Melodis Tune

by Melodi's Tune (NCP) (lit)

  At Darien's wary stare, Melodi shouted, "I hear the tune in my head. I'm not crazy. Oh, never mind. I'm going outside to look around. Maybe they left tracks on the ground or something."

  "Who left tracks where? Wait a minute. You'll never see anything in the dark." Darien didn't understand what was going on, but somehow he had to calm Melodi down. "Listen, let's eat. If you want to look after that, I'll go with you."

  She frowned, then her shoulders relaxed. "You're right. My blood sugar might be low. I haven't eaten since lunch. What time is it, anyway?"

  Darien checked the clock on the mantle. "After eight o'clock."

  "That's impossible." Melodi stared, her expression -- shocked. "It was barely six when I came in." She closed her eyes and frown. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "I lost some hours the last time, too." She looked at the recorder with a curious mixture of awe and distaste. She stood straighter. "Have you ever had really vivid dreams? I mean dreams so real that you could swear you were actually there, wherever your dream took you?"

  Darien didn't know how to answer without sounding as off the deep end as she did. His dream, or hallucination, of earlier today had felt real enough. The circumstances remained fuzzy. He remembered his muscles aching when he'd awoken this morning. He remembered his determination to pick out notes to the tune while it was fresh in his mind.

  Fresh, hell, he couldn't get the tune out of his mind. It had played over and over until he'd been sure that if he didn't get it down on paper he'd never have a moment of peace.

  He remembered stumbling down to the piano. His throat had ached. Fever had gripped him. No matter how hard he tried, he'd been unable to find the right keys on the instrument. Frustration had been seconds away when Melodi had joined him. She'd competently picked out the tune.

  Then what? According to Melodi and Doc Reynolds, he'd fainted. A dream -- he remembered that vividly. The cool fog and the sounds of running footsteps had been real enough, as were the rocks on the shore of the lake.

  The music had returned. Played on some type of reed instrument. The next thing he'd known was staring into Melodi's eyes.

  He didn't want to tell her all that. He'd convinced himself that it had been part of a fever-induced hallucination.

  So it felt real, so what?

  "I don't dream much," he told her.

  After Melodi stowed her overnight bag in a spare room she sent Darien to bed. He didn't oppose her pushy suggestion this time. In fact, relief filled him when he saw her pull books and papers from one of her bags and settle down at the kitchen table.

  She must have forgotten about checking for footprints, or whatever she'd proposed earlier.

  He was tired. Maybe if he followed doctors' orders, rested and relaxed, this all-consuming fatigue would vanish.

  "Good night." He tried once more to get her to leave. "You don't have to stay. I slept some this afternoon. My voice even came back."

  She glared at him. "Forget it. I'm here and I'll stay. Judy and your mom would kill me if I left after what happened this morning."

  "You called them?" He struggled to keep the panic out of his voice.

  "Of course not."

  He relaxed.

  "I'm no snitch," she lectured. "But, I do think you're playing this wounded songbird act a little too hard."

  That sentence reminded him of why he didn't want her in the house. She challenged him. Challenged his talent, challenged his right to feel sorry for himself. What did she know about it, anyway? That set him to thinking. What did she know?

  He left her without another word, alternating between wanting to throttle her and wanting to taste her sweet lips again. If he stayed in the kitchen any longer he'd have to decide which action to take.

  An hour later he tossed down the book he'd been trying to read. His body said, "sleep," but his mind couldn't stop playing over the events of the day. He switched off the bedside lamp.

  The bedroom windows overlooked the lakeshore. The gleam of a crescent moon shone feebly through the flitting clouds. No stars to speak of, no friendly lights from the far shore.

  He looked again. There was a bobbing light. It moved from the house to the edge of the lake. It had to be Melodi. She'd no doubt been unable to wait until morning to check for signs of her hallucination.

  With the wind blowing from the north the temperature must be close to freezing. She'd come back with a cold and probably need him to nurse her.

