Click here to listen to this story on the Kaidankai podcast. 


The Malach HaMavet used to frequent Rav Bibi bar Abaye. He said to his messenger, “Bring me Miriam the hairdresser.” 
He went and brought him Miriam, a children’s nurse. 
“I told you Miriam the hairdresser!” 
His messenger answered, “Then I will return her.” 
He said, “Since you have brought her, let her be added. But how were you able to take her [before her time]?” 
“She was holding a shovel in her hand and was heating and raking an oven. She put it on her foot and burnt herself, damaging her mazel, so I brought her.” 
Rav Bibi bar Abaye asked him: “Do you have permission to do that?” 
He answered: “Is it not written: ‘There are those taken away without justice’?” 
The Rabbi countered: “But it says, ‘One generation passes away, and another generation comes!’ (Koheles 1:4)” 
“I have charge of them until they have completed the generation, and then I hand them over to Dumah!” 
The Rabbi asked, “In the end, what will you do with her [missing] years?” 
The answer: “If there is a Rabbinic scholar who overlooks things, 
I will give them to him in her place.” (Chagigah 4b) 




I was not meant to be the wife of man. In the little shtetl of Bethel, in the frosty rime of Karelia, I was born to a shoemaker and weaver, the only daughter of their long, treasured marriage. Miriam Dumah, my birthright of mud. 

They said our family was named after the silence of my father’s footsteps and his handicraft shoes (as soft as a whisper). But truly, did that not mark me for Malakh HaMavet from the beginning? 

My mother, Bluma, and father, Iosif, had prayed at the synagogue day and night for twelve years for a child. I was nothing short of a miracle in Bluma’s 32nd year. G-d reached deep into Bluma’s womb, plucked me out like a swimming fish. My hair was full when I was born, like an ink stain, darker than Bluma’s blonde locks and Iosif’s red beard. They named me Miriam after the prophetess sister of Moshe. 

I opened wide blue eyes, the color of cornflower in the weeds, and I saw him. I know babies do not have much form or memories, but I remember it all like a Sabbath prayer: Malakh HaMavet, standing over Bluma’s breast as I nursed. Malakh HaMavet took his gray, ridged finger, and uttered a “shush” at me that shut me up for good.

I did not speak much, growing up. Weaving took up most of my days. Fetching water at the well like Rachel. Making Sabbath challah, trying to not eat gefiltefish on Passover. 
Playing with the girlchildren, especially Lilah - the seamstress’s final daughter - was my only escape. I was also taught to read. 

Lilah envied the dolls papa Iosif bought for me, made of fine china bones and cloth, and hers made only of straw. Karelia was old, and cold, in those days, and what little we had, the shoemaker could afford for his quiet, gloomy daughter. 

The Russian goyim paid much for Iosif’s shoes. Patent leather. Said to be silent. “Dumah.” Good for walking the streets at night. And always, when I fell asleep in my attic room, atop the straw bale mattress, there waited Malakh HaMavet standing at the foot of my bed, his yellow eyes and gall-laden sword balanced like an acrobat.

(I liked to go to the circus, it was true. Sometimes, I thought my punishing angel was a dancer).

As it is said: The Angel of Death Slays, And Remains Justified.

“Shush,” Dumah said. That was his name, I learned at twelve, studying like usual. Of course, I didn’t dare tell anyone, least of all the rabbi, what I saw. But we learned psalms with our initials. For, when we Jews die, it is said Malakh HaMavet will ask us all our name. To prevent the great shaking of souls that happens before one enters Hazarmavet, Court of the Dead, and to make for a more peaceful transition, one must answer their name.

It is to save a soul, I suppose. But where we all went – well, the rabbis do not agree. Gehenna? Gan Eden? Reincarnation? Sheol? All I knew was, “Shush.”




“Mama, what is Hazarmavet?” I asked over weaving one day. We were making a tapestry of Milham, the Hol Bird, in the Immortal City of Luz.

Bluma sighed. “Tis where the dead dine, in a glade, by a river, sharing wine and meat in perfect silence. My, Miriam, why are you always so morbid? You are fifteen. Should not your mind be turned to pretty dresses?”

I looked over Bluma’s shoulder. Malakh HaMavet – Dumah – was knitting blue wool into a scarf. He took his knitting needles, clacked them under his dry lips like sand.

