The Song of the Orphans

by Daniel Price

  “We’ll go somewhere else. We don’t need her.”

  “Heath . . .”

  “She’s dangerous! She’s going to get you killed!”

  “Goddamn it, Heath. Will you listen to me?”

  “No!”

  Hannah moved to the door and cleared her throat. Before Jonathan could say anything, her voice filled the hall like a lullaby.

  Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup

  They slither while they pass, they slip away across the universe

  Jonathan stared at her, astonished. Hannah shrugged. It was the only Beatles song she knew by heart. She’d crooned along to the Fiona Apple cover so many times that all the other versions felt like knockoffs.

  Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my opened mind

  Possessing and caressing me

  The door creaked open a few inches. Heath looked at Hannah with large, maudlin eyes. His lips moved silently to the refrain.

  Jai guru deva om

  Nothing’s gonna change my world

  Nothing’s gonna change my—

  “Your timing’s off.”

  Hannah stopped. “I’m sorry?”

  Heath caught her eye for a fleeting moment before dropping his gaze to her feet. “Your tempo. You were too fast in the opening and too slow in the refrain.”

  “It’s been a while,” Hannah admitted with a grin. “You sure know your Beatles.”

  “I know lots of songs. So does Jonathan. We write them down on music sheets. We’re bringing them back one by one.”

  “That’s wonderful, Heath. It’s a beautiful thing you’re doing. You know, I could help.”

  He turned away, scowling. Jonathan kneeled in front of him. “Listen to me, buddy. You know I never lie to you, and you know I don’t hold back. So when I say we’re in deep shit, I really want you to listen. I lost my guitar. We’re about to lose our home. The Gothams are closing in on us. We can’t beat them on our own.”

  He jerked his head at Hannah. “Now, she can be a little intense sometimes, and you don’t know the half of her timing issues, but she’s most definitely a friend. If you won’t trust her, then trust me to trust her. Please.”

  Heath studied Hannah in thorny contemplation. “Where does she live?”

  “Brooklyn,” Hannah replied.

  Heath arched an eyebrow. “House or apartment?”

  “Brownstone.”

  “What color is it?”

  “Uh, brown?”

  “How did you find Jonathan?”

  Hannah pressed her lips and sighed through her fingers. There was no point in lying.

  “There’s a woman I met. A girl, really. I barely know anything about her except that she wears two watches and she can see the future. She told me six months ago that I’d find Jonathan at that bar. She said he was from my world and that he was a good man, and she was right. I’m pretty sure now that she wanted me to find you too.”

  The two Golds swapped an inscrutable look. Heath mumbled something under his breath. “Do you like wolves?”

  “What?”

  He retreated inside the apartment. Jonathan smirked at Hannah. “It’s all right. You sold him.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. You got the wolf question. You’re fine.”

  Hannah shook her head, baffled. She’d assumed the poor kid had been cracked by the apocalypse. Now she began to wonder if he was a high-functioning autistic. What on earth would the Pelletiers want with this boy?

  “Is all that true?” Jonathan asked. “About the girl with two watches?”

  She nodded her head, her thoughts still swirling around Azral and company.

  “Did she say anything else about me?”

  “No,” Hannah replied, with a silent asterisk. The girl had certainly implied a few things.

  Jonathan fished through his pocket and placed three quarters into Hannah’s palm. “Pay phone’s down the hall. Tell your friends to come quick but don’t bring everyone. It’ll freak out Heath.”

  “Don’t worry. It’ll probably just be Peter and my sister.”

  Jonathan shook his head in grim wonder. “Can’t believe you still have one of those.”

  “A sister? Yeah. If you think I’m intense, just wait.”

  “Does she sing like you?”

  Hannah eyed him suspiciously. “Depends how you mean it.”

  “I mean like a goddamn angel.”

  “Oh.” She brushed a lock of hair behind her ear, then forced a casual shrug. “No.”

  Jonathan glanced down the hall. “Well, I hope Zack got back okay.”

