Deep Blue

by David Niall Wilson

  Madeline and Liz moved to the kitchen, each taking up a large platter of well-wrapped food and walking back to the door. The walk outside was lined with pale, moonlit faces, flickering in and out of focus as the breeze coaxed the candles into a soft dance. No one spoke, there was nothing left to be said. The two, mother and daughter, stepped through the door and onto the walk, heading to the road with long, steady steps. As they moved away from the house, those lining the walk closed in behind them.

  Brandt, Synthia, Dexter, and Shaver watched as the strange parade moved away, and down the road, leaving the candles wavering as they passed. They knew it wouldn’t be prudent to start the van so soon, so they waited, not moving from the doorway until the odd procession was completely out of sight.

  “I guess this is it,” Brandt said softly. He turned from the door and moved into the room, to his guitar case.

  No one answered him. They retrieved their equipment, and they walked to the van. None of them hurried. No one wanted to turn that key, or drive down that hill. Dexter slipped in behind the wheel, and they all took their places, just as they had on the ride there, minus Liz.

  The air was charged with energy. Every motion, every sound, took on meaning and scope. With a quick twist of his wrist, Dexter brought the van to life and backed slowly down the drive, turning carefully to avoid the line of burning candles to each side. He spun around slowly, aimed the headlights’ glaring beam at the church below, and kicked the old vehicle into gear. Very, very slowly, he inched down the mountain. Near the bottom, he turned to the side, heading into the parking lot beside the church and away from the soft, flaming bonfire-light that had flared up along the tree line, near the old tent.

  Dexter parked and cut the lights, and they sat for what seemed a very long time without moving. Finally, Brandt opened the side door and stepped out into the night. The pain had begun to build again, not as slowly as usual, but in quick, agonizing stabs that made him wince and lean on the van for support.

  “Brandt,” Synthia said, “what is it?” She sounded sincere, but Brandt could see that her gaze slipped on around and beyond him, and he turned, trying to see what she saw.

  “Just feeling it,” he said. “It’s different. Stronger. I guess I should have expected that.”

  Synthia nodded.

  “What do you see?” Brandt whispered.

  “So many,” she replied. “So many, Brandt. I can barely see the tent. They are gathered in big circles. We have to walk through them to get to the tent.”

  “Will you be okay?”

  It wasn’t really a question. There was no choice remaining but to move forward.

  Dexter had come up behind them. “Time to do it,” he said. “I can feel it. I can feel that pattern, just like before. Just like with the snakes, and the church. I can’t see it yet, but it’s there, waiting.”

  “We’d better not disappoint it, then,” Shaver whispered, stepping up from the other side. The four of them started toward the tent at a slow walk

  Synthia stayed close to Brandt’s side, guiding him right, then left, avoiding what he could see and feel only as a soft ripple in the air. Dexter and Shaver walked to either side. Dexter had his drums by the handles, sticks tucked carefully up under one arm. Shaver had his guitar case, as did Brandt. Synthia had her case, and dangling from her hand, the pig-nose amp. The four of them cast lengthening shadows as they approached the tent, and the fire.

  “I don’t remember there being a fire,” Brandt said softly. “I remember early morning, sunlight, and those eyes,” his voice trailed off, then returned. “I don’t think there is supposed to be a fire.”

  “I remember a fire,” Synthia said, “but it didn’t have anything to do with this place.”

  They stopped, just at the outer ring of the townspeople. The fire was off to one side, and they could see that there was a small line of people carrying more wood for that blaze, tossing their burdens into the flames and moving on. No faces could be made out, only dark silhouettes against the darker backdrop of the night.

  Brandt stepped forward, moving between those gathered silently. They parted to let him pass. Synthia and the others followed, single file, making their way slowly toward the center of the circle.

  Low voices surrounded them, whispering, under-breath comments, some positive, others questioning. Brandt felt the others¾those speaking beyond the circle, directly to him¾growing in strength. He felt them clutching at him with ghost-fingers of pain, driving their images between his thoughts. He concentrated.

  In the center of the circle, beside the table, Payne stood, leaning on his cane and watching as they approached. Nearby, Madeline stood as well, and Liz. They were watching Payne, as well.

