After the Gloaming - Bonus - The Snow in the Ballroom

Episode Date: January 25, 2026

After the Gloaming is a production of Dissonance Media and The Other Stories.The Snow in the Ballroom was written by James Barnett AKA Jimmy Horrors.James is the creator/producer of the Night’s End podcast and After the Gloaming. He is also a writer and voice actor and more recently an audio producer on The Other Stories podcast. You can connect with him on social media @jimmyhorrors. For more info on James’s projects, head to www.JamesBarnettCreative.com.Sound production and editing was completed by James Barnett.Theme music was scored by Duncan Muggleton and produced by James Barnett - https://temporalrecordings.wordpress.com/Music and sound effects were provided by: Epidemic Sound.If you have enjoyed the episode, please spread the word to anyone you feel may enjoy it and please support the show by leaving a review and giving it a 5-star rating.To support the show and gain access to all episodes now, ad-free, and a bonus episode, head over to www.patreon.com/nightsendpodcastThis episode is brought to you with a Creative Commons – Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license. Don’t change it. Don’t sell it. But by all means… share the hell out of it.Stay Horrific, everyone! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the soft glow of dusk, and before night falls, stories exist. Gothic tales of the Macabra, where the supernatural calls home, and the shadows dance. Hold tight. Hello, dear listeners, and welcome to 2026. I'm here today a little late for a Christmas episode that I wrote for After the Gloaming. I obviously wanted to have this out to you at Christmas, but yeah, I was sick the whole time on my holidays, so I was unable to record. But I thought better late than never, and I really hope you enjoy it. Just a little bit on the next season of After the Gloming, it is coming.

I've been working on the episodes. I do have the metascript that is still yet to be recorded. But it is coming, I promise you. It'll definitely be released at some point in the next few months. But for now, I hope you enjoy this episode that I wrote for Christmas. And yeah, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I know we're in it already. But, yeah, sit back and enjoy.

This one's called The Snow in the Ballroom. Written by James Barnett. Christmas Eve has a way of turning hunger into scripture. I'd been walking since late afternoon. The violin case biting into my bag. palm, the strap slipping against my shoulder whenever I shifted it. The road was a thin black ribbon between paddocks gone brittle with summer. No snow, no romance. Just grass the color of old straw and a sky rubbed pale by heat and smoke. That was the part that didn't fit. The mist was wrong

for the season. Thicker's breath held in a mouth. It clung low, swallowing fence posts and gum trunks at the edges, making the world feel closer than it ought to. And the air had a taste I couldn't place at first. Not dust, not rain. Something older. Ash. I told myself it was from a fire miles away, a distant burn off, some careless spark that had found a reason to keep going. That was what the radio had been full of on the bus out of town. Mornings. Bands. The list of things you weren't allowed to do anymore, as if a government notice could keep summer from wanting what it wants. I'd gotten off two stops early because the driver wouldn't go further. Road's not safe, he'd said, eyes on the sky. Smoke's coming in. Then he'd closed the doors and taken my last

coins with him, leaving me alone with my case and my pride. I don't like admitting when I'm broke. I'll say in between things. I'll say waiting on a gig. I'll say anything that doesn't sound like I'm one missed meal away from becoming someone else entirely. That night, I was close to becoming that someone else. And then I heard the music. At first it was so faint I thought it was in my head. The way tunes sometimes loop in your mind when you're tired. A simple waltz, three beats, the kind of melody that carries itself even when you've forgotten the exact notes. It drifted through the mist like a hand trailing along a wall. I stopped walking. The silence around me thickened. Even the insects which had been ticking

away like anxious clocks seemed to lower their volume. The waltz continued. Not carried by wind, not broken by distance. It was too clean and too deliberate. I turned my head, listening to The sound came from the scrub to my left, past a line of gums that leaned in together, like they were sharing a secret. There wouldn't have been anything there. No pub, no home, no wedding, not out here. But the music drew me anyway, because it promised something I hadn't had in weeks. Warmth.

People. Purpose. A room where my hands might be worth something. I followed the waltz into the mist. The gate appeared first, sudden and black, ironwork curling like handwriting. Vines had crawled through it and tightened, as if the metal was trying to be swallowed. A nameplate sat in the centre, but whatever that is had once been pressed there had been scoured away. Either time had done it, or a person with reasons.

I pushed through. The hinges didn't complain. That should have warned me. Beyond the gate, a drive curved up through dead grass and smoke-stained trees. The estate revealed itself slowly, like a face coming out of the fog. From the outside it was a carcass. The roofline had collapsed in places. One wing sagged as if it was tired. Windows stared out, black and hollow.

