Story Excerpt

Bachelorettes on the Devil’s Dance Floor
by Stephanie Feldman

In spring, on the eve of Saint Walburga’s Day, the witches gather in the mountains of Central Germany to celebrate the devil.

So says the hotel concierge. He also says there will be vendors, performances, and huge crowds. The three American girls should walk; the route to the festival site, the Devil’s Dance Floor, is easy.

“How did you not know?” Elle, the best friend, complains. “And it’s our last night.”

“There was nothing on the website!” Bea, the sister, cries.

“It’s spontaneous!” Angie, the bride, insists. “I wouldn’t want anything else.”

*   *   *

Bea meticulously planned the last four days, a perfect bachelorette weekend for her sister. She fantasizes about Angie gushing at the rehearsal dinner and salon appointment. It was amazing—so unusual and authentic! Only Bea could have planned a trip like that. It wasn’t easy, forging the perfect itinerary and sticking to it—circumventing Elle’s demands to stop in that shop or have one last drink, knocking on Elle’s door when her morning shower is taking too long. Now the party is ruined.

Elle is exhausted, too, from putting up with Bea’s schedule, Bea’s passive aggressive knocking, and Bea’s need for approval. After four days, Elle has learned the signals of Bea’s moods: she sucks in her lower lip, she stares into the distance, her chin juts out an extra half an inch. Like a hunting dog that’s sensed something—in Bea’s case, her own inadequacy. Elle has showered Bea with murmurs of encouragement and shoulder squeezes, to relieve Angie of the responsibility. Elle must constantly pretend: pretend the German mountains are a great bachelorette party destination, pretend she likes Angie’s fiancé, pretend she’s happy Angie’s getting married and moving to a new city. She’s sick of pretending.

Angie just wants to have fun. This is her bachelorette party! This is her time to say goodbye to the wild single days she never really had. No, in her whole life, she’s had sex with three men, all boyfriends with stable jobs who were well liked by her parents. Angie tries to see it from Bea’s jealous point of view—she’s lucky to have attracted good men and experienced minimal drama. But, still, she wonders what she’s missed. It’s hard to answer that question now, what with Bea’s appointments for facial treatments and museum tours. Is this Angie’s last chance to flirt with a stranger, dance with a stranger, enjoy a stranger’s eyes on her? She hasn’t even felt up to trying; she’s bloated from beer and cheese tastings. Who goes to the mountains of Germany for a bachelorette party? Who schedules their final night to coincide with a feast for the devil?

*   *   *

The festival, actually, is meant to repel witches, Bea reads from her phone screen, just like Saint Walburga did herself. That’s the reason for the bonfires that spring up in the hills, though all the women can see, as they walk past the long line of tour buses, are headlights of parked police cars, tiny bulbs of string lights, and fluorescent lamps above the cramped fair booths.

The posted signs call their destination “The Devil’s Dance Floor.” It looks much like the other picturesque villages Bea has marched them through: a cobblestone plaza surrounded by four walls of joined buildings, subdivided by narrow doors, alleyway entrances, staggered awnings, and scattered café seating. The difference is that this one has been run through the tourist filter several times. If there’s a church among the buildings, they can’t see it, and if there was a fountain in the center, it’s gone. The awnings and signs are neon. The cobblestones are cemented with soggy, trampled litter. Instead of a graceful, centuries-old statue of a saint, there’s a man in a red latex suit, his face and hands painted a matching lurid shade, with a fake goatee, thick black eyebrows, plastic black horns, and a pitchfork. He dances on an upside-down crate.

Elle, who spent a semester in Florence and a year in Copenhagen, thinks this is the tackiest place she’s ever seen in her life.

Elle buys a sausage. Bea and Angie refuse—the dresses have already been fitted!—but Elle needs to soak up the beer that she’s also bought, twenty-four ounces in a plastic cup printed with a witch’s green face.

A family costumed in ragged gowns and wild gray wigs squeezes past Elle, spilling half the beer onto her dress. It’s okay; that’s why she bought the largest cup, that’s why she wore black. Angie wears a short white skirt and a rhinestone tiara with attached white net veil. Bea wears a short white skirt, too, though she’s just a bridesmaid.

