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                   MARIGOLDS BY MOONLIGHT
                        Short Story

                   by Julio Lonnie Lopez
                            2003
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A ghost story for the Festival of Souls

The ghost train arrived with the morning mist, its wheels
kissing rails that existed only one day each year. Marco
stood in the doorway of the passenger car, watching dawn
crack open the sky like a pomegranate, spilling pink and
gold across the fairgrounds below. The Festival of Souls was
awakening, and with it, his annual day among the living.

He descended onto a platform that smelled of marigolds and
copal incense, his footsteps soundless despite the ancient
wooden boards beneath his feet. Other passengers—souls
like him—dispersed into the growing light, but Marco knew
exactly where he was going. He always did.

The Ferris wheel stood sentinel at the heart of the
fairgrounds, its skeleton frame gradually taking shape
against the brightening sky. Elena would be there, at their
spot, just as she had been every year since his death. Just
as she would be until her own time came—hopefully many
festivals from now.

He saw her before she saw him. Elena had aged another year,
silver threads now woven through her dark hair, laugh lines
deepening at the corners of her eyes. She was more beautiful
than ever. His heart would have skipped a beat if it still
beat at all.

"You're late," she said without turning around, a smile in
her voice. "I was beginning to think you'd found another
festival to haunt."

"The train runs on its own schedule," Marco replied, moving
to stand beside her. The morning air stirred her hair, and
he fought the familiar urge to reach out and brush it from
her face. That was forbidden—their eternal punishment for
cheating death once before. "Besides, I think we both know
there's nowhere else I'd rather be."

The festival was coming alive around them. Food vendors lit
their grills, sending the scent of cooking meat and corn
into the air. Carnival workers tested their rides, music
boxes cranking to life with tinny melodies. Paper banners
fluttered overhead, and somewhere in the distance, church
bells began to toll.

That's when Marco saw him for the first time that day—a
tall figure in a black coat, standing motionless amid the
morning bustle. Death never missed their annual reunion, and
Marco sometimes wondered if their chaperone derived some
pleasure from watching this strange romance unfold year
after year.

"You look well," Marco said, turning back to Elena. He
gestured to a newly installed mirror maze nearby, its
entrance adorned with twisted brass and colored glass. "Care
for a walk?"

Elena's eyes crinkled with amusement. "Still trying to get
lost with me after all these years?"

"Always."

As they walked toward the maze, Marco caught their
reflection in one of the external mirrors. Elena appeared
solid and real, while his own image was slightly
transparent, like a photograph beginning to fade. In the
corner of the mirror, Death's reflection watched them,
closer now than before.

"Tell me about your year," Marco said as they entered the
maze, their parallel paths separated by glass. "Tell me
everything I missed."

Elena's reflection smiled, and she began to speak, her words
filling the mirrored corridor with life as the festival day
stretched out before them, precious and brief as a candle
flame.

"My youngest started high school this year," Elena said, her
voice echoing softly off the mirrors. "She reminds me so
much of who I was back then—who we were. Always rushing
headlong into everything, thinking she's immortal."

Marco watched Elena's reflection pause before a mirror where
their images seemed to stand side by side, an illusion of
closeness. "Immortal," he echoed. "We really thought we
were, didn't we?"

"Until that night." Elena's hand rose to her throat, an
unconscious gesture she made whenever she thought about it.
"Sometimes I wonder if my girls have guardian angels
watching over them the way I did."

"Had," Marco corrected gently. "Past tense. I'm hardly an
angel now."

They emerged from the maze into a section of the festival
that was fully awake now. Children darted past with painted
faces, carrying sugar skulls and paper flowers. A mariachi
band struck up a familiar tune—one that had been popular
the year Marco died. He noticed Elena's steps slow to the
rhythm of it, muscle memory from a time when they might have
danced together.

"You never did tell me," she said, watching a young couple
swing past, the girl's skirts flaring like flower petals.
"What made you do it? You barely knew me then. We'd only
spoken a few times in class, and most of those conversations
involved you copying my algebra homework."

Before Marco could answer, a cold shadow fell across them.
Death had drawn closer, standing now at a nearby ring toss
booth, his dark coat incongruous among the festival colors.
The morning sun seemed to dim slightly in his presence.

"Maybe this is the year I finally tell you," Marco said,
leading them toward a quieter corner of the fairgrounds.
Food stalls here were selling pan de muerto and hot
chocolate, the sweet scent of anise and cinnamon filling the
air. "But first—tell me more about your girls. The last
time I saw them, the youngest was still learning to walk."

