by Darren Shan
“They’re all dead now,” the spirits said.
“Yes. But there are records of what they did, stories and legends. But you’ve no way of finding out any of that because nobody ever comes here to tell you.
“Well, that can change. I’ll come. One night a week, like I promised. I’ll play with you and read to you. I’ll tell you all the stories and history that I know, and find out new tales to pass on. I’ll sing and dance if you wish, although I’m not very good at that. I’ll bring paintings and small statues, and clothes so you can see what people are wearing. If you want to know about sports, I can find out. If you just want to talk, and tell me about your past or your troubles, I’ll sit and listen.
“I’ll be your friend,” Koyasan concluded simply, then waited for the spirits to answer.
HOME
Koyasan CROSSED THE bridge with Maiko’s soul in her arms. It was warm and slippery, and she had to be careful not to drop it. Part of her was still afraid, worried that the spirits might change their minds and attack. But mostly she was calm and carefree. She had nothing to fear in the graveyard at the end of this long, amazing night — and would never have anything to fear there again.
The spirits had agreed to her proposal. There’d been some dissent. A few wanted to rip her to pieces. There were several truly evil spirits, who cared only about hurting and killing. But most were like living people, with the shadows of good hearts. They’d forgotten that for a while and become the monsters they were treated as. But Koyasan had reminded them of their humanity. The majority of noble spirits had quickly put the troublemakers in their place and made them agree to let Koyasan pass safely.
She hurried from the bridge to the village. The sky was brightening above her, ahead of the sun’s stately entrance. She could see smoke rising over the roof of her hut. Her parents hadn’t slept during the night, keeping vigil by Maiko’s side.
As Koyasan passed through the gate, someone moved in the shadows to her left. Glancing around, Koyasan saw Itako standing there. The old woman was smiling. “You did well,” she said softly, then returned to her hut. She was too old to waste a lot of time on unnecessary words of praise.
Koyasan’s mother and father were sitting by Maiko’s stiff, emotionless body. Their heads were bowed and they didn’t look up when Koyasan entered and crossed the room. Koyasan said nothing, only held out the ball of light which was Maiko’s soul and gently pressed it into her sister’s chest. For a moment Maiko’s flesh resisted, but then the soul slipped through the tiny pores in Maiko’s skin and disappeared into the body from which it had been taken.
A shimmer ran through Maiko. Her legs and arms jerked. Her nose and lips twitched. Then her eyelids flickered. “Tired,” she yawned. Her mother and father cried out with shock when they heard that and their heads shot up. They stared at their youngest daughter, then up at Koyasan, who was wilting on her feet, the trials and exhaustions of the night catching up with her now that it was all over.
“Funny head,” Maiko said, steepling her fingers together into a pyramid shape.
“Yes,” Koyasan agreed.
Maiko reached up and hugged her older sister, then lay down and went to sleep on the floor. Koyasan thought about going to bed, but decided it was too far to walk, so she lay down, cuddled up to Maiko and fell asleep too.
On chairs beside them, their parents watched the sisters sleeping, and slowly their stunned expressions were replaced by smiles of relief, love and joy.
DEAD HAPPY
A LOT OF the villagers didn’t believe Koyasan’s story. They thought the sisters had played a trick on them, that Maiko had been faking. After all, everybody knew that the spirits in the graveyard were evil and would kill anyone who went there at night. This was a truth which had been passed down through generations. Were all the adults, and their parents and grandparents before them, wrong and this young snip of a girl right? Impossible! She was lying. She had to be.
Koyasan didn’t care what people thought. She just tried to get on with life as normal. She’d talk about that night on the hill if pressed, but was happier not to. She didn’t think it was polite to gossip about the dead behind their backs.
When, four nights later, she returned to the graveyard, a huge crowd had gathered. Most were convinced that she wouldn’t enter the graveyard or wouldn’t return if she did. Yamadasan was there, ready to laugh at her when she fled from the bridge as she always did. Only her parents truly believed she’d cross, and although they were worried, they’d seen a new strength in their eldest daughter’s eyes and knew they couldn’t stand in her way. Koyasan had earned the right to make her own decisions.
Maiko wanted to go with her, to play with the funny spirits in the gravy. “Not this time,” Koyasan told her gently but firmly. “I’ll take you another night.”
There were gasps galore as Koyasan crossed the bridge, and cries of outright terror when she walked into the forest and vanished from sight. Koyasan only giggled at the villagers’ reactions, then made her way to the top of the hill, where the spirits — her new friends — were waiting.