Bea clutches her wallet and walks from stall to stall. She chooses a headband with plastic red horns, looks back to the others, gives an exaggerated wink. Angie offers a thumbs up. Elle chews her sausage, communicating to Bea, in greasy Morse code, that she found Bea’s restaurant selections pretentious.

“You brought a bride,” the woman behind the table says. She speaks English with a slight accent and wears a sweater and fitted jeans.

“It’s her bachelorette party,” Bea says. “A hen party.”

“Hmm,” the woman says. “Bad planning.” Bea inhales sharply and focuses on a basket of beaded bracelets. “Not those,” the woman says, and finds three bracelets from beneath her table. Plain strings of white stone, irregular but smooth. They look dingy next to the red and blue and green glass.

Bea hesitates.

“No charge,” the woman says. “Otherwise, I’ll feel bad.”

Bea’s eye twitches. Even strangers can sense how pitiful she is.

The woman shakes the bracelets. “Trust me.”

Bea nods and takes the gift—it would be rude, otherwise, and there is something about these stones. “Authentic,” Bea says.

“That’s right,” the woman says.

Then she offers a bit of authentic advice.

Bea slips on a bracelet and gives the other two to Elle and Angie. “The woman said they’re for protection,” Bea explains. “If you’re in danger, break the elastic and swallow the stones.”

Elle scrunches up her face. Bea realizes the bracelets aren’t hyperlocal and quirky; they’re cheap and ugly. She’s embarrassed herself, again.

Though, truly, Elle doesn’t care one way or the other about the bracelet. She’s trying not to make a joke that Angie should avoid danger by canceling her wedding. Elle imagines herself in her mint-green, tea-length dress, with the boat neck that flatters Bea, but makes Elle look like a linebacker, tackling Angie on the altar and force-feeding her white stones. She imagines herself at the bar, washing them down with a flute of champagne, because isn’t she in danger, too? She’s the one whose best friend is leaving her behind.

Angie doesn’t pay attention as Bea slips the bracelet onto her wrist. She’s watching the bonfire rage behind safety barricades, where goblins and witches and drunk men dance. She drags her bridesmaids toward them. Bea shimmies her shoulders and Elle takes sips of beer to a disco rhythm. Angie stands still, except for one hand nervously twisting the stone bracelet. A man—black coat, dark long-lashed eyes—looked at her, and she looked at him, and he smiled, and now she stares deliberately at the flames. She promised to call her fiancé when she got back to the hotel, no matter the time, to let him know she’s safe.

“Look!” Bea says. “Walburga’s Beer Hall! It’s from the seventeenth century!”

“How do you know that?” Elle asks.

“I researched online. During the walk down.”

Elle tries so hard not to roll her eyes that she fails to blink for ten seconds.

The building has a rough stone façade, narrow smoke-gray windows, and brightly painted signs in several languages. The bachelorettes line up behind a crush of Asian tourists, each wearing a red lanyard.

“That bar has a shorter line,” Elle says, gesturing across the square. She’d like to get drunk as quickly as possible.

“But this bar’s authentic!” Bea argues. She wants them to remember, later—Bea planned the best trip, Bea found the best bar. She’s nearly forgotten that their attendance is an accident. A mistake, even.

“It’s for tourists,” a man says. It’s the man in the dark coat, the man with the dark eyes. His English is just barely molded by German. He smiles at Angie again, and this time she smiles back. “It’s not fit for a bride,” he says. “Wouldn’t you like to see the real Walpurgisnacht?”

Angie plays with the hem of her veil. She knows the plastic tiara and the sash printed “bride” in gold make her alluring—ripe but forbidden. She’s like a true spring maiden under the maypole. She plans to enjoy it.

“Yes,” Angie says.

*   *   *

His name is Christian. His village is very close, he assures them. “Just down the mountain.” The women stare at each other, raising and lowering their eyebrows unintelligibly, until Christian steps back to allow them to discuss. He’s a gentleman.

The bachelorettes draw together in a tight circle.

“This will be a great story,” Bea whispers. “Like no other bachelorette party I’ve heard of.”

