‘Yes.’ Susannah’s voice grew tight now, and a twist of hard determination clipped her syllables. ‘We’ll give them the choice, and the Songshapers and their secrets can be damned.’
‘But won’t the Songshapers try again?’ Chester said. ‘Vanishing people, making Echoes …’
‘When the whole world knows their dirty secret?’ Susannah shook her head. ‘I’d like to see them try.’
They stood and stared out through the window, their fingers unmoving on the ledge. Chester glanced down at the street outside, at the people moving from houses to bakeries, to markets and mills. People going about their business. People who had made a home for themselves, in a world they had sung into existence.
‘Susannah,’ he said again.
‘Yes?’
‘I …’ Chester was a little startled to realise he’d spoken aloud. His gaze shifted across to Susannah’s hand, pale and slender beside his own, and he fought a sudden urge to shift his fingers sideways and touch it. To see if her skin felt as soft as it looked.
And before he could move a muscle, her hand twitched. Chester’s hand twitched back and they made the move together, at exactly the same moment: two hands locking together, in a clasp as tight as a treble clef. Her skin was warm and as soft as he’d imagined, and her fingers slotted between his own like a tune into a padlock.
For several long minutes they stood there, gazing into the streets beyond. Chester did not let go. Neither did she.
‘Play me a song?’ she whispered.
They retreated to the foot of the bed and Chester picked up his fiddle. He reluctantly released her hand, but Susannah just smiled at him and nodded towards Goldenleaf. The fiddle was scruffy – a mismatch of repairs and scratches – but Chester knew it was playable. He pressed the wood beneath his chin and pressed his bow to the strings.
Focus, he told himself, suddenly nervous. It had been over a week since he’d played, and he’d never played a song for Susannah before. Not for personal reasons, at least, beyond the scope of his role in the gang. He hesitated. But his bow brushed the strings and suddenly he knew what to play.
‘The Nightfall Duet’ soared up from the fiddle, and Susannah’s smile curved up a little higher. Not entirely sad, but wistful.
‘They changed that song’s name, you know,’ she said. ‘Just for us. Just for our gang.’
‘I know.’
Chester teased out the first verse. His fingers tensed in preparation for the frenzy of the chorus, but Susannah spoke before his bow could make its slide across the strings.
‘We did a lot, didn’t we? The Nightfall Gang. We made a name for ourselves. We helped people.’
Chester let his bow fall. He thought of the stories of the Nightfall Gang. The money they’d given to the poor. The Songshapers whose plans they’d ruined. The prisoners they’d freed.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘You helped people.’
‘We,’ she corrected.
Chester gave a quiet smile. ‘We helped people.’
Another breeze brushed the windowpane. Outside, the sun was rising higher into morning blue.
‘It seems a waste,’ Susannah said slowly, ‘to throw away all that history. All that reputation. When we could still be using it to do some good.’
She looked up at him, eyes a little too bright. Chester knew what she was asking and what she was too afraid to say. Sam was gone. He was gone and he was never coming back. Would it be wrong to carry on without him?
‘Sam helped you start the gang, didn’t he?’ Chester said. ‘I mean, he was one of the original members?’
‘Yes.’
‘So he believed in it, then. He wanted it to achieve something.’
She nodded.
‘Well,’ Chester said, ‘I didn’t know him as well as you did. And I don’t think it’s my place to tell you what he would have thought. But …’
Susannah looked at him for a moment, then down at Goldenleaf. She gave a slow nod. ‘He gave everything he had to this gang. It was all he had left in the world.’
She kept her eyes low on the fiddle. ‘He would have wanted us to keep going.’
Another pause. Chester glanced at her, then at his father. The older man had shifted in his sleep a little and his mouth was slightly open. He wasn’t yet awake but he looked … better. More like a man sleeping than a man dead. And Chester knew, with a sudden certainty, that he was going to wake.
When, he thought. ‘When’, not ‘if’.
He looked back at Susannah. Her face was still red and puffy, but there was something new there too, a glint of the old determination behind her eyes. She nodded towards him and gave a pointed look at his bow.
‘I asked you for a song, Chester. You haven’t finished it yet.’
Chester picked up the bow and pressed it against the strings. ‘From the chorus?’
‘No, I want to hear it again. From the top.’
He met her eyes and there was a moment of silence. He smiled. She returned it. The sunlight glinted through the window. Chester pressed the bow against the strings and it felt as warm as another hand inside his own.
‘Yes, Captain,’ he said.
And with that, he began to play.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As always, thanks to my agent Rick Raftos for finding my manuscript a home.
Without the team at Random House, The Hush would still just be a Word document on my computer. I am especially grateful to Zoe Walton, for her passion, guidance and expertise; Pas Lazzaro, for his terrific insight into the manuscript; Bronwyn O’Reilly, for her awesome editing skills; and Sarana Emerton, Dot Tonkin and Zoe Bechara, who are marketing and publicity ninjas. Thanks also to Julie Burland, Nerrilee Weir, Angela Duke, Rebecca Diep, Jo Penney, Janine Nelson, Jeremy Vine and all the other lovely people at RHA – as well as to Sebastian Ciaffaglione, who illustrated the gorgeous cover.
Thanks to my beautiful grandparents for their love and support, and to my parents and sister, who read this book first (and who were exceptionally patient when I needed to babble to someone about plotting issues or fictional geography).
Above all, thanks to my readers. This book could not exist without you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Skye Melki-Wegner is an Arts/Law (Hons) graduate from Melbourne. She has worked as a saleswoman, an English tutor and a popcorn-wrangler (at a cinema). In addition to writing fiction, in her spare time she devours a ridiculous amount of caffeine and fantasy literature. Skye is the author of the Chasing the Valley trilogy, which has already been sold internationally. The Hush began its life as a stand-alone book, but Skye can’t help thinking about what might come next for Chester, Susannah and the gang. To find out what Skye is planning for her next book or to get in touch, go to www.skyemelki-wegner.com.
By Skye Melki-Wegner
Chasing the Valley
Chasing the Valley Book Two: Borderlands
Chasing the Valley Book Three: Skyfire
Danika is used to struggling for survival. But when the tyrannous king launches an attack to punish her city – echoing the alchemy bombs that killed Danika’s family – she risks her life in a daring escape over the city’s walls.
Danika joins a crew of desperate refugees who seek the Magnetic Valley, a legendary safe haven. But when she accidentally destroys a palace biplane, Danika Glynn becomes the most wanted fugitive in Taladia.
Pursued by the king’s vicious hunters and betrayed by false allies, Danika also grapples with her burgeoning magical abilities. And when she meets the mysterious Lukas, she must balance her feelings against her crew’s safety.
Chasing the Valley is the first book in an epic trilogy of magic, treachery and survival.
‘The drama starts on the first page and doesn’t let up. Great fun.’
The Age
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Version 1.0
The Hush
9780857985781
First published by Random House Australia in 2015
Copyright © Skye Melki-Wegner, 2015
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
A Random House Australia book
Published by Random House Australia Pty Ltd
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www.randomhouse.com.au
Random House Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com/offices.
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Author: Skye Melki-Wegner
Title: The Hush/Skye Melki-Wegner
ISBN: 978 0 85798 578 1 (ebook)
Target audience: For young adults
Dewey number: A823.4
Cover design by Sebastian Ciaffaglione
Cover design and typography www.blacksheep-uk.com
eBook production by First Source
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