It was difficult to hear the man, even as he shouted over the howling wind and blinding snow. Nicholas Moon could not make out all the words, but the general meaning was not lost on him. Still, he feigned ignorance as he leaned forward cupping his ear with his hand.

“Eh?”

“I said,” the large man shouted even louder, brandishing a heavy iron bar in his thick hands. “If you ain’t got any coin, you can bugger-off!”
 

“Yeah,” the smaller man standing next to him added as he thumbed over his shoulder. “Find you someplace else, we’re all full here.”

“There is nowhere else,” Nicholas replied as he ran his hands through his pockets, knowing in advance there was no money to be found there. The winds continued to whip the stinging snow into his eyes and he squinted at the two men as they bore down on him in the doorway. He could hear voices nearby.

“I—I don’t have any money,” Nicholas said shaking his head.

“What?” The smaller man leaned forward cupping his ear.

“I said I have no money,” Nicholas shouted, leaning toward the man,

“but I can play music, maybe I can play songs to earn my keep?” He gestured with his head to the violin case strapped to his back.

The smaller man only laughed.

“What did he say?” The large man leaned out of the doorway, hoping to be in on the joke.

“He said,” the smaller man chortled, “-that he would play songs for a spot by the fire.”

Now the big man laughed, much harder and louder than the first.

“We’re in a damn blizzard for Christ’s sake,” the big man sneered, widening his stance in the doorway. “This ain’t Albert Hall. Better off to break that fiddle up for kindling.”

“B—but I will freeze to death out here,” Nicholas countered as he rose on his toes to catch the distant flicker of a fire over the man’s shoulder somewhere deep within the building. The burned out husk of the old mill was large, and there was plenty of room, they had told him there was plenty of room.

“We don’t give a rats-arse what happens to you out here,” the big man said as he hefted the heavy iron bar and laid it across his shoulder. “It was me and Sully here that found this place, and if you want in—you pay like the rest.”

It was getting harder and harder to speak as Nicholas could no longer keep his teeth from chattering. “P—please sir… another hour or two out here would be a death sentence for me.”

“Not my concern,” the big man replied as the two of them withdrew into the gloomy interior and closed the door.

“Wait,” Nicholas cried as he interposed one foot against the door. “Some good Christian mercy I implore you—”

The big man laughed again as he threw his considerable bulk against the door pushing Nicholas’ foot across the snowy threshold until it stopped against the frame of the door, leaving only a small gap. The big man looked down at this and scowled, before resting his iron bar on the obstructing foot and leaning heavily on it, making Nicholas wince.

“If you want to keep that attached,” the big man said, pressing down even harder with the heavy bar, “-I suggest you move it.”

“Wait,” came another muffled voice from inside. “We’re all going to freeze in here if you don’t close that bloody door soon.”

The door swung open again and a third man stood between the previous two. He fished something out of his pocket and slapped it into the big man’s meaty hand.

“You been holding out on us Hamish?” The big man asked, but he smiled as he deposited the coin in his coat.

“You got your money,” the other man scowled. “Now let the poor man in and shut the damn door.”

The big man smiled a predatory grin full of yellow, uneven teeth. He bowed with mock sincerity as he stepped aside and lifted the end of the iron rod from Nicholas’ throbbing foot. He winked as he said,“Welcome good sir to what’s left of the Henry and Son Hosiery Mill—now the Bill Shanks dosshouse.”

This made the smaller man snort with amusement.

Nicholas wasted no time limping past the two men— as much from the numbness in his toes as the pain in one foot. Just to be out of those winds brought a sigh of relief from him even if the air inside was not much warmer. Looking around, he found himself in a small vestibule before the large open expanse of the old mill’s factory floor. Snow trickled in from gaps in the ceiling high above, and the wind groaned as it blew over them. He could see across the wide expanse of floor to another room, through which he saw the flickering promise of warmth.

“Come on now,” Nicholas felt a hearty clap on his back from the man they’d called Hamish, who grinned at him. “Let’s get as warm as can be found hereabouts, eh?”

Hamish led him through the factory floor, still littered with the blackened husks of old equipment heaped like skeletons crouched along the edges of the room. The floors and walls also bore evidence of whatever fire had gutted the place long ago. Ahead, he saw a long horizontal window in the wall with a moth-eaten blanket tacked up over it. The blanket was too small to cover the window completely, and through an exposed corner he saw flickering shadows dancing in the room beyond. Next to the window was a doorway also covered by old blankets, and it was through this Hamish led him.

