Luna Meridian's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

At dawn the four of them walked out of the abandoned church with instruments on their backs and no wagon in sight. Luna led them down the road toward the first hold, two days east. She had a set list in her head. She had never heard her bandmates play a single one of her songs. They reached the hold at dusk on the second day. The steward met them at the gate. He was a thin man with ink on his fingers and a ledger under one arm. He looked at Luna's red hair, then at Jade's purple streaks, then at Riley's tattoos. He laughed once, short. "Play tonight," he said. "If the room stays, I pay. If the room leaves, you leave." Luna asked for a place to rehearse. He pointed across the yard to a lit building with a slanted roof and colored windows. A sign above the door said the loft was rented by the hour. They had four hours. Luna climbed the stairs first. The loft smelled of sweat and old beer. Amps lined one wall. She pulled a folded page from her jacket and set it on a stool. "Six songs," she said. "Mine. We start with the fast one." Jade picked up the page, read it, and frowned. "I don't read staves." "Then listen." Luna sang the first verse without the lute. Her voice filled the loft. Jade watched her mouth. "Key of A," Jade said. She struck a chord. It was wrong. "D," Luna said. Jade struck D. Riley Crash sat behind the kit and tapped a slow four. She said nothing. She listened to Luna hum the chorus, then hit the snare on the two and four without asking. "Faster," Luna said. Riley doubled the tempo. The bassist locked in on the third pass. Jade found the bridge by the fifth. They ran the song eight times. Luna's throat burned. They ran it a ninth. By the third song Jade was writing the changes on her palm in charcoal. By the fifth, Riley Crash had stopped tapping and started hitting. The floor shook. A neighbor pounded the wall. Nobody stopped. The fourth hour ended. They had six songs standing. Not clean. Standing. They crossed the yard to the tavern where the steward waited. The room was full. Miners, farmhands, two guards off shift. The stage was small. Luna plugged her lute into a borrowed cabinet and looked at Riley. Riley counted them in with her sticks. They played the fast one first. The room went quiet on the verse and loud on the chorus. By the third song, boots were on the tables. By the sixth, the steward was at the bar counting coin into a leather pouch. He handed it to Luna at the end of the night. "Next hold's four days," he said. "They won't be this kind." Luna weighed the pouch. It was lighter than she'd hoped.