effect on Lotte and Anna. Still grasping each other’s arms, they felt the eerie sounds course through them and thrill them. Their feet moved, almost independently of thought, to the compelling rhythm of the eerie, whirling waltz of the dead. When they looked about them, they realized that they were not alone. Gray figures were arising from graves and emerging from mausoleums to join them, whirling about them in a frantic, ecstatic celebration of the moment. As the dead shook the dirt from themselves and joined the frantic dance, Lotte and Anna could see that they were ashen and withered, and many were no more than skeletons in burial clothing. The scene was both fascinating and horrifying to Lotte.
A gray figure swept Anna from Lotte’s grasp. A second later, another figure replaced her. Darker, silken to the touch, but solid, not spirit-like. Lotte looked up at the face. It was the violinist, the spirit of the night. She laughed at Lotte’s surprised expression, tightened her arm about the girl’s waist, and guided her as they whirled to the music. The violinist asked, “Do you love me?”
“I—I think I must,” Lotte said. “Your eyes…” At that, the violinist smiled. Lotte noted the sharp upper canines, and she gasped. “You’re—you’re a vampire?”
A smooth, delightful laugh was the response. Lotte now felt as if her feet were not touching the ground. With effort, she tore her gaze away from the dark eyes before her, glanced down, and realized that she was right. In this night-spirit’s arms, she was being whirled to the edge of the mad revelry. They set their feet back upon the ground, and Lotte’s knees buckled. She was held up by the night-spirit’s deceptively strong arms. “Look at me,” the low, smooth voice commanded.
Lotte glanced up. The black eyes just above hers captivated her. An indefinable, but intoxicating, fragrance surrounded her and relaxed her. The voice spoke to her again. “Do you love me?” she asked.
“I do,” Lotte mumbled.
“Do you want me?”
“Um,” was all Lotte could say.
The night-spirit kissed her, and Lotte’s mind went blank. A moment later, she managed to focus her sight on the face so close to hers, and she saw the lips draw back, the long upper canines protrude, felt the lips touch her neck. The music thrilled her, the fragrance of the night-spirit’s scent made her dizzy. She thought of her grandmother’s neck, the scars, and she wondered if she would claim the same fate, and whether it would hurt. She thought of her father, alone at the inn, and felt a sudden, sharp pang of sorrow for him. But she could not resist, could not tear her vision from the dark, beautiful creature whose face was so close to hers. Lotte closed her eyes.
A moment later, she fell to the ground with a thud. The landing hurt, and the pain forced her to open her eyes. Above her, the violinist, the night-spirit, stood immobile, her head thrown back, her mouth opened in a silent scream, her hair loose about her shoulders. Lotte blinked, then focused on the figure. In the moon’s light, she watched as the figure shuddered, and the long tip of a pointed stake emerged from between her breasts. The night-spirit managed a moan, then collapsed. The violinist’s face, beautiful even in death a second time, came to rest near Lotte. She watched in a mixture of amazement and horror as the wooden stake withdrew from the vampire’s chest. A moment later, someone was helping Lotte to stand, and a very familiar voice was urging her to gather her wits quickly.
“Grandma?” Lotte managed to ask.
“Don’t talk. Walk.”
Her grandmother grasped her by her coat’s lapel and pulled her with one hand as she brandished a long, pointed wooden staff with the other hand. Lotte could hear the music playing in the distance, now absent the eerie screech of the violin. She managed to cast a glance behind her and saw a multitude of gray figures in ever-wilder revelry, their voices and laughter sounding rather like the beating of the wings of many birds or bats. Then, in her foggy mind, a thought struck her.
“Oh!” she cried out. “Anna. Where is she?”
“Anna’s just ahead,” her grandmother said.
“Is she—?”
“She’s fine,” Grandma said, as she pulled Lotte along. “Walk quickly.”
Anna emerged from the shadows and joined them as they left the tombstones and mausoleums behind them. Outside the cemetery, with the distant strains of music from the church barely audible, they halted. Grandma studied Lotte and Anna for a few seconds as she leaned on her staff, then spoke.
“You two were lucky tonight. The danger’s not over, though. I’ll walk with you back to the inn.”
“But aren’t you ill, Grandma?” Lotte asked.
At that question, her grandmother smiled. “I haven’t felt this alive in years. Perhaps a good vampire staking was just what I needed.”