The four men filed through the makeshift door and into the small room beyond, perhaps a foreman’s office once. Several more figures crouched on the floor, next to a small fire made within an old washtub. These turned, five in all, to regard them as they shuffled into the room. Nicholas paid them little heed and instead made for the nearest opening next to the fire. Rather than stretch his numb hands out toward it as the other men were now doing, he instead sat down and withdrew a small bundle from the interior of his coat. The others watched wordlessly as he laid it on the floor and unwrapped the tattered red scarf from around it. They gasped when it jerked and moved of its own accord.

A white plumed head appeared as he pulled off the scarf, and it pecked at his hand. Nicholas cursed under his breath as he withdrew his stinging fingers. The large white bird freed itself from the rest of the scarf on its own and peered around the room with rapid jerks of its snowy white head. It cawed several times and then ruffled its feathers, stamping back and forth on the uneven floorboards. Several of the others had leaned forward to see the bird more clearly when it suddenly exploded into flight, causing them all to startle and draw back. It circled the small room several times while they cringed or threw their hands over their heads. Finally, it settled on Nicholas’ shoulder where it cawed once more before turning its attention to preening its feathers.

“Look at the bird mum!” exclaimed a small voice, as a young girl emerged from one of the swaddles of blankets. A moment later, a second young girl emerged, identical to the first and asked, “What’s his name?”

“She has not told me,” Nicholas smiled down at the twin girls, and despite their shoddy clothes, their smiles were bright and cheerful on their ruddy brown faces.

“Bala, Bela!” a woman called out in a thick Indian accent. “Get back here and under the blankets.”

The twins withdrew into their mother’s outstretched arms and all but their curious faces disappeared into the heap of old rags and blankets. She continued to scold the girls in her own language, punctuated by clucks of her tongue and the shaking of her head.

Nicholas stretched his numb fingers toward the warm fire as he surveyed the surrounding room. It was barren of all but the washtub fire, and the ceiling timbers lay exposed high overhead where the smoke wafted into a second floor somewhere above. There were nine people total, counting himself, gathered around the fire. Hamish must have noticed his curious looks and cleared his throat.

“Right then, I suppose some kind of introductions are in order,” Hamish smiled, leaning forward as he offered his hand. “Name’s Hamish Talbot.”

Nicholas took his hand and shook it, and by the firelight he could make out the man’s bushy red eyebrows and thick muttonchops that made him look older than his bright eyes and youthful smile seemed to indicate. His handshake was firm and vigorous.

“Nicholas,” he replied to the shorter man, who released his hand. “Nicholas Moon.”

“You already met those two,” Hamish said with a jab of his thumb over his shoulder at the two men closest to the fire. “The big one’s called Bill Shanks, and the other fellow goes by the name of Sully.”

The two only glared at him from across the fire and Nicholas avoided their gazes by turning back to Hamish. “Yes— and thank you for your help out there.”

“No one deserves to freeze to death over the likes of those two,” Hamish muttered more loudly than Nicholas thought wise, although if the two men heard him they gave no sign.

Hamish then turned to the figure huddled to his left, “This here is Old Lizzie. They tossed her out of the same flat I was stayin’ and we both found this place.”

Nicholas saw only a thin wisp of a woman, wrinkled and white-haired as she stared into the fire. She threaded a beaded rosary in her withered hands as she mouthed a silent prayer and rocked back and forth where she sat.

“She don’t say much,” Hamish shrugged as he turned away and toward another woman with a shawl wrapped around her head seated next to her. “Miss Mae, wasn’t it?”

The lady’s head nodded and in the dim light he could see little other than her bright hazel eyes. She gave Nicholas only the briefest of appraisals before turning back toward the fire and pulling the blanket tighter around her shoulders.

“And you’ve seen little Bala and Bela,” Hamish said as he winked at them across the fire. “And you must forgive me ma’am, but I’ll just make a right mess of your name if it’s left up to me—”

“Rajisha,” the girls’ mother replied with a nod, and Nicholas could see even in the wan light she was quite lovely. The twins shifted around her and the blanket fell away from her head. In that brief instant, he saw a terrible scar running across her cheek that tugged at the corner of one eye. It was red and vivid in the firelight, and not long healed. She had been beautiful once he thought, as she pulled the blanket back up over her head, and he felt his cheeks redden when he realized he’d been caught staring at her.