  “Me too. Let me find out.”

  “Listen, when you see the—”

  Hannah passed the door to Jonathan and Heath’s apartment and froze in place. The living room looked like it had been ransacked by savages. Chairs were overturned. Cushions lay in shreds. Broken chunks of plaster littered the floor. Between the cracks and impact fractures, Hannah saw deep lacerations in the walls, diagonal lines in tight groups of three.

  Jonathan raised his palms. “Nothing you need to worry about.”

  “Those look like—”

  “They’re not,” he insisted. “It’s not what you think it is. He just had a bad night.”

  “You asked him before if the dogs were out.”

  “They’re not dogs,” Heath snapped from inside.

  Jonathan ushered Hannah down the hall, his voice an edgy whisper. “Look, it’s just me and Heath. I promise. Call your friends. Please. Before Bolly gets here.”

  Hannah doubled back to the doorway, her thoughts spinning chaotically. She took another look at the claw marks on the wall. Now suddenly she had a wolf question of her own.

  SIX

  The sky hatch opened on slow metal rollers. A lime-green Peregrine descended through the roof of the brownstone. Mia could hear its arrival from the living room, two floors down. The whole place shook whenever Peter landed his vans in the attic.

  She rose from the couch and checked herself in the mirror. She’d swapped her frumpy sweatclothes for a white silk blouse and a knee-length skirt. Was it too formal? Too dainty? There was still time to change.

  They won’t care how you look, an inner voice insisted. They have bigger things to worry about, and so do you.

  That was true. Mia had been on pins and needles these last eighty minutes, ever since Hannah called from Presin Square. Two new people were moving into the house today, and nobody knew a thing about them. They could be racists or rapists or undercover Pelletiers. Or maybe they were just obnoxious enough to become a headache for Mia. She got along swimmingly with everyone who lived here. The last thing she needed was a personal conflict.

  She opened a twelve-inch portal to the basement and stuck her face into it. David, Zack, and Theo flinched with surprise at her disembodied features.

  “They’re here,” Mia said.

  Hannah was the first to reach the second-floor landing. Mia watched her from the base of the stairs, gaping. Her hair was a mess. Her clothes were rumpled. She looked like she’d spent the weekend in the trunk of someone’s car, and she had the mood to match it.

  Mia met her halfway up the stairs. “Oh my God. Hannah . . .”

  “Don’t hug me, sweetie. I smell like salted piss.”

  She descended to the foyer just as the three male Silvers emerged from the cellar. Hannah’s stern gaze flitted between Zack and Theo.

  “You’re lucky I don’t smack you both.”

  “Me?” Theo asked. “What did I do?”

  “It’s what you didn’t do, Nostradumbass. You didn’t tell me I’d be spending the night in a river.” She poked Zack’s chest. “And you. Next time I say ‘I have a bad feeling about this . . .’”

  “I know. I’m sorry.�
�

  Her expression softened. “Did they hurt you?”

  “No.” Zack jerked his head at David. “But he got a face full of lumis.”

  Jonathan and Heath reached the top of the stairwell, their arms filled with knapsacks and duffel bags. They paused at the sight of the small crowd staring up at them.

  Hannah beckoned them on. “It’s okay.”

  The foyer fell into awkward silence as the two Golds joined the cluster. Mia was floored by Jonathan’s resemblance to her late brother Dominic. They had the same height, the same brawny build, the same long hair and dark, soulful eyes. They looked so alike that Mia once again questioned the choices of the Pelletiers. Why pick this man when they could have picked her brother? Why save two Givens but only one Farisi?

  Zack stared at Jonathan’s bracelet a moment before forcing himself into eye contact. “Well. Hello again.”

  Jonathan smiled meekly. “Sorry about last night. I thought you were, uh . . .”

  “It’s all right,” Zack said. “You had every reason not to trust me.”

  Jonathan slung a bag over his shoulder and extended a hand to David. “Hi. Jonathan Christie.”