Elena laughed, the sound carrying over the festival noise
like music. "You're still deflecting after all these years.
Fine, I'll tell you about my daughters. But then it's your
turn. No more waiting."

She settled onto a bench, careful to leave space between
them—always conscious of their forbidden proximity. Marco
remained standing, his slightly transparent form casting no
shadow in the strengthening sunlight. As Elena spoke about
her children, her work, the small details of her living
existence, he watched the sun climb higher in the sky. Each
year their time seemed to pass more quickly, like water
through cupped hands.

Death had moved again, now watching from behind a row of
paper lanterns. His presence was a reminder that every
moment was borrowed, each word between them a luxury
purchased at a price neither of them fully understood. But
as Marco listened to Elena describe her daughter's first
dance, her youngest's soccer victories, he knew he would pay
that price again without hesitation.

The memory of that night rose in his mind, sharp as broken
glass. Perhaps it was finally time to tell her everything.

"It was during this festival," Marco began, watching a sugar
skull vendor arrange his wares. Each tiny candy skull seemed
to grin up at him knowingly. "Fifteen years ago. I was
different then."

"You were angry," Elena said softly. "Everyone could see
it."

"Angry doesn't begin to cover it. I was a ghost already,
just didn't know it yet. Running with Los Muertos, dealing
their poison, watching people destroy themselves and telling
myself it didn't matter." He paused, his transparent form
seeming to flicker in the strengthening sunlight. "Until I
saw you that night."

The festival swirled around them, present and past bleeding
together like watercolors. The same carnival music played
now as it had then, an eternal loop of accordions and
guitars. Even the smell was the same—churros and copal,
marigolds and smoke.

"I remember," Elena said. "I was helping at the church
booth, selling tamales for the youth group. You kept walking
past, pretending not to look."

Marco smiled, but there was pain in it. "I wasn't looking at
you. I was watching the men following you. Three of them,
Los Muertos soldiers who'd been kicked out of the gang for
being too brutal—if you can imagine such a thing. They'd
seen you refusing to pay their protection money at your
family's shop. They had plans for you."

Elena's hand went to her throat again. "I never saw them."

"That was the point. They waited until you were walking
home, where the festival lights didn't reach." Marco's voice
had grown distant, lost in the memory. "I followed too. Told
myself I was just curious. Told myself it wasn't my
business. Told myself a lot of things. But when they moved,
I was already stepping between you and the first knife."

He paused, his transparent fingers flexing as if remembering
the impact. "I died thinking I'd failed. Thinking I'd just
delayed what they wanted to do to you. But Death came to me
with an offer. A bargain, really. He said he could see that
I'd lived fifteen years dead inside, and only that one
moment had made me truly alive. He said he could give me a
way to stay in the world, to protect you and the life you
were meant to have. A second chance that wasn't actually a
second life."

"What bargain?" Elena asked, though something in her eyes
suggested she already knew the answer.

"In return, I had to make sure you lived a full life. The
life you were meant to have before Los Muertos marked you.
Had to watch over you all year as a spirit, unseen, ensuring
no more harm came to you. A guardian angel in
reverse—damned first, blessed after."

Tears had gathered in Elena's eyes, but they didn't fall.
The festival lights reflected in them like stars. "All these
years," she said, "I thought I just got lucky that night. I
thought you happened to be there, happened to help, happened
to die trying to save a stranger." She shook her head
slowly. "But you chose. You chose me over everything else."

"I chose to stop being a ghost," Marco corrected her. "I was
already dead inside before that knife touched me. You just
gave me a reason to live, even if it was only for a few
minutes."

The sun had reached its zenith now, casting no shadows
except for Death's, which seemed to stretch unnaturally long
across the festival grounds. The eternal being had drawn
closer still, now standing beside a high striker game where
carnival-goers tested their strength.

Elena stood suddenly. "Come with me," she said, moving
toward the Ferris wheel that had been their meeting spot for
fifteen years. The operator was the same ancient man who
worked it every festival, his weathered face painted like a
skull, his eyes knowing as he nodded to them both.

"Two riders," Elena said, placing her ticket in his
skeletal-painted hand. She stepped into one of the swinging
cars, and Marco took the seat opposite her, careful to
maintain their prescribed distance even as the small space
forced them into proximity.

The wheel began to turn, lifting them above the festival
sprawl. Up here, the sounds of celebration muted into a
distant symphony. Even Death remained below, a dark spot
among the swirling colors.

"I want to show you something," Elena said as they rose
higher. She rolled up her sleeve, revealing a tattoo Marco
had never seen before. It was small, elegant—a marigold
flower intertwined with a skull. "I got this last month. Do
you know why?"

