Dot nodded, looking thoughtful. ‘I’m not surprised. Every Songshaper has an instrument that comes most naturally to them. Mine is the piano.’
‘But I’ve only seen you use a piano accordion.’
‘Well, yes.’ Dot smiled. ‘The problem with pianos, you see, is that they’re not very portable.’
‘Oh, right.’ Chester felt a little foolish. ‘That makes sense.’
‘Anyway,’ Dot said, with a wave of her toast, ‘it doesn’t matter which instrument you play. Not really. It’s easier on your natural instrument, of course, but you can still play Music on another.’
‘And how do you do that?’ Chester sat up a little straighter. ‘I mean, what’s the difference between playing normal music, and Music with a capital “M”?’
Dot nodded at the sorcery lamp. ‘You tell me.’
Chester paused. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing. Sometimes I’m playing a really tricky song, something that makes me tune out the rest of the world, and get lost in the melody …’ He trailed off. ‘And then I hear it.’
‘Hear what?’
‘The Song. It’s like another melody, underneath everything. It runs through the air, the ground, the stones, the trees. Even people, and furniture, and buildings.’ Chester took a slow breath. ‘It’s like … like the blood under a person’s skin. You can’t see it until you’ve pierced the surface, but it’s always there, pumping away, keeping your body alive.’
Dot gave him a cautious look. ‘You need to be careful, Chester. Playing your own Music doesn’t mean hijacking the Song. Only the highest-level Songshapers are allowed to –’
‘I know,’ Chester said quickly. ‘That’s not what I meant. I just …’
Chester trailed off, suddenly nervous. If the gang realised how often he’d connected to the Song – or that his connections were growing more frequent – they might decide it was too risky to include him in their plans.
He ran a hand through his hair. ‘It’s just … Well, I think that’s the difference between music and Music, isn’t it? When you play music, you hear the tune. But when you play Music, you feel the tune.’
Dot’s expression relaxed.
‘What?’ Chester said.
‘It seems to me, Chester Hays, that you’re a lot more ready than you think you are.’ She surveyed the window with a slow smile. ‘And tonight, you’ll have your chance to prove it.’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The night was hot.
A constant buzz rose from the hotel’s taproom below. Noise and music, the clatter of crockery and voices. For a brief moment, Chester wished he was down there, playing his fiddle for coins. Had it only been days since the Barrel o’ Gold?
His shirt stuck to his back, as heavy as a woollen blanket. He didn’t bother with a coat – all he needed was the flute. He thrust it into his trouser pocket and tried not to let the nerves show on his face.
‘Ready?’ Susannah said.
Chester glanced at her. She stood at the window dressed in simple brown trousers, her red hair framed like a fire against the glass. It was dark outside – a truly dark night, with the barest sliver of moon – and she looked a riot of colour against the black windowpane.
He nodded. ‘I’m ready.’
‘Good.’
Dot stared out the window, a distant smile on her lips. ‘I used to like moonless nights,’ she said. ‘Good for stories. Good for secrets. Good for sneaking.’
‘All right,’ Susannah said. ‘Put out the ladder, Dot.’
Dot kept her gaze pressed close to the glass, piercing their own reflections to stare out into the night. Down in the taproom, the musicians finished their number and there was a roar of shouts and applause.
‘Sometimes I think there must be Echoes out there,’ Dot said distantly. She ran a finger through the air, brushing at some unseen strand of shadow. ‘Or the ghosts of Echoes. Like mirror images of the Echoes in the Hush, wandering like streaks of light and shadow through the world …’
‘And sometimes,’ Susannah said, a little impatient, ‘I think you should hurry up and put the damn ladder out.’
Dot’s ladder was made of wood, but not a wood Chester was familiar with. It shimmered at his touch and from it he caught snatches of broken Music – tiny songs, or the faintest whisper of melody. But when his fingers lingered too long, the songs fell silent.
‘It’ll only work for me,’ Dot said, as she hooked one end of the ladder to their windowsill. ‘I enchanted it especially. Wouldn’t want another Songshaper to get his hands on it and steal the thunder for my invention.’