  The idea pleased him. He contemplated the sound of her ragged voice telling him to get out.

  He wondered what she wore to bed. A lacy flannel nightgown? Nothing at all?

  As fantasies went, it was a pleasant way to pass the time.

  When he saw the light come bobbing back toward the house, he relaxed back on his pillow and tried to blank his mind.

  On the edge of drifting off, he heard her playing her recorder. She was good, but did she have to play that same tune over and over?

  He rolled over and pulled a pillow over his head, hoping to insulate his ears from the sound. It grew louder.

  That couldn't be. She had to be in the kitchen. The kitchen was on the opposite side of the house through several lengths of hallways and closed doors.

  "I won't get any sleep with that going on," he muttered as he pulled on his jeans. He did sleep in nothing at all.

  "Can you keep down the racket?" he said as he stepped into the kitchen.

  Melodi remained silent. Darien couldn't see a recorder.

  She sat straight in the chair, her eyes fixed in a glazed stare at the wall.

  "Melodi, wake up." Darien touched her hand. He recoiled at its icy feel.

  She turned an empty gaze on him. A shiver ran down his back. Sounds came out of her mouth, words in a different language.

  "This is getting too weird. Cut it out." More invisible fingers tracked down his spine.

  The tune started again. This time he knew what she'd meant before about hearing it in his mind. The melody tickled its way across his brain cells like a wind chime in the dark. When it ended, Melodi blinked then slumped in the chair.

  Irritation at his fear drove Darien. He grasped Melodi by the shoulders and pulled her to her feet. She voiced no protest, just gazed at him. Her glazed eyes unsettled him more.

  "What kind of drugs are you taking?" he demanded. It was the only rational reason he could think of for her trance-like state.

  Melodi's laugh sounded weak to Darien. She didn't pull away from him.

  "I wish it was something as simple as drugs." Her voice rasped, a hollow whisper in the still air.

  She stared with a single-minded intent at his face, as if she were memorizing his features. At last she took a ragged breath and struggled out of his grasp.

  Darien let her move away, though her reactions were so bizarre that he wondered if he was stuck with a crazy woman for the long winter months.

  As if she read his thoughts, Melodi said, "I'm not crazy, at least not yet. Do you believe in reincarnation?"

  Whoa, where did that come from? Darien didn't have a clear philosophy on life after death, he enjoyed living for the here and now, and he wasn't sure this was the time to think about the after life. He saw by her stance that she was dead serious. If he read her body language correctly - wide-open eyes, red cheeks, hugging her arms tightly across her chest - she was embarrassed to have asked.

  His trite reply melted before it could fall from his lips.

  "I've never given it much thought," he muttered.

  She turned her back to him and put the teakettle to heating on the stove. He looked the books that covered the top of the table. They were anthropology texts or something like that. Handwritten notes littered the table, too. A closer look showed that Melodi was studying the lifestyles of the early Native Americans of this part of the country.

  "Tea?" She offered him a mug before he had a chance to answer. After he took it, she said, "Listen to this."

  She turned on the CD player that had been hidden under a stack of pap
er. Strains of music from strings, flutes, harp, and piano flowed from the small speaker. He recognized the work of a popular New Age artist.

  "Very nice. What's the point?"

  "Does that sound anything like the tune we've both been hearing?"

  "Now you're assuming that I've had this song running though my mind like you claim to. That's crazy." He didn't like the direction this conversation was taking.

  "Crazy is one word," Melodi agreed. She considered taking him into her confidence. The coincidence between her experiences and the tune were too extraordinary to shrug away without searching for an explanation.

  The incredible experience she'd had just before Darien had pulled her back into this warm kitchen confirmed that something more than normal was at work.

  Three deep, calming breaths later Melodi knew she had to tell Darien her speculations. He was involved, whether he was aware of it or not, whether he wanted to be or not.

  "Sit down, this may take a while."

  He remained standing.