“Can we pet your bird?” one of the twins asked as they both poked their heads out further.

“Well,” Nicholas began as he eyed the bird from the corner of his eye. “It is not my bird to be honest. Someone asked me to keep an eye on it.”

“What kind of bird is it?” asked the other twin.

“It is a raven,” Nicholas replied as she gave him an incredulous look.

“I thought ravens were black,” she said.

“Most are.” Nicholas smiled at her as he reached up to stroke the bird’s head. The raven cawed and pecked at his hands once more, causing him to jerk back and put one finger in his mouth as he winced. “And she bites.”

The twins laughed at this until their mother quieted them with a scowl.
“In my homeland we believe ravens to be the spirits of our ancestors,” and as she spoke she withdrew something from within the blankets.Her hand emerged holding a sprig of what looked like watercress. “Will you allow me to make an offering? I think we could all use any help we can get.”

Nicholas leaned across the fire and took the watercress from her hand. When he offered it to the raven it pounced upon it, much to the delight of the twins.

“Thank you,” Nicholas said to her, and she bowed her head.

“Pagan nonsense,” came a thin voice over the crackle of the fire. It had been Old Lizzie’s voice, but when he turned to look at her she only continued to stare into the flames.

“So what are you and your bird doing out in all of this?” Came Sully’s reedy voice from the opposite side of the fire. He had produced a bottle in his hand and had passed it back and forth with Bill Shanks. Nicholas could smell the reek of cheap whisky.

“I ran out of coin to pay the dosshouse,” Nicholas shrugged. “Too many folks tryin’ to get in out of the cold to put a man up who can’t pay.”

“Lucky for you that a charitable spirit had that one for your rent in our own fine establishment,” Sully laughed as he looked up at Bill.

“Course, come morning you may well need his help again,” Bill added, scowling through the flames. “Won’t be any charity from this end.”

“Surely the storm will break by then?” Hamish quipped, trying to ease the tension. “It’s been two bloody days already—and in the middle of March no less.”

Many of the others nodded their heads in agreement, even as the wind howled outside unabated. The storm would make the building groan and tremble, and the makeshift covers over the window and a door leading out to the factory floor would bellow in and out with the draft.
A silence fell over them for a time until a terrific crash on the floor above them made everyone jump.

“There be a lot of snow piling up on this old roof,” Hamish muttered as he followed Nicholas’ gaze upward.

“I ain’t worried ‘bout the roof so much as this fire dyin’ out,” Bill Shanks muttered as he rose to his feet. He nudged Sully with one hand as he took up the heavy iron bar with the other. “Let’s go pry up some more of those floorboards out front.”

“What?” Sully sputtered as he pulled the bottle away from his mouth and wiped it with the back of one hand. “Why we got to freeze our balls off? Why not those two?” he whined as he pointed to Hamish and Nicholas.

“Cause I ain’t givin’ them my bar,” Bill glowered at the smaller man.“Now get off your ass!”

Sully took one more heavy pull from his whisky bottle, replacing the cork and rising on unsteady feet.

“I’d mind that whisky friend,” Hamish said as he moved past him. “It may make you feel warm now, but you’ll be all the colder when it thins the blood.”

“Piss off,” Sully sneered without turning as he disappeared behind Bill through the makeshift door.

The night wore on with excruciating slowness as it grew ever colder, and the winds and snow continued to batter the old mill. Everyone crowded around the fire and each other as closely as they could, creating an island of depleting warmth in the vast sea of merciless cold.

Rajisha sat huddled with her two daughters bundled to either side, and all three slept fitfully in the gloom. Old Lizzie and Miss Mae leaned against one another side by side, as the former slept with her head on the other’s shoulder, and the latter stared into the fire. Bill Shanks and Sully sat with their backs to one another as Sully slept off some of the whisky and Bill continued to nurse the bottle.

Hamish and Nicholas sat shivering together beneath the same old blanket, having just returned from outside to refill the battered tin pail with snow they melted near the fire for water.

“How d’you end up here Hamish?” Nicholas asked as he passed the cup of water to him.

“Much the same as you I imagine,” he said, nodding his thanks for the cup and taking several deep gulps. “Just born unlucky, and even worse—poor.” He smiled and passed the cup back.

“My mother came from the lowlands of Scotland and married an Englishman when she came here to London. They’d made tallow for candles and soap. Typhoid came and took my mum when I was ten, and me Pa drown himself in his cups a couple years after.”

