said. “Maybe my father got himself all worked up over nothing. This Freddy Darblethwaite inherited the estate and went through all the conventional motions as lord of the manor and lived out the kind of life expected of a member of his class, and he took his father’s seat in Parliament, and maybe one more vegetable in the House of Lords didn’t make any difference.”
I sat back, waiting to relish applause, but there was dead silence in the room. You could have heard a cliché drop.
And that was when I understood that I had gone too far, crossing some line of propriety that no American can ever cross. That was when I understood that I had been right to protest at the beginning, because I had no business trying to tell an English club story.
The rest of the evening passed with stiff politeness. There were other stories told. One elderly gentleman with white whiskers began, “When I was in In-jah, I was shooting tigers, until one of them shot back. Now that was a story,” and he told it, but I cannot remember the details, any more than I can recall what followed when another older member with a slightly Irish accent, who had clearly been awaiting his moment, began, “Ghosts? It is not so much a matter of what I believe but what I have seen.”
All the while the vast chasm between the condition of being American and that of being British gaped before me.
The whiskey clouded my mind. I fell asleep in the cab on the way back to my hotel.
I have been in the U.K. several times since. I have even spoken at conferences there, in the course of my business and literary career, but I have never had an opportunity to tell—or even hear—another English club story, because, unsurprisingly, they never invited me back.
DANSE MACABRE, by Jeff Barnes
Every year they bloom in my garden,
rising from the graves of the dead.
Listen to the clicking of dancing bones
and see the smiling skeleton heads!
Every year when the pumpkins are sprouting
and the leaves turning orange and red,
I tend my garden faithfully,
preparing to welcome back the dead.
Don’t bury your loved ones in cemeteries.
Bring them to my garden instead,
and celebrate with them every year
from Halloween to the Day of the Dead!
IMPERVIOUS TO REASON, OBLIVIOUS TO FATE, by John R. Fultz
It was not Shango’s custom to meet with strangers in the dead of night.
Evil spirits of seventeen kinds were known to roam the Forest of Heavenly Streams, but a lone traveler was more likely to meet one of the three bandit tribes who called the forest home. Shango had walked the woodland path without company all day, but he was not alone. The blade of his great-grandfather kept him company, nestled in its scabbard of fine leather at his waist. Sometimes he spoke to the sword, as if to his great-grandfather. He asked it many questions, but so far it had never answered him.
Now the naked blade gleamed silver and orange across his knees as he sat before the campfire. A roasted squirrel simmered on a spit above the tiny flame, but Shango let it burn and blacken. A tree bole guarded his back while his eyes searched the darkness beyond the firelight. Whoever or whatever spied on him from that darkness would see the drawn sword. Perhaps the mere sight of it would frighten away any bandit or spirit who crept near. Shango did not want to kill anyone in this place. To spill blood in the forest was to invite the intervention of its spirits.
A soft wind made the dried leaves rattle as three men emerged from the dark. They wore the robes of swordsmen and masks of painted wood. The masks showed the grinning faces of red demons with golden tusks. Each man carried a sheathed blade similar to Shango’s, yet they were forged of newer steel by less expert hands.
Shango grinned to see that they were neither spirits nor bandits.
“Sangzara knows you are coming,” said the middle swordsman. “He offers you one chance to turn around and go back to Huan-gao alive. Will you accept his generous offer?”
Shango stood up now, the sword of his great-grandfather steady in his right fist.
“I cannot,” he said. “There is a man I must kill in Huan-zuo. I am aware that he serves Sangzara, but this does not concern me.”
“It does now,” said the middle mask.
The three men drew their blades in a single motion, but Shango was already leaping over the campfire, his steel sweeping wide before him. As his sandals hit the earth and his legs bent low, blood sprayed from three necks. Each man was slashed from ear to ear below the pointed chins of their masks. They clutched at their spewing necks, dropping weapons to lie among the dead leaves. Shango whipped his blade twice to clear it of gore, then slid it back into the scabbard. The twitching bodies of his assailants hit the ground a second later, and soon they grew still inside puddles of red.
Shango carefully removed each dead man’s mask. He set the blackened squirrel carcass aside and fed each mask to the campfire’s flame until all three were charred to embers. He was about to try and salvage some of the burned squirrel-meat when an unexpected voice startled him.
“Why do that? Why burn their masks?”
The voice spoke in his own language, flawlessly and without accent, not even a trace of the twelve regional dialects. It was almost too perfect, marking the speaker as an outsider who had mastered the formal tongue, probably from books. Shango turned and drew his blade, holding it at arm’s length. It pointed directly at the stranger standing at the edge of firelight.
His face was that of a young man, his odd eyes and dress unfamiliar. He could not be from Huan-gao or Huan-zuo. He was an outlander with a ludicrous robe of gaudy colors that flared to points at the shoulders. His dark hair was unbound and longer than most women of Shango’s people, windblown and disheveled in a blatant dereliction of style. Yet Shango was entranced by his eyes, which gleamed and swirled in every possible color.
Shango stood with his blade between them and felt compelled to answer the stranger’s question. The man seemed in no way dangerous or threatening. He carried no sword or any other visible weapon. Most of all he seemed entirely out of place in the Forest of Heavenly Streams.
“These men are the disciples of Sangzara, the cruel wizard who governs Huan-zuo,” Shango said. “They are murderers sworn to evil gods. If their masks aren’t burned, their souls return to Sangzara and serve him from beyond the grave.”
“You have slain many such men.” It was not a question. “Far more than these three.”
Shango lowered his sword. “They gave me little choice,” he said. “How do you know these things, Vagabond?”
The stranger laughed. “I suppose I must look rather bizarre to you,” he said. “I am a long way from home…” He lifted the multi-colored robe from him as if it were a light cloak, and cast it on the ground before the campfire. Now Shango saw that it was a thick-woven rug, not a cloak or robe at all. The stranger, dressed in a simple buckskin tunic, sat down on the rug and motioned for Shango to join him.
“My name is Magtone,” said the stranger. “Formerly of Doomed Karakutas…may she rest in peace….”
Shango had never heard either name. Yet custom and manners dictated his response. His head bowed slightly as he introduced himself, and then he sat cross-legged again before his fire. The carpet was soft beneath him. It had been a long time since he had felt anything so soft.
“How is it you speak the language of Huan?” Shango asked.
Magtone produced a flask of wine from somewhere on his person, popped the cork, and offered Shango the first drink. His smile alone convinced the swordsman that it was not poison but hospitality that