The Hush

by Skye Melki-Wegner

  After that there was silence. Chester felt a little dazed. It was as though someone had shoved a wad of bandages through his ears and muffled the thoughts that should have filled his brain. He slouched against the wall, watching blearily as Sam tidied the medical kit.

  Chester’s vision was oddly blurry. He blinked a few times and tried to sit up. He managed a brief struggle upright, but his body folded and he slumped back against the wall: his muscles didn’t want to work.

  A peculiar warmth was spreading through his body. It emanated from his arm, where Sam had jabbed the needle …

  ‘You … you drugged me!’ he choked.

  ‘Oh, didn’t I mention that?’ Sam said. ‘What a shame.’

  Chester threw him the nastiest glare he could manage. Considering that his eyes were already slipping closed, it was probably more of an eyelid flutter. He gritted his teeth and managed, ‘You had no right …’

  ‘You gotta rest,’ Sam said, ‘and I gotta concentrate.’

  Chester blinked again, struggling to focus on the older boy. Sam dumped the syringe and old bandage into a wooden bin then headed for the door to the driver’s cabin. His silhouette was hazy and tilted to the side …

  And with that, Chester slid out of consciousness.

  CHAPTER TEN

  At sundown, their pursuer vanished.

  At least, Susannah had assumed it was sundown. It was impossible to know for sure in the Hush, where darkness hung like a constant blanket. No night, no day. Just blackness. But when the clock in the driver’s cabin had announced sundown, the Songshaper in her echoboat had fallen behind, fading to a faint blimp on the map, a subtle tinkle of the proximity bells. A faint chime, almost a whisper. And finally, she was gone.

  ‘Why’s she stopped following us, Captain?’ Dot peered at the bells. ‘She’s letting us get away! Do you think her Music’s broken, or –’

  ‘Sundown,’ Susannah said. ‘She had to pull out of the Hush to perform the recital.’

  ‘Oh yeah.’ Like Susannah, Dot had momentarily forgotten the significance of sundown. She looked down at her fingers, twisted them together and said quietly, ‘Can’t believe I forgot.’

  ‘It’s easy to forget when you’re in the Hush,’ Susannah said. ‘And you’re weaned free of it now, remember? You don’t have to stress about it anymore.’

  ‘I know,’ Dot said. ‘It’s just … it still feels wrong, sometimes. Boycotting the Sundown Recital, I mean. It’s like …’ She waved a hand. ‘Like a thousand tiny insects are flying into my brain and flittering their wings on my skull.’

  Susannah raised an eyebrow but didn’t respond. Dot often made odd statements like that. The girl would speak of moonbeams that played poker with the stars, or invisible dancers on the Cavatina’s deck when the rain splattered loudly.

  ‘I have a theory,’ Dot said, ‘that the symptoms we get when we withdraw from the recital aren’t just a physical thing. It’s guilt. It’s forgoing everything we’ve ever been taught. That’s why it hurts so much. That’s why it makes us sick.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Susannah said.

  She wrenched the wheel clockwise, steering the Cavatina down a nearby slope, then reached up to touch the map. At her touch, the image zoomed in quickly to focus on a close-up of their immediate surroundings.

  ‘I thought we were heading to Linus,’ Dot said. ‘We are.’ Susannah gave the wheel another turn. ‘But this could be our chance to lose the Shaper. If we can hide before she gets back into the Hush …’

  Their echoship spun into a hash of curving lines on the map. Through the windows, the Hush looked the same as always: black air, swirling rain. But from the map, Susannah knew they were on the edge of a steep hillside. If they sailed down the hill and through the valley, perhaps they could escape unseen.

  The Songshaper would have to perform her recital before she returned to her echoboat in the Hush. By then, the Cavatina would be beyond the range of her proximity sensors and she would have no idea that they had snuck off in a slightly different direction.

  ‘Good idea,’ Dot said, catching on. ‘Should I tell Travis we’re taking a detour?’

  Susannah nodded. ‘Go on.’

  Dot flounced out of the cabin and the door swung shut behind her. Susannah let out a quiet breath, angling their ship down the slope. She had to be careful on slopes – if the ship scraped an unexpected boulder or a farmer’s fence, she might find herself with a massive hole in the hull. Not to mention the noise of a collision, which could lure out certain denizens of the Hush.