‘Have you patented it?’ Travis said, interested. ‘There’s a great deal of money in such things, if you invent something that people will pay to replicate.’
Dot waved a hand. ‘No point now, is there? It was going to be my research project at the Conservatorium until …’ She trailed off. ‘Anyway, I can’t patent it now. It would mean admitting I’ve done sorcery without a licence.’
She began to unfold the ladder, clicking out its extending pieces one by one. ‘I was inspired by my accordion, you see,’ she said. ‘It folds up small but extends into a longer strip.’
Susannah pushed the window open. Chester blinked as their reflection vanished, replaced by the black street outside. Hot wind ruffled in through the window, blustering dust and shadow into his face. If he squinted, he could make out the shape of Charles Yant’s house, looming on the opposite side of the street.
‘Can you see the balcony?’ Dot whispered.
‘Don’t ask me,’ Travis said, gesturing up at his spectacles. ‘I can hardly see a page in front of my eyes.’
Chester shook his head. ‘No, I … Wait, yes! There it is.’
‘Can you point?’
Chester screwed up his eyes, focused as hard as he could, and pointed through the dark.
‘Don’t move,’ Dot whispered. ‘I’m going to put out the ladder.’
She retrieved her piano accordion from the bed and hoisted it up into playing position. She opened it with a wheeze of sound and Chester winced. The accordion wasn’t exactly a quiet instrument – it was lucky that the taproom downstairs was in such a raucous state or they’d risk alerting half the street.
Dot coaxed the bellows into a dance between her hands. It resembled a lung, inflating and deflating with life and air, and as the instrument breathed, her fingers played. One note then the next. The melody slipped and lingered, pulling on chords with a wheeze and then exploding out into a tinkle of fast-paced notes.
And as the Music played, the ladder rose.
It moved like a snake. It slithered up from its half-unfolded position and unfurled out the window, as though some invisible breeze was carrying it forwards even though the air was heavy, hot and lank. The ladder folded outwards, piece by piece, and the Music flowed, until there was finally the clink of wood on metal.
Dot played a sudden run of tightening notes. She pushed the bellows inwards, compressing and locking the Music around a single final chord, and Chester thought he could almost taste the moment when the ladder locked into place.
Dot released her breath. The room fell silent.
Their ladder stretched across the street, from their own window to Yant’s upper balcony.
‘I’ll keep an eye on it,’ Dot said. ‘I don’t know how long the Music will hold it – I’ll probably have to replay the melody every few minutes.’
Susannah nodded. ‘You keep an eye on the ladder and Travis can keep watch for dangers.’
Chester knew what was coming. He straightened his back and tried to look confident, just as the captain’s gaze swept around to focus on him.
‘Ready?’ she said.
Chester’s heart throbbed. He stared out the window at the darkness. The ladder. The balcony across the street.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I am.’
‘Good,’ Susannah said. ‘Then let’s go.’
She jumped onto the windowsill, quick and nimble as a cat. Susannah’
s hair danced in a mass of curls, swaying with the movement of her body. Then she was gone, scurrying along the ladder into the dark.
Chester stared after her for a moment then he gave himself a mental slap. This was a time to focus on the job, not … other things.
He hauled himself onto the windowsill. He was confident on his feet, of course – you had to be, if you wanted to sneak aboard cargo trains. But this was different. Jumping onto a train as it slowed … well, that was all about panic. It was sheer momentum and adrenaline as you leaped up and prayed like hell and grabbed the doorhandles in the certain knowledge that letting go meant death.
But here? Now? This was a different sort of courage. There was no urgency. No rush of a freight train and no roar of its Music or its engine. No blast of steam to scare him into action. There was just the silence of the night, and the weight of baking air. The ladder stretched out before him, a gently swaying bridge across the darkness.
If he fell, his death would not be pretty.
‘You know,’ Dot said, after a pause, ‘sometimes I like pretending the whole world is a song and we’re all just notes inked onto the stave.’ She smiled at him. ‘Nothing real to hurt you, you see? Just lyrics in a lullaby.’
