Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab (BPAL) Neil Gaiman : The Graveyard Book General Catalog Perfume Oil (Discontinued)
Mistress Owens pushed him out of the Owens's little tomb. "Get along with you," she said. "I've got business to attend to."
Bod looked at his mother. "But it's cold out there," he said.
"I should hope so," she said, "it being Winter. That's as it should be. Now," she said, more to herself than to Bod, "shoes. And look at this dress — it needs hemming. And cobwebs — there are cobwebs all over, for heaven's sakes. You get along," this to Bod once more. "I've plenty to be getting on with, and I don't need you underfoot."
And then she sang to herself, a little couplet Bod had never heard before.
"Rich man, poor man, come away.
Come to dance the Macabray."
"What's that?" asked Bod, but it was the wrong thing to have said, for Mistress Owens looked dark as a thundercloud, and Bod hurried out of the tomb before she could express her displeasure more forcefully.
It was cold in the graveyard, cold and dark, and the stars were already out. Bod passed Mother Slaughter in the ivy-covered Egyptian Walk, squinting at the greenery.
"Your eyes are younger than mine, young man," she said. "Can you see blossom?"
"Blossom? In winter?"
"Don't you look at me with that face on, young man," she said. "Things blossom in their time. They bud and bloom, blossom and fade. Everything in its time." She huddled deeper into her cloak and bonnet and she said,
"Time to work and time to play,
Time to dance the Macabray. Eh, boy?"
"I don't know," said Bod. "What's the Macabray?"
White winter flowers plucked from a snow-covered graveyard.
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