by Indie Gantz
A hesitant smile spreads over my lips. His friendliness is going to take some getting used to. I’ve only read about people meeting and becoming friends, joking around, getting to know each other. I’ve obviously never practiced the custom myself. Anyone we’ve ever met has been in passing on the road or at desolate shops my parents felt comfortable taking us to. Of course, Calla would always stay out of sight. Now I know it was because they wouldn’t have been able to explain the color of her skin. Now that I think about it, Tirigan and I would get odd looks when we would accompany John. I used to always assume it was because we had limited social skills and looked a little rough from living out in the wild.
So much blind trust…it’s infuriating.
“Thanks,” I respond somewhat shyly. “For letting us tag along.”
Oleander gives me a look that makes me feel foolish for voicing gratitude. I assume that was exactly his goal. “I should be thanking you two. I always get bored after the first few hours at these things. You’ve made this year much more bearable.”
“Liar,” Bo cuts in from his other side. “You talk about this festival for weeks ahead of time. Can’t get you to shut your enormous frog mouth up about it!” She nudges me with her elbow. “Don’t let him get away with such things, Charlie.”
Her ribbing makes me laugh. The woman in front of us turns and shushes us much louder than the laugh itself.
“Our apologies,” Oleander says sincerely, batting down a rude gesture from Bo. We share hushed giggles over the incident for another moment before Avias returns to his seat.
“They’re next,” he says to Tirigan, who nods politely in response. Avias looks at him inquisitively, narrowing his eyes slightly. “You’re a man of few words.”
Tirigan takes a moment to respond. It’s loud in the tent, people chattering excitedly about the upcoming performance, but I can make out his response. “Those are the best men.”
It’s an odd reply, probably a reference to something I haven’t read. I worry Avias will take it the wrong way, but Avias’ eyes brighten, and his lips curl into a small grin.
“You enjoy Shakespeare?”
“Of what I’ve read,” Tirigan replies. There is relief in the exhale that follows. “Though, I prefer-“
Suddenly, the lights in the tent dim, and dozens of candles appear on the stage. They come alight as a group of people change positions with the exiting musicians, and Tirigan’s words die on his tongue. Both he and Avias turn their attention to the front of the tent.
Three men and a young woman climb onto the makeshift stage. The woman is short with skin darker than mine and fire in her eyes. The red tips of her spiky black hair match the color of her dress. She takes her place in front of a microphone with a guitar in her hands. She’s strikingly beautiful. I find it hard to look elsewhere for a moment.
Bo nudges me out of my trance and points towards the man taking up position at the other microphone. He’s tall, but still not taller than Oleander. His dark hair is streaked with bits of white. He isn’t old, probably about my mother’s age if I had to guess. He wears dark, well-fitted jeans and a well-worn t-shirt with some sort of symbol on it. He removes his leather jacket before slinging his guitar over his head.
“That’s me Dad,” Bo whispers, nothing but pride in her voice. “His band’s all right, but he’s positively brilliant.”
The other two band members take their positions, one at a keyboard and another behind drums. Bo’s father waves his hand through the air, and suddenly, I can hear every faint whisper in the crowd. It’s odd at first, being able to hear everything so clearly. I’m about to ask Tirigan if he’s experiencing the same thing when Bo’s father opens his mouth to speak. His voice is rich and sultry, almost like liquid velvet floating through the air. He doesn’t have the same accent his children do, his words coming out closer to the way I say them, albeit much deeper.
“Put a little weight to the air so we wouldn’t have to use mics. Hope you don’t mind.” He smiles wryly and strums his guitar once. “The only voices we want to hear are our own. We’re vain like that.”
At first, I don’t understand what he’s talking about, but then the woman who shushed us earlier goes to whisper in her friend’s ear, and her voice carries around the room. “He thinks he is so clever. I bet-” Her eyes widen when she realizes what’s happened. She clamps a hand over her mouth in horror.
