The Wild Harmonic

by Beth W. Patterson

  A flashlight cleaves the air, slashing across my face. Keys jangle, and Ramiel is yanking me to my feet so hard, I worry that my arm is going to pop out of its socket. He spits in my face and says, “Feeling sorry for yourself? We can’t have any crying here.”

  A hard cuff across my face, my ear ringing from the blow. He drops me to the ground, kicks me in the ribs, and says, “Consider yourself lucky. Next time you might end up on the pile. The Chimera has no use for a whiny little victim.”

  His words mirror Naj’s so long ago. I bite back a groan until his footsteps have faded. Lapin and I feel for broken ribs, but everything seems intact.

  After that, I train myself how to cry without getting caught. I blink at the ceiling, and if I am hydrated enough for tears, they slide backward and down my throat. I control my breathing through my nose, slow and steady. I let my vocal cords go limp. Only my belly goes crazy in silent jerks and spasms, voiceless screaming for a humanity that will never return.

  I have completely lost my sense of time. Lack of light prevents me from tracking the passage of days, and now, due to the severe living conditions, my menses have stopped. Stripped of my lupine traits, I can’t even sense the moon anymore.

  It appears that every prisoner serves a purpose to the Chimera’s agenda. At some point or another, everyone is led out, presumably brought before her, and returned to his or her cell smelling of food, sedatives, and despair—obvious even to my human senses.

  I can pick up a few familiar scents of prisoners here. Wally the werekoala and Darren the thylacine-turned-human from the Shifter’s Ball are in separate cells, but their energy patterns flicker into my awareness as I am led past. And somewhere in a cell removed from the rest of us is Aydan.

  On some sort of regular rotation, I am taken to the Chimera’s medical research laboratory. Even if I still had my lupine senses, the astringent tang of alcohol would be enough to confuse my nose. The only female angel I have seen thus far rules this domain. Slight of build, she is completely anonymous in a nurse’s uniform, surgical mask, cap, and goggles, only wearing a nametag that reads ARIEL for identification. Each time, she draws my blood, jabbing the needle so hard into my arm, it gives me flashbacks to La Balcone. Sometimes Ariel rips my hairs from my scalp, and sometimes she chops off a strand close to my head. When my hands find their way to my head, my locks feel jagged and irregular, further degrading my appearance.

  I still don’t understand what the point of this is. Lapin thinks that she is trying to get a poison resistant strain of DNA. But mainly, this seems to only accomplish weakening my body and spirit.

  Even more maddening is that I am marched past Chimera’s exercise room en route to the lab. The wall to her fitness haven is made of glass, and I am helpless to get a glimpse of her as she runs the track that encircles the perimeter, spars Jiu-Jitsu with a captive trainer, or shoots arrows at a wolf-shaped target. In the center of the room are also weights, gymnastic bars, and machines. A simulated palisade for climbing spans the entire far wall. There is a massive fish tank for swimming rather than a pool, and it’s clear that she expects to be admired as she furthers the glory of her body.

  On one trip, she is swimming in her giant tank in the form of an icthyocentaur—a centaur with a dolphin’s tail, when Azrael climbs up the side and dives in to join her, transforming as soon as he is submerged. And now I know why can does not change forms with the other angels. His shifter animal is a shark. They glide in conspiratorial patterns of infinity around each other, sharing secrets.

  After one particularly excruciating lab procedure with Ariel, I am led back to my room and gladdened to see Petit Puce standing before us once the guards retreat. He reports that the Chimera’s prisoners include scientists, financial experts, political strategists, and even psychics, for her ambitions include mind control over others. There are personal trainers for her incessant exercise and endorphin fixes. Drug lords and spin-doctors are brought into the fray as well to provide rewards and hyperbole among the increasing network.

  The musicians are held to serve multiple purposes. We have some sort of energetic power that she wants, and Puce says that she is going to force us to play Stygian Mode structures to weaken the other captives. She also intends to put together a massive musical spectacle in celebration of her eventual victory and coronation.

