The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

The Gravedigger and the Dancer 
by Elaine Pascale

The gravedigger dug at night as no one wanted the visible reminder that they, too, would be swallowed by the earth. He enjoyed his nocturnal toils. There was something peaceful about the sound of the shovel scraping the earth’s surface, turning over the dirt to see the nutrient-rich beauty beneath. Working at night was serene and quiet…until she appeared.

She danced in a shiny dress with a pleated hem. Her white skin and white dress glimmered in the moonlight.

He paused digging to watch her. At first, he was not sure what he was seeing.

As she pirouetted, she said, “You should have seen how I danced when I was alive.”

“I’m sure you were lovely,” he replied. While her inflated ego believed he was charmed, he found her annoying. He wanted to continue with his digging. Despite others believing his work morbid, he considered his labor meaningful. He helped the dead to rest.

He continued to dig while she danced and he found her accompaniment frustrating. Even more frustrating when she returned night after night. The village had been plagued by influenza and he had more plots to dig than normal; he longed for solitude during his work.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said after weeks of dancing. He was sure that she didn’t, which was confirmed when she offered, “How could someone as vibrant as me dance in a graveyard?”

“I bet you would look even lovelier by the pond,” he suggested.

“Can’t.” She twirled in time to the scratching of his shovel, dropping her feet as he inched deeper into the earth. “I can’t leave here. I mean this place.”

“And why is that?”

She shrugged. “Something about my death. I don’t know what…just something.”

He knew the answer. He had heard the whispers of the villagers. The night she first appeared he had been digging a plot for her husband, the man who had killed her. She had haunted him both in life and in death. The more she danced in the night, the more the gravedigger felt sympathy for that man.

But she wouldn’t remember her husband’s anger, as it was a thought that cast her in a negative light. All she could recall was her beauty and grace.

He continued to dig and she continued to dance, peppering her performance with derision toward him. She refused to entertain the idea that he was anything less than captivated by her. Everyone always loved her (there was a nagging inkling that she had fallen out of favor with someone, somewhere, but she quickly discarded that thought). Surely this sweating laborer, trying to beat sunrise, was enamored with her.

When the school caught fire and he was faced with a multitude of burials, he decided to take action. He was no scholar, nor a man of the cloth, yet he knew what he had to do.

He dropped his shovel and faced her. “Your husband failed to establish boundaries with you. Instead, your presence drove him to kill. And then, your haunting him probably killed him. I have too much respect for the living and the dead to allow you to bring me to that same resolution. I am going to do my job and put you to rest.”

“You love my dancing,” she insisted. “You need to see me here, to brighten your meaningless existence.”

“No,” he said assertively but calmly. “I do not find you beautiful, I do not find you exceptional. I do not love your dancing…I love…the dirt.”

Hearing this, the dancer burst into flames, a charred remnant of her dress coming loose and landing in the junction of the branches of a graveyard tree.

The gravedigger paused for moment, listening to the encompassing silence, before returning to his peaceful digging.

.

Fiction © Copyright Elaine Pascale
Image courtesy of Pixaby.com

More from Elaine Pascale:

The Kitchen Witches

The women of Cape Cod have a story that is dying to be told. If only they could live long enough to tell it.

When Fiona Walker is contracted to write about a party attended by her social circle, her friends begin dying. She captures the competition and misery of the women around her through three different stories.

In Wishes, Melanie Voss discovers a Time Between Time where nothing that happens counts. Initially, Time Between Time is a welcome escape from a life spent watching the clock while doing chores for her family. But something sinister is in the Time Between Time and it is headed straight for Melanie.

Death and Taxes tells the story of Nashville DeCota, the Cape Capo. Nash swears that she is not the Island Impaler, nor the Tooth Snatcher, but she has just as many skeletons in her closet. When her husband, Derrick, is kidnapped, she has to come clean about her crimes if she ever wants to see him again.

Fiona tells her own story in Hazing, where she finds that the real source of evil behind the deaths of her friends is worse than she could have ever imagined.

Available on Amazon!