Their frames warped. It was the sort of ruined people photographed for their own sadness, posting it online with captions about ghosts and history. and yet in one section of the house a warm glow sat behind the glass. Candlelight, golden steady. The waltz was louder now, threading between the broken walls as if the ruin was merely scenery. My feet carried me to the front steps. The door, huge and dark, stood slightly ajar.

A breath of warm air slid out, scented with wax, greenery and something faintly sweet like brandy. I should have turned around then. I should have kept walking until the road found a town and the town found me a bench to sleep on. I should have left a dead house to its deadness. Instead, I stepped inside. The entry hall was dim, lit by candles set in brass holders along the walls. The floorboards beneath my boots were clean, too clean for a ruin. The air was warm enough to make my skin prickle with relief.

My footsteps sounded loud, disrespectful. Hello? I called, and my voice came back to me softened, as if the house had cushions in its throat. There was a pause, long enough to make me feel foolish. Then something moved in the dark to my right. A man stepped forward, or rather, a figure shaped like a man, dressed in a black suit that looked pressed and perfect.

He held himself for the calm that could. didn't belong in abandoned places. His face was pale, eyes set deep, expression neither welcoming nor unfriendly, like he'd been waiting in position for a long time and had learned patience by force. Good evening, he said. His voice was soft, careful. Happy Christmas. Happy Christmas, I repeated automatically. My mouth was dry. I heard music. Yeah, us, he said, as if that explained everything. We've been expecting music. I almost laughed, the absurdity of it, the neatness, the way he spoke as if my arrival had been

scheduled. You've been expecting me, I asked. He glanced at my violin case, not at my face. The house is particular about its traditions. Something in my chest tightened. I told myself it was nerves, fatigue. The long walk. Is this some kind of event?

I tried. A party? A ball, he said. Then, with the faintest dip of his head, if you'll follow me. I followed him because the alternative was cold and fog, and admitting I had nowhere else to go, because pride is a leash and I was already wearing it.

We moved through corridors lined with portraits. Their faces watched us as we passed, dark eyes and candlelight expressions set in oil and varnish the house smelled of old timber and wax but underneath was that familiar taste of ash as if the walls had once been smoke we descended a short stairwell

then turned and the sound of the waltz grew full swaddling in my ribs the attendants stopped at a pair of tall double doors and placed a hand against one and pushed the doors opened and the light spilled out For a moment I forgot the ruin outside.

I forgot the mist and the road. I forgot how hunger had made me sharp. The ballroom was magnificent. High ceiling, chandeliers dripping crystals, candlelight everywhere, reflected in polished timber and gilded frames. Garlands of greenery hung in loops along the walls, threaded with red ribbon. Not cheap tinsel. Real leaves, glossy and dark. Holly and ivy. The scent was sharp, almost medicinal, and on the floor couples turned in a waltz.

They wore clothes from another time. Men in tailcoats, women in gowns that shimmered like water in low light. Their movements were perfect, smooth. The sort of dancing you see in films and think is impossible in real life. It was snowing indoors. Soft white flakes drifted down from above. turning slowly as they fell, catching candlelight. They landed on shoulders and hair and vanished. I stared. A Christmas ball, I thought, half dazed. Some rich family's tradition, some theatre troops' performance, some bizarre reenactment.

It didn't matter. It was warm, and there were people, and there was a room built for music. I stepped forward, and I stepped forward, the sound under my boots was wrong. Not the solid confidence of a well-kept floor. A faint crunch. I looked down. A thin dusting lay over the boards.

White, grey, soft. Shifted as I moved. The attendant's voice came softly behind me. This way, I turned and realised there was a small dais at one end of the room. A piano sat there, lit open, keys gleaming. beside it a music stand held sheets in tiny stacks a woman approached me through the dancers she moved with the same calm as the attendant

her gown pale and elegant her hair pinned up in a style that belonged in the portraits her skin had the translucence of someone who didn't spend time in the sun her eyes were dark and tired as if she'd been awake for many nights keeping watch over something that didn't sleep She smiled It was a lovely smile

Carefully worn You've arrived She said I heard the music I replied because my brain refused to be clever Yes Her gaze dropped to my case You play

It wasn't a question It wasn't even a request It was the way a person points at a chair and says sit I am just passing through, I began, but she lifted a hand gentle as a priest's. It's Christmas Eve, she said. We do not pass through, not on this night. The dancers turned, and I realized they were watching me, not with curiosity, with expectation. My fingers tightened around the handle of my case.