“Thank you,” Bo’s father says to her kindly. “For illustrating my point.” He gives her a wide, cheerful grin then plucks a few notes on his guitar. “We’re going to play a couple songs for you now. If you hate them, just be grateful you didn’t have to pay to get in here.”
A healthy dose of chuckling sounds like a roar of laughter in my ears, but it quiets down quickly. When the music starts, the sound instantly captivates me. It’s not like anything I’ve heard before. They use their instruments more than their voices, but both Bo’s father and the woman sing from time to time. Their lyrics mostly resemble poetry, a dangerously emotional style that has me wishing I could listen on my own again, so I can dissect each note and every word.
Do you like it? I glance over at Tirigan and he seems just as entranced as I am
Yes. It’s very... something.
The fact that Tirigan can’t find an adequate adjective to describe the music speaks volumes. I eagerly turn back to watch the end of the song. The woman in the red dress has a lengthy solo on her guitar. They sing four songs in total before Avias and Bo’s father thanks the audience for their silence and removes the cast in the air.
“So, what did you think?” Oleander asks me as soon as the air returns to normal and our voices are no longer amplified.
“I loved it,” I reply. “They’re really good. Are they selling any of their music?” I stand up, mimicking Bo’s body as she stretches.
“Not yet, no,” A voice says from behind me. I turn around to see Finn standing behind Bo. “Told you I was a fan.”
“Finn, Hi!” I say, very grateful for the opportunity to prove we know people and aren’t aliens from another planet. “Enjoy the show?”
“Yep, it was great.” He nods and looks down at Bo. “You?”
“Yeah,” I reply. “This is Bo, her father sings in the band.”
Finn’s eyes go wide. It accentuates the dark circles underneath them. He places his hands on Bo’s shoulders and grins from ear to ear. “Do you think you could introduce me? I absolutely love your father. He’s a genius.”
Bo laughs. “Oh bugger, that’s the last thing he needs to hear.” She nods though. “Go on ahead. You won’t need me to introduce you if you open with a line like that.”
“Really?” Finn replies, head looking over the crowd. He self-consciously passes a hand through his shortly cropped hair. “Okay, I’m going in.” He gives me another smile. “It was good to see you. Maybe we can meet up and get something to eat later?”
“Oh, um, yeah, maybe. I have to-”
“No pressure,” Finn assures, hands raised. “I’ll see you later!” He turns around and heads for the stage. I watch him for a moment before Tirigan’s mind opens to me and I turn around to look at him.
Avias wants us to meet his father now.
Okay. I’m nervous, but I figure if he raised our new friends and is married to the nice woman in the booth, he can’t be too bad. Plus, he seemed normal enough on stage.
“You’ll like Kor,” Oleander says happily. He walks in front of me, down the row and following Tirigan. “Don’t worry if you don’t understand half of what he says, though.”
“I’m sure I’ll-” I cut myself off, hearing the name Oleander used for the man we are about to meet.
Kor.
Kori.
What? We can ask about him later-
“Charlie, you going to walk or what?” Bo’s voice comes from behind me but I ignore her.
Oleander just said that Bo and Avias’ father’s name is Kor.
Interesting. I feel a flicker of anxiety coming fr
om Tirigan, but he quickly tempers it. We shouldn’t jump to conclusions. It is plausible there is more than one man named Kori, Charlie.
“Um, Bo?” I turn around and face her, pretending not to notice her slight irritation at being held up. “What is your surname?”
“What?” Bo answers back, regarding me with a look appropriate for the randomness of my question. Behind me, Oleander has stopped walking forward and is now asking me what’s wrong. I ignore him.
“Your last name,” I clarify. “What’s your last name?” I try to sound as nonchalant as possible, but I’m sure I fail miserably.
Bo huffs then steps up on the chairs next to me to get past.
“Such a strange one you picked up, Ollie.” Then, throwing me a look over her shoulder as she jumps back down on the other side of Oleander, she replies. “I haven’t chosen yet. Me mum’s is Thames, me dad’s is Lark. I don’t much fancy either of 'em though, so I’m working on coming up with one of me own.”
