Ballad bof-2

by Мэгги Стивотер

  Sullivan nodded. “The staff lights them as soon as it’s dark.

  There will be several.” His eyes narrowed. “What did he say?

  Cernunnos?”

  I waited for Paul or Nuala to say something, but they were all looking at me like I was the ringleader. So I went over what had happened while Sullivan ran his tongue back and forth over his teeth.

  “Paul, what did he tell you?” Sullivan asked.

  Paul swallowed the last of the donut. “He showed me stuff I’m not allowed to talk about.”

  Sullivan frowned at him, but Paul didn’t say anything more.

  “Go get cleaned up,” Sullivan said to us. “You all stink. Then, “And James, I need you again. Normandy wants to see you.”

  “Goodie,” I said.

  Halloween. It was finally here. I sort of wished I could disappear.

  James

  I’d assumed we were going back to Normandy’s office for our little talking to, but instead, Sullivan made a giant pot of coffee in his room and sat me at his kitchen table with a mug. The coffee was very black, and I said so.

  “We’ll both need to be awake tonight,” Sullivan said. “The bonfires don’t even start until nine.”

  When he said bonfire, my stomach pinched for a second, sick and raw. I only had a second to wonder at the sensation—when was the last time I’d been nervous?—when Gregory Normandy pushed open the door and came into the room. Like the last time I saw him, he was in a button-down and tie, only this time everything he wore looked a little rumpled, like he’d been wearing it awhile. He didn’t say anything to Sullivan, just pulled out a chair and settled down opposite me.

  “Hello, James,” he said.

  I looked at Sullivan.

  “Coffee?” Sullivan asked Normandy.

  “Yes.” Normandy accepted a cup and turned his attention on me. He looked huge at the table, his elbows resting on the surface and dwarfing it. “I need you to tell me everything you know about Deirdre Monaghan.”

  Something about the way he said it, just assuming or something, made me bristle. I held up my hand. “She’s about this tall, dark hair, gray eyes, pretty hot in jeans.”

  “James.” Sullivan’s voice held a warning tone. “Not really the time. Just answer the question.”

  That pissed me off too. I didn’t really care for Sullivan pulling rank on me now, not after everything we’d been through.

  “Why?”

  If I’d known how he would answer the question, I don’t know if

  I would’ve asked it.

  In response, Sullivan pulled a slender phone out of his pocket and slid it across the table to me, sans introduction. I looked at him questioningly and he just gestured with his chin to it. “Read the unsent texts.”

  I clicked past the stock photograph on the wallpaper and through the menu until I got to the unread text section. Fifteen unread texts. Every one to me. My mouth felt dry as I scanned the words. i miss talking like we used to i saw more faeries. luke was here everything isn’t ok i killed someone i can hear them coming now

  And finally, the worst, because it was exactly the same as the text message I’d sent before school started. i love u.

  I just stared at the screen for a long moment before slowly closing the phone. I was aware of a bird singing a repetitive, ugly song outside the window and of a misshapen P on my left hand and of the minute pause between when I exhaled and when I began to inhale again.

  Normandy said, “So I think you can see why it’s time for you to confide in us.”

  “No, how about this,” I said. I heard how my voice sounded, flat and not like me, but I didn’t try to change it as I kept staring at the screen of the phone. “How about you guys tell me what we’re all doing here. Here at ThornkingAsh, I mean. Not in wishy-washy ‘we’re watching out for you to make sure nothing happens’ terms. Like in, ‘why the hell did you bring us here when you don’t even know what’s going on under your own noses’ terms. Like you told me that you knew something was up with Dee, right at the very beginning, and now she’s obviously totally screwed, and you should’ve done something—”

  I stopped speaking then, because Normandy was saying something and I was realizing that I wasn’t angry at him at all. I was angry at me.

  I stared at my hands.

  “James,” Sullivan said. I heard the sound of Dee’s cell phone scraping across the table as he picked it up.

