The Hush

by Skye Melki-Wegner

  Susannah sighed. Travis had only joined the gang a few months ago and he was still finding his place. They needed a doctor and a good conman, and having spent his last few years at the prestigious medical school in Weser City, Travis Dalton fulfilled both those requirements. He was smart. He was young. He was an excellent actor. After growing up in luxury, he was quite content to strut about in ruffled sleeves and silken waistcoats – and he was handsome, too, with his shining spectacles and flawless brown skin. All in all, he was a perfect addition to the Nightfall Gang.

  And, unfortunately, he knew it.

  ‘Well,’ Travis said, ‘I’m loath to interrupt at such a crucial juncture, but I’m afraid Dorothy asked me to deliver some rather bad news.’

  Dorothy, Susannah noted. Only Travis ever used Dot’s full name.

  At first, Travis had seriously rubbed Susannah up the wrong way. She’d doubted he would risk even his waistcoat to protect the others, let alone his life. It wasn’t just his posh Weser City accent; after all, Dot spoke with a city accent, too. It was the vanity in his voice – he spoke as though he thought he was better than they were. More refined, more fashionable, more distinguished. As if he was constantly bored by Susannah’s plans and as though it took all his patience to play along with her silly little jobs.

  But in recent weeks, she had begun to catch glimpses behind the mask. A twinkle in his eye or a crooked smile on his lips. She had begun to realise, finally, that Travis wasn’t entirely serious in his preening. It was more of a game than anything. And when she considered the truth about his history and his real motivation for joining the gang …

  Well, it had cast a whole new light on his attitude.

  ‘What news?’ she said.

  Travis flicked a speck of lint from his sleeve. ‘Well, Dorothy took another peek at the engine. It’s still suffering a few fluctuations in its Music. It should hold out for the next few days, but she asked me to request that you avoid any sudden jolts or turns that might throw the Music further out of tune.’

  Great. How was she supposed to outrun their pursuer if she had to keep the Cavatina steady? It might take days to shake the Songshaper off their trail. If Susannah couldn’t lose her before the engine gave out …

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  ‘Make sure you do,’ Travis said. ‘I doubt Dorothy alone has enough Songshaping ability to reignite a broken tune and I rather doubt we’ll get far if the engine’s Music snaps and it starts playing “The Captain’s Cat” or some such –’

  ‘Why don’t you go and help Dot with the engine?’

  Travis adopted a look of pure horror. ‘Me? Go into the engine room? Why, I just cleaned off the stains from today’s job on my spare trousers; I couldn’t possibly get grime all over these ones, too. What on earth would I wear tomorrow?’

  Susannah snorted. ‘Oh, I don’t know. Maybe some humility?’ She wrenched another lever, ramping the echoship up another gear. ‘Either go and help Dot in the engine room, or go and get some sleep. I need to concentrate.’

  Travis gave a dramatic sigh. ‘Alas, I appear to have been rejected. Oh cruel world, why must you taunt me so?’

  ‘Because you’re a massive pain in the arse?’

  ‘Ah.’ Travis took a moment to consider this. ‘That would do it, I suppose.’

  He flashed her a grin, smoothed back his hair, and sauntered back out into the corridor.

  Susannah sighed. Despite everything – his vanity, his mockery, his unbearably posh accent – she couldn’t help but like Travis Dalton. He was a constant reminder not to take life too seriously.

  Susannah checked the proximity bells. The third bell had stopped ringing. Good. Their burst of speed had increased the distance between the Cavatina and their pursuer. She would stick to open fields, where she could risk higher speeds, and keep her nerves in check. They would have to take shifts at the wheel, and hope like hell that they didn’t run into any Echoes.

  With a bit of luck, by the time they reached Linus, Sam would have a Songshaper ready to fix their engine’s tune.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The prison was dark, buried deep beneath the sheriff’s office. It was quiet. Just the scent of mildew, and the crawling damp of earth around him. Chester sat at the back of his cell, knees pulled up to his chest.

  The crowd had taken everything. His fiddle, his earnings, even his boots. All he had left was his shirt and trousers. He heard sniffling from the opposite cell, where a grizzled old man sat moaning in the light of a sorcery lamp. This must be the man who’d stolen horses from the mayor. The man who was to be executed tomorrow.