Marco shook his head, transfixed by the image.

"Because I finally understood. Every good thing in my
life—my children, my home, my years of living—they're
all marigolds that bloomed from your skull." Her voice
caught. "I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you, Marco. Not
just because you saved me that night, but because you've
been saving me ever since."

The Ferris wheel stopped with their car at the very top. The
festival spread out below them like a tapestry, and beyond
it, the town where they'd both grown up. Where one of them
had died and the other had lived.

"I see you sometimes," she continued. "Not clearly, but... a
shadow at my daughters' school plays. A cool breeze during
their soccer games. A sense of presence when I'm walking
alone at night." She smiled through her tears. "My girls
think I have a guardian angel. They have no idea their
mother is haunted by the best kind of ghost."

Marco's transparent hands gripped the safety bar. The urge
to reach for her was almost unbearable. "Elena..."

"I need you to know something," she said, her voice steady
now. "Every year, I wait for this festival. Not because of
guilt or obligation, but because this day—these few hours
we get—they're the marigold blooming from death itself.
And I wouldn't trade them for anything."

Below them, Death had moved to the base of the Ferris wheel.
The sun was beginning its slow descent toward afternoon,
their precious time slipping away like grains in an
hourglass.

As evening approached, the festival lights began to flicker
on one by one, like earthbound stars. Marco and Elena walked
the grounds one last time, past the carnival games and food
stalls that would soon fade back into the realm of spirits.
The mariachi band played slower songs now, music for endings
and goodbyes.

Death no longer tried to be subtle about his presence. He
walked openly behind them, his dark coat untouched by the
dust and shifting lights of the festival. His footsteps made
no sound, but Marco could feel the weight of time in each
one.

"We never did get to dance," Elena said suddenly, stopping
near the bandstand. The musicians were playing an old love
song, one that had been popular when they were both sixteen
and alive and full of possibilities. "All these years, and
we never once danced."

Marco watched young couples swaying to the music, their
shadows long in the sunset light. "We couldn't," he reminded
her gently. "The rules—"

"I know the rules," she said. "But maybe we can make our own
kind of dance." She moved to stand in front of him, careful
to keep their prescribed distance. Then she began to sway to
the music, her feet tracing patterns in the festival dust.

Marco understood. He matched her movements, their bodies
flowing to the same rhythm without ever touching. Around
them, the festival-goers seemed to fade away until it was
just the two of them, dancing separately together in the
gathering dusk.

Death watched from beside the bandstand, and Marco thought
he saw the eternal being nod slightly, almost approvingly.

The song ended. In the distance, a whistle sounded—the
ghost train, arriving for its return journey.

"Just a moment more," Marco said, not to Elena but to Death.
The being inclined his head, granting the small mercy.

Elena's eyes shone in the twilight. "Next year," she said,
"I'll tell you about all the times I felt you watching over
the girls. All the moments I knew you were there."

"Next year," Marco agreed, though they both heard the
unspoken truth in those words. One day—maybe next year,
maybe ten years from now—Elena wouldn't be here to meet
him. She would have lived her full life, as promised, and
pass beyond even his ability to follow.

"The train's waiting," Death said, speaking for the first
time. His voice was not unkind.

Marco nodded. "Let me watch her leave," he said softly.
"Please. Just once, let me be the one who stays."

Death considered this, then stepped back, granting the
request.

Elena understood. She smiled at Marco one last time, then
turned and walked away through the festival crowds. He
watched her go—past the ring toss where they'd first met
as teenagers, past the mirror maze where they'd walked that
morning, past the Ferris wheel that had witnessed fifteen
years of their impossible love story.

Just before she disappeared into the gathering darkness, she
paused and looked back. In that moment, she was both the
young girl he'd saved and the woman who'd lived because of
it, both the life he'd lost and the reason he'd found
meaning in death.

Then she was gone, and Death's hand was on Marco's shoulder,
gentle as a fall of snow.

"Until next year?" Marco asked, not moving yet.

"Until next year," Death confirmed. "You chose well, all
those years ago."

Together, they walked to the ghost train that would carry
Marco back to his year of watching, guarding, loving from
afar. The festival lights dimmed behind them, and somewhere
in the distance, church bells began to toll, counting out
the end of their borrowed time.

But in the dust of the festival ground, two sets of
footprints remained for a moment—one solid, one
ethereal—marking the paths of their separate-together
dance, before the evening wind swept them away.


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                    From False Universe
                 https://afalseuniverse.com
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