“Shush.”

“Yes, I would like a red dress, I suppose,” I sighed. 

My Milham came out angry. What would a phoenix have to be angry about? Drowning in flames, to become a worm in Heliopolis.

I worked on the shamir next. Did the shamir come from the phoenix? Boring into Solomon’s temple with immortal strength. Perhaps this Dumah, my constant silent companion, knew Solomon. Had harvested his soul. Had played craps with Ashmedai as the demon prince fucked his way through Solomon’s harem while King Solomon wandered pantsless in exile. Men were like that, after all.

Mama bought me the red dress that night at the dressmaker’s shop. It made me bold.
I sat on my bed, attempting to play my fiddle. Malakh HaMavet stood at the end of the bed, his wings folded. 

Dumah. Two Dumahs, one Death, one Life-in-Death. My black hair was braided back with a green ribbon like an apple. Malakh HaMavet had his taloned fingers in his ear holes. I could never see much, under his brown and white hood and tunic so dark, it looked like midnight.

I coughed. Dumah narrowed his yellow eyes.

“Shush!”

I lost it, for the first time in my life. The rosined bow screeched against my poor little fiddle. I set it down in anger. Never confront an angel, I had always thought. Dumah always carries his poisoned sword, for fuck’s sake. But I was bold that night. I was almost sixteen. Marriage would come at eighteen.

“Dumah,” I said, smoothing my skirts. I was angry, oh so angry at the matronly, schoolmarm angel who looked like death and decay, and always smelled of roses and rain.

Dumah raised his ridged, scaled eyebrows. His hair was a loose black braid, long to his waist, like sand. It shed sleep in amber dust.

“You talk to me, mortal?” Death’s voice was like a psalm. 

I trembled. What? What was this sound? This sudden reckoning of an angel?

Oh, how beautiful. Like an organ. I always thought it would be wretched. It was full of terror, divinity, and was fully sublime. 

“As I said. Shush.”

I steeled myself. 

“No, Dumah, I will not in fact, ‘shush,’” I grunted. Then, the spirit that had Ya el=Jael drive a tent spike through her angered enemy’s head overcame me. 

I grabbed Dumah’s sword. It was light. The gall dripped. It stained the carpet in acid sizzles. I pointed it at him. “Answer me. Why do you follow me?”

Dumah narrowed his liquid yellow, pupiless, white-less eyes even more, to cat slits. He walked forward, touching the edge of the sword. “Why should I answer, Miriam Dumah, daughter of Bluma?”

“Because I am a godly woman, Dumah.”

He wrenched the sword from me in a single tear, then set it in his hilt. Dumah came close to me, so close, his amber hair’s sand dripped onto me, smelling of roses and ambergris. It melted like snow on my breasts, leaving no stains.

Gently, Dumah’s eyes widened, and he pushed my black hair behind my ear. I trembled, staring at his ghoulish face. “Again, Miriam. I say: Shush.”

“No! You follow me, everywhere. I keep your secrets, Malakh HaMavet. But it is not in G-d’s will for you to follow a young maiden. Always at her side. Tis preternatural.”

I could feel the JGehenna flame that radiated from the pitiless angel. Without speaking, he picked up the fiddle, then played a reel and jig that made me cry. I could not help but dance, dance, spin. Silence fell over the whole world, frozen, as Dumah – my Dumah –  played the Dance of the Dead. 

Only Death and I were alive. For the first time in my life, his hood fell from his head. He was beautiful. He looked monstrous. There were tears in his eyes.

Dumah set the fiddle down. The pall on the world lifted. I smelled tea in the kitchen.
He bowed. Then, stood straight. “You are a godly woman, Miriam. You are right. It is best I go.”

With that, he vanished.

I felt like my shadow had been torn from me.

That night, for the first time in a long while, I cried.

I never touched the fiddle again.




No man would marry me. I got offers. Dozens. But each fell ill like Sarai’s suitors, and it was rumored I was haunted by Ashmedai, each suitor of mine sickening until they withdrew their proposal. Then, the rosy blush returned to his pale cheek. 

The rabbi proclaimed: This girl is chosen by G-d. The Dumahs are righteous people. 
But the people spoke: tis a demon. She’s haunted.

