by Faye, Audrey
All flowing toward the beat.
The man who had been the drummer for Euphoria’s interrupted jungle dance stood in the middle of the street, pounding a huge padded stick down onto a drum as wide as I was tall. And wedged between his legs, dressed in red overalls and helping swing the drumstick for all he was worth—one small and deliriously happy chubby-cheeked boy.
I stopped, just taking them in for a moment. Man and boy, both utterly focused on the thumping of a padded stick and the primal heartbeat they were creating.
I was so focused on the two of them that I almost missed the dancers. Baron, and Euphoria—and the woman with the blonde hair and the eternally clapping hands. She looked absolutely terrified, but she was the one who led them out. Who skipped over pretty words or any kind of introduction at all and started circling the drummers, picking up the beat with her feet. Baron followed her, fierce and stomping, sucking the drum’s energy into his skin and magnifying it out into the universe.
Euphoria trailed them around the circle twice, setting the beat, letting the audience arrive. Then she reached for someone in the crowd. Moving their hands. Showing them a motion.
I knew improv when I saw it. The hesitations, the fears, the awkwardness of something that was hatching as it breathed. If anyone had planned this, they’d only planned the barest beginnings.
I watched, stunned, as Euphoria gave several more people in the gathering crowd jobs to do. Clapping beats. Sounds. Repetitive motions. Reflections of rhythm. By the time she got to the fourth or fifth person, people were starting to volunteer—and some didn’t bother to wait for the choreographer to arrive at all.
And still circling the drummer, one blonde woman, clapping her hands and stomping her feet and gathering a line of people behind her.
I knew I was staring. I couldn’t stop.
A hand landed quietly on my shoulder, and I turned to follow the point of Harold’s finger. It took a moment, but then I saw the tops of canvases and easels traveling through the crowd. Four of them. When they broke through near the drums, it was Elena who pointed at the places where they should go.
I tried to read her face, but I couldn’t, and there was no making out threads in this chaos.
The drumbeat slowed a little, asking a question, building anticipation. Heads started to turn toward the easels. Curious. Questing. Elena stepped up to the first one, brush in one hand, palette of wild colors in the other. I gaped as she quietly rolled her brush in bright purple and painted a vibrant, slashing square right in the middle of the canvas.
And then she turned and handed brush and palette to the person on her left, who squeaked and nearly dropped it.
Three more times, Elena took a stately walk to a new easel, landed vivid color on a pristine canvas, and gave her tools away. Each time, her face got more neutral and her hands shook a little more. I couldn’t take my eyes off her, not yet sure what I was watching—a guardian rising, a martyr at the stake, or some tangled possibility in between.
And then, as she walked away the final time, I saw her cast a surreptitious glance at the first canvas. Already, brave painters had added to her slashing purple square. Some geometrics and bold lines, and one person carefully outlining a sunny daisy.
It was about as far from Elena’s hazy gardens as you could get. And yet it wasn’t. I held my breath, willing her to see.
It took a long time—and the smile was a small one.
Mine wasn’t. I grinned and finally let myself really drink from the glorious drumbeats and splashing color and dancers and wild sounds of Thess waking itself up.
And then, over everyone’s head, came a pure, soaring note that reached right up into the night sky and straight down into my toes and everywhere in between. Gerhart, perched on the railing of Nate’s balcony, blowing on his sax. Counterpoint to the drum. The universe, crying a song back to its own heartbeat. A riff of aching, wild rightness that nearly split me in two.
The drummer looked up, grinned, and pulled out three more drumsticks, handing two small ones to Nate and keeping the two large ones for himself. The roll he sent toward the balcony felt like an earthquake under my feet.
Dancers and painters and audience all paused, teetering on the brink of whatever was coming next.
The roll crescendoed, and Baron leaped right over the top of a group of gaping kids and into the center of everything. Gerhart blew a dare and a tease and a saxophonic laugh all at the same time.
That was all the invitation Thess needed.
I watched Gloria wade in to try to scoop Nate up and promptly get shooed away. I shimmied out of the way as Magda paraded past me at the head of a conga line, complete with all the wild hats and boas and sparkly things that could be found on really short notice. I saw Euphoria and a trio of dancers developing a glorious and audacious piece right in the middle of the street, a dozen people chiming in from the sidelines. I laughed as the owner of the childcare collective emerged with a box of instruments for small hands—and not nearly all the hands that reached into her box were small.
And I tipped my head up just in time to see two other people joining Gerhart on his balcony, instruments in hand and something fierce in their eyes.
I felt, more than heard, the chuckle at my ear. Harold squeezed my shoulder. “I can’t believe you’re still standing here.”
I wasn’t standing—I was observing. Witnessing a moment that was building itself into the DNA of this place with every heartbeat. “This isn’t my dance.”
He looked at me, raising a surprised eyebrow. “This wouldn’t have happened without you.”
I knew that. And it wouldn’t have happened without his wisdom and Magda’s yearning and Greta’s cookies and Nate’s exuberance and Euphoria’s courage and Elena’s grace and so much more that I couldn’t even begin to get the list straight. “It’s happening. That’s what matters.”
