Dot tilted her head. ‘You can’t tune it out?’
He wanted to tell her the real problem – that he couldn’t stop himself connecting to the Song. But his insides tightened and he knew his trust didn’t yet stretch that far.
‘Not really.’ It wasn’t a lie; he was just omitting part of the truth.
‘Why didn’t you say something earlier?’ Dot said.
Chester shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I … I guess I didn’t want to seem weak. When I was a kid, this man told me …’ He shook his head. ‘Doesn’t matter. Forget I said anything.’
For a long moment, Dot stared at him. Then she pushed her bowl of oatmeal away, slid back her chair and stood. ‘Come on.’
‘What?’
‘Come on.’ She looked amused by his hesitancy. ‘I want to show you something.’
She led him to a narrow cabin on the highest level of the Cavatina. It was a comfortable nook with a velvet couch and a smattering of little glass stars across the ceiling. They glinted when Dot lit the sorcery lamps, reflecting orange light across their points.
The room’s most striking feature, however, was the piano. It took up half the floor space and arched with a sleek grand blackness that seemed quite determined to out-glint the stars. Whoever owned this instrument clearly loved it. They cared for it deeply, polished it daily, dusted the pure white shine of its keys. Chester felt a sudden yearning for his fiddle. The yearning was so sharp that his fingers ached. The pang wasn’t just regret for a lost object. It was more like mourning for a lost friend.
Dot slid onto the piano stool and patted the space beside her.
Chester sat. The cushion was thin and threadbare, worn down by countless uses. Even so, he couldn’t help noticing the fine lace skirting around its edges and the gold embroidered patterns across the seat. The piano and stool combination must have cost a fortune.
‘Where’s it from?’ he said, a little awed. ‘Did you steal it?’
Dot looked down at her fingers, resting on the keys. ‘Someone gave it to me. Someone I … cared for. Very deeply. When I passed my first exam at the Conservatorium, she bought it to congratulate me.’
Chester opened his mouth to respond then spotted Dot’s expression. He closed his mouth again.
‘Have you played the piano before?’ Dot said. ‘Not as well as the fiddle, but I used to work in an instrument shop so I learnt to bang out a tune on most things.’
‘Good. That will make it easier to listen.’
Dot’s fingers were strong and confident on the keys, like the legs of a spider roaming across its web. Notes bounced softly around the room before she launched into a familiar tune. Chester picked it out immediately, before her fingers had completed the second bar. ‘The Nightfall Duet’.
As Dot played, a strange tingle ran through the air. Chester glanced around, startled. It was as though an invisible person had run her fingers across his skin. He shivered a little then returned his gaze to the keys, just in time to see the first wisps of smoke.
‘Hey!’ he said. ‘What …?’
Dot smiled at him.
The smoke curled up from her fingertips, tinged with the faint aroma of honey. It spiralled up into vertical whirlpools, slow and silent, then faded like breath into the air.
‘You know the duet, don’t you?’ Dot said. ‘Sam said you played it in Hamelin.’
Chester nodded.
‘I want you to play it now with me,’ she said. ‘And I want you to listen for the Song.’
‘What?’ Chester said, startled. ‘But they’ll find us! If our Musical signatures aren’t registered, they’ll …’
‘No,’ Dot said gently, ‘they won’t. Their radars are in the real world. They can’t pick up what we’re doing in the Hush.’
‘But why …?’
‘You’re having trouble with focus,’ Dot said. ‘That’s why Songshapers study the Song. They don’t disrupt its tune, but they use it as inspiration when they paint their own melodies into the air – it’s a source of strength and focus. I think it could really help you, Chester. And this is the safest place to try.’
Chester wanted to argue. He wanted to tell her the truth – that the Song wasn’t an inspiration to him or a source of focus for his own Music. It was a deadly intruder and he couldn’t keep it out of his head.