The more excited Bea gets, the more skeptical Elle grows. “I don’t like getting into strangers’ cars,” she says. “And we have no idea where we are. We’ll get lost.”

“I know where we are,” Bea argues. The more Elle protests, the more Bea wants to go—she can be the best organizer and the most spontaneous. “Plus.” She waves her phone in the air. There’s no such thing as lost when you have a phone.

Elle crosses her arms.

“It does sound like fun,” Angie says. She glances at Christian and he looks away. He smiles; caught.

*   *   *

Christian says the name of his village.

Angie tries to repeat it, the strange sounds like a mouthful of stones. Everyone laughs.

He says it again.

Bea tries, straining to get the accent right. Everyone laughs louder.

He says it again.

Elle stares out the window in silence. Christian said the village was close, just down the mountain, but they’ve been driving for twenty-five minutes and all of it uphill.

“You’re no fun,” Bea scolds Elle.

“Ah,” Christian says. “Just sober.” He reaches back to offer Elle his flask and Elle takes it. What choice does she have now, but to get through the night? And to have a good time, for Angie’s sake? She’ll do the same at the wedding, though at least the bar will be serving top shelf. The liquor in Christian’s flask tastes like industrial cleanser mixed with cut grass. She coughs.

“Let me try,” Bea says.

Elle braces herself and takes another two gulps. “All gone,” she says.

“There’s plenty to drink at the festival,” Christian says.

He takes a sharp curve. Bea grips the door with both hands. Elle covers her mouth. Angie gasps—she has the first glimpse of the mountains opening up, great crags furred with yellow-green spring grass.

And then Bea screams.

A huge shadowy figure clings to the peak, like a giant emerging from the deep valley.

“That’s just the Brocken Man!” Christian laughs. “An optical illusion. See the shadow? Americans are too anxious.”

Christian turns the radio up—some electronic pop song—and Bea hums along. That song ends, and a lilting ballad plays. Bea sees Christian grin at Angie. Bea sings louder, all nonsense words—she’s always had a beautiful voice, much more beautiful than her sister’s.

Outside, the sun finally melts away, and bonfires sprout like night flowers. Angie feels like she’s drinking that fire. There’s a sizzle on her neck—Christian’s hand moving into her hair, adjusting her headband. “The bride can’t lose her crown.”

“There’s no service here!” Bea interrupts, thumbing her phone frantically, and Angie remembers—her fiancé! He’ll be waiting for her call.

Christian promises that there’s service in his town, and they’re almost there. “I hope so,” Elle says. “We’ve been driving forever.”

“Barely an hour,” Christian says.

“Definitely longer than that,” Elle snaps back and twists the bracelet around her wrist. The beads are ivory stone, with flecks of mineral that spark in the moonlight. She plucks at it. If the band snaps, she’ll chuck those stones one by one into Bea’s face.

Christian’s arm brushes Angie’s thighs, and her skirt shifts a centimeter, an inch. He’s reaching for another flask in the glove compartment. “Just remembered this one.” He hands it to Elle and she drinks.

“Elle,” he says. “Elle, Elske. That’s how we say it. It means pledged to God. And Angie, Angelika, you are an angel.”

“What about my name?” Bea asks sweetly, but Christian doesn’t hear her.

His eyes slide between Angie and the road. When he looks at Angie, she wishes he’d look ahead; when he looks away, she’s hungry for his gaze. His voice is as smooth and smoky as the liquor. “Some say,” Christian continues, “the Brocken Man is a god, a great nature god, his mouth full of vines, a beast with horns, a great goat god.” He touches Angie’s tiara again.

No one touches the battery-powered horns on Bea’s headband.

“Well, which is he, a vegetable man or a goat man?” Elle slurs.

“Not a man,” Christian corrects. “A god. Like Walpurga—Walpurga with a p. She’s not a church saint but a beautiful goddess of fertility.” His eyes are on Angie again. Bonfires simmer under her skin.

“It’s late,” Elle says. “We should turn around.”

“Uh-uh,” Christian teases. “I only listen to the bride.”

“I want to go to the village,” Angie whispers.

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Copyright © 2024. Bachelorettes on the Devil’s Dance Floor by Stephanie Feldman