Two girls ran by with purple butterflies on their cheeks. Apparently, the paint wasn’t just for canvases anymore.
He nudged me, pointing again, and his smile held the whole world and a little boy in it. “Look—it’s Elena doing the face painting.”
My feet couldn’t stand it anymore.
I let the heartbeat of Thess wash through me and grabbed the back of the conga line.
I’d watched long enough.
23
I got off the end of the walkway that led to the spaceport and took one last deep inhale of the smell of Thess. For the next week, I’d be breathing recycled air, and I wanted my lungs to have something to remember.
The rest of me, too. Inhaling the sweet smell of a village and a dancer who had both stepped up.
I smiled quietly as I strode in through the sliding door of the spaceport. It had been a pleasant walk. Greta had sent me off with cookies and smiles, and half the town had stopped to say a word or two along the way. The dancers had been suspiciously absent—until I poked my head into the studio and found two dozen people still following an exhausted, luminous choreographer’s instructions.
They weren’t the only people who hadn’t made it to bed yet, if the music I’d heard wafting from Gerhart’s back porch was any indication.
I hummed a catchy couple of bars and laid my bags and packages against a convenient wall.
“Hello, my dear.”
I grinned and turned to face the woman who had still been dancing conga at the crack of dawn. “I didn’t realize the two of you were leaving today.”
“We weren’t.” Magda set down her bag and patted her husband’s cheek. “But Harold says that Thess needs to think about itself for a few days, and we’d just be in the way.”
It was really nice to hear a master diplomat backing up the instincts I’d rolled out of bed with.
Harold smiled and kissed his wife. “We had an early breakfast at the café.”
With Greta’s cooking at the ready, there was no way they’d done that for the food. I looked at the master spy of their duo. “Hear anything interesting?”
Ma
gda fluttered her eyelashes. “Why, whatever do you mean, darling?”
I was totally on to her. “Spill, or I won’t share my cookies.”
Harold chuckled. “No one is owning up to instigating last night.”
That had been my impression too. The story rapidly forming in the morning air was one of a town spontaneously rising up and finding their heart—and whether that was precisely true or not, it was a story that held deep power. The kind that kept small arts colonies vibrant and creative and daring and whole.
I wasn’t kidding myself—Thess hadn’t made it yet. There were threads snarled fiercely all over town, and the skills to navigate them were awkward and nascent.
But something profound had shifted, and I was pretty sure it was never going back.
I grinned at two people who had played a key part in making that happen. “I imagine the two of you are claiming you were just here on a little vacation.”
Harold’s lips twitched. “Truth is always an excellent cover story.”
I was going to miss the two of them.
Magda patted the large square package leaned up against the wall. “What’s this, dear?”
It had been delivered by one of the local painters just as I was leaving. “Elena sent it. I was working on a painting—I assume she wanted me to have it.” Or wanted it out of her studio, just in case orange bears were contagious.
Harold was watching me with his quietly savvy eyes. “You might want to verify that before you clear customs.”
I sighed—they could be sticklers for details like that. I pried up the edge of the brown paper. Perhaps someone in the spaceport had a fondness for orange and I could escape a week of trying to transport my bears home.
Except the corner wasn’t orange. It was purple.
I had the paper halfway off before I figured out what it was. I swallowed hard. “This is one of the paintings from last night.” A work of art created in the magic of a town dancing to their heartbeat.
Hope on a canvas.
Harold smiled. “The other three were being hung in the windows at Persephone when we walked by. Right over top of a banner announcing new open studio hours. Visitors and beginners welcome.”
I was having trouble breathing. “Seriously? Is Elena awake yet?”
Magda laughed. “She was wielding the hammer.” She winked at her husband. “Sometimes the stubborn ones surprise you.”
I carefully wrapped the painting back up. I knew exactly where it would go on my wall.
Then I looked down at my orange boots and smiled at Magda. “Think we can organize a conga line for shuttle boarding?”
I suddenly needed one last dance before I left.
24
I walked into the tiny dance studio I thought of as mine and ground to a halt. It wasn’t empty.
Tatiana and Feebie spun toward the door and snapped into mirroring poses—feet together, heads down, eyes glancing furtively at each other. The look of slightly guilty students everywhere. Which would have been plenty to get my attention, but the threads in the room were surging with energy too, fairly snapping with it.
My fingers reached out instinctively to soothe, and then halted. That was a habit I was trying to ditch, at least without thinking about it first. Maybe soothing wasn’t what they needed.
I moved one of my legs into a lazy stretch, feeling the creaks of a body that had spent a week on a half-dozen tin cans and then been summarily dragged to this dance floor straight off the last shuttle. I kept the movements of my stretching soft and easy and lightly questioning. Something was going on in this space, and it teased at me.
It was Tatiana who looked up first, eyes golden calm. “Hi. I’ve been showing Feebie a couple of things we learned in Camellia’s workshop last year.” She didn’t move, not a whisper, but her body language was clear anyhow. Nothing to see here.