The Dumahs had a good reputation. Papa and mama’s business got even more popular as they had customers come to gawk at the beautiful, slender girl that looked like Naamah. My limbs lengthened, my skin paled, my eyes lightened in blue to a ghostly shade. It was like I was dying alive.

Life-in-Death. Dumah’s twin.

And always, a pink luscious shade to my lips, like pomegranates. And rosy tints to my cheeks.

I took work as a nurse, far away from my shtetl of Bethel. I was twenty-seven, far past marriageable age. The customers had stopped gawking. At night, I never saw Malakh HaMavet. 

But I always felt him next to me, breathing hot fire over my shoulder.

“Shush.”




St. Petersburg had drinks I could get lost in. I worked for a minor lord. A count with thirteen children, who was jolly and kind, who did not care where I had come from. He paid for my training to be a governess. The count gave French green chartreuse as a present to me each month, and more coin then I knew what to do with. I had a good life. I wrote to Lilah, wrote to Bluma, sent gifts of fine cologne to Iosif.

I missed Bethel, but not much. The count’s children adored me.

I knew it would end, one day, when I burned my feet on hot coal. Sweat. Fever. Laid up in bed. My charges weeping.

“Tis only a little wound, my sweetling,” I cheered them, through the sweat of my fever. The count’s eldest, a nineteen-year-old child, professed his undying love to me, marriage.

“I cannot be without you, Miriam.”

“Do not say such a cursed thing, Peter. Shush.”

Peter fell ill. He died. I was cast out. They blamed me. Somehow, in their rage.
I took my bottles of green chartreuse, paid for a tenement hall.

Shush, the walls said.

Shush.




When I died, it was not remarkable.

Except, there was, as always, Death. At every undug grave.

At everyone’s passing, Malakh HaMavet. Mine was no exception.

“What is your name?” Dumah asked.

I remembered the psalm verse cypher. Answered correctly.

Dumah smiled. He kissed me. It tasted like sand.

“Once, dearest Miriam, my brother Samael bargained your life for a rabbi's from hundreds of years ago. It was so long before you were born. I tried to care for you best as I could. Samael said he would mind you in the in-between, but like Eve, Ha Satan abandons his projects. That is why I said “shush.” Because, to speak, is to attract his attention. And I wanted you all to myself.”

I looked down at my body as Dumah lifted me into the stars. “Will I miss it, Dumah?”

“Where we are going is beauty, Miriam. You will receive your loved ones and friends in my palace, in time.”

My heart softened. I remembered how Dumah played the fiddle. So sweet. I cried. “And the boys that fell ill?”

“Samael’s doing.”

“And the shushes?”

“Silence is the same as love, Miriam. It is the way hearts speak. Silence, like a kiss, carries the sacred.”




Dumah’s body was a puzzle. I put the pieces together. He devoured me with kisses. He was gentle on our wedding night. Michael married us. I was now transformed. An angel of death as well.

My life unfurls like seven pomegranate seeds. Miriam, the nursemaid, who was born into silence.

Now, I can speak. Now, my husband loves me. I got my revenge on Samael. It was easy enough to deceive Ha Satan. He thirsts after forbidden fruit, after all, and Dumah is lord of those groves.

We have children. In Gan Eden. We have pets. I am happy. I braid challah.

The Angel of Death, where he strikes. Is Justified.
​
Shush, I tell Rachel my baby daughter, singing B’shem HaShem to her to coax her to sleep as Dumah fiddles.


Shush.


                                                                    💀💀💀


Allister Nelson is a poet and author whose work has appeared in Apex Magazine, The Showbear Family Circus, Eternal Haunted Summer, SENTIDOS: Revistas Amazonicas, Black Sheep: Unique Tales of Terror and Wonder, The Greyhound Journal, FunDead Publications' Gothic Anthology, POWER Magazine, Renewable Energy World, and many other venues.

Click here to listen to this story on the Kaidankai Podcast.



She’s thrilled each time the sun rises again. It’s not that she doubts that it will happen, but every single time, watching the grass change from blue to green-gold and the flowers turn their faces, feeling the warmth touch her skin—it’s a miracle.