  The dark man didn’t speak as Brandt broke free and entered the circle. He nodded, as if to an old acquaintance. As his gaze brushed over Synthia, he smiled. Just for an instant, the cane in his hand grew, and shifted. It was a bass, shining and polished, leaning in against his shoulder. The bass Synthia had played that night in the city. Then it was gone again, and only the moment remained.

  The food was piled high on the low-slung table. Reverend McKeeman’s body was barely visible, covered in platters and draped with napkins holding fruits and bread. At the very head of the table, beside a large flask of wine, sat the urn. Reverend Forbes’ ashes. There was a bunch of green grapes draped over the handles, and a small loaf of French bread leaned against the side.

  Not an inch of space was wasted. There was enough food to feed a small army, and the dancing shadows brought to life by the bonfire rippled over them all, lending an air of surreality that even the feast itself couldn’t have provided. The flames reflected in Payne’s eyes, but there was more. There were figures, moving, and the sound of wailing deep and far away. Brandt watched, mesmerized, then shook his head and turned away, toward Madeline.

  Payne laughed.

  Madeline didn’t speak, but she nodded, and then inclined her head to one side. Away from the fire. Brandt returned the nod and started forward. They filed past Payne, who had now shifted his countenance to an expression of serious contemplation. With Brandt no longer blocking him from the view of the townsfolk, the “Reverend” Payne was back at the pulpit.

  Brandt moved in behind Madeline, and Liz, who smiled weakly at him. He placed his guitar case on the ground, and opened the snaps, as Synthia and Shaver did the same. Dexter placed himself a bit further back, behind them all. He had only three drums, the snare and two toms, and he set them up quickly, seating himself cross-legged behind them—waiting.

  Brandt chose to stand, the guitar strapped over his shoulder, Shaver to one side and Synthia on the other. Synthia snapped the cord into the tiny amp, but didn’t flick the switch on. They all waited now, watching, as Payne stepped to the head of the table and the whispered, mumbled comments died to silence.

  “Brothers and sisters,” he began, his voice carrying easily, though he did not seem to strain for volume, “welcome. Welcome, and praise the Lord for your lives, for tonight we gather to mourn those who have passed. Those who no longer call this world home, and yet, have ties that bind them to us, and to this place. Ties we can sever, through faith, and through sacrifice. That sacrifice, brothers and sisters, can send them home.”

  Brandt heard the murmur of voices again, and he scanned the crowd. No one spoke. No lips moved, all eyes were locked on Payne’s smooth, dark features. Still, the voices grew in volume, and though he fought it, Brandt began to listen.

  Synthia moved closer again, and turned her back toward him, facing the crowd, and the circle. This time, when Brandt followed her gaze, he saw flickers of motion, just beyond those gathered—shadows that slipped from one place to the next, then weren’t there. Motion that wasn’t quite motion, because all that moved was a blur, a shift in the firelight that may or may not have ever existed, and was quickly gone. Brandt knew that Synthia saw more than that, but he couldn’t concentrate. The voices had risen to a roar, none distinct enough to be und
erstood over the crushing weight of sound from the others.

  All that was clear was the pain. It seeped up from deep within Brandt’s soul, first a dull ache near the base of his spine, then ice-fingers climbing through his nerve endings, each ripple blending with the tail-end of the last. Brandt’s hands shook, and he gripped the neck of the guitar, pressing his fingers so tightly to the strings that all the blood ran from his hands and he was forced to bite his lip to keep from crying out.

  Shaver’s face was a wash of concentration. His fingers quivered on the strings, and it was obvious that only an act of extreme self-control was keeping him from playing. The music rolled, just beneath the surface, and he held it in check. He watched Brandt, and he watched Payne, and he waited, wondering how much longer he could hold out.

  Only Dexter was calm. His eyes were closed. The drumsticks rested gently in his fingers, their tips lying motionless on the skin of the snare. There was no way to tell what he might be hearing, or seeing. There was no way to tell if he was aware of his surroundings at all.

