His wrinkled skin seemed to soften. “Some nights—what nights!—we come alive! And now you have it. Hee-hee!” He slapped his wrist on his chipped patina.
“But,” I said. “But,” I said, and “why?” escaped, before I knew what to do with it. He laughed and shook his rattling neck, and motioned us forward with his arms.
“Come, come!” he cried. “Come, see! Come quick! Before we disappear once more!” He ushered us in to the adjoining room, one of six in a gallery of naves.
I have never imagined what I saw, and that is discounting the dancing corpses.
In each nave, stacked to the ceiling, rested the bones of 4,000 monks. The first room he showed us was of their skulls, piled and wedged in either corner. Finger bones hung from the ceiling in clawed chandeliers, light bulbs like electric flower bu
