Sonant

by A. Sparrow

  “You know what?” said Aerie. “I really missed you guys. I don’t why … I mean because I hardly know you both … but I really missed you.”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” said Ron. “Given our unique combination of charm, looks and talent?”

  “One out of three ain’t bad,” said Mal.

  Ron chipped Mal on the shoulder. “Tell you what, buddy. You take a bath, I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll spend another couple nights up here, help you find that birdie.”

  Mal grinned. “What if I told you I already found it?”

  “Say what?”

  Mal’s eyes flared bright. “I caught the damn thing! I caught the fucking birdie.”

  Chapter 38: Captive

  Ash and soot smudged Mal’s brow and cheekbones. Bits of duff clung to his scruffy beard and a glob of cream cheese dangled from the tip of his nose. Aerie could be forgiven for thinking him delusional.

  “I toldya you were crazy, coming up here in the first place,” said Ron. “This proves it.”

  “You don’t believe me?” said Mal, with a lopsided grin. “Come on over. I’ll show you.” He led them over to the rotten log and the aquarium hidden under sheets of bark. “Now you’ve got to move real slow. It’s real skittish about sudden movements. And it doesn’t like the sunlight one bit.”

  Ron crouched down and pulled away a piece of bark. “Where? I don’t see anything. Just a bunch of dirt.”

  “Sccrrrreeeeeeekkkkkk!” The loud scraping startled Ron and he fell back onto his rump. Aerie hung back, cold sweat wicking under her armpits.

  “I told you, not so fast. It’s a little jumpy.”

  “But where the fuck is it? I didn’t see anything, I just heard—”

  “There!” said Aerie, spotting a gray swirl dart from a broken flower pot in one corner to a torn-up cardboard cereal box with snowy, white crystals growing out of it.

  “That?” said Ron. “It’s too tiny. That’s not the thing we saw.”

  “Of course it is,” said Mal. “How many could there be?”

  Aerie shuffled closer, peeking through a gap in the bark covering. The creature seemed to tremble in the box. It almost seemed fuzzy, except its fur was mutable and always shifting. Appendages seemed to grow wherever it needed them to brace itself against the box.

  “Poor thing. It’s probably scared.”

  “Why’s it so small?” said Ron “What the fuck happened to it?”

  “I think maybe they shrink … and fade … when they don’t feed,” said Mal. “Seems to like ashes. I already figured out it doesn’t like water. And you can’t leave any air holes. It can stretch itself thin when it wants. Like a leech.”

  “How’d you manage to catch it?”

  “Luck, mostly. I had tried to trap it. I saw how it liked the nooks and overhangs down in the gorge, particularly the drier ones. And I remembered how Aaron used to keep it under glass. So, I … uh … borrowed … a cold frame and this terrarium thing from the farm stand down below. I rigged the lid of the cold frame with a rope slung over a branch that I could raise and lower. I tried to lure it out with my horn. It seemed interested in my playing and all, but I couldn’t get it to come out of its cave.”

  “So then I was up here one morning when it was all dewy out. The aquarium was over there tipped on its side. I picked up my horn like I always do and just started to play. It was just few minutes really, when the thing came up out of the gorge and started circling around me.”

  “I didn’t dare stop playing, I just kept at it, playing deeper and weirder variations and it kept moving closer and closer.”

  “The ground was all damp. Those things don’t like damp. So it kinda gravitated towards the aquarium and scuttled in and stayed there. I kept playing. It got all slow and settled in like it was sleeping. I just worked my way closer and pounced with the glass lid. Piled rocks on top. And that was that. I had to replace the lid with that flagstone because I cracked it. But that’s where we stand. It’s only been a couple days that it’s been captive.”

  “Do you think it remembered you from Aaron’s?”

  “It’s possible.”

  Ron tapped on the glass.

  “Leave it alone, Ron,” said Aerie.

  He tapped again.

  “Ron! Quit teasing it!” said Mal.

  “Just trying to get it to move.”

  “Play something weird,” said Mal. “And you watch. It’ll respond.”

  Ron swung his guitar around and played a frantic little run of double stops, bending the notes sitar-like.

  The creature perked up, slipping an appendage out of the box.

