The Piper with the Pumpkin Head, Moonlit Dance of the Skeletons

More about The Piper with the Pumpkin Head, Moonlit Dance of the Skeletons

On the night before All Saints' Day, the fog settled over the village like a heavy blanket. No dog barked, no door creaked, only the creaking of bare branches could be heard. The old people had locked the shutters, knowing that when the church bells fell silent, the Piper's song would begin. He sat at the edge of the cemetery, where a crooked fence separated the world of the living from that of the dead. His body was bound with straw, his hands of bare bones, but his head was a pumpkin whose face glowed from within. With a flute made of dry twigs, he played melodies older than the village itself. Each note seemed to rise directly from the earth, where the bones of the forgotten rested. At his feet crouched two small skeletons, their ribs gleaming like golden lattices in the candlelight. Once they had been children, but now they looked up at the Piper with empty eye sockets, as if listening to a story meant only for them. To the beat of the music, they moved their skulls, sometimes gently, sometimes jerkily, like marionettes without strings. The pumpkins all around flickered with their grinning or screaming faces. Some muttered words no one understood, others spewed smoke like tired lungs. The smell of mustiness hung over everything, sweet and rotten at the same time, like the breath of a grave that was never closed. It was said that the Piper had once been a man, a gravedigger who could not bear his guilt. One autumn evening, so it was said, he carved the flute to silence the voices of the dead. But instead of peace, it brought only song – and since then, it played night after night, cursed to accompany his own guilt. That night, a boy came, too young to believe in fairy tales. He wanted to see the truth. He ducked between the fence slats and crept closer. The flute sang, and the air around him grew heavy. His legs no longer obeyed, they tried to keep time, his fingers twitched for an invisible string. A skeleton turned its head, its empty eye sockets filling with flickering light, as if to welcome him. "Why do you play if no one will dance?" the boy heard himself say, though his lips trembled. The piper lifted his pumpkin head. From the crack in his grinning mouth escaped a sound that was both a laugh and a groan. "Oh, they're already dancing," he answered, "in the flesh of those who listen. Once heard, my song never returns. It dwells in bones until they gather dust." The boy tried to run away, but his feet stuck to the pavement. The fog grabbed at him like cold fingers. Then the church clock struck midnight. With each stroke, the light in the pumpkin head flickered, the skeletons twitched, and the song stopped. For a heartbeat, the spell was broken.