Hamish saw the sad look in Nicholas’ eyes and laughed, clapping him on the back. “No need for such a long face my friend, lots of folks had it worse than me. I got me a good job, just been out of work a few weeks is all. Got myself work in a Jewish tailor’s shop—cuttin’ and sewin’—it’s long hours, but the pay is fair. Problem is, the shops been closed these last three weeks and I couldn’t make the rent. The tailor’s daughter seemed to have married a scoundrel and there was quite the scandal when his mistress turned up strangled. So Mr. Kahn, my employer, closed up for a while to sort things out—but he’s promised me he’ll reopen soon enough. Folks always need clothes, eh?”

Nicholas returned the man’s smile and found Hamish to be a likeable fellow. He admired his unshaking optimism, despite the bleakness of their current circumstances.

“What about you?” Hamish returned. “There’s a bit of an accent to your tongue, but I can’t quite place it.”

“I was born near Paris, but my mother was Romani—a gypsy,” Nicholas began. “She too fell for an Englishman, although they were never married. Her family had come north from Spain and there were many languages spoken in our camp. My father had been a musician. That’s his violin I carry.” He nodded to the case leaning against the wall.

“Consumption took him when I was still a boy, but mother still lives as far as I know,” Nicholas said as he dipped the cup into the pail of water again. “She is the one who bade me come to England and learn from my father’s tribe. She had told me she had a vision I would find my destiny among my father’s people.”

“Destiny?” Hamish chortled. “Ain’t met a man with a destiny before.”

“We all have a destiny,” Nicholas replied with enough solemnity to quiet the other man for a moment. “Even you, Hamish.”

Hamish grinned at the other man, and they lapsed back into silence for a time. The white raven emerged from the crook in Nicholas’ arm and foraged along the floor for food, cawing in a bad temper when nothing was to be found. This made them both laugh until Hamish reached into the folds of his jacket and produced a few crumbs of stale bread he tossed to the eager bird.

“And that thing?” Hamish raised his eyebrows at Nicholas.

Nicholas met his gaze but shook his head smiling, “I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you.”

Hamish laughed, but reined himself in lest he wake those who were trying to sleep. “Well—we still have several hours yet till dawn.”

Nicholas nodded his head, “The short of it is, a pair of powerful spirits saved my life on a rooftop one night, and in return they made me swear an oath I’d look after the bird.”

Hamish leaned back and reappraised the man sitting next to him.

Nicholas seemed as leveled-headed as he, but did not so much as blink an eye when he said it. Nicholas leaned back as well matching his stare, and Hamish smiled back at him.

“I think my friend,” Hamish said, patting him on the back. “I will need to hear the long of it—”

Nicholas laughed in return and passed the cup of water to him, “Well, let me start by saying you should stay well away from the Lucky Thunder.”

Hamish’ brow drew together, “It’s an opium den isn’t it?”

Nicholas looked surprised, “You’ve heard of it?”

Hamish was about to reply when a woman’s startled voice interrupted.

“What the hell are you doing?” she cried.

They looked up to see Miss Mae had leapt to her feet in front of a very surprised looking Bill Shanks.

“Come on love,” he slurred, as he reached toward her with one hand.

“Ole’ Bill was just gonna make sure you stayed plenty warm is all.”

“You stay away from me William Shanks,” she hissed as she backed away.

“Nobody calls me William,” he growled and stumbled forward.

“Black Tom did,” she spat and William Shanks paused, looking at her curiously.

“How do you know Black Tom?” He asked as his eyes narrowed.

“Oh, I knew all of you damn Hooligan Boys,” she said as she reached up and removed the shawl from around her face.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Bill said dumbfounded, “If it ain’t Little Mollie from Miss Sybil’s place.”

“You will be damned William Shanks, you and all of Black Tom’s boys,” she said as she turned in the firelight and they could all see that the left side of her face had been burned and now bore the ragged texture of the scars it left behind. “You can go to hell for setting fire to that place and killing those poor girls.”

Bill took a step back in shock as he raised his hands, “You wait just a minute. We didn’t set no fire. It was something else that came into Madam Sybil’s that night… it killed Black Tom and the rest of the boys too—”

A knife flashed in Mollie’s hand from somewhere.
 

“I should gut you where you stand for what happen to those girls. They were my friends...”