Chester flushed. ‘I’m not scared, Dot.’
‘Never said you were.’
Chester paused then bent his knees and reached out to grab a ladder rung. His upper body stretched out into the night, fingers wrapping around the furthest rung he could reach. With a sharp breath, he trusted his weight to the ladder.
He was suddenly aware, again, of the noise in the taproom below. If a drunken patron stumbled outside and looked up … No. He didn’t need something else to worry about. That was beyond his control. All he could do was concentrate on crawling and try not to slip.
The climb was slow. He crawled along the ladder, limb by limb, and fought to ignore how it swayed and tilted when his body weight shifted. Sometimes the ladder rolled to one side and he was left hanging sideways, his heartbeat pattering, his fingers slick with sweat. Then – Dot must have played her Music again – it swung back into a flattish bridge and Chester forced himself to move before his courage deserted him.
Susannah had already finished her crossing. She stood on Yant’s balcony, peering back at him along the ladder.
‘Hurry,’ she mouthed.
Chester let out a quick breath, suddenly embarrassed. This was ridiculous. If he could hop into a moving cargo train, he could surely negotiate a stationary ladder between two buildings.
He took the rest of the ladder at a faster crawl, a shuffle of lunges, like the unfolding scrunch of a caterpillar. At the balcony rail, he crossed the bars with all the casual ease he could muster. He forced a grin and thrust his hands behind his back, trying to hide the tremble in his fingers.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘That was fun.’
Susannah returned his smile but pressed a finger to her lips. ‘Only talk if it’s important, all right?’
‘Yes, Captain.’
Susannah turned her attention to the balcony door behind them. It was locked, of course. A heavy padlock dangled from the shutters. Susannah fished a metal pin from her pocket and jiggled it cautiously inside the lock. It took a minute or so of fiddling, but finally Chester heard a click.
Susannah removed the pin and yanked the padlock open. They crept inside, as slow and quiet as spiders. Chester glanced around the room, alert for any signs of human life, but the room was empty. He let out a slow breath.
Before the balcony door closed, Chester stole one last glance back out into the night. He saw their hotel room across the street, dimly lit by sorcery lamps. Dot and Travis’s faces were silhouetted at the window. Then the door shut and they were gone.
Susannah pulled a pair of tiny globes from her pocket and passed one to Chester. It was barely the size of a marble.
‘Hideaway lamp,’ Susannah whispered.
She buried her globe in her palm and hummed a quiet run of notes. A tiny beam of light shot from the lamp, which was so small that she could hide the shine by adjusting her fingers. She opened two fingers to make a crack that allowed a single ray to light the path ahead.
Chester closed his palm around his own hideaway lamp and tried to feel the Music inside the glass. He sensed it almost immediately: a quiet run of notes, identical to the newer lamps aboard the Cavatina.
‘Dot made these?’
Susannah nodded.
Chester raised the tiny lamp to his lips and hummed the notes as quietly as possible. A faint sheen spilled from the glass. He could feel the Music now, that familiar hum of a sorcery globe trickling like liquid through his fingers.
They stood in a sitting room. A glass chandelier hung from the ceiling and velvet chairs were scattered around the room. Decorative rugs cascaded over furniture and a crystal chessboard perched on a marble table. The pieces glinted in the shadows. Crystal. Just one of those chess pieces was worth more than he’d earn in a year of playing his fiddle in saloons.
Chester jerked his head in the direction of the chessboard. ‘Can we …?’
Susannah shook her head. ‘Might be a honeypot.’
‘A honeypot?’
‘Sometimes people leave valuables in the open, rigged with Musical alarm systems,’ Susannah said. ‘Perfect way to catch a lazy thief. Stick your hand in the honeypot and you risk getting stung.’
They crossed the room on tiptoe. The hideaway lamp felt warm in Chester’s palm as he let a tiny crack of light escape between his fingers. Unfortunately, the lamp soon proved something of a distraction. As Dot’s melody tinkled into his palm, the Music spilled a constant flutter into his flesh. It was enough to make him wish for a pair of gloves.