  And now, he wouldn’t die alone.

  Chester’s stomach rolled, and he pulled his legs in tighter. How had this happened? He hadn’t meant to connect to the Song. He hadn’t meant to perform sorcery, or Music, or whatever the sheriff had arrested him for. All he’d done was play his fiddle, and something had happened that he couldn’t quite explain …

  ‘I didn’t mean it, sir!’ he’d said, when the sheriff dragged him down into the dark. ‘I swear, I’ve never trained in Songshaping, I didn’t mean to –’

  ‘Oh?’ The sheriff slammed Chester against the bars and loomed up close in his face. His breath smelt like hot beer and sour meat. Any hint of friendliness had gone, shattered by the gravity of Chester’s crime. ‘How’d you connect with the Song then, boy? Can’t do that with no trainin’, even I know that. We ain’t all fools round here.’

  ‘I was never trained!’ Chester said. ‘All I got taught was how to play music, not how to …’ He stopped, panicking. ‘I mean, do I look like I could afford training? I’m not rich enough for –’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you weren’t trained official,’ said the sheriff. ‘Couldn’t afford the Conservatorium, not a little brat like you. But you been trained by someone.’ The lamplight flickered, drawing eerie shadows around his lips. He leant in closer. ‘You been trained illegally, boy. Black-market tutorin’. Blasphemy.’

  ‘I didn’t –’

  The sheriff struck him. The blow sent Chester backwards, and his head crashed against the bars. He let out a cry – he was dizzy with pain – as the sheriff flung open the cell.

  ‘You got a licence?’

  ‘No, I –’

  ‘Seven years of trainin’, it takes. Seven years before society trusts you to conjure Music – let alone mess with the Song itself. And a little brat like you figures you can do it? You figure you can risk all our lives, just ’cause you’ve had some black-market trainin’ on the sly?’

  He shoved Chester into the cell and slammed the door behind him. ‘You got good timin’, boy, I’ll give you that. Eve of Execution Day and all. Saves us the cost of keepin’ you.’

  And then he was gone.

  Chester’s head throbbed and his belly churned. He wanted to call the sheriff back, to explain what had happened. But how could he? He couldn’t even understand it himself, let alone explain it to another.

  Stupid. He had been so stupid. For years, when Chester had worked at the instrument shop, his boss had claimed he was impulsive. As brash as an out-of-tune banjo, the old man had said, with an irritable snort. And he was right. Chester shouldn’t have played ‘The Nightfall Duet’. He shouldn’t have risen to the bait. He had let his ego – and the challenge of a stranger – coax him into public blasphemy.

  It was bad enough to conjure sorcery without a licence. For reasons of public safety, it was illegal to play Music without years of study at the Conservatorium. But to connect that Music to the Song, to brush his melody against the very heartbeat of the world …

  Well, that was a whole new level of illegality.

  Only the very highest-level Songshapers were allowed to interfere with the Song – those with decades of training and certification. Most of them only ever listened to it. They studied it, yes, but they didn’t twist it or mangle its beat. They contented themselves by creating their own Music, and leaving the Song uncorrupted.

  His throat tight, Ch
ester remembered the unnatural ripple of air in the saloon. He had done that. His tune had touched the rhythm of the world itself …

  And his connections to the Song were growing more frequent. It had first occurred a year ago: a horrifying rush of power in the instrument shop. For a long time, Chester had half-hoped he’d imagined it. But two months ago, it had occurred again. And this time the connection was even stronger.

  One year ago, two months ago … And now, twice in a single day.

  Chester let the darkness wash over him. His breathing sounded harsh down here, in this cell below the earth. Discordant. He focused on the music he’d been playing in the bar: ‘The Nightfall Duet’. He strained to remember the exact point when the music had changed, when it had melted from an ordinary melody into Music, then into the Song itself …

  A sorcery lamp dripped bluish light through his cell. Looking for comfort, Chester reached up to touch the glass. It was warm, but not hot enough to burn his fingertips. As he brushed it, a familiar melody crawled from the lamp into his skin. It was a common nursery rhyme, used by Songshapers to enchant simple objects: lamps, kettles, carriage wheels. The effect of the magic depended on how the Music was played, and the colour of the light came from the creator’s own power.

