Behind the Song

by K. M. Walton

  Anara hesitated for just a moment before she pulled up her tank top to reveal her soft belly and the lines there, as delicate as strands of spider silk. She was glad they had made it far enough south on this portion of the map that this wasn’t so awkward anymore. Of course, if their path continued southward…

  Trace knelt before her and studied the map on her stomach. The lines were only for Anara and Trace, apparently. No one else—not the school nurse or their classmates, not even Anara’s parents—could see them covering every inch of her skin.

  Had these lines always been part of her, hidden like the voices? Why had they appeared when she and Trace touched? Was it him, or was it her?

  What if they did more than touch?

  He followed the line of the path they’d been following with his finger.

  Anara giggled. “That tickles.” But don’t stop, she thought.

  Sigh.

  Anara had always wondered how she could hear a sigh in her head, since the voices couldn’t draw breath, but now that she believed in magic, she had to accept that anything was possible.

  Magic. The map lines were enough proof that it exists. Thinking of the voices as magical took some getting used to, but it was better than imagining them as…her imagination. Or as a biochemical imbalance that needed to be corrected.

  Anara was magical. She wasn’t just different—she was special.

  “I think we’re about here,” Trace said, pressing his finger to the spot where her navel should be. His touch sent a pleasurable shiver deep within, farther down. He frowned, staring at the smooth skin there. She braced herself for the question.

  She didn’t know what her missing navel meant, but magic was strange that way. Trace had said, “You know good magic when you don’t see it.” Somehow it must be connected to the voices in her head.

  “Um,” Trace said. “Your skin…?”

  Anara glanced down and saw her stomach was splotched with red.

  “Oh, that. It’s a thing I do. I blush easily, for no reason.” She said it like it was no big deal, so he wouldn’t make it one.

  Blushing had always been a problem, never on her face but seemingly everywhere else: her chest, the backs of her arms, the back of her neck, and apparently her scalp too. It didn’t take much to set it off. Embarrassment did the job as well as an innocuous comment.

  When it was bad, she looked like she had a rash. Now she wondered if the blushing was the secrets inside her trying to reveal themselves, or maybe there was no more room for her to hide anything, so her emotions had to be plainly written on her skin, for all to see.

  “Well, keep it up if you can. It makes it easier to see the map. I think the lines are fading,” he said.

  Anara held up her arms and turned them this way and that. He was right. The lines shimmered in the sunlight and disappeared from certain angles.

  He stood and brushed the dirt from his knees. “But I know where we are now.”

  Anara pulled her shirt down. Her belly was warm. Trace led the way, and she walked alongside him, still feeling his fingertips on her.

  They had followed the map from where it had first appeared, their high school, to the Esbenshade National Wildlife Refuge in upstate New York, just over the Vermont border. She was surprised that The City had moved so close to where she lived, but it had still taken them three days of walking and hitchhiking to get there, trading stories about their eerily similar experiences growing up.

  ((The City is somewhere in this park. It’s just a matter of time before we find it. Might as well tell me what happened to it?)) she said.

  Silence.

  ((Fine.))

  “Trace, what happened to the City? Why did you and your father leave?” she asked.

  “It left us,” Trace said.

  “Cryptic.”

  “I was only a few months old, but Pa says a group of—”

  La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la.

  Anara winced. Trace’s lips were moving but she couldn’t hear what he was saying.

  ((Seriously?)) Anara said. ((Cut that out! I want to hear this.))

  La la la la—

  “So he took me and we left,” Trace finished.

  That was better.

  “Anara?” Trace said.

  “Y-yeah?”

  “You had that… Sometimes you look like you’re, I don’t know how to describe it. Seeing inside your own head?”

  Anara massaged her eyes. “Just thinking about something else.”

  “Anyway, Pa has never stopped searching for home,” Trace said.

  Anara squinted up at the canopy of trees above them. “Me neither.”