He stole a look at Susannah but she didn’t seem bothered by the Music’s touch. Perhaps she was very good at tuning out distractions – or perhaps she just couldn’t sense it. The touch came naturally to Chester, like his accidental forays into the Song when he played complicated music. It felt simple. Natural. Just like breathing.
They tiptoed along a winding corridor and down a flight of stairs. Whenever the Music grew too intense, Chester switched his lamp from hand to hand. Each time, it took a good minute for the tune to build up into a crescendo again.
Susannah walked in utter silence and with utter confidence. Actually, Chester decided, she didn’t walk. She prowled. She seemed to know instinctively where to step and how to navigate the floorboards without making a creak. She was light on her feet, but determined. A master burglar.
Chester, on the other hand, felt rather flustered. He remembered the time he’d crept downstairs the night before Harvest Parade, to sneak a peek at the present his father had scrimped all year to buy. His stomach had curled the entire trip, both with the fear of discovery and the knowledge he was doing something wrong. Every step was tortured.
Now, those feelings were magnified a thousandfold. If Chester was caught tonight, he wouldn’t just face a scolding from his father. He would likely die.
But still, there was something else …
Another feeling. Another emotion. It squirmed below the surface, dipping and diving with every nervous step. What was it? Chester felt tight with frustration, unable to place a label on the twisting in his gut.
Then he realised what it was. Excitement. It was the thrill of being naughty, of taking risks. It was a stupid thing to feel, and probably suicidal. But even so, he couldn’t quite fight down that giddy little rush that came from breaking the rules. One step, two steps, three steps … Each step was another risk, another transgression.
They turned another corner and Chester froze.
A guard stood at the end of the corridor.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Susannah reacted fast. She grabbed Chester’s sleeve and yanked him back around the corner. They flattened themselves against the wall, keeping their breaths low and quiet. Chester’s limbs felt so tightly coiled that he feared his body might explode. He tightened his fingers arou
nd the hideaway lamp, blocking even the smallest rays of light from escaping.
Silence.
‘Didn’t see us,’ Chester mouthed.
Susannah nodded, ghostly in the shadows. She bent in close and whispered in his ear. ‘We’ll have to pass him in the Hush.’
Her breath tingled warm on Chester’s neck. It took him a second to refocus. ‘Okay.’
They dropped to the floor, seeking something solid to hold onto. In unison, they hummed the backwards Sundown Recital, as quietly as possible, so that each reversed run of notes was barely a breath in the still of the corridor.
Chester felt a tingle as the final note brushed his lips. The air rippled around him and he lurched. It felt as though an invisible hand had yanked him off kilter, leaving him to teeter on his knees and splayed palms.
Darkness filled the corridor. It wasn’t the usual dark of a building at night. It was a stronger shadow, a deeper black. It exploded into the air like ink spilling from a broken bottle. It tasted bitter, casting an unnatural tang of cold onto his tongue.
And to Chester’s surprise, it swirled with rain. He had never entered the Hush inside a building before – for some reason, he’d half-expected the Hush-rain to stay outside, like in the Cavatina. But unlike the echoship, this corridor had not been designed to withstand conditions in the Hush. Here, the unnatural rain slithered and smacked and sizzled at odd angles, striking sideways, dancing through the air. And as always, it left him dry.
Susannah opened her palm, allowing the full light of her hideaway lamp to bloom. It glinted off raindrops and the corridor’s ornaments; it glimmered off golden picture frames and lit their path around the corner.
And this time, when they turned the corner, there was no guard in sight.
‘Why didn’t we do this whole job in the Hush?’ Chester said, as they moved down the corridor. ‘If none of the guards know about the Hush, wouldn’t it be safer to –’
‘Too dangerous.’
‘Worse than getting caught by guards?’
‘Yes,’ Susannah said emphatically. ‘Echoes are worse than guards.’
The Hush Page 16