  Chester pressed his fingers to the glass. He could feel the Music. It ran like water across his skin and sank into his flesh. Down into his bones. It ran from his fingers to his wrist, from his forearm to his elbow, up through his shoulder and into the rest of his body.

  He had always been able to feel Music like this. A gift, his father had said. But it was also a secret. Only Songshapers were supposed to be able to sense the tune of things in a physical way. To let the rhythm flow like treacle through their bodies. The fact that Chester could do it without formal training was another form of blasphemy. It wasn’t as serious as what he’d done in the saloon – meshing his own fiddle’s music with the Song – but it was still illegal.

  Not that it mattered. He would die tomorrow anyway.

  Chester stamped his foot against the floor, frustrated. His head still ached from its crash against the bars. But he couldn’t give up. He had survived on his own for months, from train to train, town to town. Sometimes he’d been lost in the wilderness, wandering far from towns or rail tracks. On the hottest days, he had lain in the shade of scraggy vegetation, sucking his lips and letting sweat paint trails across his skin. He had clutched his stomach, sworn under his breath, and struggled on through dust and desert.

  And he hadn’t given up.

  Chester had lived hard, lived alone, and survived. He had set out to find his father, Wyatt Hays. After Chester’s mother had died in childbirth, his father had sacrificed everything to raise Chester on his own. And no matter what it took, Chester was going to find him. He’d seen more of the world than these Hamelin folks, who’d likely been born on the same farms as they would die. Chester wouldn’t let them take that world from him. Not without a fight.

  He pulled his foot away from the floor. Peels of dirt were stuck there, and he brushed them away as he turned. He pressed his hand against the earth. Cool. Damp. Malleable.

  Chester began to dig.

  He pulled and scrabbled, driving fingers deep into the dirt. It wasn’t as soft as he’d hoped, but he grunted and dug his fingers deeper. Dirt crammed under his fingernails, driving painful wedges between nail and flesh. A chunk collapsed under his fingers, spraying clods across the floor, and the air whiffed of newly disturbed mildew. Chester allowed himself a moment of hope. Hamelin was just a small town – perhaps their jail cells were really this rudimentary. He could dig and dig, all the way up to the night sky and freedom …

  Chester’s fingers struck something hard. Shock shot up his fingertips and he gasped in pain. He scratched away the surrounding dirt and squinted in the light of the jail’s sorcery lamps.

  It was brick.

  Chester’s stomach dropped. He pressed his fingers against the brick, and another little shock ran through his skin. Not just brick, but brick imbued with Music. Chester bent down and pressed his ear close to the stone. If he closed his eyes and strained his ears, he could hear it – just faintly. The distant echo of a Songshaper’s melody, played into the brick itself.

  Chester flung himself at the metal bars of his cell. He grabbed the bars and pulled, strained, groaned. He kicked at the padlock and yanked again and again on the bars until his arms felt like fire.

  Nothing. The bars refused to budge. He was distantly aware of the other prisoner laughing, bitter and broken in the opposite cell.

  ‘No point, boy,’ he said. ‘Think I ain’t tried that?’

  Chester clenched his fists. He couldn’t die here. If he died, who would continue his search? His father had already suffered so much. He had survived a war, lost his wife and raised his son alone in poverty. He had worked until his knuckles bled, just to keep a roof over their heads. And finally, he had vanished.

  Chester had spent months trying to block out those final days but now, in his despair, he couldn’t suppress it any longer. The memories rushed back to him, cold and unwelcome. His father had writhed in a fever, racked by nightmares, sweat and shadow. He had tossed and turned. He had lain with fluttering eyelids, a jumble of whispers on his unconscious lips. Hush, he had whispered. Hush, hush, hush …

  Then he had vanished from his bed.

  Now, Chester sat alone in the darkness. Something had given his father those nightmares. Something had taken his father away. He sat, chest tight, and fought against the silence. He would not give up. He would not let them win.

