Ballad

by Maggie Stiefvater

  Normandy said, “So I think you can see why it’s time for you to confide in us.”

  “No, how about this,” I said. I heard how my voice sounded, flat and not like me, but I didn’t try to change it as I kept staring at the screen of the phone. “How about you guys tell me what we’re all doing here. Here at Thornking-Ash, I mean. Not in wishy-washy ‘we’re watching out for you to make sure nothing happens’ terms. Like in, ‘why the hell did you bring us here when you don’t even know what’s going on under your own noses’ terms. Like you told me that you knew something was up with Dee, right at the very beginning, and now she’s obviously totally screwed, and you should’ve done something—”

  I stopped speaking then, because Normandy was saying something and I was realizing that I wasn’t angry at him at all. I was angry at me.

  I stared at my hands.

  “James,” Sullivan said. I heard the sound of Dee’s cell phone scraping across the table as he picked it up.

  “Look. You’re not an idiot,” Normandy said. “I thought I was pretty clear when we met. We—we being myself and a few of the other staff members here—founded Thornking-Ash after we realized that They were more likely to harass or kidnap teens with incredible musical talent. Like my son.”

  I dimly remembered hearing something about this, back when I’d first applied to the school with Dee. I just stopped myself from saying “the one who killed himself.” It sounded too tactless, even for me.

  “He was stolen,” Normandy said, his voice very even. “That was before I knew about Them. I knew I couldn’t let that happen to anyone else. So we created the school to find at-risk students and keep them under a watchful eye.”

  “And the thorn king?” I asked. “Obviously his trekking about behind the school isn’t a coincidence, given the name of the school.”

  “He’s a canary,” Normandy said, with a sort of flat-lipped smile as if the statement was supposed to be funny, or had been funny once. “A supernatural canary.”

  I looked at him.

  He explained, “Miners used to keep a canary down in the mines, to let them know when the oxygen was getting low. If the canary died, the miners knew to get out of the mine shaft. Cernunnos is our canary. If one of our students can see or hear him, we know they’re particularly susceptible to supernatural interference.”

  Sullivan’s eyes bored holes in the side of my head.

  “Well, obviously your system worked out great,” I said.

  Normandy ignored the sarcasm. “Yeah, actually, it did. We haven’t actually had any notable incidents with the Good Neighbors”—he said this last bit with a glance at Sullivan, making me wonder if there was a story there, or if he just knew about Sullivan’s history with Eleanor—“for years. In fact, we’ve just been a premier music school for several years. Until this year—when we’ve had more of Them show up on campus than in all of the other years combined. Patrick tells me it’s because we have a cloverhand here, though I didn’t think they existed anymore. And my instinct is telling me that Deirdre is that cloverhand. Now, I’ve told you everything about the school, so maybe you can tell me this: am I right?”

  There wasn’t any reason to lie. “Yes. I think it started this summer for her.”

  Sullivan and Normandy exchanged looks. “So she’s been drawing every single one of Them to the campus,” Normandy said.

  “What does that mean tonight’s going to look like? Are They satisfied now that They have Deirdre? Or is she part of something bigger?” Sullivan asked.

  “Bigger,” I said immediately. I didn’t say anything about Nuala; I didn’t think Normandy knew about her.

  Sullivan said, “I think the other staff need to be notified. There’s ways to get her back, but we have to be prepared.”

  “They’ll be resistant. It’s been years since we’ve had to do anything like this.” Normandy used the table to push himself to his feet. “Patrick, come with me.”

  Sullivan hesitated, letting Normandy start off without him. After Normandy was out of earshot, he turned to me. “Keep Nuala out of the way and try not to do anything stupid. Just stay inside. In Brigid, maybe. If I don’t see you beforehand, meet me by the fountain when the bonfires are starting.”

  I’m left sitting at the table, goose bumps crawling up and down my arms. “What about Dee?” I asked.