  All are shifters, and all are doomed. Prisoners are all given sunlight, food, and promises of protection so that we will come to crave visits with this mad dictator. The shifters who end up serving no purpose are eventually dispatched. The rest of us just try to survive.

  I hate my own scent. Filthy and thick with fear, I wish I could scrub myself into oblivion.

  One man finally caves—or does he resist where the rest of us have caved? In any case, he is found dead in his cell, his mind having overcome matter in his hunger strike. The angels make a public display for us of throwing his body in an undignified heap onto a wheelbarrow, before bearing him off to his afterlife on the trash heap. No, I try to remind myself. The hermit crab is free at last, only his shell remains.

  My smartass spirit—the very thing that once got me kicked out of class and in trouble on gigs—is the only thing keeping my mind whole. I lack the ability to conform, even when my life depends on it.

  Lapin and I keep ourselves sane by clinging to ordinary things. We swap anecdotes of home in an effort to remember our true selves. We also pass the time with jokes, which is a good mental exercise for me. I analyze them to see how many of them could work translated into English. My cellmate’s laughter brings to mind a falling star: dazzlingly bright, but so fleeting that there is never enough time to make a wish.

  He tells me one that I’d already heard years ago, just not in French. “There was a man who wanted to visit Beethoven’s grave,” he begins. “When he gets there, he hears some very strange music emitting from it. So he fetches the caretaker, who tells him that it is Beethoven’s Fifth playing backward. The man asks why it is playing backward, and the caretaker tells him that Beethoven is decomposing!” It’s grim joke, but I smile anyway, more at Lapin’s enthusiasm.

  I wonder what Beethoven played in reverse would really sound like, and a wild idea slinks into my mind. “Lapin, have you ever heard of DNA Music? I saw something in a documentary when I was a kid about DNA codes used as melodies.”

  He chuckles. “What biochemist has not heard of it? It’s also called Protein Music or Genetic Music. I believe it was pioneered by Joel Sternheimer. There are several ways to convert protein sequences—such as genes—into musical notes. There are computer conversions that enable you to feed in the DNA sequences and come up with music.” He frowns. “Without a computer there is still a way to do it. The codons can be converted into hertz frequencies. It can be done with a paper chart, although it’s tedious. But my little friend here can be working on it while I am slaving over the Chimera’s helixes.”

  “Petit Puce, can you find a way to retrieve some of the DNA records? Maybe hide on Lapin to get in the office and wait. Go back into human form after hours, slide the papers under the door, go back into flea and get yourself out of there … “

  “I get the idea. What do you propose to do?”

  “If I can find a way to musically link my energies with those codes, I can sing them backwards and unbind them.”

  Mental journal entry, date unknown: Hope springs eternal even when reality gives me the finger. I just wish the two would slug it out while I get some rest, and get back to me with a verdict.

  It is impossible to tell the passage of time, but what feels like a span of two days later marks my first attempt at wave genetics. My cellmates talk me through a brief overview, as if I can possibly understand biochemistry in a short tutorial. Still, I hang onto every word. They tell me about the four nucleobases: adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine. To me it is arcane and unfathomable. Looking at the diagrams drawn in the dirt, I try to think of them as scales with pentagonal and hexagonal variations. More like Indian rag
as, I think, but unlike Indian ragas, I don’t have two years to learn each one. After scratching the surface of the subject, they assure me that my main task is to just learn the music backward and put my intention into the unbinding. Which is all I have the energy for, anyway.

  Figuring out the hertz frequencies is the hardest even with a chart hidden on a piece of paper. I assiduously carry out the task to the highest accuracy possible, and I don’t dare sing the notes forward. Keeping my voice nearly inaudible, I croon the wild harmonic and try to think of a chord structure on my mind that will make the note sequence make sense to me.

  I may not be able to shift bodies. But I can emit vibrations. Everything is vibration: instinct, emotion, and intention. I defend myself against the Chimera’s anger that is jamming my circuits.

  I recall in the back of my mind a word: Waheguru. It was taught to me by someone … Raúl, I think his name was. I hum it softly, and feel energy creep up my spine, water seeking absorbency. I cannot grow a tail, but the energy extends out from my root chakra, as if my tail still existed. Something is overcoming the drug, or perhaps I am hallucinating from lack of sleep.