  In front of the four of them, Liz and her mother stood side by side. They were listening to the Reverend Payne, who still spoke, though his words had slipped away to those who sought them, becoming a part of the blur of sound to Brandt and the others. Madeline’s gaze kept shifting, one moment fixed on Payne, the next the table, and the next the line of trees beyond the fire. Her shoulders were tense, and her arm around Liz’s shoulder was too tight, too stiff.

  “Brothers and sisters,” Payne’s voice broke through suddenly, clear as a bell and resonating across the circle, and into the night, “let us pray.”

  That was all Brandt could stand. The voices, the pain, washed up and through him. He slid his fingers high on the neck of the guitar, not playing a chord, but a single note, sliding it, letting it wail from his finger, deepening and echoing through the shadows. Brandt’s back arched, and his head dropped back as that first wave of pain slipped up and away, and for just that single moment, nothing existed but the note. The voices stilled. Payne’s voice fell away to nothing, and the fire gave way to the soft wash of moonlight.

  Then it began. Brandt’s hand slid down and rippled across the strings, and like magic, Shaver was there. He didn’t intrude. His notes were quiet, carrying, much like Payne’s voice had moments before, but not drowning Brandt, or the voices, or the pain. Shaver wove into it, becoming one with the emotion and sifting it out through his fingers as Synthia tapped into the pulse, the ebb and flow that bound the moment, and became that beat, that heart-pump regular backdrop of sound that Brandt and Shaver could hang their notes on.

  Dexter remained silent. His breathing was even and calm. His eyes never flickered open, never took in the swaying of the crowd, or the dancing of the flames. Never slipped up and down the length of Reverend McKeeman’s body, or the food, though the scent of the feast permeated the air like incense.

  There was singing. Voices blended with the music, a slow, harmonic hymn that resonated through shadows and firelight, that drew voices from reluctant throats and set even the most steadfast “believer” swaying in time. Payne paced through the circle now, his moment of “prayer” stolen. He stalked from one end of McKeeman’s body to the other, a hungry predator, stalking his prey. Payne paid no attention to Brandt, or the others. His concentration was fixed on the line of the trees, and on the line of shadowy, faceless figures tossing fuel on his fire.

  Slowly the circle faded. The night shifted. The faces and voices surrounding them fell away until Brandt stood on the edge of a cliff. Below him, waves crashed against the stone base like distant thunder. The spray drifted up and splashed across his face, and he blinked his eyes, not wanting to be blinded, but unwilling to stop playing to brush the moisture away. He knew the song he was playing. He remembered it from an album his father had played for him lifetimes in the past, except that when Charlie Parker had played it, there had been a saxophone, and now there was Shaver, only Shaver to drive the pain through the notes, nails through solid planks of sound and drawing the blood of the world. So perfect. So bittersweet, and changing, ever changing, until it wasn’t Charlie Parker any more at all, just blue.

  Synthia played the motion of the crowd. Her notes reverberated, and the bodies swayed, one entity, blended to the melody, and the harmony, syncopating the world. Brandt felt them near, though he saw only the ocean, and the cliff. Syn played the pounding of the surf, Shaver played the mist. Brandt was the steady ebb and flow of the waves.

  Out over the water, the mist parted, and a shadowy hulk took shape, plowing slowly through the waves, bound for the rocks below. Brandt strained his eyes, half-blind from the spray and mist. It was a boat, a ship, wooden prow breaking the waves and sails, ratty and torn, dangling from broken masts. Figures moved about on the deck, chalk-white in the sudden flare of lightning, stark against the backdrop of the sea.

  Brandt heard voices, wailing, crying out to the heavens, and he wanted to warn them, bent his notes to their ears and played as if he might become a beacon, a lighthouse, to warn them from the shore. They could not have listened, had they wanted. There was no way to steer the broken craft, no way to turn from the wicked rocks below, and as Brandt watched, more figures poured onto the deck. The first was tall, wild hair blowing about his shoulders, and the others followed too closely to one another. Something was wrong. Something kept them from walking normally.