That first meeting was a bit awkward, the way encounters often are when strangers are getting to know each other. The spirits and Koyasan were overly polite, keeping conversation to matters such as livestock and the weather.
That changed over the coming weeks and months. As they came to know each other, they relaxed and opened up. Soon they were talking about all manner of things, laughing and joking, playing games and sharing secrets. Quite a few of the spirits had been children when they died, and some of these became the best friends Koyasan ever had. Others, it turned out, were distant ancestors of hers and they rejoiced when they discovered their shared bloodlines.
For the first couple of months, only Koyasan went into the graveyard at night. The other villagers were wary of her, believing her to be some kind of holy person, with a great spiritual gift. Koyasan could have let them go on believing that, and acted like a lady of mysterious power, but she wasn’t interested in becoming a living icon. She kept telling people that she was an ordinary girl and the spirits were normal people — only dead.
Eventually, driven by curiosity, a few of the other children snuck into the graveyard after Koyasan one night, unknown to their parents. The spirits were delighted and made the new visitors welcome, treating them to a spectacular light display, and telling them gory, grisly stories from the past, which the children happily lapped up.
Over time, more of the children, cautiously followed by adults, ventured into the graveyard, and soon the visits became just another part of their lives. They took it in turns to go and keep the spirits amused, bring them up to date with recent political events, teach them the rules of new and complicated games. They sang to the spirits and told them stories, and in return the spirits taught them old songs and tales which had been forgotten by the living over the centuries.
Once a month they held a lavish festival, to celebrate the reunion of the living and the dead. They quickly became the most anticipated festivals of the year. Everyone dressed up in their finest clothes and costumes, and the spirits would twist themselves into the most fanciful shapes they could conjure up. The whole village would spend the night drinking, feasting, singing and parading through the graveyard, only returning to their homes at dawn.
And not only the villagers. As word spread, people came from provinces and countries far, far away to honour and chat with their dead ancestors, to learn the secrets of a time they had never known, and to unwind and have fun — nobody could ever accuse the dead of not knowing how to party!
And so the years passed. Koyasan and Maiko grew into beautiful, strong women. Since she was the eldest, Koyasan was the first to marry and have a child, a sweet little girl called Tomoko. On the night she was born, Koyasan took her into the graveyard to show to the spirits — they loved the fresh innocence of newborn babies.
Although the spirits welcomed all of their visitors, and forged close links with many of them, they s
hared a special bond with Koyasan. They never forgot that she had been the one to bring the living and dead back together, and her visits were looked forward to more than any other’s.
When, after many long and happy years, Koyasan felt the fires of her soul burning down, she asked to spend one last night in the graveyard, alone with the spirits. Nobody objected and all other visits to the graveyard were postponed.
Tomoko — now a grown woman with children of her own — carried her mother into the graveyard and up the hill. She left her in the domed clearing, and although she wept a bit when she said goodbye, she wasn’t overly upset. Very few of the living feared dying any more. They knew that if their souls didn’t pass on to somewhere better, they could stay here, among their bodyless friends and close to their living relatives, where they need never feel alone or abandoned.
Koyasan smiled as the sun set and the spirits came out. “Hello, old friends,” she murmured. “I’ve come for one last night.”
“It’ssss about time you got rid of that old sssshell of a body,” the spirits laughed, circling round her, pressing up close to keep her warm.
“Do you think my soul will pass on in the morning or will it remain here?” Koyasan asked. “Doessss it matter?” the spirits replied.
Koyasan laughed. “No, not really.”
Rising with difficulty, she danced round the dome with the spirits, a stiff, slow dance to begin with. But after a few circuits, she felt a weight lift, and suddenly she was dancing freely and gracefully, making the most delightful and intricate moves of her life.
“There,” the spirits chuckled. “You never knew you could dancccce sssso well, did you?”
“No,” Koyasan said, pirouetting high above the ground. “Can all the dead danccce like thisss?”
“If they wissssh,” the spirits said. “There are no obsssstacles when you’re dead. You can do almosssst anything you want.”
“I think I’m going to enjoy death,” Koyasan grinned, sweeping away from her abandoned body, gliding through the trees and down the hill.
She spent the rest of the night dancing around the tombs and headstones of the ancient, joyous graveyard with her ghostly friends, relishing death as she had loved life, realising now that they were, in reality, one and the same. She never once worried or thought about what would happen in the morning. After all, only a fool frets about the light of the dawn when there are all the glorious shadows of the night to experience and cherish.
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Darren Shan's an ordinary schoolboy — until he gets an invitation to visit the Cirque Du Freak... until he meets Madame Octa... until he comes face to face with a creature of the night...
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