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On a nice Spring day a stray dog sets in motion a series of unexpected events when he digs up and runs off with the forearm of Mr. Liu, a resident of the village’s old cemetery. In his pursuit of the purloined appendage, something he is too attached to (or was until recently) to easily part with, he brings the dead in contact with the living in a manner that is far too familiar and discomforting for those still imbued with their mortal coil. As the villagers and the deceased meet to come to terms that will return the dead to their proper place, events unfold that demonstrate that a lot can be learned from those who have gone before.

That was my synopsis of this delightful story, the first in author Carrie Cuinn’s new short story collection Women and Other Constructs, when I reviewed the collection for SF Signal a few weeks ago. This story has taken up residence in my mind over the past two weeks, chasing away (to some degree) awareness of the summer heat and stirring up feelings of autumn days and the kind of reading inspired by that season. I had originally planned to wait until September/October during the autumn-themed R.I.P. Challenge, but I simply cannot do so. I had to share this story now. The story in its delightful entirety can be found here for your reading pleasure.

The format of these longer, single-story posts is always a rambling discussion of what I see in the story and how I experienced it. I am by no means an expert and do not intend this to be taken as if I am assuming the stance of one. I am a fan of short stories, and those that capture my imagination and won’t let go need to be discussed in further detail than to simply say, “I like this.” I hope you’ll take a moment to read this story and come share your experiences with it. They will be uniquely your own and I look forward to reading about them.

Here is your usual “last chance” warning: There Be Spoilers Ahead.

You know how it is when you come across a story that feels like it was written just for you; you get that almost out-of-body experience where the story leaves you feeling like you are floating on air, or glowing, or whatever hyperbolic description that you go to in order to attempt (always feebly) to describe that electric feeling. That is what happened when I read “Mrs. Henderson’s Cemetery Dance”. I am a bit wary when sharing how one story reminds me of another creator’s work. When I do so I mean it as a compliment and often worry that were the author to discover it they would take it as an offense, as if their work were not unique. When I write that this story reminded me of The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman and of various scenes in Tim Burton’s stop-motion film, The Corpse Bride, it is not to in any way intimate that Carrie Cuinn was in any way inspired by these stories. What I am saying is that there is a kinship of props and characters as well as a kinship in the way all three of these pieces of art make me feel. It was an unexpected surprise in what I had assumed would be a collection of purely fantasy and science fiction tales, though why I assumed that I have no idea.

At any rate, it can be no surprise that walking corpses, some simply skeletal in form, caused Danny Elfman music to start playing in my head. That is not to say this is purely a light tale. There are moments of humor, and if your imagination allows for it moments of horror, but there is something deeper going on here.

The humor is what struck me first. Cuinn’s opening paragraphs, entailing the theft of Mr. Liu’s arm (another assumption: this character is named after author Ken Liu, no?) by a stray neighborhood dog and Mr. Liu’s reaction made me smile.

“That Mr. Liu was now quite unhappy should be of no surprise to anyone. It’s hard to give up a part of yourself, especially when you are still attached to it.”

I loved the phrasing of that line. It wouldn’t be too far-fetched to say that it was that line that sold me on the story. I was hooked then and there. The description of Mr. Liu’s hoarding personality that immediately followed also made me chuckle.

From there Carrie Cuinn begins introducing the other cast of characters, each a delightful new addition to the story for readers who see the same charm in this story that I did. They are character types, to be sure, but that is exactly what works so well in this story because this small village of people becomes the stand in for similar folks that we have all come across in our lives.

I thought young Mary Herbert’s reaction to the sighting of Mr. Liu was perfect. Unlike her fainting mom, she met the situation with the practicality of a young child and felt an immediate bond with Mr. Liu because of the fact that she too has been slighted by the same pesky pooch.

When the titular Mrs. Henderson enters the scene Cuinn wastes no time in revealing the crux of her story, though I must admit to seeing that now in retrospect. It wasn’t as plain the first time I read through that section of the story:

“As a young woman whose new husband had gone off to war and not come back, she knew a thing or two about being unwanted in this village.”