  Chains. The lightning flashed again, not white hot and instantaneous as it should have been, but red and gold, a firelight slash of brilliance across the darkened sky, lingering and bringing the deck of that ship to life. Slaves. They were bound together in a coffle, led to the deck, only in time for the ship to lurch. The man who’d led them from below fought valiantly, but waves crashed over the side, and with a mournful, plaintive cry, the entire chain was gone. One second there, the next a frothing splash and nothing, mist in moonlight, glowing emptily—the man standing, one hand clutching the door of the cabin, leading down and in, and the other grasping empty air.

  Brandt cried out. He closed his eyes and willed that moment from his mind as his fingers slid lower, drawing raw, heavy sound from the strings as his pick hand ground hard. He wanted to break the strings. He wanted to snap the neck of the guitar and smash it, heave it to the rocks below and leap in after, but he did not. He played. He played as he’d never played before, and slowly the sound of the waves faded. The image of those men, and women, sliding over the side of the ship strobed in his mind.

  He saw them, forcing their way through the waves, first one, then all of them sliding under that cruel surf, only to bob up again, caught helplessly and slammed toward the rocks, and the shore. On the deck of the ship, more and more, pouring from the hold, tied tightly, unable to dive to safety, only finding the freedom of the fresh air in time to find Death hovering in the mist.

  “Yes,” a voice whispered. “Take their pain, Brandt. Take it and set it free, concentrate.”

  Brandt shook his head. He knew the voice. It jarred his thoughts. Payne.

  “Don’t let them suffer alone,” Payne whispered. “Don’t leave them, boy.”

  It was wrong. The pain flowed up and out, slipping away. Brandt felt the release, the freedom the notes brought, and he reached for that, the only shield against the horror of it all. He clutched those notes, dragged them from the guitar and sent them soaring. But he couldn’t hold it. He couldn’t concentrate. What had Payne said? Why had Payne wanted him to play? To help?

  The last of the image of cliffs and sea faded with a glimpse of wide, staring, haunted eyes, dragged under by the pull of the surf. The bonfire focused clearly over the heads of the circled townsfolk. They parted, like the waves had parted before the prow of that ship. They slid to the right, and to the left. Beyond them, striding through the trees, he came.

  His eyes appeared first. Bright, wild eyes that shone like beacons, trapping the brilliance of the fire and reflecting them back, glowing coals that lit a gaunt, lined face. Skeletal, tall an
d emaciated beyond reality, the Sineater stalked the table. The crowd rolled back, flowed away skittishly, silent now. Only the music floated across that clearing.

  Payne had stopped, standing at the head of the table, his arms outstretched to both sides, as if welcoming their “guest.” He swayed with the sound for a moment, as if trapped by it, and then slipped free. His steps were mincing, an intricate dance that drew him from the table, into the crowd, and back again. The Sineater turned, taking in that discordant, disruptive motion. His concentration wavered.

  Brandt caught this just in time, and shifted the sound. The blues bent, and the notes deepened. The echo of organs whispered against the trees and shivered through the leaves, and the eerie light of the fire lent a stained-glass aura to the backdrop of trees and night. Shaking his head, clearing it, Brian turned back to the table, and stepped forward.

  Payne slipped nearer, and then to the side, dancing around the wild-man, so close their skin must nearly have brushed. There was no reaction. Brian had focused, and he reached for the first of the food, drawing a loaf of bread to his lips ravenously. Payne snarled, but the sound didn’t carry. Brandt forced it away, fingers sliding now in an old, dark progression, minor chords and deep, slippery notes that stretched from one to the next without a break. Shaver’s notes danced down that ripple in a flood of sound. Brian ate. Slowly, then more quickly, moving along the table.

  “You let them drown, boy,” Payne’s voice insinuated itself into Brandt’s thoughts, though the man’s lips never moved. “You let them down.”

  Brandt ignored it, almost smiling in answer as he bore down on the strings.

  Around them, the people picked up the beat, caught by the deep resonance of Synthia’s pounding notes, forced to move, and to join, hand meeting hand in a syncopated back-beat rhythm. It was primal. The feel of the jungle filled the air, and the mood. The motion of the crowd became more sultry, speeding and losing sync with the music.