  He reached for the bars and pulled, again and again, again and again, until his arms throbbed and his fingers burned … but still he kept pulling, gasping, fighting uselessly into the night.

  They came at dawn.

  It was the sheriff who fetched him, with a stranger in tow. The stranger wore a twisting little goatee and a coat of olive green. For a long moment they stared at him, faces half-concealed by shadow.

  Chester knew how he must look. His arms ached and his fingers throbbed. He had broken half his fingernails and strained every muscle in his body against the bars.

  But he knew all about the value of performance. He knew about false confidence. Chester had grown up in Thrace, a rough-and-tumble city where men brawled on the streets and violent muggers lurked in alleyways. When he was seven years old, running errands for coins, Chester had collided with an enormous man in a rifleman coat. The man had leant down slowly, his expression tight. ‘You scared, boy?’

  Chester had managed a nod.

  ‘Well, that’s a secret you can’t trust to nobody.’ The man’s voice had been coarse, as cold as the bricks of the alleyway. ‘Here’s a tip for you, boy. You want to survive in this town, you don’t let no one see you’re afeared of ’em. You show folks you’re weak, and they’ll use it to break you. Convince the world you’re strong and you’re halfway to being there.’

  And so, just as Chester had learnt to play fiddle, he had learnt to play the game of bravado.

  Now, exhausted and ragged, he forced himself to his feet. He would not give in. He would not lie in the dirt of the prison and let them judge him.

  The sheriff placed his hands on the bars. ‘I’ve been talkin’ to Bel. She says your name’s Chester Hays. That correct?’

  Chester met his gaze. ‘If I tell you, will you reconsider chopping my head off?’

  The sheriff snorted. ‘You’ve got gumption, boy, I’ll give you that.’ He turned to his green-coated companion and bowed his head. ‘All yours, sir.’

  The stranger pulled a gleaming badge from his pocket. He thrust it into the light of the sorcery lamp, so that Chester could see the words inscribed on the metal.

  Nathaniel Glaucon. Accredited Songshaper.

  Chester’s belly clenched. For the first time, he noticed the pendant around the man’s throat. It was a silver nautilus shell that boasted his status as Songshaper.

  ‘Took me seven years t
o earn this licence,’ said Nathaniel Glaucon. ‘Seven years of slaving away at the Conservatorium. Classes, lectures, exams. And even after seven years, half my classmates failed the final assessment.’ He leant in closer. ‘It isn’t easy to become a Songshaper, boy. You have to earn it. You have to bleed for it.’

  Chester privately thought this was a little melodramatic. The closest he’d come to bleeding when learning a musical instrument was a few blistered fingertips before he’d grown callouses to press on the strings.

  Nathaniel Glaucon, however, seemed deadly serious. He held up his badge as though it was evidence of a divine miracle. ‘I fought for this, boy. I earned it. I am qualified to play Music, to summon magic from the air. I can even touch the Song itself, if I’m careful not to disturb its beat. But you?’ His lips twisted into a scowl of disdain. ‘You commit blasphemy.’

  Chester stepped forwards to grab the bars. ‘Hang on, wait! I’m not … I mean, I didn’t mean to –’

  Nathaniel raised a hand to cut him off. ‘I sensed your crime all the way from my home on the hilltop. A decent Songshaper can always sense nearby disruptions in the Song. Do you deny that it was you?’

  ‘No, but I didn’t mean –’

  ‘Intention is irrelevant, boy,’ said Nathaniel. ‘You’re guilty. It’s for the sheriff to decide your sentence.’

  He dipped his head and hummed a few notes of the Sundown Recital, a quiet little prayer to the Song. The sheriff joined in, obediently bowing his head. The underground jail filled with music. When they finished they snapped their heads back up and stared at Chester.

  Silence.

  ‘For this most heinous of crimes,’ said the sheriff in a chillingly official tone of voice, ‘I sentence you to die this day, this last day of the month.’

  They bound his wrists and dragged him up into the dawn. Chester blinked in the glare of the sunlight. He stumbled to his knees, but the sheriff hauled him up by the back of his shirt.