Which isn’t to say that she dislikes the nighttime. The bottomless, empty, black sky, the way the edges of everything around her seem to soften, the fresh breeze, it’s all indescribably lovely.

She sits in a meadow. The grass around her is short and an idyllic green. Reeds whisper against each other near the walls. Red and yellow flowers are sprinkled throughout in little clumps. There is a small pond, empty of life and clear and the water is delicious and sweet. A bed of heather rests in one corner, even though there are no corners.

She is content.

As her day starts again, she stretches languidly, feeling the sun creeping from her toes up her body. Once it reaches her waist, she stands and goes to greet it. She can hear her own soft footfalls in the silence, and imagines the sun greets her in turn. She and the sun arrive together at the pond. She lets the sun settle in as she cups her hands, quenching her thirst and always dripping down her front. She doesn’t mind. The sun helps with that, too, drying her off as she wanders back and forth among the flowers, sometimes taking a break to lie down with them in the grass. She wonders sometimes, absently, if she’s one of the flowers, too.

She didn’t have a house, but she didn’t need one. She spent most of her days lying in the grass, trailing her fingers through the slow-moving river, when it was there, creating sculptures out of flower petals that always disappeared when she wasn’t looking. Sometimes she slept, and sometimes she didn’t. She could drink water from the stream when she wanted, but it rarely felt necessary. She’d learned that some of the flowers had a sweet nectar in them, but she didn’t want to waste them.

Around her there were walls, sometimes. They were made of bushes, tall and brilliantly green. And sometimes they were old and made of stone. They kept her from forgetting to stay put and trying to wander off.

Sometimes they weren’t there. Her meadow didn’t extend endlessly, nor did it end abruptly, but sometimes it simply stopped mattering at a certain point. When she was in the center, the walls were there less often. 

It didn’t matter how long she had been there because her thoughts were slow and syrupy. She was vaguely aware that they repeated, that she had the same realizations about how beautiful the light looked on a certain daffodil or that she had told herself the same story about the lives of the flowers before, but it didn’t matter. Why should it?

In the morning the sun rose and the grass and flowers were lit up. There was no sound but the soft trickling of water and her footsteps. Sharp black shadows softened as the sun continued its journey. They grew again as the sun began its descent. She had been weaving something from leaves and petals, she didn’t know what. It didn’t matter what. The whole day had passed, yet it could have been minutes, not hours.

There was nothing but the meadow. She was content.

Of course, she couldn’t stay that way.


Keket was being hunted. Keket was the hunter. It was just a matter of who found who first.

She had heard about the string, of course, the string that could lead you back out, but whoever started that myth hadn’t realized that the walls moved, that the corridors changed, and that if you missed that sudden silence preceding the shift, you could find yourself split in half and not much would matter anymore. She had seen the partial bodies. She knew.

But she was determined. And she knew too if she kept running from that sudden silence that she would find the center. The maze was trying to keep her out. But it was also allowing the Minotaur closer. It was going to be very close, she knew, between her finding the center of the maze and the Minotaur finding her.

She didn’t have to enter the maze. But she didn’t know anyone else who would.


Cassandra and Keket hadn’t been born entwined. They hadn’t been born in the same city, the same country, not this time.

In this lifetime, Cassandra had grown up behind ivory walls, tutored to become a mathematics prodigy. But she read stories of adventures. She read that there was a secret, a great secret, and it was somewhere to the west of Eden.

No one was allowed in Eden. There were armed guards, dressed like angels with machetes, securing the perimeter for miles around. No one knew what was inside the space they guarded. It was rumored that not even the guards knew. They were selected young, the children who didn’t show a particular aptitude for anything, the ones who could stand and be quiet, who didn’t ask too many questions. That was critical.

Cassandra learned not to ask too many questions as well. The people who were too curious, sometimes they would go away and come back very quiet. So she trained herself to be quiet already, to find answers on her own, to wrap everything in a better understanding of how the accountancy skills she was learning would one day be more finely honed if she could only see past examples.

It took her some time to learn about Eden. There were whispers around it, holes in the texts where there should be something solid. That was where she probed as she grew older, at what was missing, at what no one would say. She would still take long walks in the garden, meditate to soft lyre music, and attend her lessons. She studied slowly, so she wouldn’t raise suspicions.