**********
When they reached the inn, they found the main door closed, but lights were on in the common room. Lotte banged hard on the door. In response, it creaked open. Her father took one look, threw the door back, and motioned them inside. “I was worried for you,” he fussed. “Why weren’t you back an hour ago?”
“It was my fault,” Grandma said. “You know how I can lose track of time when I start telling stories.”
As Papa shut the door, he eyed the staff and its sharpened end. “I see that’s not all you’ve been doing,” he noted. “Another demon vanquished?”
“Old habits die hard,” Grandma replied. “After all, this is Romania. We’re a land of old habits.”
“And demons,” Anna said.
“And vampires,” Lotte added. More softly, she added, “Darkly beautiful ones.”
“How true that is,” old Renvic noted. He was still camped out on his chair near the fireplace, his half-emptied stein before him, a cloud of aromatic pipe smoke about his head. “But everyone’s safe. I’d say that calls for cognac all around.”
“Now that,” Grandma said, as she tapped the floor with her staff to emphasize the point, “is the best idea I’ve heard in a while.”
Papa blinked in surprise. “And who’s going to be paying for a bottle of my best cognac?” he asked. Grandma fished two coins from her pocket and dropped them into Papa’s outstretched hand. He looked down at them, then said, “Mama, where’d you get so much money?”
“My chickens have been laying,” she offered.
“I can’t take your money, Mama,” Papa said.
“If I can drink your liquor, you can take my money.”
“Take her money, for the love of God,” old Renvic shouted. “Or take mine. And let’s have cognac. After all, the girls are safely home. This calls for celebration.”
**********
Shortly after dawn, Lotte trod the cemetery road, seeking evidence of the previous night’s revels. The graves, in the gray light of the early morning, still retained a mist of the previous night’s fog, but otherwise seemed undisturbed. She stopped near one and noted some fresh clods of earth mixed in with the brown grass. Had the rising of disembodied spirits and animated skeletons indeed stirred up the earth? She walked slowly, considering the question, studying the cemetery grounds, until she came upon the tree under which she’d almost lost her soul to the night-creature. She knelt and examined the ground, the partially-exposed, gnarled tree roots, the brown grass, and noted nothing. Had she imagined the previous night’s events? It had seemed so real.
As the wisps of ground fog parted, she noticed gray ash powdering the ground. Among the trails of ash were partially-burned pieces of black cloth. She picked up a hunk of cloth and felt it, then smelled it. It felt like a material a woman’s dress might be made from, and the smell! It retained the hint of the intoxicating perfume that she immediately associated with the night-creature. It made her head spin for a second.
Then, she noted, at the tree’s base, the creature’s instrument. She picked up the violin and plucked a string with her thumb, and it sounded a soft note. It did not seem, to her, to project the eerie screech that she’d heard the evening before. Slowly, she placed it beneath her chin and drew the bow across one string, then another. The sound was pleasant, and her childhood violin lessons rushed back to her. She attempted a scale, and didn’t do too badly, she thought. She rose to her feet with the instrument.
Her grandmother’s voice startled her. “You remembered,” Grandma said. “With practice, you will do well.”
Lotte turned to her grandmother. “Would it be wrong,” she asked, “to keep this?”
“She has no more use for it. I’d say that she left you with a wonderful gift.”
“Grandma, is this thing evil?”
Her grandmother laughed. “She was evil. It is merely a violin.”
“You saved my life last night, Grandma. You can play. Let me gift this to you.”
Grandma shook her head and leaned a little more heavily upon her long, pointed staff. At that instant, with long white hair loose, Lotte saw in her grandmother the warrior, the vampire hunter that she had once been. “No,” she said. “Age makes my fingers too slow and stiff. I’ll have my gift if you learn to play again. You were, as a child, a quite decent musician. Be so again.”
“The lessons were long ago,” Lotte mused.
“It’ll come back to you,” Grandma said. “With practice.” She smiled at Lotte’s skeptical glance and added, “Trust me.” They resumed their walk toward Grandma’s house. “Can you stay for breakfast?” Grandma asked.
“Oh, yum! I’d love to.” Lotte laughed. “And Grandma?”
“Yes?”
“I promise that I’ll get home before dark this time.”
End.
-djb, October, 2023