  I don’t know if I have accomplished much, and I am drained from the effort. Collapsing onto my pile of blankets, I manage to get a few winks of hard sleep before the first airhorn blast.

  I am brought back before the Chimera four cornmeal feedings later. Her laugher echoes through the entire chamber like a disco ball.

  I look around but see no one. She could be anywhere … unless she is omniscient.

  “Up here, you stupid bitch!” I raise my head to see a giant harpy with a lyrebird’s tail perched in the ornate beams. I immediately hate myself for responding to the word.

  Her face is magnificent, her human arms rippling with muscle. Each day, the aspects of strong creatures come together to build the perfect beast. And yet something else nags at the back of my mind. What is beauty? A different countenance snaps into my memory: a smiling dark-skinned Creole woman with cornrow braids in a white wedding gown, a woman with a beautiful and noble heart. I think she might take on the form of a snake. Who is she? My thoughts are muzzy, but I wish she were by my side.

  A shriek from the Chimera brings me back to the present. “So … MacKinlay! It appears that you have a forebear I might have known, hmmm?”

  “I don’t know,” is my automatic response.

  She flutters down from above to meet my eyes, hers blazing the color of glowing iron in a forge. “Liar!” she screeches. “You had a grandmother who decided not to pass along my legacy. I was the one who discovered her talent. I suppose she didn’t tell you that, did she?”

  I shake my head, assuming that this is a lie. The woman formerly known as Idona Brume would have never lifted a finger of her hand for anyone else, unless there was something in it for her. Still, the cherished memories of my grandma begin to blur.

  “She would have been nothing without me. You owe your very existence to me, you know. Even as Dottie MacKinlay got all this praise—oh, let me tell you, she just ate it all up, she really believed they liked her—it was I who had the real genius. Like you, your grand-bitch could only change to one animal counterpart. Mediocrity seems to be a genetic trait! She could never have aspired to assume the forms of beasts that were once only the stuff of legends and nightmares.”

  Shifting headfirst and then gradually down her sleek body, she goes into what appears to be a manticore form: a human face, lion’s body, and scorpion’s tail. It is as effortless for her as a metaphysical costume change, a velvet glove slipping across a core of raw energy. Just as the long tail feathers begin to morph into the expected stinging appendage, something goes wrong.

  The end piece struggles like a sad little withered sprig reaching feebly for emergence. It finally collapses into a flaccid tendril and retracts into her spine.

  I try to still my thoughts. The DNA music… it’s working.

  The Chimera hisses. “I am not finished with you, bitch. You are no paragon yourself.” Sitting on her haunches, she abandons ceremony and becomes a giant insect. She snaps open prehistoric-sized wings, and becomes something crossed between Mothra and a siren.

  The lights dim, and projected onto each wing is some sort of motion picture. I don’t know where this video footage comes from. It can’t have possibly been filmed, as I have only seen these events before in my mind. They could only have been experienced trough my own perspective, yet here they are for all the world to see.

  It’s like a video montage of my every mistake and failure. And the soundtrack playing from somewhere is unmistakably The Stygian Mode. Any remaining shred of self-worth drains from me as the images bore into my skull and the music cajoles me with thoughts of death, for I am beyond worthless.

  I jeopardized the pack with my carelessness. I allowed Yohan to use me. I failed my audition for the prime time show.

  Hecklers who hated me over the years suddenly line up in my projected memory like a firing squad. You suck, you should be shot, spread your legs, show your tits, you whore… The memory of their every hurtful word suddenly plays back like a long forgotten answering machine tape resurrected by obsolete technology. I would deflect their attacks with humor and theatrics, then cry all the way home.

  Drowning in a sea of failed relationships, I am the butt of every joke. My old lovers leer as they walk off with my hard-earned money. I am never good enough.

