Luna Basswood's Arc

Chapter 10 of 14

Luna was still on the tavern porch when the wind changed. It came from the west, cool and wet, pushing the flags on the stage rigging sideways. She looked past the field. A gray wall of rain sat over the far ridge, moving fast. She checked the sun. Maybe an hour to sunset. Maybe less to the rain. Susie looked up from folding her sheet. "That's coming here." "I know." "Wet stage. Your amp will short the second you hit a low note." Luna already saw it. The plywood deck. The exposed cable runs. Forty minutes of headliner, and her rig would blow before the second song. She walked to the stage. The crew was still coiling cable. She grabbed the nearest one, a tall man taping a monitor down. "Tarp. The whole deck. Now." He shook his head. "Tarps are locked in the supply tent. Key's with the stage manager, and she's at the gate." Twenty minutes to fetch. Rain would beat him back. Luna turned to Susie. "You fixed my cable with magic." "Yes." "Can you keep the stage dry?" Susie's mouth tightened. "For how long?" "Forty minutes. My whole set." Susie looked at the ridge. She looked at the fish-shaped bass in Luna's hand. "I can put a seal over the deck. Earth work. Water rolls off, doesn't touch the wood." "Do it." "It costs." "I already owe you." "Not money." Susie stepped down from the amp crate. "A seal that size needs an anchor. Something with resonance. Something the ground already likes." Luna felt the answer before she heard it. She looked down at the bass. The scales along its body. The hum it caught from the field every time she stood still. "You want my bass." "On the stage. Under the seal. It stays there until the set ends. You play it plugged in where it stands. You don't move it. You don't lift it." Luna's fingers closed on the neck. She had found this instrument behind a dumpster. She had stuffed her flannel inside it. Bindwell had glued its seam. It had never left her hands at a show. The first drops hit the porch roof. Small, then not. "Do it," Luna said. Susie took the bass. She set it flat on the center of the deck, tail toward the crowd. She knelt and pressed both palms to the wood beside it. She spoke three words Luna didn't catch. The plywood darkened, then dried. The rain reached the field and slid off the air above the stage in sheets, hitting the grass on all four sides. The deck stayed dry. Luna climbed up. She stood over her bass, bolted in place by a spell she didn't own. She could play the set. She couldn't move an inch. The red-haired singer would open beside her. Susie would enter for song two. Luna would headline standing still, tethered to the stage like the fish was reeling her in.