  “Yeah, that’s the ticket. Keep that up, Ron.” Mal fetched his horn and joined in.

  The creature came out into the open, revealing its spinning core, and its hundred-odd writhing appendages.

  “This little guy’s not scary. Why was I so scared?”

  “He does bite,” said Mal. He held up his hand. Several perfectly elliptical sores wept from his wrist and fingers.

  “What the fuck did you try to do, pet it?” said Ron.

  “I was just … picking diamonds.”

  “Say what?”

  “I put in ashes from the fire pit. It spat out diamonds.”

  “Whoa! I gotta try me some of that.” Ron laid down his guitar and rushed over to the campfire.

  Aerie stared at beast. It alternately widened and narrowed in a steady pulse, almost as if breathing.

  “What the heck is thing, Mal? It’s obviously alive. Do you think is intelligent?”

  “Smarter than Ron. Yeah, I think it thinks. You know what I think?” He hushed his voice. “I think it might be a fairy.”

  “What? Those little people with wings?”

  “Don’t think so anthropomorphically,” said Mal. “Not everything’s gotta be in our image. Maybe these are the real thing, not some made-up Tinker Bells.”

  Ron came back passing ashes from hand to hand like a hot potato. “Dang, this shit is painful to hold.”

  “Ron, this is not a good time. Why don’t we do that later?”

  “Let me just chuck these in and we’ll see what happens.”

  “Not now Ron. It’s all worked up. I don’t want to chance having it escape.”

  Ron dropped the ashes and rubbed his hands on some leaves to clean them. “We’re gonna split the shares right? When we sell the diamonds? I mean we’re all in this together.”

  “Hold your horses, Ron. This isn’t about cashing out.”

  “Was for Aaron, apparently. Must be how he got so rich.”

  “Let’s worry about keeping the damn thing alive, first.”

  “Alive? You think it’s—”

  “Of course it’s alive,” said Aerie. “Just look at it. Just because it doesn’t have flesh and blood….”

  The creature stretched a smoky limb to test a crevice beneath the flagstone lid.

  “Okay. So maybe you got a point,” said Ron.

  “I wish I knew what it needed,” said Mal. “The music doesn’t seem to be enough.”

  “Aaron’s journal mentioned dust,” said Aerie. “He’s got jar after jar of it in his pantry.”

  Mal’s eyebrows arched. “His … journal?”

  “I borrowed one,” said Aerie. “The night I brought the kithara back.”

  “Well, the dust thing makes sense,” said Mal. “I mean, dust is its only physical manifestation. Explains why it went after those ashes. But maybe ashes aren’t enough. Maybe it needs a more balanced diet.” He scratched his neck. “So … what kind of dust did he have on his shelf?”

  Aerie shrugged. “All kinds. Guano and greensand, silica gel, something called pitchblende.”

  “Oh, Christ. Did you say pitchblende?”

  “Yeah. Why? What’s pitchblende?”

  “Uranium ore. It’s radioactive … and toxic.”

  “Yikes!”

  “I wish there was something we could feed it that would make it shit gold,” said Ron. “Gold�
�s easier to fence. Any pawn shop’ll take it. There’s even places you can mail it off and they send you cash.”

  Mal rolled his eyes. “One small problem, Ron. Gold isn’t made of carbon.” Mal picked up his sax. “Go on, get your guitar. While you’re here, you’re gonna play for the beastie. Aerie, why don’t you try singing? Maybe you can that thing Sari does with the rising intervals?”

  “You want me … to sing? Are you nuts?”

  “Just try,” said Mal. “Don’t push it, start off easy till you get the feel.”

  Aerie sighed. A touch of stage fright dampened her palms.

  Ron began strumming a frenetic, off-kilter rhythm that made Aerie think of three-legged beetles racing. Mal played the drone that Aaron used to begin their sessions with on fiddle.

  Aerie cleared her throat. She sang tentatively at first, probing for a note she could fix on. Her voice quavered and cracked. “I’m sorry guys, I can’t do this.”

  “Keep at it!” said Ron. “You’re doing great.”

  Mal, still droning away, encouraged her with a wink and a nod.