  “We’re handling it. Worry about Nuala.”

  He didn’t have to mention that last part. I already had it covered.

  Nuala

  Sleep and death are just the same

  From both I can return

  I emerge from sleep just by waking

  And from death, I return with words.

  —from Golden Tongue: The Poems of Steven Slaughter

  James pushed open the red door to Brigid Hall and stepped aside so I could walk in first.

  “Nope,” I said. “Ladies first.”

  He gave me a withering look, which was a welcome change from his previously strained expression. “Charming.” But he went in before me anyway. The folding chairs were set up exactly the same as last time we’d been in here, and James walked down the aisle between them, his arms held out wide.

  “Welcome, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, his face flatteringly lit by the half-light through the frosted glass windows. He kept walking down the aisle; I imagined a cloak billowing out behind him. “I’m Ian Everett Johan Campbell, the third and the last.”

  “Spotlight following you up the aisle,” I interrupted, falling into step behind him.

  “I hope I can hold your attention,” James continued. He pretended to pause and kiss someone’s hand sitting along the aisle. “I must tell you that what you see tonight is completely real.”

  “Run up the stairs,” I said. “Music starts once you hit the bottom stair.”

  James leapt up the stairs onto the stage, the recessed lighting onstage turning his hair redder than it really was. He spoke as he walked to his mark. “It might not be amazing, it might not be shocking, it might not be scandalizing, but I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt: it is real. For that—” He paused.

  “Music stops,” I said.

  James closed his eyes. “I am deeply sorry.”

  I joined him on the stage. “When you do the scene where they call you out, when they say what you really are, someone will have to cue the music to go with the sentence. Don’t forget that part.”

  There was a pause then—just a tiny second too long—before James said, “You’ll cue it.” The pause told me he wasn’t sure. He didn’t know if tonight was going to work. I didn’t either.

  The fact was, I didn’t know if I was built for happy endings.

  “Right,” I said, after a space big enough to drop a semi-truck into. “Yeah, of course.” I was tired again. It was a heavy sort of tired, like if I went to sleep this time, I wouldn’t wake up. James was looking out the window at the late afternoon sun, his eyes narrowed and far away. I knew he was feeling the press of Halloween as strongly as I was. “Would you play my song?” I asked.

  “Will you heckle me if I do it wrong?” But he sat down at the piano bench without waiting for my answer. Not like a proper pianist, but with his shoulders slouched over and his wrists resting on the keys of the piano. “I’m afraid I just can’t do it without you here.”

  “Liar,” I said. But I joined him, ducking under his arms like I had that first day at the piano. His arms made a circle around me as I sat on the edge of the bench, pressing my body into the same shape as his. Like before, my arms matched the line of his arms as my hands rested on his hands. And my spine curved into the same curve of his hunched-over chest. But this time, there weren’t any goose bumps on his skin. And this time, he pressed the side of his face into my hair and inhaled sharply, a gesture that so agonizingly spelled desire that I didn’t
have to read his mind.

  And this time, he pulled his hands from beneath mine and rested them on top of my fingers instead. The piano keys were warm from his touch, like they were living things.

  “James,” I said.

  He took one of my hands in one of his inked-up ones and pressed one of my fingers on a key.

  I wanted it to make a sound so badly that it hurt.

  The key whispered as it depressed, and then hissed again as it came back up again under my finger. No music.

  “Soon,” James said. “Soon you’ll be able to play this as badly as I can.”

  I stared at his fingers on my fingers on the keys for a long time, leaning back against him, and then I closed my eyes.

  “They’re going to do something to Dee tonight,” I said, finally. “That’s why Eleanor told you how to save my memories. She wants you at my bonfire instead of finding Dee.”

  James didn’t reply. I wondered if I’d even said it out loud.

  “James, did you hear me?”

  His voice was flat. “Why did you tell me?”

  Of all the things I thought he’d say, this wasn’t one of them. “What?”