But Dot was waiting for him, a quiet expectation in her gaze as her fingers brushed a verse across the keys. Chester drew the flute from his pocket and placed the cold metal against his lips. He waited until Dot reached the end of the verse then launched into the chorus with her. Music flowed from the flute, high and haunting. Dot provided the chords while Chester played in the melody – usually performed by a vocalist – on the flute. He closed his eyes and let the Music fill his ears, his throat, his lungs. There was nothing but the Music and the stillness of the air …
And then he heard it. The other rhythm. The other melody. It lurked beneath their own duet – a constant thrumming, a constant tune. It slithered through the stool beneath his body, through the floor beneath his feet. It trickled like molasses and it sloshed like whiskey. It was hot and cold and silent and loud, all at once, and Chester felt as though every cell in his body might explode with the sound.
No, not the sound. The Song.
Chester hesitated.
‘Go on,’ Dot said. ‘Don’t be afraid of it, Chester. It’s a part of you. It’s a part of all of us.’
And so, his fingers stiff, Chester raised the flute back to his lips. Note by note, they eased back into the duet. Their melody floated upwards, swirling around them, brushing their skin. And note by note, the second rhythm returned. The beat of the Song. After the initial rush, it felt slightly distorted in the Hush, or oddly distant – like a cry echoing across a deep crevasse. It wasn’t the clear, compelling peal he had touched in the real world. But still, Chester could sense it. The heartbeat of the world …
‘Can you hear it?’ Dot said. Her own voice sounded distorted, now. Almost like a whisper. A memory of a voice, or a cry from far away. ‘Don’t touch it, Chester. Don’t interfere. Just listen.’
Chester didn’t respond. He was afraid to lower the flute, afraid that he might break the tune, even for a moment, and the Song would be lost to him forever. It felt so perfect on his lips. So light on his fingertips. So sweet in the air, and so –
‘Light up the stars,’ Dot said.
Chester almost dropped the tune to say What? but he caught himself. He played the next note instead, and opened his eyes to meet Dot’s gaze with confusion.
‘The stars on the ceiling.’ She nodded up towards the smattering of tiny glass shapes. ‘I made them from leftover glass from sorcery lamps, but they’re not enchanted yet. I want you to play a song of light. Of shining. And direct it into those stars.’
Chester let his gaze roam upwards, towards the stars. They still glinted in the light of the sorcery lamps, but they themselves were empty of light. Just translucent glass. He felt a faint jolt in the tune as Dot fell silent, her fingers falling away from the piano keys. It was just his flute now, and just his choice. He could play whatever he wished …
The choice came to him at once. A memory flashed into his mind and for a moment he was young again, a child in a cradle, with his father singing softly.
Into the night, child,
Into the sleep;
Where the stars fly free
And your soul flies deep …
It was a lullaby from his hometown, Thrace. Chester hadn’t heard it for years, but his fingers settled into that familiar starting note. He blew it like an owl’s hoot, before a whole bar of notes tumbled out into the smoke. He could still feel the Song in his veins, and the Music on his fingers. He focused on the stars and let his vision blur until all he saw was the glint of glass.
Then he slowed. The Song felt quiet at the moment: a deep, rolling beat. Chester shifted his own Music down to fall into the same rhythm, until the two melodies were kissing in his ears. They roll
ed around each other, clutched at each other’s notes and pulled each other’s tunes into a spin of quiet embraces. A moment of touch. A moment of connection.
The stars, Chester thought, staring up at the glass. Where the stars fly free …
And then he saw it. A faint gold cord, threaded from light. It rose slowly from the end of his flute and, like a snake charmer coaxing a snake up from its basket, he made the gold sway towards the ceiling. It was hard to focus on it: the light resisted Chester’s eyes as though he was observing it with the wrong sense, so he closed his eyes and opened his ears and let the Music flow up in a ribbon of sound.
Dot gasped. ‘Look!’
Chester opened his eyes again and blinked. He dropped his flute. The Music stopped. He felt his connection to the Song snap and the world was silent again. He felt naked, as though something had been stripped from the surface of his skin.
But above his head, the stars were shining.
‘You did it,’ Dot said, sounding stunned. ‘On your first try, you …’ She turned on him, suddenly looking furious. ‘You’ve been lying to us! You’ve been trained already!’