  “You have a family in Burlington.” Trace ducked under a low branch and held it out of the way for her.

  “You and your father have each other. Is that enough?” she asked. “I’ve just never felt…normal.”

  “Whatever that means.”

  She spread her hands. “I just don’t fit, you know? I’m hoping that when we get to The City, I can find out why I’m…why I…” She hesitated. Could she trust him?

  Trace didn’t push her. He simply listened.

  “I…hear voices,” she blurted.

  And there it was. It made her feel good to have the truth out at last. Lighter. It was a baring of her soul that was more intimate, more personal than it had been to reveal her body to Trace. It made him less of a stranger, more than a friend. An ally.

  Oh, Anara.

  Trace blinked. “Voices.”

  She braced herself for him to draw away, expecting him to turn from her, maybe even abandon this whole adventure and head back to Burlington, leaving her behind. But instead he knit his brows in confusion. “What do they say?”

  Anara took a calming breath. And she told him everything.

  All her life, the life she remembered anyway, the voices had told her what to believe, what to say, what to do. She stopped listening all the time as she got older, but they had defined her. They had always been there for her. But now that their secrets were coming out, she didn’t know if she could trust them anymore, if she ever should have trusted them.

  “What’s it like having that noise in your head?” he asked.

  She wiped sweat from her eyes. “Crowded. Comfortable. Irritating. Reassuring. I know you’ve felt isolated in the nonmagical world, even with your father around, but I’ve never been alone.”

  “That sounds nice. Unless…”

  “What?”

  “Are they watching you all the time? When you’re in the bathroom or…” He coughed.

  “Yes, even when I’m hooking up.” Anara smiled when Trace blushed. “Not that it happens often.”

  Only once, in fact. Some guys were into the white hair thing, and Anara had been desperate to connect with someone her age, who seemed to like her. But twenty-one minutes in a closet wasn’t a lasting friendship. She had become someone’s anecdote, and that wasn’t going to happen again no matter how lonely she was.

  “Oh,” Trace said.

  “But it doesn’t feel like someone else spying. They feel like a part of me. Most of the time I don’t even notice them, they’re just part of the background.”

  “How many are there?”

  She tripped over a half-buried root. Trace grabbed her arm and helped steady her.

  “More than one, I’m very sure. Could be five, could be hundreds. They all sound the same in my head. They all sound like me.”

  Trace halted and held up a hand. “Did you hear that?” he whispered.

  “Very funny,” Anara said.

  “I’m serious. Not a voice… Someone’s out there.”

  Anara peered into the trees. She listened hard. Were those footsteps walking softly through the underbrush?

  “It could be an animal,” she said.
>
  “It isn’t an animal,” Trace said. “We’re being followed.”

  Anara, hide!

  Anara and Trace crouched behind a thick tree as footsteps came closer, and slowed. When a man appeared across the clearing, Anara covered her mouth. He had russet skin, and his thick hair and beard were bone white. Could he be from The City?

  Traitor.

  ((You know him?)) Anara asked.

  “Pa!” Trace jumped up and ran toward his father.

  The man whirled around. “There you are!” He squinted past Trace, and his eyes caught Anara’s. “Come on out, girl,” he said softly.

  Don’t, Anara.

  Mr. Alabaster was wearing a long, dusty coat despite the heat. When it shifted, Anara glimpsed something strapped to his hip.

  ((What’s that?))

  A gun!

  Mr. Alabaster had no reason to shoot her, and she wasn’t going to get answers sitting behind a tree. She joined Trace, keeping an eye on Mr. Alabaster’s hands. Just in case.

  “The Daughter of The City. I’m Alton Alabaster.” He bowed. “Very glad to finally meet you.”

  “Hello,” she said.

  “What’s going on, Pa?” Trace asked. “Why are you following us?”

  Mr. Alabaster’s eyes searched her face. No…he was reading it.

  He could see the map too.