It probably wasn’t a shock that the director’s daughter had good skills at getting people to look away.
I switched over to my other leg, lifting it in a graceful rond en l’air that had delighted me when I was Feebie’s age. I caught the flicker of her grin—and her quick glance at the older girl she clearly worshipped.
Fascinating. I hadn’t been gone that long, and Tatiana didn’t make friends all that easily, even in the rough-and-tumble welcome of the Lightbody clan. But whatever had snapped into place between these two, it was encased in cement. I moved my fingers, letting them know that I saw, and that I approved.
Tatiana’s fingers sent an acerbic reply—they weren’t seeking my approval.
It took every drop of self-control I had not to grin. I was the last person in the galaxy who wanted to squash backbone, especially after a week on Thess.
I breathed in and realized just how much being home was soothing me. Stardust Prime had lots of warts and issues and conflicts, and it had things pushed far underground too—like the mystery of Yesenia Mayes and the daughter she appeared not to love. But nobody would ever spend a week here and worry about our ability to survive. Resilience lived everywhere.
Including this studio, because with my meandering thoughts came body recognition of what I’d really walked in on. Tatiana and Feebie were at the age when girls generally wanted to look like their friends—and neither of them was remotely average, even for Fixer trainees.
But the air in this studio didn’t smell like fitting in or hiding or smoothing anything that shouldn’t be smoothed. This was the vibration of two dancers reaching for all of who they were, even if they had to do it in private for now.
Heavy stuff for a couple of girls who probably both still slept with their teddy bears.
And if what I’d spent the last week in various tin cans thinking about was true, my very unofficial new job of choice might be to help them sweat. “Show me what you’re working on.”
Two sets of eyes checked in with each other, and then Feebie leaped into action. Tatiana wasn’t far behind her, but it was clear she was taking her lead from the younger girl. They started off a little tentatively, the technique mostly there, but whatever had stirred the energies in this room earlier mostly absent. I gave it time—things always brewed a little differently when someone was watching, and these two were tough enough not to let that happen for long.
It was Feebie who decided she was done with being careful, her toes shifting into the kind of lightning-fast footwork that would have landed anyone with feet bigger than a doll on the floor in a tangled knot. Tatiana gave it an impressive effort and then just danced alongside, laughing.
It occurred to me that wasn’t a sound I’d heard very often. The Lightbody littles had turned getting smiles out of the golden girl into a game, but this was something entirely different. Bubbling joy, let out freely by someone who no longer cared that anyone was watching.
I bet she didn’t get very many chances to do that.
I closed my eyes, confirming what my body had already chosen. Thess had been an observation-only mission, but this one wasn’t, even if it would never hit my official roster.
I let loose my fingers, my feet, and my Talent. Reached for threads, but not to soothe them—or not only that. I smoothed some, tangled a couple, lit a fire along one or two. And watched the feet and hands and hearts of two girls pick up what I threw at them and sweat their replies.
Feebie, speaking loudly of the Talent that flowed in her veins, wanting to shine it bright into the world without stepping out of the safety net of being a small girl. Tatiana, telling her that shining was everything—and that it was okay to want to be small and safe sometimes too.
I could feel the sweat dripping off my ears, my chin, running down my back as I honored their movements, echoed them, mirrored them back to two young, strong, wise souls who were already figuring out things I was just starting to see dimly.
Tatiana swooped my direction, and then tugged Feebie into a run across the floor with her, leaping like dancers only can before they learn about the inarguable forces of gravity.
I grinned
and chased them—and pretended gravity didn’t know where I lived either.
-o0o-
My roommate raised her eyebrows as I stumbled in the door of our pod, surveying me slowly from head to toe. “So. Not a vacation, huh?”
I didn’t bother to ask how she knew. Shamans saw things the rest of us didn’t, and Raven had learned things on her home world that made her scary even before she showed up here as a tadpole. I also knew she loved me hard, and I always let her look. I flopped into the gel chair that was mostly mine. “I landed in a really nice place that was functioning smoothly and whacked it with a hammer, even though I was only supposed to be observing.”
Her eyebrows went up again, surprised and amused. “Imogene Glass broke things?”
I managed most of a scowl. “I’m not always the nice, polite one.”
“I know that.” She sat down beside me, studying me carefully. “But I wasn’t so sure you knew it.”
These were the kinds of conversations you had when your roommate was born wise and pragmatic and opinionated. “It felt weird. Like skin that didn’t really belong to me, except it did, you know?”
She raised a shoulder in a shrug that could have meant almost anything. “Are you going to keep it?”
I’d spent quite a bit of time on my ride home contemplating exactly that. “Some. I don’t think it’s the normal way I’m meant to work. That wouldn’t make any more sense than Kish trying to sweet-talk her way through assignments or Tee bashing heads or you being all quiet and delicate.”
She snorted. “I can be delicate.”
“Sure, but would you choose to do it all the time?”
“No. It’s not my primary strength—just something I can use if I need to.” She leaned back into her chair. “So you found some new muscles to flex and you might use them again occasionally.”
That sounded reasonable. “Yeah. Something like that.”
