Once enough of the children were awake, they lent their voices to the summoning song, and it swelled and grew through the catacombs, rising to the surface to echo through the hills and streets of Mariposa, rising even to the heights of the great Bone Palace where their Princess and her Court slept the day away. It was the duty of the oldest and the youngest to sing the world awake each evening, and they took it more than seriously. They took it as the holy duty that it was.

In the palace, in the curtained bower reserved for the Princess, a scattering of bones dusted with diamond and amber began to stir, tempted into motion by the song rising from below. On the other side of the room, a terrible creature raised its head and watched.


Skeleton Song


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The creature carried the bone with it always, played it like a flute, and added music to Mariposa that had not been there before it came. Some of the guards had begun to think it might have value, for the music alone.

Instead, she found him waiting for her, fingers playing across the surface of his ever-present bone flute, dark eyes anxious. She would not have seen that anxiety in the beginning, would have seen no nuance in the fleshy substance of his expression, but she had learned him, even as he had learned her, even as they were still learning each other, even as they always would be.

If she had left it where it belonged, his flesh would have rotted away by now, leaving him as clean and unburdened as any citizen of Mariposa. But he had been so strange, and so lost, and there had been such fear in the way he held his shoulders, in the way he hung his head. She had been able to see his suffering, and had not thought to leave him in such a state, not when she knew the songs to make him well again. What ruler could have looked on such pain and left it as it was?

Lacking faces, or hair, or flesh in need of clothing, the skeletons of Mariposa distinguished themselves through complex cosmetics, applying them every evening according to some predetermined calendar that Christopher had yet to fully unravel, but had come to understand was tied to the season and the weather. Only the Princess was allowed to use the royal palette, filled with pigments made from crushed pearl, dried marigolds, and the powdered wings of migratory butterflies. Other skeletons possessed other palettes, and there were colors that only appeared on anyone, even the Princess, on very special occasions.

He intended to play that song through to the end according to his own ideas of the shape it should take. Not illness, not adults who thought they knew what was best for him just because they were older and worried about him, not the strange prejudices of a world filled with living skeletons that looked at him and saw a monster. He played the song of his own life, and that life included the Princess of Mariposa, his very own Skeleton Girl, and she was the first girl he had ever loved, and the one he would love until the end of his days.

Various guards and members of the court passed them in the hall, and the Princess greeted each with a cool nod of her head, saying nothing. Without her breaking the silence, they were not allowed to speak to her, and so she and Christopher made their way to the top of the palace, where a room carved from the long-dead bone of some great beast waited for them, its carved walls catching every whisper of the wind and turning it into an endless, meandering tune. The palace of Mariposa was one vast woodwind, played by the breath of the world itself.

Christopher had been staggered on the day he first realized that, and he was staggered now as his Skeleton Girl pulled her hand from his and walked to the great throne of bones, settling on its flower-covered seat with a small nod of satisfaction. The household staff who had been waiting to see if their work would be acceptable scattered immediately, off to tell their superiors the Princess had approved.

She stopped, and the song continued, wrapping its arms around them and carrying them on a curtain of wordless melody. Then, with a long, achingly elegant note, it faded, and silence fell across the room.

The catacombs of Mariposa were a vast system of caves and chasms, spreading like the roots of a tree. They connected in a tangled, barely comprehensible web, and if not for the presence of steps carved into the stone, it would have been possible to assume they were entirely natural, etched out of the earth by nothing more than water and time. There was no mile of Mariposan land that did not stand above the catacombs, a living reality balanced upon the bones of the dead.

Mariposa was a golden world, a gilded world, and before he came here Christopher had never seen flowers so large or tasted honey so sweet. But it was also a dark world, a decaying world, and as they walked deeper into the catacombs, past the chambered schools where skeleton teachers sang their lessons to skeleton students, past the quiet spaces where the older dead lay sleeping, he began to wonder if he would ever see the sun again. They had reached the provinces of the dead who no longer stirred themselves every night, but rose once a week, once a month, when it suited them and not before. He had only seen a few of the truly ancient dead, standing around the edges of festival dances, their bones rimed with dust in place of paint, their eye sockets glowing dimly.