Sometimes she thought her father, or someone like her father, had told her a story when she was little. But as she grew older, she had trouble remembering. She had trouble remembering anything clearly, except the intricacies of statistics, calculus, trigonometry, and a bit of quantum mechanics. So she trained herself.

She thought, consciously recounting everything she could about Eden every time she heard the lyre. She did not try to clear her mind any longer, she focused, she let the music be an anchor. And it worked. Sitting quietly, eyes shut, no one suspected a thing as she began to plan.

Cassandra didn’t want to forget, was the thing. She could barely remember why she was training, what mattered about her learning, except that it would prove helpful to Someone. Maybe it would prove helpful to her. She continued to learn and retain that specific information.

And then, when she realized again that her tutor was someone new, was someone she hadn’t seen before, who she still called Tutor, something that was never addressed, she grew bolder. She went to the library at night, sneaking through the pale, empty halls, barefoot so as not to produce loud, echoing footsteps. And she stopped reading about Eden and started reading the Restricted Fiction tomes. This was where she got her idea.

Cassandra began to study herself. She had never thought much about her body or face, and she still couldn’t tell you whether they were particularly pleasing, but she could accentuate the facets those tomes discussed. And she could take long walks, past the guards. And she could strike up conversations.

It didn’t take long for one of these simple men to agree to abandon his post, to meet her for something he clearly understood better than her. And as he waited for something never to occur, Cassandra dressed herself as an angel and slipped through the ranks.

Cassandra never saw Eden.

She entered through the west, and came upon a stone maze, and she no longer cared about the garden. She cared about the secret. So she went inside, and the walls guided her to a small meadow, where she became tired, and she slept. The next morning, she awoke and there was sunshine, and she was content.


In this lifetime, Keket grew up in a crumbling stone jungle.

In one lifetime, Keket was a princess who ran away. She found the maze, and she was killed by the Minotaur.

In another, she was training to be a nurse. She sought out the maze, and she was killed by a shifting wall.

But in this lifetime, she was raised on the streets, and she was hypervigilant, and cynical. It may have been the cynicism that saved her. She had dreams for years about a girl in a meadow. She knew the girl. She might have even loved the girl. But they were dreams, and Keket put them aside, and grew up. It was some fairy tale she had heard when she was young, she told herself. It was a bedtime story she’d overheard at a window when she pretended it was herself being tucked into a warm bed.

It changed when the maze began to grow.

Keket woke up, and near half the city was crushed beneath gray stone walls. Bodies were strewn along the corridors, and the living wept and screamed and tried to hide. But Keket recognized these walls. She didn’t want to, and she resolved to sleep further away that night. If the maze wanted her, it would have to try harder.

She wasn’t entirely surprised when she awoke among the walls, alone, but for the first time in a long time, not cold, and not tired. So she began to walk. Without direction or purpose.

It was either minutes or days before she saw the Minotaur. It was in the distance, and she saw it, and it saw her, and it dropped the body it had been clutching to its mouth and began to charge. Keket ran, and thanked whatever gods she had never believed in when the walls closed behind her.

Very well, she thought, I will find that damn girl and outsmart that damn Minotaur and this damn maze.


It was a shifting wall that changed everything.

She was twisting together petals in the sunshine and watching contentedly as they drifted away, toward where the meadow wasn’t anymore, only this time there was something on the other side of the meadow.

There was someone on the other side of the meadow. Someone looking back at her. Someone who opened her mouth, was about to cry out--

The sun rose and cast everything into soft golden brilliance. Cassandra sat up dreamily and--

Cassandra?


There. For just a second. For just a second, Keket had actually seen her in person, seen the girl in her dreams, and began to call out, just like she always did before she woke up. But instead of waking up, she felt a stillness, the girl vanished, and the wall behind her opened to reveal one angry Minotaur.

For gods’ sakes.

Keket cursed under her breath and began to run, hooves pounding behind her, growing closer. She was smaller than the beast, but that seemed to be her only advantage. Very well. She took one turn after another, tighter and tighter and tighter until she heard the silence again, jumped, and--


They had never promised each other every lifetime, every universe, every possible arrangement of atoms. Those are in infinite supply, and they are two girls. But they are two girls whose blood runs with the heat of exploding stars, even as it drips down their knuckles. They are two girls whose souls reach for each other and ignore probability and infinity. They are two girls who crash together and touch each other gently.