Lark. Her father’s last name is Lark.
Kori Lark.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Distant Feeling
Did you hear that?
Yes.
Do you think it’s really him?
I don’t know how common his first or last name is. It is certainly possible, but it would seem unlikely. It would be extremely unlikely that we befriended the very people who could lead us to Kori Lark.
My hands are sweaty and gross. If there was ever a time to be nervous about meeting someone, it would be right now.
Kori stands close by, pulling a toddler onto his shoulders and kissing the cheek of the woman from the booth we visited earlier. He wears no stones that I can see, and that fact helps settle some of my nerves about our lack of jewelry. Finn is chattering on beside him while Kori smiles appreciatively back.
If I don’t get this moment right our entire plan could come crashing down around us. If this is the man we’re looking for, I have to get him to like us, to trust us. I have to make him tell us what he knows about our mother and what he knows about who could have taken her. Anything at all that could help us find her.
Are you ready?
No. I fidget with my hands some more and rub them against my thighs to dry them. Oleander is looking at me strangely, but then he’s distracted away from my meltdown by the way Bo greets her father. She burns a hole into his shirt.
“Ah, hey!” the older man call out. “What peed on your turkey leg?”
“You didn’t sing the last verse like you said you would,” she scolds, her hand on her hip and her finger in her father’s face. “You let that bleeding-heart Violet change the bloody lyric!”
The older man’s face contorts into a comical look of disgust. “Off with my head then, yeah? That seems like a proportional response!” Bo laughs at his eagerness. She begins to mime chopping his now exposed neck with her hand.
“Father,” Avias voice calls over their laughter, “Good set.” Bo gives her brother a horrified look, but Avias just rolls his eyes. “Despite the awful lyrics at the end, of course.” Bo nods in approval at his amendment.
Oleander’s hand slips into mine, and I resist the urge to pull it back. He pulls me along with an honest smile. “Come on, don’t get star struck on me. He’s just like the rest of us.”
His joke helps ease the tension in my neck and shoulders a little. I allow myself to be pulled forward. Tirigan, already behind Avias and catching Kori’s eye, dips his head slightly, so as not to have to be introduced first.
“I, for one, loved the lyrics,” Oleander gushes, releasing my hand and reaching for the musician’s. “Could have done without the instruments, though.” Avias and Bo’s father laughs in response. His lips settle into a smile as he turns to me.
Then his smile falls. His brow pinches together in an emotion that’s wiped from his face before I can even fully register it. A second later, he is smiling again. It’s almost as if he’d never stopped.
“Kor, this is our new friend Charlie and her brother Tirigan. New friends, this is Kor,” Oleander says. The man extends a hand to me, his smile appearing genuine, but still slightly hindered in some way.
“Kor Lark,” He greets. “Decent guitarist. Horrid lyricist.” When I take his offered hand, he shakes it softly, and then adds, “It’s a pleasure.” Tirigan shakes his hand as well, obviously getting better with the custom the more he attempts it. “Tell me,” Kor asks, leaning in close. “Did you find the lyrics as awful as my daughter?”
“Not at all, sir.” I reply quickly. “I mean, I don’t really know which one she’s complaining about, but I enjoyed them all. It was a really good show.”
“Oh, don’t call him that, love,” the woman from the booth interrupts. “Makes him feel more important and then we’ll have to widen the door frames in our house.” She winks. “My name is Vivian, by the way, but you can call me Vi.”
“It’s nice to see you again, Vi,” I greet carefully, already trying to come up with an appropriate segue into mentioning my mother.
I really didn’t think through this enough. Here we are, having a nice casual meet and greet, and I’m just supposed to drop this bomb about my mother and ask a complete stranger to take us in? How does one insert something like that into polite conversation?
How are we going to do this? When-
Now.
