Whisper Thornpaw's Arc

Chapter 8 of 9

The morning after she tested the stage, Whisper found a folded note pinned to the bandstand post. Melody had answered her sign. She wanted to audition before noon. Whisper read the note twice and felt her stomach drop. Melody's harp had cursed six kittens once. It had hollowed Melody herself for who knew how long. Whisper had asked for a player and a player was coming, but she could not let the woods spin sideways again the moment the strings sang. She remembered the cluster of violet crystals she had passed near the moss bank, deep facets pushing up through bramble. She walked there now and chipped a wedge free with her knife. Back at her caravan, she worked the stone on a small wheel. She shaped it into a faceted teardrop and set it into the lid of a dark iron canister she kept for storing dried herbs. She etched a treble line into the gem with the point of her file. When she held the finished thing up, the crystal pulled at the air around it, like a held breath. She named it in her head: a catcher. Any wrong note would go into the stone and stay there. She carried the canister back to the clearing and set it on a stump beside the stage. Her shoulders eased. If the harp turned, the catcher would swallow what came. She would not wake somewhere else. She would not lose another player to a curse she could have prepared for. She tightened her purple sash and waited. Melody came down the glowing path slow. She could not lower the harp, so she had bound a wide strap of cloth across her shoulders to hold its weight against her hip. A small black kitten trotted beside her boots, a gold tag swinging at its collar. The kitten's purr reached Whisper before Melody's voice did. Melody stopped at the edge of the platform. "I came," she said. "Enchantra wanted to come too." Her eyes were tired. They were also clear. Whisper nodded toward the stage and tried to keep her hand from the canister on the stump. Melody settled on the boards and arranged the harp against her knee. She laid a folded shawl under the base to steady it. The kitten curled at her ankle. Then Melody set her fingers on the strings. The first note came out clean. The second built on it. What followed was not the cracked, dragging music Whisper had braced for. It was a real song, careful and warm, the kind of tune a person plays when they finally remember they wanted to. No purple smoke rose. No kittens shrank. The catcher on the stump stayed dark. Whisper let her hand fall from the canister. She walked to the edge of the stage. "You're in," she said. Melody's mouth moved once, almost a smile. The kitten purred against her boot. Whisper sat down on the boards beside them and listened to the rest of the song.