  “You’ve been holding out on me, son. Weren’t you supposed to tell me right away if you found her?” Mr. Alabaster said.

  “Sorry, Pa.”

  Trace was supposed to tell him when he found her? She didn’t like this. She felt like an ice cube had lodged in her heart.

  “The least you could do is introduce us,” Mr. Alabaster said.

  “You already seem to know who I am,” Anara said.

  “I know what you are, but not who you are.” Alton scratched at his beard thoughtfully.

  “Pa, this is Anara Mackaw.” Trace waved his hand between them and gave her a questioning look. “Anara, my father.”

  Anara knew she was being rude, but the voices labeling him “traitor,” the gun, him following them… It all put her on edge. She didn’t trust the man, but maybe she could use him to get what she wanted.

  “Let’s keep moving, what do you say? I’ve waited sixteen years to go home, and these mosquitoes are eating me alive,” Mr. Alabaster said. “You do know where we’re going?”

  Anara brushed past him wordlessly. She followed the trail on the back of her hand to a ring of massive trees surrounding another clearing. One had fallen a long time ago, its dead trunk pointing to the center of the meadow. The tangle of its mighty roots clawed upward, a gnarled hand grasping for the sky.

  She remembered this spot. But how could that be? Anara National Park was hundreds of miles away.

  This had to be a different tree, but this also was where she’d been discovered as a baby. The memories flashed crystal clear.

  A voice saying, Wake up! Opening her eyes, seeing those exposed roots extended over her like huge, craggy fingers. She had started crying, and that’s when the woman found her. Dressed in flannel, a shotgun balanced on one shoulder, a brace of pheasants clutched in one hand—gaping at the naked baby cradled in a nest of fresh, green leaves in the shadow of a dead tree. That had been the first time she saw Eveline Mackaw. Mom.

  Anara sat heavily on the rotting log.

  Alabaster looked around doubtfully. “Is this the place?”

  “The City’s close,” she said.

  “So what happens now?” he asked.

  Anara crossed her arms. “Now you tell us what really happened when you left it, Mr. Alabaster.”

  “Anara? What do you mean?” Trace asked. “I already told you—”

  Anara held up a hand. “We need to hear it from him.”

  “We?” Mr. Alabaster pushed aside his coat and rested his hand casually on the holster of his gun. He squinted at her. “You hear them?”

  Despite the hot sun and humidity, Anara’s blood ran cold. He couldn’t be referring to the voices.

  Careful, Anara.

  ((Shhh!))

  “Tell me a story, Alton,” Anara said.

  Mr. Alabaster kicked at the dirt with a heavy boot. “I didn’t think they’d go through with it, until The City disappeared. The plan seemed so drastic…” He looked at Anara sadly. “So cruel.”

  “You didn’t leave The City.” Anara guessed. “You were kicked out. For betraying it. ‘Traitor,’ they called you.”

  Mr. Alabaster scowled. Then his face softened. “I’m sorry, son. I wasn’t entirely truthful with you.” He glanced at Anara meaningfully. “But I wasn’t the only one bending the facts.”

  “I haven’t lied to Trace,” Anara said.

  “Maybe not, but how long have you been hearing those voices in your head? How long have you been speaking for them?”

  “Traitor,” Anara repeated.

  “That’s what they named me, and that’s what I am,” Mr. Alabaster shoved his hands into his pockets and bunched up his shoulders.

  “Pa!” Trace said.

  Impulsively, Anara stood and took Trace’s hand. It seemed like both of them were about to hear something difficult, but at least they could face it together. He squeezed her hand tight and set his jaw with determination.

  “Okay.” Mr. Alabaster was silent for a long time. “Okay. Here’s how it was. How it really was. I encountered a group of people on one of my trade expeditions. They were refugees from a city called Evervale, that had used up all its magic and entered the nonmagical world, and mostly died. Her people had scattered everywhere, but these forty people had settled in Quebec, to search for The City. Hoping it would take them in, let them live with magic again.