They have each other’s names carved into their bones and each other’s fingerprints tattooed on their ligaments and they breathe in time with the other’s heartbeat. They would count the steps to hell and freeze it over to save one another and they would burn if there were no other choice.

When the sun goes supernova and solar flares lick across the sky, they will see one another, even if only for an instant, and think, This is almost heaven. And with every instant they have they can read each other like braille with ink-stained fingertips and they are a force of nature if you dare to touch them, learning what happens when a hurricane protects its own.

So two girls with hummingbird wings in their chests see each other for the second time.

And it’s as if time has slowed when they meet, when their fingers touch, and the sound of the Minotaur thundering toward them is drowned out as the space between their lips begins to close, and--

                                                                    💀💀💀


​Maia Brown-Jackson is a symphony of papercuts, banged-up knees, and stubborn determination. She believes in the altruism of strangers, the power of direct action, and the use of the Oxford comma. She strives to offer what she can; here, that offering is her words.

​


Click here to listen to this story on the Kaidankai Podcast.





​
Unceasing through the darkness, the music of the dance eternal. Its beat, pulsing for many, heard by only a single living soul.

                                                                     * * *

“That was a close one!” Jana shuddered, holding onto Eleanor for comfort. A clatter of rocks rushed down the steep cliff wall, sending water in every direction as they crashed into the river below.

Unable to speak, Eleanor clung tightly to Jana. Both girls breathed deeply, considering how narrowly they had avoided disaster.

Eleanor broke the silence. “We’ve been out here two days now. How do you keep your hair smelling so nice?”

Jana laughed, running her fingers through her chestnut hair. “Maybe it’s just nice compared to some of the other smells out here. Anyhow, it’s full of twigs and all sorts of stuff.”

Suddenly self-conscious, Eleanor felt her own black curls. “At least you’re looking half-decent. I think I’ve successfully ripped every piece of clothing I brought.”

Jana said, “I can’t believe this is our last camping trip before graduation.” She paused. “Are you sure about taking the offer from Hope College? I’m going to miss you next year.”

“It’s the closest school with a veterinary program, and I’ll be home every long weekend.” Eleanor’s eyes sparkled. “But I’ll miss you, too.” She bent to retie her shoe.

Jana asked, “So, I guess we need to get it out in the open. What’s the deal with prom? Who are you hoping to go with?”

Eleanor hesitated. “Well, actually, I was hoping—"

But what she was hoping, nobody would ever know. The ground gave way beneath her feet. Jana tried to grab her arm, but it was too late. In her last vision of Eleanor, the sparkle she had loved so much was replaced by wide-eyed terror.

                                                                  * * *

Jana couldn’t sleep. That was nothing new, though. For weeks, every time she closed her eyes, the scene replayed in her mind. Search and rescue crews had combed the forest, but the river was fast and wide due to an unusually large spring thaw. They said it was unlikely that they could find anything for another month.

Nobody spoke to Jana about the incident. Deep down, she knew most people were trying to be kind, but she couldn’t help feeling judgment or suspicion in the averted eyes. Just yesterday, she had finally attempted a short walk. She turned around abruptly after overhearing a whispered conversation: “Why were the two of them out there alone anyway?”

And now, she heard the music. It started quietly but became louder throughout the night. She covered her head with a pillow, put in some earplugs, turned on a fan. Nothing would drown it out. She considered waking her parents, but she felt guilty enough for sleeping on their bedroom floor ever since the accident. She needed to regain control of at least part of her life.

By 2 a.m., Jana gave up. She turned on the light and opened her book. It was no use. The music was so loud that it blocked any thoughts. How could her parents sleep through it? How could anyone?

Jana got dressed, put on her coat and shoes, and walked outside. The echoes of nearby hills made it difficult to figure out where the sound was coming from, but it seemed to be beyond a ridge to the west. Before she knew what she was doing, Jana was walking down the driveway and out toward the forest. It felt good to feel some sense of purpose and direction after three weeks of indifference.

She knew the forest well from years of childhood exploration, but with the thick cloud cover, it was nearly impossible to see. That was no problem, though. She could follow that music anywhere.