  What was the Songshaper doing now? Had she finished her recital and returned to the Hush? The proximity bells were silent, so the woman clearly hadn’t cottoned on to their ruse yet. Perhaps she was panicking, fumbling around for signs of her quarry in the dark.

  Or perhaps she was cold. Emotionless.

  It was easier to think of Songshapers that way. Easier to explain what they had done to Sam. What they had done to her. If Susannah thought of them as heartless creatures, twisted by their Music, with all human instincts wiped away, it became easier to rationalise their actions. They were just machines. Sorcery shells. Rabid dogs that knew only how to inflict pain and misery.

  But if she thought of them as human …

  Well, it became more difficult. She remembered their faces as they loomed above her. Their cold eyes. Their needles and buckles, the Conservatorium ceiling, the thrum, thrum, thrum of their machines …

  Susannah sucked down a sharp breath. She wasn’t a victim anymore. And more importantly, she wasn’t alone. Even now, she heard a gentle chatter of voices from the kitchen down the corridor.

  Dot. Travis. Two of her gang.

  The gang had started almost a year ago – just her and Sam, at first. They had begun by robbing the wealthy, stealing everything from jewels to echoships, from pegasi to communicators. They had stolen from those who supported the Conservatorium, those who gave it money and borrowed its prestige. Those folks who, like the mayor of Bremen, sent their children to study in its hallowed halls. Those who funded the Songshapers’ cruelty.

  And their robberies had fed the poor. The gang pawned most of the goods they stole, converting flashy trinkets into coins. With those coins, they had bought boots for the beggars in Bremen, and coats for the orphans in Delos. They had left baskets of bread on doorsteps for starving workers in Jubaldon. They darted in and out of the Hush, shadows in the night, and they turned the word ‘Nightfall’ into a word of hope for the impoverished and fear for the aristocracy.

  But it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.

  Not until they hit the Conservatorium itself.

  Not until they rectified what the Songshapers had done.

  When Chester woke, the echoboat was dark. Sam had extinguished the sorcery lamps, leaving only a single orange globe to dapple shadows on the ceiling. The effect was eerie: lines of dark and light, slicing and glinting on the glass of its neighbours.

  The pain in his arm was dull now, more like an ache than a burn. Clearly Sam hadn’t been telling a complete lie – the injection must prevent infection as well as being a sedative.

  Chester rose to his feet, a little unsteady. He touched the orange lamp and let its melody flow down into his fingers. The Music was warm and welcoming and it filled his veins like a shot of whiskey.

  In the driver’s cabin, Sam adjusted the wheel. ‘Awake, are you?’

  ‘Either that, or I’m sleepwalking.’

  ‘Feeling any better?’ Sam swivelled on his stool, looking him up and down with a critical expression. ‘Told you a bit of rest would do you good.’

  Chester’s mouth was dry. ‘What time is it?’

  Sam shrugged. ‘About seven at night, I’d guess. Hard to tell in the Hush, since it’s always so –’

  Chester jerked. He felt as though someone had shot another needle through his body, but instead of dispensing a sedative, it flooded his veins with a cold rush of horror. ‘Seven? But sundown …’

  ‘What a
bout it?’

  ‘I haven’t done the recital!’

  ‘Good.’

  Chester gasped. ‘What?’

  ‘You gotta wean yourself off it at some point,’ Sam said, ‘and I figure it’s best to go cold turkey.’

  Chester stared. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He had hummed the Sundown Recital every night of his life. When he had been too young or too sick, his father had hummed it for the both of them. That was how it worked. You couldn’t stop performing the recital. It renewed your allegiance to the Song. It kept you alive and healthy. It protected you from evil magic. And if you failed to perform it …

  ‘Calm down,’ Sam said. ‘Looks like you’re having a heart attack.’

  Chester dropped to his knees. He covered his eyes and tried to focus. Was it still sundown? Was it too late? Either way, he had to try. He summoned up the tune in his mind and began to hum. The notes rolled upwards, one after another, until –

  Sam clapped a violent hand across his lips. ‘Shut up!’