  Time continues to move backward. Running through the woods, slashing wildly in my rage … I hurt living things. I get smaller and weaker with youth as I bomb my first recital. I can’t do math. I can’t pay attention in school, and begin failing to the point that I am tested for brain damage. The other kids in school hate me. You’re a loser, a nobody, they tell me. You don’t deserve to even be alive. I feel the punches to my head, my feet being kicked out from under me, the slaps across the face ringing in my ears. In this case boys have no qualms about hitting a girl, since I am not considered to be female. Only a dog, as I am told over and over again.

  Now I am even smaller. There are things that I was supposed to love, and I let them break. I don’t want to be a precious ballerina—I want to be a wild animal, and I disappoint the grownups. I accidentally tear a paper lamb, and there will be no Christmas cookies for me now. I’ve wet my diaper. I am being born, and I am hurting my mother … I am making her bleed.

  I am a mistake.

  There is nothing but an electrical buzz in my ears. Buzz … it’s a funny word, but it carries some meaning. It resonates with something that connects, a friendly vibe. Friends. My friends call me Buzz.

  I fight the mental assault, pulling myself back to the present by humming a soft “om.” It occurs to me how an ohm is a unit of resistance, and now I resist the mind games. My cognitive mind is back, and I remember to scream out loud in hopes of fooling the Chimera. Any shapeshifting opossum, hognose snake, or ptarmigan would be proud of my theatrics.

  The visual montage stops and the lights go back on. And then the Chimera is crouched on the floor next to me, presenting me with food. It reminds me of the comfort food I had while visiting family in Scotland: roast lamb, potatoes, and steamed cubed carrots and turnips—with just the right amount of pepper. This time my desperation is real, and I eat ravenously on the floor, disregarding the silverware provided me.

  She croons. “I asked the angels to give you concession. They only do so because I tell them to. You can’t trust anyone, certainly not your cell mates. Only I can keep you safe. Do you understand?”

  This is a cult, I remind myself, or trying to be. Just go along with it. I nod, keeping my eyes on the now-empty plate on the floor. Even playing along, it’s hard not to really believe it all.

  “You are dismissed. Remember that I am ever merciful to you, my little bitch.”

  As I am led back to my cell in a daze, doubtlessly smelling of food and fear, I completely understand Lapin’s plight now.

  CHAPTER

  13

  SPLICING BLOCK


  I have whittled down to the Chimera’s two basic DNA codes. I’m as ready as I’ll ever be to battle this demon, and hope that the other prisoners will lend their energies, even if they don’t know what I’m about to do.

  No one speaks anyone’s language. There’s no common lexicography, anyway. But I know one thing: Everyone can respond to music.

  I am almost self-conscious that all the songs I hope everyone knows are in English, which seems to have overrun the pop culture world like locusts. But there are worse things than coming across as an insular American at this moment.

  I’m not going for a fresh repertoire here. I’m going with the tried and true. I won’t start loudly—everyone is sleep deprived. But if I start with an inaudible hum, I can invite people to my frequency.

  I start with “Amazing Grace.” I am so sick of that song, I could cry, but hearing the corridor begin to stir and come to life as others join in miraculously give it new meaning.

  “Let It Be” is what finally reins everyone’s attention in. When traveling with Slackjaw, there were many Japanese musicians who spoke little or no English, but everyone knew Beatles songs. And it appears that everyone, shifters from all four corners of the earth, can connect now on this classic song.

  My message is clear: I want them to sing with me. And they do, tremulously and timorously at first. Something begins to flow around the prison and connect us all. We are like effects linked together on one electrical current. I feel more than hear them join me, sympathetic strings vibrating, concentric circles rippling in water, a chain reaction growing.

  I feel something, as if my wolf senses are returning, if only faintly. Somehow there are other shifters running free just outside, oblivious to the Chimera’s stronghold and the horrors within. If our signal strengthens, we can send a wave of instinct, of gut feeling.

  Help us.

  This time I sing the new melody; a simple form of the Chimera’s kelpie code in reverse. Then I switch to her lycan code and alternate back and forth in a call and response antiphon. I feel an unbinding as my voice gets stronger. As others join in, I can feel the fortress begin to rumble.