Chester shook his head, mouth dry. He stared up at the stars. They glimmered with a pale gold light, like the splinters of a broken galaxy. Then he stood, stretched on his tiptoes, and reached up to touch one. Music rippled back down through his fingertips into his body, and he felt his own lullaby being played back to him. Into the night, child, Into the sleep …
Chester sat heavily on the stool. ‘I swear, I didn’t know this would happen.’
He forced his gaze down to meet Dot’s accusing eyes. There was a long moment of silence.
Dot dropped her fingers back onto the piano keys. She didn’t play, however. She simply rested her fingers, as though contact with the ivory was enough to calm her.
‘It took weeks of classes at the Conservatorium for me to learn that,’ she said, sounding awed. ‘Even the best students in my class couldn’t do it on their first try. Nobody can.’
Her tone told him that she believed him.
‘Are those stars all sorcery lamps now?’ Chester said.
Dot shook her head. ‘The Music should fade in a couple of minutes. It’s much harder to make permanent sorcery objects than to enchant something temporarily.’
They both stared back up at the stars.
Chester blinked again, still slightly startled at the thought that his music had breathed the light into those stars. No, not his music. His Music. His sorcery.
‘You started playing Music without permission, didn’t you?’ he said. ‘That’s why they kicked you out?’
‘No, Chester,’ Dot said quietly. ‘They kicked me out because of what I am. Who I am. Because of the person I loved.’
Chester blinked. ‘Huh?’
Dot leant back further, holding the piano rim with her fingers. ‘Her name was Penelope. Penny, I called her. We used to sneak up onto the Conservatorium roof, at night,’ she whispered. ‘We used to watch the stars together.’
Chester didn’t know what to say. He settled for silence and kept his own eyes fixed firmly on the ceiling.
‘She gave me this piano,’ Dot said. ‘It was her parents who found out. Who had me expelled. They said we were blasphemers. Sinful. Unnatural. That it was against the Song itself for us to love each other.’
Chester wet his lips. His heart was hammering. This was why Dot had been expelled?
‘But it wasn’t against the Song,’ Dot whispered. ‘We loved the Song. We used to play Music together, up on the roof, under the stars.’
There was a pause.
‘She wanted to come with me,’ Dot said. ‘To leave her parents, leave the city. But I made her stay. It was her dream, you see. She’d worked all her life to get into the Conservatorium. I couldn’t let her throw it all away.’
Another pause.
‘I’m sorry,’ Chester said.
Dot glanced at him. Her eyes shone a little, but Chester couldn’t tell if it was from moisture or the light of the sorcery stars. She blinked, shook her head, and looked down at her fingers. ‘It was a long time ago,’ she said. ‘Over a year.’
‘But it still hurts?’
‘Every day.’
There was a long silence. They both looked down at the keys. Then, slowly, Dot’s fingers pressed down. A note rang out. For the first time, Chester noticed a tiny curl of faint brownish ink on each hand: a treble clef, but painted backwards, as though the symbol had been reflected in a mirror.
‘What are those?’ he said. ‘Those … tattoos?’
Dot glanced down and her expression went dark. ‘They give you these when you’re expelled from the Conservatorium,’ she said. ‘They stop me from crossing Musical thresholds. I suppose they don’t want failed students to sneak back in and sabotage other people’s work.’
‘What? But you –’
‘Oh, I can still play Music,’ she said. ‘I can still create my own sorcery – even the Shapers can’t stop me doing that. I can make trinkets and play my tunes into lamps and ladders and engines. But I can’t cross a Musical barrier – not without someone else to pull me through. You’ve seen – I can’t even move in and out of the Hush without help.’ She looked down. ‘The captain has to help me.’
Chester stared at the tattoos, horrified. Crossing into the Hush was so simple that even Travis could do it, and he hadn’t a musical bone in his body. It was just like switching on a lamp, or using a sorcery map: the Music was already active, so all you needed to do was to hum the right notes. The idea that Dot couldn’t manage it, with all her wit and her flair for Songshaping …
He remembered their arrival in Linus. Just before they had burst into the real world, Susannah had placed a hand on Dot’s shoulder. At the time, Chester had thought they had just been steadying each other – but now he realised the truth. Without that hand, that connection to Susannah, Dot would have been left in the Hush, trapped and alone.