The leather was slick with sweat. I'm not My voice faltered I wasn't hired The woman's smile did not change Of course you were She stepped aside As if the decision had already been made

And my role was merely to comply I walked to the dais Because every part of me The part that had lived on applause And the part that had lived on survival Recognised an audience when it saw one I opened my case The violin sat inside like a sleeping

thing. Dark wood, worn where my jaw pressed. Strings slightly tarnished. It looked suddenly too modern for the room, too honest. I lifted it out and set it under my chin. The sheet music on the stand had my name written at the top in neat, old-fashioned script. My name. Not printed. Written. The ink look faded, but it was still legible, like the room had been waiting for a long and had learned not to waste effort. A cold prickled across my scalp. I looked up at the woman. She nodded, as if to say, go on.

So I began to play. At first my bow shook. Not from fear, I told myself. From the walk, from the heat, from the sudden warmth. My hands were stiff. But the waltz found me quickly. It slid under my fingers like it had always lived there.

Three beats, turn, turn, turn. The dancers moved in perfect time. If I leaned into a phrase, they leaned with me. If I softened, they softened. It was as if the music wasn't entertainment, but instruction. I played on, and the room breathed with me. The snow fell gently. A flake landed on the back of my hand.

It didn't melt like snow. It smeared. I glanced down. Gray streaked my skin, a fine powder. My mouth went dry again. Another flake landed on my sleeve. It left a smudge like soot. I rubbed my fingers together.

The powder was soft, almost silky. It had a gritty edge that caught under my nails. It wasn't snow. It was ash. I swallowed, and my throat scratched as if I'd inhaled, paper. I missed a note. Not badly, but enough. The dancer's feet stuttered. Their movements jerked like dolls tugged by clumsy strings. Woman's head snapped too far to the side and returned. A man's smile widened, fixed and bright. The woman by the day has stepped closer. Her hand rested

on the edge of the music stand. Fingers pale against the dark wood. Please, she said softly. Do not be unkind. Unkind, I managed, still playing because stopping felt suddenly impossible. Her eyes did not leave my hands. We have waited. Ash drifted down more thickly. It swirled in small eddies as if the room had currents. It settled in the folds of gowns, on shoulders, in hair.

The dancers did not brush it away. They did not blink. I realized then that there were no voices in the room No laughter No greetings No clink of glasses No murmured gossip Only shoes on the boards

And the hush of ash falling And my violin I scanned faces as I played At first I were all beautiful in candlelight softened by movement Then the ash thickened and the lights shifted And I began to see details the dance had hidden The woman's neck had a dark stain that wasn't shadow.

A man's sleeve was scorched at the cuff. A girl's hair pinned up at short jagged ends like it had been cut by flame. Their eyes held a sheen, too bright, like people who have seen something and never looked away again. The darts had turned close to me, skirt sweeping. I caught the scent of old smoke and the fabric, deep and baked in. The smell of clothing pulled from a burnt house and worn anyone. My stomach rolled. I played. Because what else could I do? And the waltz went on and on, as if the song itself had no concept of ending.

Ash fell. And then the ash began to show me things. It wasn't a clear vision, not like a film. It was more like memory surfacing in fragments. Charcoal sketches that appeared when the powder clung to candlelight. scenes forming in the corners of my eyes a crowded room laughter a chandelier glittering a hand holding a candle too close to a curtain

a rush of flame climbing fabric like it had been starving a woman in a pale gown turning turning turning her smile still on her mouth as the fire found her sleeve a man's shouting his voice lost under music that refused to stop screams turning into coughing, coughing, coughing turning into silence. My bow dragged a little too hard across the strings.

The dancers twitched. The woman by the dais leaned closer, her smile tightening at the edges. Play properly. What is this? I hissed, still playing because every time I thought of stopping my fingers went cold. Her gaze lifted to my face for the first time. in it was something that had nothing to do with celebration. Grief, worn thin by repetition. A tradition, she said.

This isn't a ball. It is the only ball that matters. Ash fell more thickly, dusted the music sheets, it collected on the piano keys turning them grey. The attendant stood at the edge of the floor like a shadowed given shape. He watched without blinking. His hands were clasped as if in prayer. Why me? I asked and hated the tremor in my voice. The house is particular, the woman repeated.

She glanced at my name on the sheet. You are always going to come. That's not possible. Her smile softened, just a fraction. It is Christmas Eve. The house remembers. We keep it here so it does not spill out. A flare of anger cut through my fear, sharp and sudden. Spill into what? Paddocks? The road? There's nothing here.

