Beautiful City of the Dead (17 page)

"There's been some bruising and minor abrasion," he said. "This is normal. Your vocal cords are medically healthy. I see no reason why your voice should not return fully to its normal functioning."

Right, normal. Everything was going to be normal.

Back at home it was just me and Silence, with our memories all tangled together. Singing in church—which I'd never done. Taking care of little brothers and sisters—which I never had. Working in the fields—which I had no idea how to do. These were the memories of her life. It was all so weird to me. But I guess it was normal for her.

So, I wondered, did she know about Ghost Metal now? And playing bass at the Bug Jar? Did she understand about Relly and the band?

It was almost funny, thinking about Silence in the pioneer days, with Black Sabbath and Judas Priest tunes running in her head while other people were singing holy hymns in church.

T
HAT NIGHT
, I
TOLD
Silence I wanted my voice back.

She hadn't taken it. That's not what I mean. It was more like as long as she was inside me, I had to listen, not talk.
I want my voice back.
I thought those words, because I couldn't even manage a whisper.

Did she hear? I guess so. As long as she was inside me, our thoughts were like talking. Words would run in my head. And she'd reply with pictures and music and even smells from the olden days.

Her memories would open up and out would pour the smells. Wood smoke. Unwashed clothes. Bread rising. Bitter lye soap. Wildflowers. Mashed corn cooking in a big iron kettle.

The smells came with her voice. Maybe that's why it seemed so strange. You know how perfume kind of floats around somebody? Leaves a trail? That was what it felt like. I heard the melodies first, and then Silence thinking
in my head. And then I smelled the olden days.

I'm afraid, real afraid. I want my voice back,
I told her.

In reply came her lonely, sweet voice, singing to me from beyond the grave.

Blessed are those who silently wait
for they shall pass the beautiful gate.

I didn't tell my dad or the doctor or anyone else about the voices. They'd lock me up in a minute. Or pump me full of psych meds. It was bad enough being mute, let alone having them all think I was out of my mind too.

I didn't even tell Relly at first. No, I just figured out the songs and taught them to him on my bass. I had him go back to Mount Hope and find the gravestone poems that Silence had sung to me. A few were just fragments. Some were complete.

"We'll get them all down," I wrote in my notepad. "And then we'll record them all."

"That's right," he said. It was almost a whisper. "Ghost Metal."

T
HEN THE TIME CAME
when I was better enough to play. I mean really play, back in Relly's attic, plugged in and turned up loud.

My dad drove me over to Slime Street. I went to the front door and Tannis was waiting, like the other times.

She let me in and we stood there in the kitchen not talking. Only we were OK now. I knew that without her saying a word. I'd done the right thing. She understood that. And a whole lot more now. She knew me for who I really was. And I was OK.

Then Relly came in and said, "All right! Time to kick out the jams. You ready?"

I nodded.

He'd run an extension cord up the stairs and had an electric heater cranking on high. So even though the snow was falling and the wind was moaning, we were nice and warm in the attic.

Butt gave me a huge welcome-back grin. And Jerod, too, was happy to see me on my feet again. "We missed you," he said. And I think he meant it.

"So what do you wanna play?" Relly asked.

I didn't need my little notepad for the answer. I just formed the words
Silence Loud,
and Relly got it. We had lyrics for the tune, the poem off her gravestone. Relly handed Jerod the lead sheet.

"Now deep in earth, this bed of sighs," Jerod said, getting the feel of the song.

Then Relly fired off the opening riff. Butt laid down the beat, old doom and new joy mixed together. "I wait till I, like fire, shall rise," Jerod sang. And then again, louder, wailing sure and true.

I was the last one to join in. I had a bass line all worked out, of course. I'd been waiting weeks for this moment. My fingers closed on the strings, pressed them hard to the frets. Butt and Relly were locked in, repeating the four-bar intro. Louder and louder, fierce as a war cry.

"OK," I whispered into the pounding noise.

I joined in, doubling Relly at first, then splitting off to coil our riffs together. It was great, it was huge, it was endless. The song rose, churning and sucking everything in like a cyclone.

"Then will my voice in great goodbyes," Jerod screamed from the speakers. "Join to the chorus of the skies."

Silence was inside me, riding the Ghost Metal tornado. Right at the center, at the heart of the song.

I didn't need a voice. I had the bass. I didn't need to hear myself talk or sing. Jerod could make the words for me.

Or maybe it was Silence herself, pouring out through the PA system. Either way, any way, they were my words. And all the world would hear them.