  "Suit yourself." She shrugged. "This was the third time in two days that hearing that tune has triggered something in me. At first I thought it was because I've been working exclusively on my dissertation, at least that's the most reasonable explanation. Now I have a feeling that something more is going on."

  Darien raised a skeptical eyebrow.

  She went on. "Last night was the first time. I was watching the sunset when I heard the sound of a pipe or flute. It sounded like an echo coming across the water from the other side of the lake. It got so loud that I had to cover my ears. Even with my hands over my ears I could hear it. Up here, in my mind."

  She wished she could read the expression on Darien's face. He must be one heck of a poker player.

  After a sip of tea, she continued. "The next thing I knew was hearing your car drive up. I was lying on the rocks at the edge of the lake. I put it out of my mind for a while until I realized how long I must have been out. Hours. Do you know what that feels like, to lose hours of time and not know how?" She didn't look at him, afraid of what she might see. All she wanted to do was to finish her story so that he could ridicule it and her. That would put it into the proper perspective.

  "Tonight I didn’t intend to play that particular tune on my recorder while you were sleeping. I couldn't help myself. I was compelled to play it. When the sound faded away, a fog bank opened outside the window. I saw them -- the early dwellers of this area, authentic down to the birch bark canoes and buckskin breechclouts.

  "That's not the most incredible part. One of them saw me. It was a man in his late twenties, early thirties, I guess. He had blue eyes." Just like yours, she thought but she didn't dare say that out loud.

  She rushed on. "Tonight, I convinced myself that it was another dream. Especially after I searched outside. There were no footprints on the wet ground, no signs of canoes dragged ashore. So I tried to concentrate on my paper. Completing it in peace without distractions is the sole reason for my being here.

  "Anyway, I turned on the music and started to work. The next thing I knew, that tune had surrounded me. That's the only way I can describe it. I was in a fog. When it cleared I was standing on the shore of the lake on a warm summer day. It had to be the same lake; the shoreline was the same. A man ran towards me, the same man I had seen earlier."

  She took a deep breath. "Darien, it was you. Dressed in buckskin and with your hair in braids, but you all the same. I wish I knew why this is happening." Her hands shook.

  They'd met a scant twenty-four hours ago, yet in that span of time remarkable occurrences had happened to each. Darien couldn't help but wonder what an obscure melody had to do the all that had happened. Apparently Melodi had never heard that tune until last night when he was on his way here. He didn't know her that well, but as far as he knew, she had no reason to deceive him.

  Melodi raised her eyes to his. His reflection drowned in their brown depths as he struggled to find the right thing to say.

  Denial sat on his lips, but he found that he couldn't lie to her even though the truth was more far-fetched than her own tale.

  "You played the tune on the piano," he said. "I was angry that a melody that I thought I had just composed came so effortlessly to you. The next thing I knew, I was laying on the shore of the lake. A pearly fog bathed me."

  Crimson flushed her high cheekbones. Her eyes flashed with unexpected anger. "Never mind," she snapped. "I should have known you'd make fun of me." Angry hands slapped her books into the backpack.

  Her reaction irritated him. "You have to admit that what you're suggesting, time travel, transmigration of souls, whatever else you want to throw into the mix, is more than crazy." He heard the hard edge of his voice. "It would make a great book, wouldn't it?"

  A gleam lit her eyes. "Don't stop, please. I'm fascinated. Now I'm not on drugs, but I’m a crazy person spinning tales."

  "The hell of it is, it's the truth."

  His words hung in the air, light, easily dispersed. Then the weight of them sank in. Melodi sat down.

  "You believe me?"

  "I believe that something happened to you, yes. Just what, well that's the kicker, isn't it?" Darien refilled both their mugs with fresh tea. "The question is, what do we do about it?"

  "Do? We can't control playing the tune. It has some effect on these dreams or hallucinations or whatever you want to call them. I've found that the music starts without my even thinking about it."