She looked past me, to the dancers, to the ash falling like gentle snow. Into the world, she said. Into the present. Into you. My throat tightened. I could feel ash on my tongue. I could taste the bitter of it, like a story burned down to its last line.

If I stop, I said, more to myself than to her. What happens? Her eyes lowered. We burn correctly. The phrase lodged in me like a splinter. Burn correctly. As if there was a proper way to die, as if they had rehearsed the wrong way so many times that they had learned to long for the right one.

My hands began to ache. The muscles in my forearm screamed. The waltz demanded and demanded and demanded. The tempo had its own will now, pulling faster, tightening like a noose. The dancer's heads turned between phrases. Not all at once, but enough to make my skin crawl. They listened for weakness. If Mobyo slipped, if my fingers faltered, their joints jerked, their feet scraped, their smiles stretched, their eyes locked on to me with the focus of starving things. Ash fell heavier. Breathing became work. Each inhale scratched. Each inhale tasted of paper. Under the waltz I began to hear another sound. A low crackle and a distant roar.

Not from the fireplace, because there was no fireplace. From the walls. From under the floorboards. From memory itself. Impatient. I forced my gaze up, away from the dancers, away from the woman's patient cruelty. The ceiling glided with chandelier light,

and then the as shifted, and the illusion thinned. Through the falling grey, I saw dark gaps where there should have been plaster. I saw jagged beams, blackened and broken, angled like snapped ribs. There was no ceiling. Above the chandeliers was open night. The ballroom's splendor was a skin stretched over ruin, held up by candlelight in my music. Ash drifted down from the broken roofline, from the charred bones of the house. I stared up, mouth open, both still moving because my body had forgotten how to see.

stop. The woman followed my gaze. You see, she said softly, almost kindly now. We cannot allow it to end. You've trapped them, I whispered. The words came out without permission. Her eyes flickered. We have kept them. The dancer spun close and for a heartbeat her face was fully visible. Skin bubbled. Scars like melted wax. Eyes wide and wet. Smile fixed in place. Not joy but muscle memory. My stomach lurched.

I understood then what my playing was doing. It wasn't entertaining them. It was binding them. The waltz was a loop, and my violin was the needle stitching it closed. Every note was a restraint. Every bar a command. Turn again. Smile again. Forget again. If I kept playing, they would do this forever. And the house would never have to remember the fire all at once. It could live in denial, comfortable and elegant, watching itself burn in pretty candlelight. And if I stopped, it would collapse. It would hurt. It would end. The thought of ending it made my hands go numb with fear.

The thought of not ending it made something cold a rise in me. not bravery, not heroism, mercy. It surprised me. I had not felt merciful in a long time. I had been thinking only of myself, of my hunger, of my case,

my next geek, of my pride. The dancers turned, turned, turned. Ash fell. My bow arm trembled. The woman's hand slid into the edge of the, music stand again, light as a warning. Do not, she whispered.

The lightness sharpened to steel. Do not be unkind. I looked at her then, really looked. Her gown was immaculate, but Ash had begun to cling to the hem. Her hair was pinned with pearls, but one curl had loosened, and the end of it was singed. Her eyes were not cruel. They were exhausted. She had been holding this ball together for a long time,

like someone holding a door shut against a room full of smoke. Were you there? I asked, voice hoarse. When it happened, her smile did not answer. Her eyes did. Yes. She had died here, or nearly, or something worse. If I stop, I said, and my voice broke. They'll burn. They will remember, she corrected.

The tiniest tremor touched her mouth. And so will you. I almost kept playing. Almost. Because fear loves routine. Because my hands knew the next phrase. Because the room wanted it. Because the dancers were listening.

And because the house itself was leaning in, hungry for continuation. Then I heard, under the waltz, the crackle grow louder, not patient anymore. And I thought of pop, long dead, but suddenly vivid in my mind. A man who would have called this what it was, wrong, a tradition rotting in its own reverence, a refusal to let the past be past. I thought of every Christmas I'd spent trying to keep things nice, trying to keep people smiling, trying to stop the truth from ruining the day. Sometimes I realized the truth needed to ruin it.

I lifted my bow, and I stopped. The final note hung in the air like a held breath. Then it dripped into silence. The effect was immediate. The candles gutted as if someone had sucked the air from the room. The chandeliers dimmed, crystals turning dull. The greenery blackened. leaves curling in on themselves like burnt paper.