‘Can’t you get rid of them?’ he said, gesturing at the tattoos.
‘Of course.’ Dot gave an unexpected smile. ‘That’s easy. If I chop off my hands, I’ll be cured. But I won’t be able to play piano anymore, so it’ll be a pretty useless cure, won’t it?’
She ran her fingers along the keys in a ripple, coaxing a wild roar of notes from the ivory. Then she looked up at the artificial stars, an unreadable distance in her eyes.
‘Chester,’ she said, ‘strength isn’t just about putting on a show. It’s not about tugging on the strings, manipulating your audience.’ She lifted her fingers from the keys. ‘And it’s not about lying to your friends.’
‘I know,’ he said.
‘No,’ Dot said gently. ‘I don’t think you do. But you will.’ She smiled at him, a quiet understanding in her eyes. ‘Sometimes,’ she added, ‘I think true strength is admitting when you’re vulnerable.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Just as there was no sundown, there was no dawn in the Hush.
When morning arrived, only the chime of Chester’s alarm clock split the shadows. He rolled out of his bed, pulled on his clothes and shuffled into the kitchen.
He poured himself a coffee from the pot on the stove then slipped into a spare seat at the table. Dot, Sam and Susannah already sat there, sipping coffee with bleary-eyed faces. Dot had cooked up a mess of beans with fried potatoes, but no one seemed particularly hungry. Five minutes later Travis arrived, his hair and clothing impeccably styled as always.
‘Look at you lot,’ he said, with a touch of disdain in his voice. ‘Honestly, you’d think you’d just walked off a battlefield.’
‘Don’t mind him,’ Dot said, as Travis helped himself to the coffee pot. ‘He’s sulking because we had to leave Linus before he visited his favourite tailor.’
‘I’m not sulking,’ Travis said, ‘I’m indulging in a fit of righteous indignation. Do you have any idea what a rare opportunity –’
‘All right,’ Susannah said. ‘Enough.’
&nb
sp; The others fell silent. Chester closed his fingers tightly around his coffee cup.
Susannah stood and tugged the cloth covering the blackboard. Her wounded hands were already scabbing over, thanks to a series of Musical injections when they had returned to the Cavatina last night.
A list adorned the blackboard’s surface: money, enchanted charges, identity documents, escape route …
‘Right,’ she said. ‘This is our checklist for the Conservatorium job. But before we get to that, we need to debrief from last night.’
For the sake of Dot, Sam and Travis, she briefly outlined what had occurred inside the mansion. ‘We should’ve investigated Yant’s time in Weser better,’ she finished. ‘That was my fault. I assumed that because he hadn’t attended the Conservatorium himself, he would have no knowledge of the Hush.’
‘You think it was his uncle, Captain?’ Sam said. ‘Who set up the shattervault and the basket seat?’
Susannah nodded. ‘If only I’d dug a little deeper …’
‘Don’t blame yourself, Captain,’ Dot said. ‘None of the rest of us thought twice about it, either.’
‘What’d you end up stealing?’ Sam said.
Susannah dropped a pile of papers onto the table. ‘Identity papers,’ she said. ‘Birth certificate, a family tree … Travis, think you can craft a false identity for Chester out of this stuff?’
Travis picked up the papers and flicked through them slowly. His lips curled slowly upwards. ‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘That won’t be a problem.’ He pointed at the family tree then glanced up at Chester. ‘I can make you a son of Yant’s cousin, here – he seems to have an overlarge brood as it is.’
‘How long will it take you to forge the papers?’
Travis waved a hand casually. ‘Oh, a couple of days. I’ll need to work out a background story and train the boy in that, which might take a little longer.’ He gave Chester a frank look. ‘How good is your memory?’
‘Good enough,’ Chester said. ‘And I’m not a boy. No more than you are, anyway.’
The Hush Page 19