Mollie advanced on him, and Bill Shanks retreated until his back was against the wall, but his hand closed over the iron bar leaning there and his face flushed with anger.

I ain’t gonna take no guttin’ from some tart,” and as he spoke, he hefted the heavy bar in both hands and Mollie stepped back. Hamish and Nicholas both shot to their feet and everyone was now awake and watching the two circle one another.

“Easy now,” Hamish said as he approached the two. “We are all just—”

Mollie lunged at Bill, but he caught her by the wrist and squeezed until she grimaced and dropped the knife on the floor. He smiled at her as he drew her closer raising the iron bar till it touched the ruined side of her face.

“Now you listen to me—”

There was a sudden loud shudder as the entire building seemed to groan at once in pain. Then came a terrific crash from high overhead. One of the twins screamed and suddenly the world came crashing down on all of them.

Everywhere there was darkness, and it was suffocating. Nicholas found that he could not move, and he could not be certain if it was the crushing weight of the snow, or that his limbs had grown so numb and cold as to be unresponsive. Sparks of light exploded before his eyes as he gasped for air. When he opened his mouth, it only filled with more snow, choking him. He could feel his mind dimming as the pall of death slipped over him, his thoughts growing sluggish.

So this is death, his mind thought languidly, before strong hands seized him by the ankles and hauled him feet first from the snow.
Nicholas gasped for air as the storm howled and raged around him. He panted on his hands and knees in the deepening snow, his vision slowly returning, although he could see next to nothing in the swirling darkness.

“And that makes nine,” he heard Bill Shanks say as he reached down and hauled him to his unsteady feet.

Nicholas reached up to brush the snow from his face and eyes, and could only just make out the hulking silhouette of the man beside him. He felt a strong arm around him and it helped him to stagger away from the collapse and toward where it looked like a portion of one wall still stood.

“The others?” Nicholas croaked.

“By some miracle we are all accounted for,” Bill replied as he set him down in the feeble shelter provided by the crumbling wall. In the gloom, the others were only shadows huddled around him, all of them freezing to death.

“Not a miracle,” he heard Hamish say beside him. “It was Big Bill that pulled us all from the collapse.”

Nicholas wished he could see the expression on Bills face as Hamish said this, but the shadows clung to him in the darkness. It came as quite a shock that the same man who earlier seemed content to let him freeze to death over a few coins, had now been his savior. And how many of the others had he saved?

“Not that it matters now,” he heard Sully whine from somewhere close by. “This storm will finish us all off for sure.”

This proclamation started the twins crying, and Nicholas scowled at him in the dark. Still, it was hard to refute the truth. The cold wind cut through them even as they huddled together behind the low wall, and while it had been miserable before, now it felt like hell. The small pitiful fire had been their only bulwark against the ruthless ferocity of the storm. It had been such a tenuous lifeline, and now it was gone.

From what little he could make out in the darkness and snow, he could see that the women were all huddled together against the wall with the twins inside a protective ring consisting of their mother, Old Lizzie, and Mollie Mae. He had to admire the instinct that drew them together to protect the youngest, and most vulnerable of them. The men were far less coherent, with Sully still somehow nursing the bottle he had saved from the collapse and Bill standing next to him, —looking out into the darkness. Hamish had risen and wandered out into the open too, also peering into the gloom for some kind of light, some kind of hope.

A harsh cry broke through the howling wind. Nicholas and the others looked up to see the barely visible form of the white raven against the night sky overhead and then settling on an exposed beam of wood jutting up from the snow. Again and again the raven cried out as it paced back and forth on its perch, its eyes probing the ground below. Nicholas rose and left the feeble warmth of the huddled bodies, staggering out into the snow toward the bird. He followed its gaze and knelt down in the snow, sifting through it with numb fingers. Nicholas felt it as his hand at last closed over a familiar shape; he looked up at the raven and gave the faintest of smiles as he pulled the violin case from the snow.

The white raven cawed once more and then leapt down to land on his shoulder. Nicholas dragged the violin case back with him to the meager shelter of the wall and laid it down in the accumulating snow. Reverently, he opened the case, caressing the polished wood of the battered old violin with his fingertips. He could sense, more than see, the others peering at him from the shadows. He could sense the others watching him too.

He closed his eyes and could feel them very near now, even closer than when he’d first set foot in the factory. They had been keeping some distance from him, biding their time, exercising patience only the dead could know. Their whispers intruded upon his thoughts, their voices plaintive and beseeching, just like the desperate eyes of the surrounding survivors.