It seemed sad, to linger so long when life no longer appealed, but life and death were malleable here in Mariposa. Perhaps some of those older dead found their love of the world again, and came back up to the firelight. Or maybe the dreams of the dead were their own form of paradise, and they stayed below when they needed nothing more that the light had to offer.

Once, there was Mariposa, and she was a world of butterflies and blooms, but no people. And then came the doors, and through them, the lost and the lonely, the ones who sought to escape the lands they knew, falling into the golden embrace of our mother. She gathered them close, and they fed themselves on her fields, drank from her streams, and when the time came that their flesh was finished, they lay down, and they slept in her soil.

But they did not stay sleeping. The world sang to them in wind through the branches and over the mountains, and they could not resist the call to rise and dance. So when their flesh had rotted away and they were finally free, they rose, innocent and new, to the Mariposa night. They came together, and were a people at long last, their differences forgotten, their pasts set aside. When more travelers came through the doors, they were welcomed by the dancing skeletons of Mariposa, and some chose to return to the worlds they had come from, while others chose to stay. Those who stayed grew old, as flesh grows old, and in time they, too, died and woke again, all that came before forgotten.

Christopher and the Skeleton Girl climbed for what felt like hours, the song of the catacombs shifting from early night to midnight to the hours just before dawn. They reached the top as the sun was rising, and the Skeleton Girl turned her face to his.

He gathered every piece of her, every finger bone and rib, and carried them carefully with him to the field. He was no longer afraid that the sun would forbid her waking, for it was Mariposa that made the song, and the song that called the bones to dance. He lay her out in the sun beside him, and together, they slept.

When the sunset song concluded, the Princess of Mariposa, called Skeleton Girl by the boy who loved her, awoke alone on the palace floor, and knew at once what had happened. That night she sang a threnody to her people, lost love and longing in every word.

While not every songis political, making music certainly can be, especially when it comesto communities who have been denied a voice or told that they canonly create art in specific ways. Which is to say: even a love songcan be threatening to the status quo.

Her new album, a collaboration with the composer and flautist Nicole Mitchell that was recorded live at the Le Guess Who? festival in Utrecht in 2018, is an incredible trip into a swirling mass of experimental psychedelic jazz.

Madalean Gauze hasbeen absolutely kicking ass with these Fuel the Fight compilations.Not only are all the bands great but the money raised is going toboth an essential worker fund as well as the Philly Community BailFund, both extremely necessary. The first volume included tracks fromCoping Skills, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Witching, Joe Castro, KufKnotz & Christine Elise, Joe Jack Talcum, and a bunch more. Thesecond comp is just as expansive, featuring Sheena & TheeNosebleeds, Lily McKown, Laser Background, Data, and about thirtyother bands.

On top of all these bands, there are a number of local labels who are donating all or part of what they make in sales. They include SRA Records, Get Better Records, Mace Canister Recordings, Don Giovanni, Estranged Communications, and Lame-O Records, which just released a real cool one by Dominic Angelella you should definitely check out. Also be sure to cross-reference my list with the one my colleague here at The Key John Vettese put together.

The now firmly ensconced lineup of Kevin Young on vocals and bass, Andrew Stanton on guitars, Josiah Prince on guitars, and Joey West on drums have gelled into quite the cohesive team. The aforementioned vocal harmonies and the tight interplay between both guitarists are evidence of many hours of rehearsal and many shows played.

Production: Eschewing working with longtime producer Travis Wyrick, Skeleton Psalms was produced in house by Josiah Prince. But never fear, Mr. Prince astutely listened to the secret sauce that Wyrick poured into the previous Disciple releases and was able to duplicate his success. This album sounds MASSIVE!

Instrumentation: Disciple crafts rock-songs and plays for those songs. Solos are short and serve to keep the head banging and the groove going. This is meat and potatoes rock-and-roll. And it is a dish seasoned with amazing skill and tightness. 152ee80cbc

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