It is Mrs. Henderson who is immediately generous to the slighted Mr. Liu, who sees beyond what he appears to what he is, or what he was. On one hand it isn’t hard to understand and feel a degree of companionship with the reaction of the villagers. Use your imagination. What would it be like it truly dead people…not the animated skeleton’s of cartoons, but rotted, decaying corpses came up to you to have a chat? I think it would be easy to be horrified. It would be easy to want to drive them back to where they came from as soon as possible. It would be easy to take Mrs. Herbert’s way out and just faint.

But once they started talking to you and you knew who they were, wouldn’t you want to ask question? Carry on a decent conversation? The story lover in me right away wants to scream “no, don’t send them back! These are your ancestors. These are the people who paved a way for you! Think of what stories they could tell.” We soon learn that Mrs. Henderson is a recipient of the same treatment that the corpses are receiving. Anyone else want to strangle Mrs. Nickerson for spreading the superstition that it would be bad luck to buy a dead man’s clothes?

This is where we begin to see that in this quaint story of a group of polite and pleasant dead people coming out of their graves in an attempt to be supportive of a wrong perpetrated on one of their number by a stray dog there is actually something deeper going on. It is a not-so-thinly-veiled commentary on what people are sadly like to one another. The superstitions and nonsense of earlier times that we look back on and think “how could people believe this and treat one another this way?” is in reality no different than when we look askance at a fellow human being today. While we could, and perhaps should, see this story as one that points out our global prejudices that still exist, though the objects of those prejudices may change, we can also see this story as one that encourages us to look at the way we treat our neighbors, the people in our town, the one-on-one interactions we have with one another.

When Mrs. Henderson goes up to the old cemetery to take clothes to Mr. Liu and others, fulfilling the promise she made, she stays to listen to their stories for hours. Sure, this points to Mrs. Henderson being a polite, empathetic person, but I can also imagine that she is pretty lonely in that town and enjoyed being able to converse with people openly, people who were not judging her. I cannot help but wonder if the dead are more kind because they themselves were kind people or if they have simply benefited from a greater perspective about life and about judging others by virtue of their having died.

The story took a startling turn for me after the dance when the dead suddenly wanted a bride. I wasn’t sure exactly where Carrie Cuinn was going with the story but I had no expectations that dead may actually be dangerous in some way. It really was a shock. Until of course it was revealed to be a ruse to benefit Mrs. Henderson. I found that part of the story extremely clever. They used the villagers’ fears and selfishness against them, getting them to give up things of worth in the hopes of driving the dead back to their graves, a place they would have probably went anyway, and they did so in order to give Mrs. Henderson a new start. She was dying in the village herself, little better than one of the dead in the way she was being treated. And now she can start again. I loved that part of the story. Loved it even more when I read the line:

“She’s going to give it all to charity, isn’t she?” the old woman wearing Mr. Henderson’s socks asked with a sigh.

It made me like Mrs. Henderson even more.

“Mrs. Henderson’s Cemetery Dance” appeals to me for many reasons. One of which is that even though I don’t like really dark, graphic horror I do have a lot of affection for all the trappings of a good horror story. I prefer what could be called “gothic” tales and this story feels more like that type of story. I enjoy that there is an element of the eerie to this story, particularly in imagining what these corpses really looked like, but that the story itself is about people, about relationships, and not about being scary for the sake of being scary.

I like that the story has a bit of the melancholy woven within. It looks at goodbyes, partings, death…things that admittedly have elements of sadness and grief to them but are a part of all of our lives, something that ties us all together regardless of the way we treat one another.

I like the story because way in which Carrie Cuinn structures her sentences and her dialogue captures the time period in which the story is to have taken place. There are no wasted words here, every sentence conveys some aspect that is important to the overall story.

I like it because even though it isn’t a long story it tells a complete story. It satisfies. I like it because it shows that short fiction can be both fun and meaningful at the same time.

“Mrs. Henderson’s Cemetery Dance” is a new favorite and will be one I return to time and again. I hope you enjoyed it.

If you did, be sure to check out Women and Other Constructs. It can be found in print and ebook form, and as a bundle containing both, at bargain prices by ordering here.