  He said each word distinctly, as if they were painful. “Why—did—you—tell—me?”

  “Because you love her,” I said miserably.

  He dropped his forehead onto my shoulder. “Nuala,” he said. But he didn’t say anything else.

  We sat there so long that the bar of sun slanting in from the high windows shifted across the piano, moving from the highest notes to where our hands still rested on the keys.

  “What does your name mean?” James asked, finally, his forehead still resting on my shoulder.

  I jerked at the sound of his voice. “Gray song of desire.”

  James turned his face and kissed my neck. It scared me, the way he kissed me, because it was so sad. I don’t know why I thought it was, but I could feel it. He sat up straight and let me lean back on his chest. Closing my heavy eyes, I let him cradle me against him and breathed in time to the thud of his heart.

  “Don’t go to sleep, Izzy,” James said, and I opened my eyes. “I don’t think you should go to sleep.”

  “I wasn’t sleeping,” I protested, but my eyes had a sticky feeling, and I couldn’t remember how long they’d been closed.

  James’ hands were clasped over my breastbone, holding me to him. “Your heart’s going a million miles an hour. Like a rabbit.”

  Animals with fast hearts always lived shorter lives. Rabbits and mice and birds. Their hearts racing as fast as they could toward the end. Maybe we all just got a finite number of heartbeats, and if your heart beat twice as fast, you used them up in half the time as a normal person.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  “Are you ready?”

  “Let’s go,” I repeated. I just wanted to get it over with.

  James

  “Whoa. Night of the living dead,” I said as we walked across the overgrown yard in front of Brigid Hall. “Or rather, night of the living geek. I had no idea music geeks danced.”

  The campus was transformed. From the yard outside Brigid, it looked like a happening party. There were tons of black-clad bodies, gyrating to some sort of pounding bass, which I could just barely make out from where we were. As we got closer, however, I realized that the thumping bass was some trendy pop band. You’d think a music school could at least have scraped up a couple of live musicians, even if it had to be top-forty crappola, but there was a DJ up there between the speakers. And what had looked like sexy, coordinated dancing from far away was really a sidewalk full of writhing teens with dubious coordination. Some were wearing masks and others had actually bothered to work up real costumes. But mostly, it was just a bunch of music geeks wiggling to bad music. Sort of what I would’ve expected from Halloween at Thornking-Ash.

  “It’s at moments like this”—Nuala paused and watched a chubby guy walk by wearing a fake set of boobs—“that I question whether or not I really want to be human.”

  I guided her away from a girl in what was supposed to be a sexy cat costume. “Me too. How are you feeling?”

  “If you ask me that again, I’ll kill you, is how I’m feeling,” Nuala said mildly.

  “Roger that.” I stood on my tiptoes and looked for anyone useful. Or at least anyone I recognized. It seemed like the school population had multiplied by at least five or ten while I’d had my back turned. I tried to keep my voice light. “Sullivan wanted us to meet him by the perv satyr. We should find him first, right?”

  “I have no freaking clue. Why would I know?”

  “Because you’ve done this before?” I suggested. She gave me a dark look. “Fine. Let’s find Sullivan.”

  “Or Paul,” Nuala said quickly.

  I wondered what Cernunnos had told Paul. “Or Paul.”

  We shouldered through the crowd, a solid black mass in the dull orange light from the bonfires. I still stank like whatever Cernunnos’ perfume was, but despite that, I could smell a weird scent hanging over the students. Herb-ish. Sort of bitter/sweet/earthy. It reminded me of this summer and it made me wonder if some of the faces behind these masks weren’t human.

  Nuala voiced what I was thinking, “Whose party is this, anyway?”

  I’d figured that the faeries would be out on Halloween, but for some reason I’d thought they’d stay on their hills.

  “Sullivan!” barked Nuala behind me.

  And there he was, looking grimly efficient. He made a beeline straight toward us. “Where the hell have you been?” he asked pleasantly.

