Death Is My Dancing Partner

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Crouched within the slanting diagonal shadow that bisected the temple doorway like a dark blue guillotine-blade, she stood waiting her turn to go down the steps and perform. She was Mari, and she did the Dance of Death. No one else could do it. No one else would do it, dreading what might befall. They had started training her for it when she was nine, and she was nineteen now.

Every once in a while she would edge forward a little and peer down. Not at the other girls posturing weirdly in stylized dance there on the platform midway down the steps. She’d seen them do it a thousand times. Not at the little group of cruise-ship passengers standing below in the courtyard. She’d seen groups like that dozens of times. Just at him.

She couldn’t take her eyes off him. She’d seen him when he came in with the others, and they dutifully took off their shoes just before the entrance, as custom prescribed. First she’d just glanced at him. Then her look came back, and back, and back, and stayed longer each time.

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