  Hannah jumped in. “Oh, sorry. Jonathan, Heath, this is David. That’s Mia. The guy over there is Theo.” She clutched Zack’s arm. “And you already met this schmuck. This is—”

  “Trillinger,” Heath muttered.

  Six heads turned toward the boy. Jonathan looked at him askance. “What? Why did you say that?”

  “Because he’s sharp,” Zack replied. He gave Heath a shaky smile. “That’s pretty impressive. People don’t usually see the resemblance.”

  Heath bit his thumb and lowered his head. Jonathan gawked at Zack. “Wait. Are you . . . ?”

  Zack nodded glumly. “I’m Josh’s brother.”

  “Holy shit.” Jonathan dropped his bag and gripped Zack’s shoulders. “He talked about you all the time. I can’t believe . . .”

  He pulled away in sudden horror. “Oh God. You probably don’t know.”

  “I know,” Zack told him. “I heard.”

  “Who told you?”

  “The piece of shit who killed him.”

  Amanda followed Peter down the stairs, her heart aching for Zack. He’d been waiting six months for confirmation of Josh’s fate. All that time, all that wishing, just to get the worst possible news. His brother had survived the end of the world, but he didn’t survive Rebel.

  “I’m so sorry,” Jonathan said. “Everything happened so fast that night. We couldn’t—”

  “It’s all right.” Zack swapped a heavy look with Amanda. “We know what you were up against.”

  “We didn’t.” Jonathan clenched his teeth. His voice took on a bitter edge. “The Gothams hit us in the middle of the night. We didn’t have a chance.”

  Heath let out a tortured moan. Peter sighed at him from the foot of the stairs. “It’s shameful what happened to you and your friends. Words can’t express how sorry I am. But you have to know it’s not all my people who are doing this. Just a misguided few.”

  Hannah cringed at Jonathan’s surprise. Goddamn it, Peter. This could have waited.

  “Your people,” Jonathan echoed. He shot a burning glare at Hannah. “I thought he was one of us.”

  “Look—”

  “You didn’t tell me he was a Gotham!”

  Peter shook his head. “We don’t call ourselves that.”

  “I don’t care what you call yourself. If you’re one of them—”

  Heath dropped his bags to the floor. His left hand flapped in a frantic arc. “No no no no . . .”

  Hannah rushed to his side. “Heath. Listen to me. Listen! He’s not with the people who hurt you. He’s working against them.”

  “He gave up everything to help us,” Mia stressed. “We’d all be dead if it wasn’t for him.”

  Jonathan drew in a long breath, then rested against a wall. His tired eyes found their way to Zack’s. “You vouch for him?”

  “I do,” Zack responded, with a bit less vigor than Peter would have preferred. “He may not be one of us, but he’s on our side.”

  No one spoke for several moments. Amanda eyed the gash on Jonathan’s arm. “I need to take care of that. And Heath needs some rest.”

  “We set up a room for you in the attic,” Mia told Jonathan.

  He chuckled darkly. “You mean the garage.”

  “Next to the garage,” Hannah said. “It’s a full bedroom. And it’s a hell of a lot nicer than that place you were staying.”

  “Fair point.” He turned to his protégé. “All right, buddy. We’ve come this far. Might as well—”

  “No.” Heath vehemently shook his head. “I don’t like it here. The colors are all wrong. And that guy’s missing two fingers.”

  David self-consciously stuffed his hand in his pocket. Mia stared at Heath indignantly. “Hey!”

  Jonathan dropped to a knee in front of Heath. “Look, Amanda’s right. You’ve been up all night. You’re falling off your feet. So we’re going to show you to your bed—”

  “No!”

  “—and I’ll watch over you.” He clutched Heath’s shoulders. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I swear it.”

  “Let go of me!”

  Heath took a frantic look around the room, his hands and lips quivering. Amanda could tell from the moment she met him that the kid was . . . different. He’d probably spent his whole life feeling like an alien, even among his own. Now here he was on the other side of the multiverse—malnourished, underslept, and trapped on a world he had no hope of understanding.

