Meridian Gravesight's Arc

Chapter 4 of 6

The record turned. The tone held. Meridian stood in the nave and watched Riley Thorne's hands on the bass strings, already trembling. Riley Crash sat behind the turntable with her sticks across her knees, guarding the needle. They had been playing for four hours. The farmer's week had six days left. Riley Thorne's left hand slipped. The note bent flat. Meridian's back teeth pulsed once, sharp, and the field outside gave up a thin sour smell. Riley Thorne caught the note again. The smell faded. "I can't do a night," Riley Thorne said. "Not straight through." "Neither can I," said Riley Crash. "Arms go before hands." Meridian pressed her tongue to her molars and counted the eleven spirits still waiting in the grass. If the tone broke for even a minute, the well would turn. If the well turned, the farmer would come back with more than three men, and every grave she had marked would be torn open. The door banged. Luna Meridian walked in with her guitar slung across her back and Jade Riff behind her, amp cable already coiled around her arm. Luna had been the first to play this ground. She had settled six spirits with a single set. Meridian had not sent for her. Riley Crash must have. "Heard you're running a well pump on a bass line," Luna said. She looked at Riley Thorne's shaking wrist. "Move." Jade plugged in without a word. Luna crouched by the turntable and listened to the tone from the record. She hummed under it, found the pitch, then lifted her guitar and struck it. The note met the record's note and locked. Riley Thorne set the bass down. Her hand stayed curled. "Rotation," Luna said. "Two of us on, two off. Four-hour shifts. The record carries the floor. We carry the top." "That's still four people forever," Meridian said. "No." Luna nodded at the record. "That thing plays itself. We only have to feed the note it wants. One player at a time can hold it if the record's clean." Meridian looked at the turntable. The runes along its edge glowed faintly where the needle passed. She had thought the record needed the band. The band only needed to keep the record fed. "One player," she said. "One," Luna said. "Six-hour shifts. Four of us. We sleep." Jade took the first shift. Luna sat down against the wall and closed her eyes. Riley Crash unwrapped the other half of her granola bar. Riley Thorne flexed her hand and did not look at it. Meridian walked outside. The field hummed even. The eleven spirits waited in the grass, patient now. She could settle them tonight. She could settle more tomorrow. Down the hill, a lantern moved along the road toward the church. Not the farmer's. A woman she did not know, walking fast, one hand pressed to her jaw as if her own teeth hurt.