  She took another breath and let the air pressure in her throat build gradually until she found a pure tone. She let it grow into a wail, hanging on that one note then sliding it down a glissando slope.

  She sounded sad, like some fish wife mourning the drowning of her husband. But it was pure and it was true.

  As her confidence grew, so did her voice, rising in volume to match Mal’s horn, which had moved on from the drone into melodic exploration, while Ron held it all together with his skittering chords. She didn’t dare attempt Sari’s leaping interval for fears of blowing out her vocal cords. Instead, she pursued a simple melody that wandered like a leaf down a stream, swirling in eddies, rushing down riffles.

  The creature responded. As the music gained in complexity and volume, it emerged in full view, pulsing, alternately gathering its tendrils into a smooth dome and unfurling them. As it expanded, it grew more transparent as the mass of dust became diluted.

  They played until Aerie began to cough uncontrollably, her throat gone dry and raw.

  Mal put down his horn. “That was awesome! Thanks guys.”

  “How’d the little guy like it?” said Aerie, craning around Mal’s shoulder for a peek.

  “Hard to say,” said Mal. “What do you think? Maybe the core’s a little bit thicker? Is it spinning faster?”

  “Not by much,” said Aerie. “It did look bigger, though, while we were playing.”

  “I don’t see a damn bit of difference,” said Ron. “It’s the same little fuzz ball. At least it didn’t shrink.”

  The creature retracted and retreated under the flower pot. Mal replaced the slabs of bark over the tank.

  “I don’t get why these things need our music,” said Aerie. “How do they survive without people?”

  “Not just any people, or any music,” said Mal. “Who else plays the stuff we play?”

  “Nobody,” said Ron. “That’s what I like it about it.”

  “But, in the woods ….” said Aerie. “There’s nothing comparable to those sounds.”

  “Oh no?” said Mal. “Or is it that you’re not listening closely enough? What if you put it all together? The creek gurgling, the whistle of the wind, the rustle of leaves and branches? What would you get?”

  “Nightmares,” said Ron. “That’s partly why I ditched and went back to town. Those two nights here really creeped me out.”

  “But there’s nothing woodsy at all about the stuff we play,” said Aerie.

  “Are you sure?” said Mal. “I mean, have you ever really listened to what’s out there … above all the cars and trucks and planes and lawn mowers? Not to mention all the TV and radio and those iPods in our ears all the time. Maybe the stuff we play is out there under all that extraneous noise. It’s just drowned out.”

  “Not to mention, things have changed nature-wise. I remember when I was a little kid growing up, there was all these leopard frogs in the tall grass in back of our yard. Last time I was home, they weren’t there anymore. They’ve vanished. Same thing with the bugs that used to come to the porch lights. There’s not nearly as many now or as many different kinds. Summer nights just doesn’t sound the way they used to.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?” said Ron. “I’m with Aerie. I mean … nature? Give me a break. There’s nothing natural about our sound. I mean, I like it. I even prefer it. But it sounds downright alien.”

  “It’s not that our music isn’t natural,” said Mal. “It’s just not human.”

  “No. It’s human alright,” said Aerie. “I mean it touches me, and I’m pretty sure I’m a human. I think it’s just that people lock away parts of their perception. They filter and just let in the familiar.”

  “The thing is,” said Mal. “To these … birdies … our music is like a food supplement. They can feed on other sounds, but what we play is more nutritious.”

  “Hand me that bag. I’m grabbing another bagel,” said Ron.

  Mal sighed and relayed a sack from Aerie to Ron. “I’d like to think that they’d do just fine without us. But there’s so many people … everywhere … we just get in their way. Interfere with their way of life.”

  “Before nature boy here gets too philosophical, let me just say that my hunch is that they’re all extraterrestrials.”

  Mal raised an eyebrow. “Based on …?”

  “That they’re so damn weird,” said Ron, struggling to speak through a mouthful of bagel. “They got no body, for one.” He gestured towards the tank. “Can I … put the ashes in now?”

  “I guess,” said Mal. Ron scooped up whatever he could recover from the leaf litter. Mal pulled the slate back from the corner of the aquarium. Ron stuffed the bits of charcoal and ash into the tank.

  “That’s good,” said Mal. “It’ll hover and take in what it needs.”