As she looked down from the top of the ridge, she saw lights below. The Tabors’ old barn. It made no sense, as Mr. and Mrs. Tabor had died when Jana was in elementary school. The house stood empty for years until it eventually collapsed. After that, the barn had been wrapped in “Caution” tape in case it suffered the same fate, and anybody with any sense stayed away from it.

But now, it was the site of a raging party. Jazz music blasted out of its broken windows, piercing Jana’s skull. Surely this must be waking the entire city…

Inside, eight musicians stood on a pile of boards. Each played a different instrument, belting out an upbeat swing number. Somehow, the music was quieter inside, if not by much. Eight dancers strove to keep up with the rhythm. Jana wandered between them. Although most moved too quickly for her to get a good look, Jana saw that they were from all age groups. The closest woman must have been pushing fifty. A couple, the only two dancing in a pair, may have been in their eighties. At the far end, a girl could have been close to Jana’s age.

No. She was Jana’s age. As the girl turned toward her, Jana saw the smile that she would recognize anywhere. The smile she had seen right before the cliff had crumbled…

“Eleanor?” she shouted.

She ran across the barn. “Ellie! You’re alive!”

Eleanor continued to dance.

As she swung around again, their eyes met. The sparkle that Jana was sure she would never see again. She reached to hug her friend.

Eleanor spun again and took two steps away, never missing a beat.

“Come on, Ellie! Let’s go home. People have been searching for you for weeks.”

Eleanor held up one finger.

“One what? Please, Eleanor, talk to me. Let’s get out of here. Let me take you home.”
Eleanor held up the finger again.

Jada shrugged her shoulders, confused about Eleanor’s lack of urgency. Did she not understand that everyone believed the worst? “What are you trying to tell me? One dance?”

Eleanor’s eyes sparkled.

“Okay, one dance. Who should lead?” As Jada took a step closer, Eleanor moved further away.

“You want us to dance separately?”

Her feet still moving, Eleanor glanced at a bench against the wall.

“You want me to sit down while you dance?”

Sparkle.

Jana couldn’t understand the reception. Did Eleanor blame her for the fall? Did she think that Jana had abandoned her?

And yet, Eleanor looked happy as she danced. Jana waited, certain that the song had to wrap up soon. Twenty minutes later, the band showed no sign of slowing down. Jana got up, but Eleanor immediately started across the floor away from her. Her arms and legs were almost a blur. How had Jana never realized what a talented dancer her friend was?

She sat back down. Another thirty minutes, and Jana was asleep. She woke up in the morning as the sun came through a hole that had once been a window. The barn was silent. No band, no dancers. The boards that had made up the stage were leaning against a wall. When Jana looked out the window, she saw the Caution tape. Even more surprising was the floor. The only footprints breaking up the dust led from where she had entered to where Eleanor had been dancing and then to the bench.

Jana ran to the door and ducked under the tape. Outside, only a single set of footprints. She ran home, out of breath but unable to stop and rest. A police car was parked outside the house. “Jana!” her mother called. Her father held her tight. “Where have you been? We were so worried when you weren’t home. The front door was opened, and we were worried that…” He stopped himself, unable to voice the thought.

“I was following the music. It was coming from…”

“Music? What music?” the officer asked.

“The jazz music that was blaring all night long. I followed it to…”

He held up his hand. “I’m sorry. I’m not understanding. Did anyone take you out of the house or ask you to come with them?”

“No, I needed to find where it was coming from.”

“Following music? So you left the house of your own accord?” He flipped his notebook shut.

Jana nodded.

“I don’t think I can help you with that. But it looks as though you’re okay.” He looked to her parents. “Are you good to take it from here?”

Jana’s mother looked slowly back and forth from Jana to the officer. “I think so. Thank you for coming. I’m really sorry to bother you.”

The officer smiled. “This is the best-case scenario. Just glad to see the family together again. Especially after…” He caught himself. “Well, I’ll be seeing you.”

After the officer left, Jana’s parents sat her down on the couch. “What were you thinking?” asked her father. “Do you have any idea what we’ve been going through?”

This question brought out the defense mechanisms of the past few weeks. “Yeah, I think I know a little about loss, dad. I…” She paused. “But Ellie’s not dead! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I was watching her dance in the Tabors’ barn!”

