Dames of the Dead Beginning Story

The festival of the dead preparations had only just begun. As she walked through the village streets treading softly. Hidden in the shadows and candle light.

All around her was life taking place, and with it came the sights and smells. Of the time of year when being apart of the living world became slightly more than just a dream for the dead. A time of year when ghosts could be more than just forgotten names, or buried beneath the stones.There were the yells and taunts and the laughter of the children as they ran along the streets looking for the candy skull vendors, pinata makers and other folk artists. There were the women singing and making the pan de muertos and other sweet breads.The marigold vendors were setting up their carts full of flowers for the dead. Others were lighting candles for the dead.

She watched, un-noticed. Dressed in an old fashioned flamenco dress her long brown and teal hair wrapped in an old fashioned bun with marigolds in her hair.

Her face colored white and bright colors, a skull design. A small crude cross and petal shapes that formed a halo drawn on her forehead. Incandescent blue eyes made more ominous than they already were by the dots and flower shaped paint around her eyes. Her nose and lips painted and lined in black connecting in "u shapes" to form the teeth of her mask. More thin lines of black create the scars upon her lips. A spider's web drawn on her chin and flowing swirls and petal shapes line her cheeks in the most abstract way. Anyone passing by might mistake her for a performer of the ghost dances.

In her hand she held eight sweet candy skulls, each with a name written on the forehead. These were the souls she had come to collect, people who had at one point or another during their live's made a deal with halloweens death messengers and so the time of payment was now at hand. Yes, she would come collect, and payment must be made.

As she stood waiting in the shadows for halloween to begin she let her mind wander. She let her mind wander to the man drinking and playing his guitar she could faintly make out the words. I wanted to grow old, just wanted to grow old. Don't leave me so cold, or buried beneath the stones. I just want to hold on.

She slunk further into the shadows as a group of children ran right past her dressed in a diversity of skeletons, devils and other creatures of lore, yelling and singing "La calavera! Calavera! Do you have a name?" answering each other in rhym to the rhythm. Their voices and rhym fading further and further away until she could only hear the man and his guitar again. Whisper in my ear give me something to echo in my unknown future's ear! My dear. The end comes near. I'm here. But not much longer.

Checking her hour glass again she realized grimly she had a full day and a half before the veil was thin enough to allow her to do more than dwell in the shadows on the outskirts of the land of the living, a world she no longer had any part, no inheritence in anymore.