  Chester squirmed, trying to break free. The older boy’s hand was rough and calloused, but Chester kept humming the melody, pushing its muffled notes through the folds of Sam’s palms.

  ‘Shut up!’ Sam said. ‘Do you want ’em to find us?’

  Out in the darkness, something shrieked.

  Chester froze. He stared at Sam, as the older boy slowly withdrew his hand. Sam’s eyes glimmered in their usual pale blue, but there was something else in them now. Was it fear? Sam reached up and wrenched a lever beside the steering wheel. Around them, the echoboat shuddered and jerked to a halt. It lay still and silent, a bulk of lifeless wood and sails. It was as though Sam wanted to hide their Musical signal from someone …

  Or something.

  Another shriek. Chester’s lungs seemed to curl inwards, shrivelling up at the sound of the cry. It wasn’t a human shriek. It wasn’t a scream.

  It was the cry of a beast on the hunt.

  ‘What …?’

  Another cry, and another. They didn’t come from the same direction: some howled from the left, while others shrieked from the right. And with a terrible chill, Chester realised the question he had been about to voice wasn’t ‘What is it?’ but rather ‘What are they?’

  There was a patter out in the darkness, almost like a roll of drumbeats, and the faint whistle of a broken tune. The tune played in and out, like the wheezing breaths of an asthmatic. A snatch of music, a gasp, silence. Then another tune rolled in, and another, each from a different direction, as though a pack of living melodies was prowling through the dark.

  Sam grabbed Chester’s shoulders, pressed his mouth against his ear and began to whisper, very quiet and very fast. ‘They’re called Echoes. They’re blind, but their hearing’s damn sharp. Can’t touch me, but if they get their hands on you, you’re dead. One little touch and you’ve got Musical venom melting the flesh off your bones. Got it?’

  Out in the darkness, there was another chorus of shrieks.

  Chester swallowed. ‘Can we fight them?’

  Sam gave a tiny huff of breath, right against his ear. ‘I can’t. They can’t hurt me, but I also can’t fight ’em. We sort of … cancel each other out.’

  Well, that made about as much sense as the second verse of ‘The Captain’s Cat’, but this wasn’t the time to demand any details. The Echoes’ tunes were growing louder.

  ‘What about me?’ Chester said. ‘Can I fight them?’

  Sam shook his head. ‘You ain’t been trained yet. Keep quiet. They might pass by …’

  Hardly daring to breathe, Chester rose to his feet. Outside, he saw an endless realm of darkness: swirling rain, churning shadow. But the sounds of the Echoes were fading now, seeping like fog into the darkness. Their shrieks grew distant, one by one. A howl stuttered and faded like a fiddler playing a broken string.

  Chester allowed himself a slow release of breath. They were safe. The creatures had given up, they had gone. And then …

  There it was. One last Echo lingered in the black. It came right past the window, pale and translucent, floating from the dark into their bubble of Hush-light. It was humanoid, but eerily distorted: no face, no eyes, no distinctive features. Its entire body glowed white, like the shine of a colourless sorcery lamp. When it moved, it blurred like liquid. The Echo had its own tune, its own melody: a requiem that trickled down its limbs. The tune looped, again and again, wavering like a broken music box.

  Chester’s lungs burned. He didn’t dare take a breath.

  Beside him, Sam shifted a little sideways, moving his weight to his other foot. There was a creak in the wooden floor. It was the tiniest sound – more like the meow of a kitten than the creaking of floorboards.

  But it was enough.

  The Echo whipped its head around. It rushed to the window, pressing its limbs against the glass. Then it began to melt. Chester felt his breath catch, cold and horrified, as the creature started dripping through the window. It was like watching a candle melt, except the candle was a pale human body with clammy translucent hands that seeped like wax.

  Sam swore. ‘It’s coming.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It knows we’re here – it ain’t gonna give up!’ He turned to Chester, panic in his eyes. ‘Listen, you gotta fight it; I can’t touch the damn thing.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Where’s your fiddle?’