  “Look. You’re not an idiot,” Normandy said. “I thought I was pretty clear when we met. We—we being myself and a few of the other staff members here—founded ThornkingAsh after we realized that They were more likely to harass or kidnap teens with incredible musical talent. Like my son.”

  I dimly remembered hearing something about this, back when

  I’d first applied to the school with Dee. I just stopped myself from saying “the one who killed himself.” It sounded too tactless, even for me.

  “He was stolen,” Normandy said, his voice very even. “That was before I knew about Them. I knew I couldn’t let that happen to anyone else. So we created the school to find at-risk students and keep them under a watchful eye.”

  “And the thorn king?” I asked. “Obviously his trekking about behind the school isn’t a coincidence, given the name of the school.”

  “He’s a canary,” Normandy said, with a sort of flat-lipped smile as if the statement was supposed to be funny, or had been funny once. “A supernatural canary.”

  I looked at him.

  He explained, “Miners used to keep a canary down in the mines, to let them know when the oxygen was getting low. If the canary died, the miners knew to get out of the mine shaft.

  Cernunnos is our canary. If one of our students can see or hear him, we know they’re particularly susceptible to supernatural interference.”

  Sullivan’s eyes bored holes in the side of my head.

  “Well, obviously your system worked out great,” I said.

  Normandy ignored the sarcasm. “Yeah, actually, it did. We haven’t actually had any notable incidents with the Good

  Neighbors”—he said this last bit with a glance at Sullivan, making me wonder if there was a story there, or if he just knew about Sullivan’s history with Eleanor—“for years. In fact, we’ve just been a premier music school for several years. Until this year—when we’ve had more of Them show up on campus than in all of the other years combined. Patrick tells me it’s because we have a cloverhand here, though I didn’t think they existed anymore. And my instinct is telling me that Deirdre is that cloverhand. Now, I’ve told you everything about the school, so maybe you can tell me this: am I right?”

  There wasn’t any reason to lie. “Yes. I think it started this summer for her.”

  Sullivan and Normandy exchanged looks. “So she’s been drawing every single one of Them to the campus,” Normandy said.

  “What does that mean tonight’s going to look like? Are They satisfied now that They have Deirdre? Or is she part of something bigger?” Sullivan asked.

  “Bigger,” I said immediately. I didn’t say anything about Nuala; I didn’t think Normandy knew about her.

  Sullivan said, “I think the other staff need to be notified. There’s ways to get her back, but we have to be prepared.”

  “They’ll be resistant. It’s been years since we’ve had to do anything like this.” Normandy used the table to push himself to his feet. “Patrick, come with me.”

  Sullivan hesitated, letting Normandy start off without him.

  After Normandy was out of earshot, he turned to me. “Keep

  Nuala out of the way and try not to do anything stupid. Just stay inside. In Brigid, maybe. If I don’t see you beforehand, meet me by the fountain when the bonfires are starting.”

  I’m left sitting at the table, goose bumps crawling up and down my arms. “What about Dee?” I asked.

  “We’re handling it. Worry about Nuala.”

  He didn’t have to mention that last part. I already had
it covered.

  Nuala

  Sleep and death are just the same

  From both I can return

  I emerge from sleep just by waking

  And from death, I return with words.

  —from Golden Tongue: The Poems of Steven Slaughter

  James pushed open the red door to Brigid Hall and stepped aside so I could walk in first. “Nope,” I said. “Ladies first.”

  He gave me a withering look, which was a welcome change from his previously strained expression. “Charming.” But he went in before me anyway. The folding chairs were set up exactly the same as last time we’d been in here, and James walked down the aisle between them, his arms held out wide.

  “Welcome, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, his face flatteringly lit by the halflight through the frosted glass windows. He kept walking down the aisle; I imagined a cloak billowing out behind him. “I’m Ian Everett Johan Campbell, the third and the last.”

  “Spotlight following you up the aisle,” I interrupted, falling into step behind him.

