by H. A. Swain
HiJax pulls a small digital recorder from her pocket. “I have Zimri Robinson singing ‘Nobody from Nowhere’ before the release of Arabella Lovecraft’s song. It’s time-stamped from when she released it on the waves. I recorded it and replayed it many times since then.”
Esther grabs Harold’s arm and blinks, her mouth agape. “Rainey Robinson?” she says.
DJ HiJax whips her head around. “Yes,” she says. “That’s me.”
“Mom?” says Zimri as she’s pulled under. Then she knows that she must be dreaming because everything is warm again and she’s in Orpheus’s arms.
CODA
ZIMRI
When the meandering lights along the river come into view through the window of Orpheus’s Cicada, I squeeze his hand.
“Do Nonda and Rainey know you’re coming back today?” he asks.
“No,” I say, basking in the golden light of early autumn dusk. The sky is turning pink around us, illuminating the yellow- and orange-tipped leaves on the treetops down below. I sigh happily. Coming home is my favorite part of being on the road. “I want to surprise them,” I tell him and he grins. He knows how much it means to my mom to have me in her life again.
“Prepare for self-navigation,” the car announces and Orpheus takes the wheel.
I roll down my window to inhale the river air as we land on the road a few miles outside of Old Town. Things are looking nicer around here these days. Ever since Libellule and Calliope moved in, our town has become the newly minted mecca for musicians existing outside the patronage system. Orpheus and I are part of a tribe of touring artists on a small circuit of communities, like ours, scattered around the country, that value authenticity over the slickness of patron production.
Only a few ’razzi bother us anymore, like the stalker drones that just picked up our trail. They still follow us around, always hoping something sensational will happen. But, it’s been over a year since my trial so we don’t get much Buzz these days, which is fine with us. Sometimes, Tati likes to catch the drones and reprogram them to do subversive things like roost in trees or dive-bomb the river or record audio of birds singing to confuse the algorithms searching for good songs.
In town, we drive past the school, the old brick buiding where Nonda learned to read. We reopened it with some of my settlement money from Chanson. Elena and Brie left their warehouse jobs and abandoned their PODs to live in Old Town and work with the kids along with several other fine folks who were eager to swap the Complex life for our community. So far, the student body is small, but it’s growing as word gets out about our radical ways with human teachers and a curriculum that values art and science. Plus music, of course. Always music whenever I’m in town.
In the playground next to the Paramount Theater, we see kids playing.
“Look, there’s Xenia,” I tell Orpheus as we drive by a little girl with beaded braids and polka-dotted pants. “She’s the one I was telling you about. She soaks up everything. Matches pitch, can keep any rhythm that I throw at her. She loves the ZimriDoo. I told her I’d teach her how to make one of her own the next time I was home.”
“Can’t wait to meet her,” he says, then he points out his window. “It’s Captain Jack.”
We wave as we pass the funny three-wheeled electric car that Tati built so Jack could get back and forth from the school (where he does maintenance) to his bungalow near the river. He’s even got a little boat he takes out fishing on calm days.
“Look at that!” I point at yet another little shop that’s cropped up on the Strip like mushrooms after the rain. Each time we come back, more people have moved in.
“I heard it’s a bakery,” Orpheus says. “And there are rumors someone’s thinking of opening a restaurant.”
We pass by Calliope’s big brick house near the Old Town square. The stalker drones leave our trail to dart over and scan the license plates of two nice cars sitting in the driveway. So far no bona fide celebrities have sought Project Calliope’s help. Mostly we get young PONI artists wanting to know how to navigate the tricky world of copyrights and distribution for their original music, but you never know who’s going to jump ship and come to our side, especially with Libellule on board.
At the corner where Tati’s shop still sits, we turn right and head to Nonda’s old house, where she and my mother live again.
“Hello!” I call when we walk inside, leaving the drones roosting on the porch.
“Zimri!” my mother yells. “Is that you?” She rushes down the hallway, arms open wide.
At first, I didn’t like having her around. I needed answers from her. How could you have spent five years so close to me but never once reached out? Didn’t you hear me calling you over the waves? She said it was for my protection. She said she was trying to reach me through the music she played on air. She said it’s more complicated than I understand. But I don’t believe her. As far as I’m concerned, she went on the run as DJ HiJax for herself, and for herself alone. But, as Orpheus and Nonda have pointed out to me, Rainey has suffered for her sins and so I let it go.
The Arbiter was forced to overturn my case when Calliope produced my mother who had a recording of my version of “Nobody from Nowhere,” snatched off the waves. It was proof that Arabella and Piper stole the song from me and I was set free. Libellule prevented Orpheus’s ASA, but Harold Chanson still got his revenge.
My mother’s trial was quick and decisive. She didn’t deny a thing. After all, she had been pirating music for years. This time, though, there was no escape for her. The punishment Esther requested for me was conferred to my mother and the auditory cortical region of her brain was scrubbed. The one thing that made Rainey Robinson who she was, the thing that she passed on to me (along with the gap in my teeth and the curl of my hair) was erased from her mind forever. Like Calliope, her best friend, she will never again find pleasure in music. To them, songs are nothing more than a series of dissonant sounds. That fate is cruel enough. And so, slowly, I’ve let my anger toward my mother recede like the river after a storm. Now I do my best to take care of her and Nonda when I’m home.
