Ghost Dance

The Ghost Dance

Author's Note: I got the idea of this story from a dream I had, in which I danced with two ghost twins to beautiful and haunting music. I woke up inspired enough to write this.

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"She was lost in her longing to understand."

—Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

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Gwynedd, Northwest Wales.

May 24th, 1932.

The Black Ward's Funeral Home was a melancholy and dark place, perfectly suiting its name. Mar Dowerly thought this at the time they arrived, and voiced it to her father.

"It's very warm, and welcoming," she teased, giggling. Dimples pinched her cheeks and wrinkles touched the corners of her bright eyes. Mar Dowerly was an intelligent young girl of the age of sixteen, full of passion. Surprisingly, her father wanted her to make something more of herself than a stay-at-home, give-birth and make-food woman.

"Now, shush, Mar," her father scolded despite his slight smile. "I forgot to mention, your cousins will be here, you haven't met them I don't... think." He grunted just as he stepped up the dark, cracked brick steps.

Mar followed after, slowly, exploring every corner of the outside of the building. "I'm curious as to whether there's a garden," she started, catching up to her father and holding onto his arm, "near the back of the building."

"And why would there be one?"

"I don't know," she replied. "Possibly something to keep the spirits at bay. Peaceful, and such."

"The only spirits that exist are those of the Lord," Mr. Dowerly responded, tiredly, as though he said that often.

"Question everything..." Mar mumbled to herself.

After the father and daughter entered the funeral home, Mar was bombarded with family members.

"Oh dear, what a gorgeous fascinator!" One said.

"T-Thank you!" Mar struggled to reply.

"Mar you're looking as gorgeous as ever!"

"What a cute little outfit!"

Mar was starting to wonder if this in fact was her uncle's funeral.

"Ah, Mar," her father's voice said, "This is your eldest cousin, Abigail, you haven't met her yet."

Mar turned her attention until she was facing her blonde cousin. Her lips were bright red and she was smoking. "Oh, darling, you're a beauty!"

Mar smiled happily. "Thank you," she said, fighting back the urge to cough through the smoke. "You too--"

"Although it doesn't really go with your name does it?" Abigail chuckled. "I mean, Mar, what an interesting name... a flaw, in perfection, in beauty? Would a man want a flaw?"

Mar's smile faded. She opened her mouth as if to speak when Abigail simply started again. "I was speaking of father the other day to--"

"I don't quite think a flaw in perfection is so bad," Mar began in a slight mumble. "I mean, perfection is nearly unattainable, so... so maybe a flaw isn't so bad?" She chuckled lightly, her eyebrows flicking up when she had brought her cousin to silence. It was a slight victory--a quiet victory--for Mar when she had won an argument.