The others watched as Nicholas nodded his head several times as though in conversation with someone. They saw him take up his bow and rosin its strings even as his hands shook from the bitter cold. He lifted the violin from its case and brought it to rest beneath his chin, and as it settled there, he stopped shivering. They could not see his smile, only the nodding of his head. Yes, yes, he reassured them… all in good time.

Before he brought the bow to the strings, he plucked a few careful notes with his fingers. The others lifted their heads, realizing how strange it was that they could hear so delicate a sound over such howling winds. When at last he pulled the bow across the strings, it seemed the entire storm was muted so it too, could listen. The purity of those notes rendered all other sounds as no more than the grey pallor of the gloom that closed in around them. The others stared at him in mute wonder as he stood and took up the song.

Whereas they might have expected some terrible dirge, a prelude to the death that would soon come for them, they instead heard a song that was about awakening, of rising up and shaking off the cold sleep of death. As they listened transfixed, they saw tiny points of light begin to manifest in the distant gloom. Their hearts swelled at the thought they might be lanterns of someone who could rescue them from their plight, but that seemed impossible in the blinding snow. The lights swelled as they grew nearer, growing larger and seeming to pulse in time to the rhythm of the music.

A gasp resonated through the others as they looked on, and Nicholas heard Hamish whisper the question they all wondered.

“What is it?”

“Have courage,” Nicholas whispered back, each of them audible to the other even when wind and distance should have made it impossible.

“They can save you—but only if you have courage.”

“They?” Hamish asked confused, and as he watched the lights took on more discernable shapes, ghostly figures gathering all around them, their spectral forms leaving no tracks in the snow.

“He is calling up the dead,” they heard Old Lizzie shriek. “He is a necromancer. He will damn us all!”

Nicholas ignored her and continued to play, smiling as they drew closer, their familiar energies mixing with his own. He took several steps back toward the survivors that huddled together terrified now, the freezing cold forgotten. “They might appear terrifying at first, for they bear the marks of the misfortunes that killed them, but if you hold fast and have courage, you will see them as they once were… no different from you or I.”

The first of the glowing apparitions glided up next to Nicholas, the figure was hazy and indistinct, although the others shrank away from it in terror. Nicholas turned toward the huddled survivors, “Do not be afraid. They will not hurt you, and may in fact be your only hope of surviving the night, for they crave your warmth every bit as much as you will need theirs.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Old Lizzie spat. “Better to freeze in this cold and later feel God’s loving embrace than partake of this devilry—and be damned for all eternity.”

“They are not devils,” Nicholas said over the frenzied song of his violin.

“My mother called them the Mulani— the souls of the lost.”

“Mulani?” Rajisha said bewildered. “My… I mean, our surname is Mulani. What does that mean?”

“I do not know,” Nicholas replied. “but my mother’s ancient tribe came from a place far in the east, perhaps not so far from you?”

Rajisha stood and pulled the twins up next to her, approaching Nicholas and the apparition. “Can you save my children?”

“I cannot,” Nicholas replied. “But they can.”

As they watched, the apparition became more and more distinct taking on the features of a sunken and sallow faced man, his eyes blackened and his cheeks hollow. From his mouth, a trickle of blood flowed.

Rajisha recoiled from it.

“You must have courage,” Nicholas insisted. “His death mask is no more terrible than your own will be someday—you must turn and face it.”
Rajisha turned back toward the apparition and forced herself to meet its sunken gaze.

“His name was Percy, and he worked in the factory until the damp air they pumped inside to keep the thread from drying out infected his lungs.”

She continued to match the apparition’s stare and watched in amazement as his cheeks filled out and his eyes grew more lustrous. Slowly, he cast aside his death mask and smiled at her with the features of a healthy middle-aged man, not unhandsome with his thick moustache and bright eyes. He bowed to her and offered his hand. She looked nervously at Nicholas as he played on.

“Dance with him and he will keep the cold at bay,” Nicholas said smiling. “The chill of such winds as these is nothing to one who has known the cold of the grave.”

Rajisha cast one more nervous glance at her girls.

“They can dance too,” Nicholas assured her.

Rajisha curtsied to the man and took his offered hand. He pulled her close to him and danced to the hypnotic music of the violin, only one set of footprints tracing their path across the snow.