  “They needed magic bad. Several of them were sick. Dying. They told me their story and begged me to bring them to The City. I told them the Elders would never let them enter, never let them share its magic.”

  Don’t listen to him. He’s spinning tales. You can’t open The City to him.

  Or his son.

  Anara shook her head, like she was clearing water from her ears.

  “Anara?” Trace whispered.

  “Go on, Alton,” she said through clenched teeth. The voices were murmuring now, she could barely hear him over their chatter.

  “They were desperate, and they said they would reward me just for asking the question. They paid me half up front—a lot of money. What harm was there in asking? But I didn’t realize they had followed me back, tracking the coins I brought with me.

  “By the time I realized what I had done, they were camped outside The City. They had stolen magic before, enough that they could open a way in, given enough time. So we were under siege.”

  The fool!

  “They tricked you,” Trace said.

  “Not exactly. I had my own plans.” Alabaster unholstered his gun. Tapped it nervously against his knee.

  Anara eyed it worriedly. Trace’s hand tensed in hers. He had seen it too.

  Run!

  Don’t let him hurt you!

  ((Not yet. I have to hear this.))

  Go. We’ll tell you the rest, but you have to go now!

  Anara tugged at Trace’s hand, took a half step back. She stared at him. Be ready, she thought, willing him to hear her. He seemed to understand.

  Alabaster was scheming to overthrow the Elders, a voice said.

  Anara swallowed. “You wanted to lead a coup? You were going to use the survivors from Evervale to claim The City’s magic for yourself.”

  “Not for me! For everyone! I’d been pushing for us to open our borders for years, reveal The City to the nonmagical world. We should have been sharing our power with normal people, using it to heal the sick and dying, that kind of thing. It was only humane. But the Elders wanted to keep it all for
themselves.

  “They rejected my proposal to bring in the outsiders—people who needed them. And when they realized Evervale had found The City and already was working to counter its protective spells, they decided to move it.”

  Anara’s mouth went dry. “How did they do it?”

  He looked at her, his face a mixture of anger and…pity. “Through you.”

  “I don’t follow,” she said.

  “Anara, you are The City. The living embodiment of all it was and all we were,” Mr. Alabaster said. “Its magical essence distilled, containing multitudes. No one would look for a city inside a girl, and if they did, you’d be difficult to track down, and even more difficult to capture.” He pointed the gun at her. “Or kill.”

  Go!

  Go, go, go.

  “You made me?” She spoke her question aloud to the voices. “All of you are real people? IN MY HEAD? And the magic…”

  It’s inside you. You are ∫a——.

  She repeated it aloud. “∫a——?”

  “Your true name means both ‘girl of The City’ and ‘secret keeper.’ But most people called you the repository.” Mr. Alabaster looked pained. “That’s what they thought of you. You weren’t a person. You were meant to be a tool.”

  “But who was I before?” she asked. “Before they did this to me?”

  “Anara…girl, I’m sorry, but you didn’t exist. You weren’t—”

  “Born.” Anara pressed a hand to her stomach, feeling its unscarred skin.

  “Not born naturally, no.” The hand holding the gun was shaking. “It wasn’t right. Our magic wasn’t meant to do that…create a new life to be used and thrown away. I told them so. I was the lone dissenter.”

  “They banished you,” Anara said.

  “Yes. Ironically, not because of my plans, which were still secret. But because in order for the spell to work, everyone had to agree with it. So I left and took Trace with me.” He glanced at Trace. “The rest of it’s true. We stayed with the Evervale refugees for a time, looking for you. The City.”

  “My parents had already found me and took me away,” Anara said.

  He scratched a nasty-looking mosquito bite on his chin. “I’ve been researching and tracking every adoption from around the time The City disappeared. A tip finally led me to Burlington. I found your family yesterday, but you had already gone off with my son.” Alabaster slapped at another mosquito on his arm. “And here we are.”