  “We were just looking for you. Have you found Dee yet?” I replied.

  “No.”

  Nuala gestured around at the dancers. “Is something funny going on here?”

  “Yes,” Sullivan said. “All you need to know is that the school is very much an occupied territory at the moment, and it’s only going to get worse as the night goes on.”

  “And Dee?” I insisted. “What if something is happening to her tonight? What if something awful is going to happen?”

  Sullivan glanced around at the dancing bodies. “Dee is somewhere with Them. We’re still looking for her. If you want to help, you’ll steer clear of trouble tonight so she’s the only student we have to worry about.”

  He looked at Nuala. “The staff’s lighting bonfires all over the campus. To keep out the dead. Wherever you are, whenever you’re ready, there’ll be a fire nearby.”

  Nuala didn’t flinch. “Thanks.”

  “And James?” Sullivan was staring past us; as he turned, I saw that he was wearing a long black coat that fluttered out behind him. For a second, I remembered Cernunnos and his long black shroud; then I was back in the present moment again. Sullivan finished, “Find Paul. He’s smarter than he looks.”

  The bonfire went up behind Seward. First there was the reek of gasoline, some shouts, and then flames were clawing the sky. Students—at least I thought they were students—leaped around the base of the fire, black silhouettes against the brilliant white core.

  I looked at Nuala, waiting for her to—I don’t know—scream or something, but she just made a strange little face. Screwed up her nose. I’d have been wigging out by then if I was her, but she just looked vaguely perplexed. Like she didn’t quite agree with their method of bonfire lighting, not like she was about to throw herself willingly into one.

  I shivered, though I wasn’t cold. The bonfire was big enough for me to feel the heat of it from where we stood.

  “Nervous?” Nuala asked ironically.

  “Just wishing your name was shorter,” I said. “Saying it seven times is going to make my mouth tired.”

  “You should shut up then and save your strength.” She reached for my hand, though, as she craned her neck, loo
king over the crowd. “Is it just me, or are there more people here than before?”

  I frowned at the crowd on the sidewalk. Not just the sidewalk, now—they were in the parking lot, on the patio, around the fountain. They were better dancers, too. What word had Sullivan used? Invasion? I couldn’t remember, but “invasion” felt right. I showed Nuala the goose bumps on my arms before tugging down the sleeves of my sweatshirt—my body warning me of the faeries surrounding us.

  “And these are just the ones I can see,” I said. “We need to find Paul.” I wanted to ask her when she had to burn, but I didn’t want her to feel like I was rushing her. And I kind of wanted to put it off for as long as possible. I didn’t care what kind of faerie she was—being burnt alive sounded risky to me. Especially if you were making the decision to be human partway through the burning. Faerie skin suddenly turning into human skin, suddenly feeling every bit of that scorching heat, peeling away at her flesh …

  I felt like throwing up.

  I was only spared from hurling by Paul, making his way toward us.

  “Dude,” he said. “What the hell.”

  I clapped a hand on his shoulder. “That phrase applies to so many things at the moment that I’m not sure which you’re referring to in particular.”

  “What are They trying to distract us from?” Paul said. “Hi Nuala. Are you privy to what’s going on here tonight? I learned that from James—do you like it? Are you privy?”

  “It’s awesome,” Nuala replied. “I know that something is going on between Them and the dead, something to link them together. Some sort of ritual, maybe. We thought you might know something.”

  I watched someone throw a chair on the bonfire. “Oh, that can’t be good. So yes, Paul, what do you know about tonight?”

  Paul pointed. “Man, that guy just threw an end table on the bonfire. What the crap! I think that’s from the lobby!” He shook his head and pushed up his glasses. “I know that when we hear Cernunnos”—he said it very carefully, KER-NUNNNN-OHS, like it was an unfamiliar spice in a recipe—“sing tonight, it’s going to be bad. All the dead will come out. Well, the dead he rules.”