Once she’s done hugging Orpheus and me, we follow Mom to the newly yellow kitchen where Nonda’s enjoying a cup of mint tea.
“Looks good!” I say, nodding at the walls, and planting a big kiss on my grandmother’s soft cheek.
“Maybe I’ll invite Medgers over,” Nonda jokes. The meds have been working well and she’s mostly back to her feisty self, although her short-term memory still slips now and again. But that’s okay. She has my mom and Marley (who comes often though Dorian stays away) so they can revisit the past together.
“How’s your mother?” Rainey asks Orpheus.
“Fine, I guess,” he tells her with a shrug.
“I like that Libellule,” Nonda says. “She’s the real deal, that one.”
“She’s something else, that’s for sure,” he says.
Libellule took the biggest house in town, of course, the one up on the hill. She brought Alouette and a RoboNurse with her but left Chester and her clothing line behind to focus her energy on Dragonfly Recordings, a record label she swears will surpass Chanson Industries some day. Since Alouette is here, Orpheus is happy to live in the big house with his mom, but he spends most of his time at the studio we built in our backyard. This is where we record our music and continue the legacy of DJ HiJax, now a legal radio broadcast and digital podcast that promotes original new music.
I look at him and can tell he wants to get into the studio behind his mixing board again. Being on tour for weeks makes him itchy to record when we get home.
“We have a new idea for a song,” I tell my mom and Nonda.
“Go on,” my mother says, shooing us out the back door. “Get it down while it’s fresh, then come back for dinner.”
“Thank you,” I say and kiss her on the check.
Orpheus and I head across the yard where Nonda’s marigolds are beginning to fade into fall. It’s dusky out now and the breeze carries up sounds from the
river. I stop for a moment to listen. There’s the faint buzz of a bee, the chirp of small birds in the trees, and from far away the cry of a whippoorwill. I call back to him so he knows that he’s not alone.
“Hey, look!” Orpheus laughs and points at my shirt. “You’ve got a little friend.”
I turn to see a dragonfly sitting on my shoulder, its myriad eyes taking in the world all around, and I wonder what it sees. How much the world must have changed since its early ancestors buzzed across this landscape with dinosaurs, then wooly mammoths and migrating tribes of humans making the first instruments out of bones. And yet, somehow, through it all, the dragonfly has managed to stick around.
“Hello,” I say, then I blow and watch it lift up into the sky, iridescent green wings thrumming as it darts away. I take Orpheus’s hand. “Come on. We have music to make.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many strange things have to collide for a novel to come into the world. This book started with a bump on the head that made me see stars and hear music, then lingered for weeks as I nursed my bruised brain through the mind-numbing recovery from a concussion: No reading, no writing, no watching screens, just plenty of time to think as my husband and children made music in our house. Then the writing began, but that’s not all it takes to make a book.
I would like to thank the many fine folks at Feiwel and Friends, including Jean Feiwel, my editor Liz Szabla (for her endless encouragement, patience, and confidence in me), creative director Rich Deas and his team—Heiko Klug (who must have built a time machine to travel to the future of my creating in order to snap a photo of the dragonfly drone that she created for the cover art), Kathleen Breitenfeld, and Elizabeth Dresner. I’m astounded by the beauty of this book!
My deepest gratitude to everyone at LGR Literary, especially Stephanie Kip Rostan (for leading me through the maze of publishing for the past eight years) and Shelby Boyer (who takes care of everything I would otherwise forget).
Special thanks to the Vermont Studio Center for providing me with a two-week residency overlooking the beautiful Gihon River, where the first draft of this book was written. I’d also like to acknowledge the real Carrie Elston Tunick, whose video installation work inspired a key moment in this story.
As always, all of my love and gratitude to Emily (without whom none of this would be nearly as fun), Adam (from whom I stole the idea of dragonfly drones), my parents (who never questioned whether I could make a life as an artist), my children (xoxoxoxoxo), and Dan (who provides all the back tracks for our lives).
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
H. A. Swain is the author of several books, including the adult fiction title Cold Feet; the craft book Make These Toys; and the YA novel Josie Griffin Is Not a Vampire. She lives in Brooklyn. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
Chorus
Verse One
Orpheus
Zimri
Orpheus
Zimri
Orpheus
Verse Two
Zimri
Orpheus
Zimri
Orpheus
Zimri
Orpheus
Chorus
Verse Three
Zimri
Orpheus
Verse Four
Zimri
Orpheus
Zimri
Verse Five
Orpheus
Zimri
Orpheus
Zimri
Orpheus
Zimri
Orpheus
Zimri
Orpheus
Zimri
Verse Six
Orpheus
Zimri
Chorus
Verse Seven
Zimri
Orpheus
Zimri
Orpheus
Bridge
Coda
Zimri
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
A FEIWEL AND FRIENDS BOOK
An Imprint of Macmillan
GIFTED. Copyright © 2016 by H. A. Swain. All rights reserved. For information, address Feiwel and Friends, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact your local bookseller or the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at (800) 221-7945 ext. 5442 or by e-mail at [email protected].
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available
ISBN: 978-1-250-02830-3 (hardcover) / 978-1-250-08685-3 (ebook)
Feiwel and Friends logo designed by Filomena Tuosto
First Edition: 2016
fiercereads.com
eISBN: 9781250086853