The ribbons shriveled. The dancers froze mid-turn. For a heartbeat they stood as they had been, elegant and poised, ash drifting around them like soft snow. Then the splendor peeled away. The gowns became rags. The tailcoats became scorched fabric clinging to charred bodies.

Faces resolved fully, no longer softened by movement. burned skin, smoke-blackened lips, eyes wide in shock that had never ended. Mouths opened in soundless screams that the waltz had been covering. The ballroom's polished floor became warped boards, blackened in places, cracked. The perfume's scent vanished, replaced by raw smoke and the stench of hair singeing. The house remembered. A roar rose through the walls, deep and furious, like a beast waking after being. being drugged. Heat slammed into my face. The air filled with ash so thick it felt like cough.

Fire didn't appear as a neat flame. It surged as a presence, a pressure, a sound. The crackle was everywhere. The woman turned to me. In the sudden ugliness, her beauty fell away like paint. Not because she became monstrous in shape, but because grief sharpened her into something terrible. Her eyes blazed with an emotion so pure it hurt to look at. You've undone us, she said. It wasn't an accusation. It was devastation. For a moment I couldn't move. My violin hung limp in my hand. The room screamed without sound. The dancer's bodies began to smoke.

Not gently, but violently, like a truth finally allowed to speak. A chandelier above us creaked, one chain snapped with a metal scream. I ran. I leapt off the dais, my boots slipping on the ash-slicked boards. I clutched the violin case like it was a child. The heat chased me. Not fast, not with steps, but with inevitability. The corridors that had been dim and candlelit were now bare and broken.

The illusions stripped away. Plaster hung in sheets. charred beans jutted out like teeth. The house smelled like the moment before a fire consumes everything. Ash swirled, thick, blinding. Somewhere behind me, the ballroom roared. I turned a corner and nearly collided with the attendant. He stood in the hallway, hands clasped, as calm as ever.

For a mad second I thought he would stop me. He did not. He merely watched. His eyes met mine. and in them was something like sympathy. Or perhaps it was simply recognition, a witness acknowledging another witness. I stumbled past him, lungs scraping, throat burning.

The front door was suddenly not where it had been. Or perhaps it was, and I was the one who had changed. The house shifted around me like a living thing in pain. A bean collapsed somewhere overhead. Dust and ash rained down. Then at last, cold air hit my face. I burst out into the fog, into the paddock's edge, and fell to my knees in the wet grass that smelled of earth and night.

My chest heaved, every breath hurt, my eyes streamed. Behind me, the manor stood in silhouette, black against a paling sky. No warm glow, no candlelight, no music, just ruin. honest and dead. The mist began to thin as dawn came on, drawn back like a curtain. I stayed on my knees until the sun pushed a pale line into the east and the birds began to call, tentative at first, then louder, as if reassured the world was still allowed. When I finally stood, my legs shook.

I looked back one last time. There was no smoke rising, no flames licking at windows, no storking. sign of the fire I'd heard. The estate was quiet, as if it had always been abandoned, as if the ball had never happened, but my hands were grey. Ash sat in the creases of my knuckles, under my nails. It clung to the varnish of my violin case. When I wiped my palm on my jeans, it only smeared, I walked back to the road with ash on my skin and the taste of it in my mouth. Days later, in a boarding house room with a ceiling fan that clicked like a metronome, I opened my case to check the violin. A puff of ash rose as if the instrument exhaled. The

strings looked dull, dusted grey, as though they'd been played in a burned room. I cleaned them. I polished the wood. I washed my hands until the skin went raw. The ash remained. It's in the corners of the case now, in the little joins where the wood meets velvet. It's in the peg box. It's in my throat when I wake at night. Sometimes, when it's quiet, I hear the waltz. Not loud. Not enough to blame on a neighbour's radio. Just the shape of it. Three beats. Turn, turn, turn. Turn, turn. As if some part of me is still standing. standing on that dais, bow moving because it never learned how to stop. On Christmas Eve, it comes back strongest.

I'll be sitting alone, somewhere ordinary. A small cheap tree in the corner. The world outside full of people pretending the day is simple. I'll be eating something I don't taste, listening to the silence between cars passing and the street. And in that silence, I'll hear it. A waltz in the fog. I don't follow it anymore.

But I listen. Because I know now that mercy has a price. And I paid it in sound. You've been listening to After the Gloming, which is a production of dissonance media and the other stories. The snow in the ballroom was written and narrated by James Barnett. For more from James Head to James BarnettCreative.com. Thanks for listening, everybody.

And as always, stay horrific, everyone.