  Ron pressed his nose up against the glass. Mal grabbed his head and pulled him back. “Give it some space, Ron! Don’t stare. Come on. Let’s stoke that fire. Anybody feel like some coffee?”

  ***

  Aerie shooed Mal away from the fire, insisting on playing mom again with her boys. She added water to a grimy little pot and propping atop some rocks dropped strategically among the embers. It was sure to taste smoky from all the ash dropping in, but that was fine.

  The creature in the aquarium seemed quite emboldened by their little concert, and made quite a ruckus, scraping against the aquarium walls, prying at the seams in the lid. Aerie catalogued in her head all the different kinds of dust she would fetch for it: from terra cotta mix to baking soda to boric acid. Might as well try everything and let the poor creature decide what it needed.

  Her phone chimed as she poured hot water into their mugs, letting the guys choose how dark they wanted their coffee while she laid a bag of Lipton in the water remaining in the pot.

  She recognized the Caller ID scrolling across the cover of her Nokia. It was Aaron. The blood blanched from her face. She looked over at Mal and Ron.

  “What’s wrong?” said Mal.

  “It’s Aaron.” Her eyelids flitted; her heart fluttered. “Should I tell him?”

  “Hell yeah!” said Ron.

  “No! Not yet,” said Mal.

  “Why not?” Ron gave Mal the stink-eye.

  “Let’s wait. Information is power.”

  Aerie turned away and marched off into the trees to answer the call.

  “Hello?”

  “Aerie? So nice to hear your voice. How’ve you been?”

  “F-f-fine.”

  Silence.

  “O-kay,” said Aaron. “You’re real talkative today.”

  “Why are you calling? I mean … all of a sudden … out of the blue, like this?”

  “I thought you’d be happy to hear from me.”

  “It’s just kinda … weird … kinda awkward hearing from you after all this time.”

  “Let me cut to the chase. I need a bass. I want you to play wit
h us again.”

  “Us?”

  “Yeah, you know … our collective.”

  “All of us? You mean Ron, Mal, Sari—”

  “I just need a bass. That’s it. The others know where I stand. I realize I wasn’t fair, holding you accountable for what happened. You were still new. You had no prior knowledge of what was involved. But I was pissed. I’m still pissed. That was a major blow, what those rat fucks did to me. I’m sorry you had to get all caught up in it.”

  “So who are you playing with now, if not…?”

  “Some good folks,” said Aaron. “Amazing musicians, actually. But they need some … guideposts and guard rails, so to speak. Hence, your bass. I don’t want to say too much over the phone, but I guarantee there’ll be some folks coming that you would find very, very interesting.”

  “When do you want to do this?”

  “Let’s do tomorrow evening. Say about six? Don’t want to trouble the neighbors, as usual.”

  “One small problem. I don’t have a bass.”

  “What do you mean? What happened to your Juzek?”

  “Stolen.”

  “What the …? How does one steal an upright bass? A fiddle, I can see.”

  “It’s complicated, Aaron.”

  “No problem. I’ll get you an instrument. A good one. Just be here at six. Can you make it that early? I know that you work.”

  “I’m not working anymore.”

  “Oh no? Really?” He paused. “Well don’t worry about money. This new crew I got is kinda expensive and I’ll make sure you get the same rate … whatever it turns out to be, I mean whatever we negotiate. So can you do it?”

  “Hold on.” She muffled the phone against her chest. “He wants me to play.”

  “Just you?” said Ron.

  Aerie nodded weakly. “Should I?”

  “Go for it,” whispered Mal. “Find out what he’s up to.”

  “What about the birdie?”

  “Don’t say anything to him yet,” hissed Mal. “Find out first if he’s got another.”

  She stuck the phone back on her ear. “You’ll get me a bass?”

  “The best,” said Aaron.

  “I’ll be there,” she sputtered, and thumbed off the connection.

  Chapter 39: Bullet

  Jason and Nigel sprawled in a sunny patch on the thick silk pile of the rug that had once adorned their grandparents’ den, surrounded by a sea of Duplos, Legos and action figures. Apple juice in sippy cups and baby carrots with ranch dip waited to assuage their hunger pangs.