  “I hope I can hold your attention,” James continued. He pretended to pause and kiss someone’s hand sitting along the aisle. “I must tell you that what you see tonight is completely real.”

  “Run up the stairs,” I said. “Music starts once you hit the bottom stair.”

  James leapt up the stairs onto the stage, the recessed lighting onstage turning his hair redder than it really was. He spoke as he walked to his mark. “It might not be amazing, it might not be shocking, it might not be scandalizing, but I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt: it is real. For that—” He paused.

  “Music stops,” I said.

  James closed his eyes. “I am deeply sorry.”

  I joined him on the stage. “When you do the scene where they call you out, when they say what you really are, someone will have to cue the music to go with the sentence. Don’t forget that part.”

  There was a pause then—just a tiny second too long— before

  James said, “You’ll cue it.” The pause told me he wasn’t sure.

  He didn’t know if tonight was going to work. I didn’t either.

  The fact was, I didn’t know if I was built for happy endings.

  “Right,” I said, after a space big enough to drop a semi-truck into. “Yeah, of course.” I was tired again. It was a heavy sort of tired, like if I went to sleep this time, I wouldn’t wake up. James was looking out the window at the late afternoon sun, his eyes narrowed and far away. I knew he was feeling the press of

  Halloween as strongly as I was. “Would you play my song?” I asked.

  “Will you heckle me if I do it wrong?” But he sat down at the piano bench without waiting for my answer. Not like a proper pianist, but with his shoulders slouched over and his wrists resting on the keys of the piano. “I’m afraid I just can’t do it without you here.”

  “Liar,” I said. But I joined him, ducking under his arms like I had that first day at the piano. His arms made a circle around me as

  I sat on the edge of the bench, pressing my body into the same shape as his. Like before, my arms matched the line of his arms as my hands rested on his hands. And my spine curved into the same curve of his hunched-over chest. But this time, there weren’t any goose bumps on his skin. And this time, he pressed the side of his face into my hair and inhaled sharply, a gesture that so agonizingly spelled desire that I didn’t have to read his mind.

  And this time, he pulled his hands from beneath mine and rested them on top of my fingers instead. The piano keys were warm from his touch, like they were living things.

  “James,” I said.

  He took one of my hands in one of his inked-up ones and pressed one of my fingers on a key.

  I wanted it to make a sound so badly that it hurt.

  The key whispered as it depressed, and then hissed again as it came back up again under my finger. No music.

  “Soon,” James said. “Soon you’ll be able to play this as badly as

  I can.”

  I stared at his fingers on my fingers on the keys for a long time, leaning back against him, and then I closed my eyes.

  “They’re going to do something to Dee tonight,” I said, finally.

  “That’s why Eleanor told you how to save my memories. She wants you at my bonfire instead of finding Dee.”

  James didn’t reply. I wondered if I’d even said it out loud.

  “James, did you hear me?”

  His voice was flat. “Why did you tell me?”

  Of all the things I thought he’d say, this wasn’t one of them.

  “What?”

  He said each word distinctly, as if they were painful. “Why—did-you—tell—me?”

  “Because you love her,” I said miserably.

  He dropped his forehead onto my shoulder. “Nuala,” he said.

  But he didn’t say anything else.

  We sat there so long that the bar of sun slanting in from the high windows shifted across the piano, moving from the highest notes to where our hands still rested on the keys.

  “What does your name mean?” James asked, finally, his forehead still resting on my shoulder.

  I jerked at the sound of his voice. “Gray song of desire.”

  James turned his face and kissed my neck. It scared me, the way he kissed me, because it was so sad. I don’t know why I thought it was, but I could feel it. He sat up straight and let me lean back on his chest. Closing my heavy eyes, I let him cradle me against him and breathed in time to the thud of his heart.

  “Don’t go to sleep, Izzy,” James said, and I opened my eyes. “I don’t think you should go to sleep.”

  “I wasn’t sleeping,” I protested, but my eyes had a sticky feeling, and I couldn’t remember how long they’d been closed.