  And that wasn’t even the worst of it. Amanda could feel the raw energy coursing beneath his skin. Something cold and hard. Something familiar.

  “I’m not a child,” Heath declared. “I’m not crazy. Don’t judge me.”

  “No one’s judging you,” Hannah said.

  Zack smiled drolly at his makeshift football jersey. “Well, you’re a Giants fan. I’m judging you a little.”

  Heath giggled, despite himself, then teetered on his feet. Jonathan rushed to steady him. “Whoa. Okay. That does it. Bedtime.”

  “No . . .”

  “Yes. I don’t want to hear any more about it. Let’s go.”

  It took another minute of cajoling for Heath to relent. He followed Jonathan up the stairs, then abruptly turned around at the seventh step. His bright hazel eyes homed in on Amanda.

  “Do they do what you tell them?” he asked her.

  She tilted her head. “I’m sorry?”

  “Your wolves.”

  The Silvers and Peter blinked at him in bafflement. Jonathan traded a dark look with Hannah, then gripped Heath by the hand.

  “Come on, buddy.”

  —

  By noon, the boy was sound asleep in the attic. Jonathan joined the others in the living room and asked, with some embarrassment, if they had a baby monitor on hand. Theo assured him that Heath would remain dead to the world until shortly after sunset. Jonathan had a strong guess as to how he knew.

  “You’re an augur.”

  Theo nodded his head. Jonathan matched his glum expression. “Yeah. We had one of those.”

  He barely had a chance to sit down before his new friends gave him the royal treatment. Amanda cleaned and dressed his shoulder wound while Theo served him a double-size lunch. Peter gave him a mountain of clean clothes. Zack liberated him from his bracelet with a quick flash of temporis. The golden band broke apart on his wrist and fell to the rug in four pieces.

  Jonathan was still reeling from their hospitality when Mia presented him with the biggest gift of all.

  “My guitar!” He took the instrument from her. “Holy shit. I never thought I’d see it again.”

  The others watched him quietly as he played the opening c
hords of “Stairway to Heaven.”

  “How old are you?” David asked.

  “Twenty-six,” Jonathan said.

  “Are you a native New Yorker?”

  “Used to be.”

  “Christie. That’s a Scottish surname, if I recall correctly. Is that your ancestral origin?”

  Jonathan looked up from his strings and studied David closely. Clearly Heath wasn’t the only peculiar boy in the house.

  “Actually, I’m half-Spanish, half-Cherokee.”

  “Wow.” David leaned back in his chair. “That’s quite a pedigree.”

  “You know, you have a pretty good vocabulary for a, uh . . .”

  “Australian?”

  “I was going to say ‘teenager,’ but now I’m wondering if you’re older.”

  “He’ll be seventeen in July,” Amanda said. “How old’s Heath?”

  “Damned if I know.”

  He adjusted a tuner, then tested a G-major chord. “Don’t bother asking him any personal questions. He keeps that stuff under lock and key. I don’t know his age, his birthday, where he lived, what his family was like. Hell, I don’t even know his last name.”

  David tapped his chin in contemplation. “I’m trying to find a delicate way to ask my next question—”

  “You want to know what’s wrong with him.”

  “Yes.”

  Jonathan shrugged. “Can’t say for sure. One of our friends, rest her soul, was a psych major. She was convinced that Heath has Asperger’s because of the way he fixates on things. Certain colors. Certain music. Certain . . . animals.”

  Amanda saw Hannah fidgeting on the love seat, an unsettled look in her eyes.

  “But he tries to rein it in,” Jonathan said. “I mean, if Carina’s right, then he must be in his own kind of hell. People like that need structure and stability in their lives. Heath’s got a shitload of neither.”

  He began strumming a tune that only Hannah and Zack recognized, a new-world song he’d played with the Quadrants. It actually sounded pretty good without the lead singer’s caterwauling.

  “His shirt’s homemade,” Mia noted. “Did you do that for him?”