Tiffiny Heartapple's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Tiffiny Heartapple wanted one stage. She wanted the biggest festival in Scary Applesville, a sold-out crowd screaming her ugly, loud songs back at her. But the only venue gatekeeper in town hadn't booked a new act in years, and every person she trusted had told her this album was a bad idea. She was making it anyway. Tonight she carried a demo tape to his door at the opera house and knocked until the knob finally turned. The gatekeeper did not open the door wide. He kept the chain on and looked at her through the gap. "No new acts," he said. "Not for years. I don't need your reasons." "One song," Tiffiny said. "Play it. Then say no." He took the tape. He did not invite her in. The door shut. She stood on the step and listened to muffled noise leak through the wood. Her guitar lines sounded thin out here, stripped of everything she loved about them. Mac Lanapple was waiting by the fence when the door opened again. He wrote the same kind of heavy, broken songs she did, and he never pretended to like anything. That was why she'd asked him to come. The gatekeeper handed the tape back. "Dead crowd here now," the gatekeeper said. "Ghoul audience. They don't move for noise. They move for truth. Your tape is noise." Tiffiny's face went hot. "It's not noise." "It's loud," Mac said flatly. "Not the same as true. He's right." She stared at Mac. He didn't look away. Danny Cornapple stepped out of the dark behind him, hands in his pockets, rings on every finger. Tiffiny knew his name. He made music in a basement and nobody ever heard it twice. "I've got a tape too," Danny said. "He won't take mine either. Nobody books us. So we stop asking him." "There's a studio at the edge of town," Mac said. "Abandoned. Reel player still works." Tiffiny looked at the shut door, then at the two men who made songs no one would hear. "And then what?" "We cut something real," Mac said. "Something the dead can't ignore. Then he doesn't get to say no." The gatekeeper spoke through the gap one last time. "Bring me a record that moves a ghoul crowd," he said. "I'll give you the stage. Till then, stay off my step." The door closed for good. Tiffiny gripped the tape. He hadn't booked her. But he'd named a price, and the price was a record she didn't have yet. The old studio stood dark across town, its reel waiting. She tucked the tape away and started walking toward it, Mac and Danny falling in beside her.