  James’ hands were clasped over my breastbone, holding me to him. “Your heart’s going a million miles an hour. Like a rabbit.”

  Animals with fast hearts always lived shorter lives. Rabbits and mice and birds. Their hearts racing as fast as they could toward the end. Maybe we all just got a finite number of heartbeats, and if your heart beat twice as fast, you used them up in half the time as a normal person.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  “Are you ready?”

  “Let’s go,” I repeated. I just wanted to get it over with.

  James

  “Whoa. Night of the living dead,” I said as we walked W across the overgrown yard in front of Brigid Hall. “Or rather, night of the living geek. I had no idea music geeks danced.”

  The campus was transformed. From the yard outside Brigid, it looked like a happening party. There were tons of black-clad bodies, gyrating to some sort of pounding bass, which I could just barely make out from where we were. As we got closer, however, I realized that the thumping bass was some trendy pop band. You’d think a music school could at least have scraped up a couple of live musicians, even if it had to be topforty crappola, but there was a DJ up there between the speakers. And what had looked like sexy, coordinated dancing from far away was really a sidewalk full of writhing teens with dubious coordination. Some were wearing masks and others had actually bothered to work up real costumes. But mostly, it was just a bunch of music geeks wiggling to bad music. Sort of what I would’ve expected from Halloween at ThornkingAsh.

  “It’s at moments like this”—Nuala paused and watched a chubby guy walk by wearing a fake set of boobs—“that I question whether or not I really want to be human.”

  I guided her away from a girl in what was supposed to be a sexy cat costume. “Me too. How are you feeling?”

  “If you ask me that again, I’ll kill you, is how I’m feeling,” Nuala said mildly.

  “Roger that.” I stood on my tiptoes and looked for anyone useful. Or at least anyone I recognized. It seemed like the school population had multiplied by at least five or ten while I’d had my back turned. I tried to keep my voice light. “Sullivan wanted us to meet him by the perv satyr. We sh
ould find him first, right?”

  “I have no freaking clue. Why would I know?”

  “Because you’ve done this before?” I suggested. She gave me a dark look. “Fine. Let’s find Sullivan.”

  “Or Paul,” Nuala said quickly.

  I wondered what Cernunnos had told Paul. “Or Paul.”

  We shouldered through the crowd, a solid black mass in the dull orange light from the bonfires. I still stank like whatever

  Cernunnos’ perfume was, but despite that, I could smell a weird scent hanging over the students. Herb-ish. Sort of bitter/sweet/earthy. It reminded me of this summer and it made me wonder if some of the faces behind these masks weren’t human.

  Nuala voiced what I was thinking, “Whose party is this, anyway?”

  I’d figured that the faeries would be out on Halloween, but for some reason I’d thought they’d stay on their hills. “Sullivan!”

  barked Nuala behind me. And there he was, looking grimly efficient. He made a beeline straight toward us. “Where the hell have you been?” he asked pleasantly.

  “We were just looking for you. Have you found Dee yet?” I replied.

  “No.”

  Nuala gestured around at the dancers. “Is something funny going on here?”

  “Yes,” Sullivan said. “All you need to know is that the school is very much an occupied territory at the moment, and it’s only going to get worse as the night goes on.”

  “And Dee?” I insisted. “What if something is happening to her tonight? What if something awful is going to happen?”

  Sullivan glanced around at the dancing bodies. “Dee is somewhere with Them. We’re still looking for her. If you want to help, you’ll steer clear of trouble tonight so she’s the only student we have to worry about.”

  He looked at Nuala. “The staff’s lighting bonfires all over the campus. To keep out the dead. Wherever you are, whenever you’re ready, there’ll be a fire nearby.”

  Nuala didn’t flinch. “Thanks.”

  “And James?” Sullivan was staring past us; as he turned, I saw that he was wearing a long black coat that fluttered out behind him. For a second, I remembered Cernunnos and his long black shroud; then I was back in the present moment again. Sullivan finished, “Find Paul. He’s smarter than he looks.”