  Chester shook his head. ‘You know I don’t have it! The sheriff took it, back in Hamelin …’

  ‘Damn!’ Sam said. ‘All right, maybe you can whistle or hum or –’

  Chester hurried into the back room and produced the miniature silver flute they’d stolen from Nathaniel Glaucon. ‘I can play this.’

  Sam, who had followed him, nodded. ‘Good, good. Better than whistling. You gotta listen to the Echo’s tune and cancel it out. Echoes run off their own Music, it’s like oxygen to ’em – if you reverse their tune …’

  There was a sharp sucking noise from the window. Chester glanced through to the driver’s cabin and his stomach curled. The Echo was making progress, melting through the glass. It squeezed slowly, like apple pulp seeping through a hessian sack, but wisps were already beginning to ooze into the cabin.

  ‘Listen to it, dammit,’ Sam said, as pale as Chester had ever seen him. ‘Listen to its tune.’

  Chester listened. He heard the creature’s Music clearly now: a strong, steady melody. A four-bar requiem. It echoed through the cabin, playing off the ghostly limbs that had melted through the window. Those same four bars looped, again and again, like a child learning to play his first sheet of music, practising the first line until his fingers blistered. Chester couldn’t identify any particular instrument playing the tune, it was simply there. All instruments and none.

  Sam leant closer. ‘Play it backwards. Cancel it out.’

  Chester raised the flute, fighting the tremble in his fingers. His wounded arm burned, but he couldn’t play the instrument one-handed. He pursed his lips, as though to kiss the air above the metal mouthpiece. It took a steadiness to play the flute, to control his lips and the rhythm of his breathing. He closed his eyes and tried to force his lungs to behave. If the notes were squeaky, or staccato, or broken …

  ‘All right,’ Sam whispered. ‘Go.’

  Chester played. He began at the end and flipped the tune on its head. From the final note of the fourth bar, he played backwards to its start. Then he plunged into the third bar, and the music rolled like an uncomfortable itch from the metal of his flute. It sounded odd, played backwards; the timing tasted wrong, and Chester winced at the mess of the melody.

  In the driver’s cabin, the Echo kept coming. It let out a scream, a warbling, shaking scream that was punctuated by silence as though it was suffering bursts of pain. But it sped up its melting and pushed more forcefully through the glass window. Soon its torso was through, and then its thighs. It sped up as it went, gaining momentum, as the bulk of its body surged into the driver’s cabin and lef
t only the tips of its toes outside.

  But as it spilled into the echoboat and jerked forwards, its movements were no longer fluid and smooth; it didn’t float through the ship but wrenched itself forwards. It flickered, jumping ahead in little sharp movements. One moment it was in the driver’s cabin by the window then, with a flash of unnatural shadow, it was in the doorway. Chester stumbled backwards, still playing, and suddenly it was in the back room.

  Chester tripped back and fell onto the sofa. The creature reached towards him, its translucent hand gleaming like the tentacles of a jellyfish in the dark. Sam swore and thrust himself in front of the creature, but it began to seep through his body as if he was just another pane of window glass.

  ‘Keep playing!’ Sam said. ‘You gotta keep up with it!’

  The Echo’s melody was faster now. Chester sped up his own reversal, desperate to match the pace of the creature. He played against it, loop for loop, ending the first bar whenever it ended the fourth. The melodies clashed.

  The Echo was barely a foot away now. It seeped through Sam’s body, its grasping hands as pale as starlight. Above, the sorcery lamp reflected eerily across its skin.

  And suddenly, the music … clicked. His music became Music and locked against the Echo’s tune. It was like trying to pick a padlock with a pin, or completing a jigsaw puzzle. It was the moment when that final effort slotted into place.

  There was a rush. Cold air blasted out from the creature’s body. Chester scrambled along the sofa; there was nowhere left for him to go, and his head crashed against the wall. But he kept his eyes open though they streamed with liquid from the sting and blast of the wind. The creature gave a terrible howl, like the cry of a tornado, and its Music shattered. A wild tumble of notes exploded outwards, a storm of sound, a burst of white light. The Echo was melting, dissolving into the dark of the Hush. Chester scrunched his eyes shut but he could still see the shine through his eyelids. He dropped the flute and raised his hands as a shield, breath catching, lungs seizing …

  The room fell silent.