Maybe we shouldn’t. Maybe we should gain his trust first, get to know him and his family before we tell him-
How are we going to gain his trust if we begin our relationship with lies? We will need to lie excessively in the future, it would be better to start out honestly. This won’t work if he doesn’t trust us.
Tirigan’s right. If we don’t tell him who we are now, it will just seem like we were trying to hide something later. The best thing to do is to come clean right away. I take a deep breath and hope for the best.
“I’m sorry, but did you say your name’s Kori Lark?” It sounds awkward and strained, but there isn’t much I can do about it now. All three of our new friends’ eyes are on me, like I’m some sort of strange creature that has followed them home without permission.
Kor gives me an odd, but somehow knowing expression and nods. “That’s what it says on my tombstone.”
“The, uh, the same Kori Lark who grew up with a woman named Calla?” I ask hesitantly.
The small quirk to his lips disappears and Kor’s face darkens considerably. I suddenly feel more exposed than I ever have before. There’s an odd pressure pushing against my mind, a sensation unlike one I’ve ever felt before. It’s... coaxing.
Bo coughs awkwardly and the tension snaps.
“Yes, I knew Calla,” Kor answers, obvious reservation in his voice.
I take a long shuttering breath and let it out with a forced smile. “We’ve been looking for you.”
“Excuse me?” Kor answers distractedly, his toddler pulling his hair in different directions.
I try again, this time standing up straight with imagined confidence. “We need to talk to you.”
I’m trying not to lose my nerve, but a large part of me is begging to turn around and walk away. It’s a suggestion I can just barely shake. Tirigan stands tall next to me and holds Kor’s gaze, but doesn’t say anything to help.
“Talk to me?” Kor repeats. His tone is forcibly casual, the temperature of our conversation. His brow furrows again. “What about?”
The others grow silent and share curious looks as they watch our exchange. I ignore them and concentrate only on Kor.
“Calla… our mother sent us,” I say solemnly, my mind racing through our cover story once more.
The toddler on his shoulders shrieks again, and I jump. Usually, a distraction from awkward or painful conversations is something I would welcome, but right now, I just want to get through it.
“Calla? What-” Kor starts to ask with a rather dramatic expression of befuddlement, but Tirigan cuts in.
“Perhaps a walk. Somewhere more private?”
The older man looks between us and then to his family. Our new friends all have stunned expressions on their faces. When Kor doesn’t respond right away, Vi steps forward and pulls the toddler from Kor’s shoulders.
“Go on, love,” she urges. “I think you better listen to what they have to say.”
◆◆◆
We walk for a while through the crowds until we get to the end of a row of booths and tents. We find an open field where people have placed blankets and children are playing. When we finally sit down in the grass, only a short distance away from where a young couple with their hands laced together is dozing in the grass, Kor breaks his silence.
“All right, I think this is as close to private as we’re going to get.” He looks around. “I could cast a silencer if you’d feel more comfortable though.”
I don’t know what a silencer is, so I shake my head no. “That won’t be necessary.”
I suck in a shaky breath, and Tirigan and I share a nervous glance. After a moment, I turn my attention back to a very curious looking Kor. His eyes are bright, not at all dulled by whatever caution he must feel about this moment. It would make more sense if he were outwardly troubled, if it looked like his heart was beating a little erratically. But, he just looks interested in what we have to say, and maybe a little confused. I run through our cover story one more time, then start talking.
“Calla died when we were four. We never really knew her.” I look down at my hands because I’m too much of a coward to look into Kor’s eyes as I lie to him.
“I’m… so sorry… to hear that,” he responds stiltedly. It’s odd. “I... I don’t really know what to say, which my family would tell you is a rather astounding circumstance.”
“It was a long time ago,” I say, finally finding the courage to look at him again. His face is soft, but confusion overtakes sympathy. There’s also a hint of sadness that belongs to him alone. I see it in the sudden glisten around his eyes. “When our father died a few months ago, we found something when we were cleaning out his things.” Pulling my backpack from my back and unzipping it, I grab the note but leave the necklace. “She left this for you.”