Nicholas glanced down at the twins huddled together at his feet, looking back and forth between their mother and him. He did his best to smile at them and altered his tune so that two new points of light coalesced in front of them. Two boys appeared out of the ghostly light. One looked pale and sick, while the other was missing an arm. The two girls cried out in fear, but their mother spoke to them in their own tongue and somehow soothed away some of their terror. As they continued to look on, the boys looked whole and healthy once more.

“This is Tom and his brother Edward,” Nicholas told the two girls. “Tom lost his arm in an accident at the mill and an infection stopped his heart. His little brother caught pneumonia that same winter, but has kept him company all this time.”

The two boys bowed and offered their arms, and the twins hesitated—but with a reassuring word from their mother, they joined in the dance. Nicholas turned back toward the others.

“Who else will join the dance?”

Mollie stood up and shuffled through the snow toward him, looking both fearful and somehow resolute. Nicholas nodded and altered his tune so that another point of light drew nearer.

As the form of this one coalesced, she could see he had been burned when he died, and unconsciously she brought a hand up to her own scarred face. She did not blink or turn away from him at all until at last he stood before her a bright and cheerful young man. She did not seem to need an introduction, and it was she who curtsied first and offered her hand, which the apparition took in his own with a smile and whisked her into the dance.

“Who else will join?”

Both Bill Shanks and Hamish stepped forward together at the same time and Nicholas once more brought two points of light from the darkness. A young lady, terrible at first, but quickly beautiful—took Bill Shanks’ arm and pulled him into the dance. He smiled and even laughed as she led him into the throng. In front of Hamish a young man appeared, vibrant and young after the cruel slash across his throat had vanished. Hamish looked at Nicholas, seeming both unsure and embarrassed. Nicholas smiled back at him.

“I do not pick them for you,” he said with a wink. “It is they who do the choosing. Now dance, Hamish.”

Hamish took the young man’s arm with a smile and joined in the dance.

Nicholas turned back to the remaining two. Old Lizzie drew her blanket tight around her and refused to meet his gaze, turning instead to face the wall. Sully at last stood up and walked with hesitant steps toward the dance.

Another light broke away from the others and coalesced before him. She was burned much like the man who even now danced with Mollie, perhaps in the same fire that had consumed the factory. Sully screamed in terror as he beheld her blackened and peeling flesh, recoiling as her arms reached out for him.

“You must have courage,” Nicholas tried to reassure him, but he only continued to back away, his head shaking back and forth. At last he ran off into the darkness screaming, blind to the beautiful young lady that at last came into focus with a sad and tear-filled expression upon her face.

“Lizzie?” Nicholas asked of the huddled shape against the wall.

“I’ll have none of your sorcery,” she hissed as she held the rosary before her, but refused to meet his gaze. “I will freeze to this wall before I take the hand of the devil!”

Nicholas shook his head as much as the violin would allow and turned back to the dance. He stepped into the circle as many other gathered lights joined with him. Beyond the pale radiance, he could see another spirit. She wore a long black dress and veil, and he altered his song to call her into the dance, but she shook her head and he realized she was something different altogether.

He played throughout the remaining hours of the night until his fingers bled. He played even as his arms ached and he felt he would collapse from exhaustion, but each time he stumbled pale luminous hands would catch him, each time he thought he might fall they held on to him and lent him their strength.

And sometime, just before dawn, —the storm broke.

As the sun crawled over the snowy horizon, the ghostly dancers grew pale. They bowed and curtsied and did their best to bid their silent adieus.

Nicholas at last let his bow rest, and he fell to his knees in the snow, the violin slipping from his bloody fingers. He watched as tears fell from Mollie’s eyes when she saw her partner fade away in the morning light. Bill Shanks called after his young lady again and again, but she could not answer him. Hamish only stood in mute silence, staring at the ground where the young man had made his last bow.

It was Rajisha Mulani that helped him to his feet, her daughters taking up his bow and violin and returning them to their case. She took her scarf and tore it in two, wrapping each of his bleeding hands in the silk.

“You saved us,” she said kissing him on the cheek. “You saved all of us.”

Nicholas sagged into her arms, with no strength remaining in his body. He had not saved them all he knew. Old Lizzie had died in her sleep when the cold had at last stopped her heart, and Sully had fallen into a nearby culvert and frozen to death. He could sense them both nearby; he could feel their shock, their sadness, and their eagerness to join the dance.