Jana’s mother reached over and squeezed her hand. “The Tabors are dead, Jana. And I know it’s hard to accept, but it’s been weeks, and nobody has found Eleanor.”

“I found her, mom. There was loud jazz music, and it led me to the barn, and…”

“You walked all the way to the old Tabor barn in the middle of the night?” her father asked.

Her mother gave her a tight hug. “Jana, honey, why don’t you try to lie down? You look exhausted.”

Unable to reason with them, Jana went to her room. Her mind was racing, but her body won out. Her parents woke her up for dinner, but Jana was too worked up to eat much. She had seen Eleanor. But where did everyone go? Why were there no other footprints?

That night, the music returned.

Jana was unable to resist, even if she had wanted to. Would she see Eleanor again?
As Jana walked in, she noted that the Caution tape was nowhere to be seen. The band played as fast as the previous night, and all of the dancers had returned.

Sparkle.

One finger.

Although it hurt to be so close to Eleanor but not be able to talk to her, to hold her, Jana was just happy to see that her friend was okay. She could wait for the end of the song.

Again, she woke up to the sunshine and an empty barn. Again, her parents were upset, although there were no police today.

The next night was the same. She didn’t understand what was happening, but Eleanor’s smile was all she cared about.

On the following night, the smile was gone. As Eleanor moved about the floor, the lights caught her face at a different angle. Jana began to doubt if there had ever been a smile. She saw Eleanor’s dark skin glowing with perspiration. As she looked around, she saw that everyone was straining from the exertion. And yet the music went on, never losing the tempo.

Jana walked to the stage. “Excuse me!” she called to a woman playing the trombone. The woman inclined her head to show that she heard.

“Are you going to be wrapping up this song soon?”

The woman shrugged her shoulders, continuing to play.

“Can you please stop?” Jana asked.

Shrug.

In desperation, she asked, “Are you even able to stop?”

Another slight bow of the head.

Jana looked back out over the dance floor, seeing Eleanor weary but still keeping up with every note. She needed to free her from the grip of the music. But then the terrifying reality hit her.

“If you stop, can Eleanor come home?”

The trombonist shook her head.

Jana could barely get the next question out. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”

Hesitation, and then a nod.

“When the song is over, she…” Much like her father that first morning, Jana couldn’t finish her sentence.

The woman nodded.

It was so tempting to sit back down and watch Eleanor, knowing that this was the only place it could ever happen. But the look on her face, which Jana was now convinced she had mistaken for a smile, longed for release.

It was now or never. “Do I have to stop you?”

Another nod.

Jana tried to swat the trombone out of her hands. The woman spun around, nearly hitting the guitarist with her slide, but the music kept on.

Jana tried to push the drum set over, but it wouldn’t budge. She screamed at the band members, cried and begged them to stop, shouted so loud she felt like she almost drowned out the music.

And then she noticed that the band, too, appeared on the verge of collapse.

She returned to the trombonist. “Are you trapped, too?” she asked.

The woman nodded as the song continued.

Jana looked back at Eleanor. She watched until their eyes met. Jana knew what she had to do.

She reached out toward the woman. “May I take your place?”

The trombonist lowered her instrument. Gasping for breath, the trombonist asked,“Do you understand what you take on?” Although she spoke quietly, Jana heard her clearly over the music.

“I do,” Jana said.

“I thank you,” the woman smiled. “And I’m sure Eleanor does as well.” She handed over the trombone, walked toward Eleanor, and tapped her on the shoulder.

Eleanor paused and faced the stage. One final sparkle, and she was gone.

Jana lifted the trombone to her mouth and looked out at the dancers. As she played the first note, she saw the former trombonist nod briefly as she joined the dance eternal.

                                                              💀​💀​💀

Kevin Hogg is a high school English and Law teacher in British Columbia's Rocky Mountains. He holds a Master of Arts degree from Carleton University and is a longtime Chicago Cubs fan. Outside of writing, Kevin enjoys Lime Pepsi, grapefruit juice, and lemon tea. His goals for the future include solving a Rubik's Cube, visiting Walden Pond, and meeting television star Gabe Kaplan. His website is https://kevinhogg.ca.