  "I've heard the tune in my mind, too," Darien told her. "Tonight after you came in from checking the ground, I heard a pipe playing it. I thought you were playing the recorder again. It was so loud that I though you had to be playing it right outside my door. Even putting a pillow over my head didn't lessen the sound. That's when I realized that I wasn't hearing it with my ears. I got up to investigate and found you in a trance. Your hands were like ice and your spoke in a different language."

  He grimaced. "I'm not sure what freaked me out more, the music in my mind or the sounds coming out of your mouth."

  They sat in silence for a moment. Melodi nodded. "So, here we are."

  "Yeah."

  "Could you imitate the sounds I made?" Melodi asked. "Did it sound like words?"

  "I'm not sure I could reproduce them. They were pretty guttural."

  "Hmm… I think a trip to the university is in order tomorrow. My friend, Joe Larkfeather, is doing his dissertation on the instruments, music, and ceremonies of his ancestors. If the tune is ancient Penobscot in origin he might be able to help."

  Something in her tone made him ask, "How good a friend is this Joe?"

  "We were undergraduates together. He's responsible for my interest in that particular era in Maine. He grew up on Indian Island, the Penobscot reservation. One weekend he took me to meet his family. It was such an intriguing blend of ancient and modern that I wanted to know more about their origins." She sipped her tea. "I couldn't have come this far without the help of his family."

  "You've met his parents?"

  She nodded. "Tomorrow's going to be a long day. Your throat must be tired after all this talk. Goodnight."

  "What time are we leaving?" Darien's question stopped her exit.

  "We? What makes you think you're coming?"

  "This affects me as much as it does you. I've got a stake in it." He didn't understand why he didn't want her to be alone with this Joe Larkfeather guy, he just knew that he was going with her.

  As if she were talking to a recalcitrant child, Melodi explained, "First of all, you've been sick, still are if this morning's event is any indication of your health. You should rest. Second, you'll be in my way. The university is like a second home. I know my way around; you don't. Besides, Joe might not want to talk to me with you around. He's skeptical of strangers who pretend an interest in his work."

  Darien waved her objections aside. "My fever is gone. If it makes you feel better, I'll get Doc Reynolds to okay a short trip. Orono is only an hour away, not on the other side
of the country. As for Joe, introduce me as a professional, a colleague interested in the music he's studying. In a way it's the truth. I'm always looking for something fresh. Incorporating Native American sounds into my songs would be a whole new dimension to the music."

  The idea had come off the top of his head, but now that he considered it, it wasn't half bad. He'd need a new angle to make his name as a songwriter rather than as a singer. This could be it.

  Also, the excursion would help pass the time. He liked to move around. Staying in one place made him restless. Six months in Maine might be good for his physical health, but he'd be loony with boredom by the end of it if he didn't find something to stimulate him.

  "I prefer to go by myself," Melodi said.

  "If you go without me, I'll have to follow you. You don't want a sick man driving, do you? If I lose control on the road, you'd be responsible."

  "Have you always been this stubborn? Fine, we'll leave as soon as Doc Reynolds can give you a clean bill of health."

  Darien let her leave the room this time. As he watched her denim-clad form retreat down the hall he enjoyed the graceful swing of her legs, the sway of her rounded bottom in the form-hugging jeans.

  "Get over it," he muttered. His bed beckoned, cold and lonely. She'd be sleeping, warm and soft and a short distance away.

  He'd need a cold shower if he was going to fall asleep.

  Not only that, but he was spending the whole day with her tomorrow.

  What a dumb move.

  Chapter Five

  Though her bones ached with fatigue, Melodi's spinning thoughts kept her awake. She recalled how a mixture of curiosity and a sense that she was must be dreaming had kept her from being afraid when she had found herself in a different time earlier in the evening.

  The Indian, who might have been Darien's twin brother, had run up to her and started to talk. She had known that the language was not English, but she'd understood everything he'd said. The conversation remained vivid.

  "Meet me in the moose meadow when the moon is high, Little Raccoon." His voice, tender and raspy with desire, belied the haunted look in his eyes.