Fiction River: Hex in the City (15 page)

Music’s Price

Anthea Sharp

Sometimes, when Jeremy Cahill practiced the cello, he’d glimpse
things
out of the corner of his eye. Oddly joined creatures scuttling along the dingy baseboard of their midtown Manhattan apartment, shimmers of brightness in the dark hallway where no stray sunbeam ever reached.

He was eight the first time he saw them, and tried to tell Ma, but she’d laughed and tousled his hair.

“Ah, Jemmy, you have the Irish gift of blarney. Your gran would be proud. Now, put the instrument away and help me with supper.”

As his skill on the cello grew, the uncanny visitors came more frequently. Twig-jointed creatures gathered like bare branches outside the window to listen, slight maidens in gossamer-pale gowns danced like moonbeams—one moment shadow, the next a flicker of light. No one else could see them, and the instant he stopped playing, they vanished.

The creatures were uncanny, but not frightening. Until the day a hollow-eyed banshee appeared, dipping a boy’s clothes in the sudden, blood-red stream cutting through his bedroom.

The next morning, his cousin was hit by a car while riding his bike to school, and died instantly. After that, Jeremy refused to practice, refused to even take his cello out of the case, a case that now resembled a coffin.

His dad called him into the living room after a month of sullen non-practicing.

“All the money we’ve spent over the years, for nothing?” Dad’s face reddened, anger thickening his brogue.

He paced around his tan recliner, yelling about the cost, the waste, the brilliance that already had a teacher from the renowned Juilliard School of Music giving Jeremy twice-a-month special lessons.

“Well?” he finally demanded, meaty arms crossed. “Give me one reason.”

Jeremy stared at the green carpeting, sick guilt sticking in his throat. He shook his head.

“Christ.” Dad let out a beer-scented gust of breath. “Get your coat, lad. Maybe your gran can make some sense of you. Don’t come home until she does. And you’re ready to practice the goddamned cello again.”

It was a slow bus ride uptown. Jeremy stared out the sleet-spattered windows the whole time, ignoring the other passengers.

When he showed up at her door, Gran took one look at Jeremy’s face and sat him down at her kitchen table. She poured him out a cup of strong black tea, using the good china with the gold rim. Without a word, she pushed the sugar and milk over, then waited quietly while he drank. It was the taste of safety.

Surrounded by the yellow warmth of her kitchen, the misery inside him finally uncoiled. He was thirteen, too old to cry, but he set his forehead on the table and wept like a little kid. The lace tablecloth pressed uncomfortably into his skin, but that was nothing compared to the shattering of his heart.

“There, there,
mo chroi
,” Gran said, rubbing his hunched-over shoulders. “Tell me.”

Her steel-grey hair was crimped in perfect waves, her dress—he’d never seen her in pants—printed with saggy blue flowers. She clomped around the kitchen in her thick black shoes, fixing a plate of sandwiches.

In between blowing his nose, and more tea, and devouring the sandwiches slathered with butter, he told her.

She nodded wisely. “Tis the Sight, love. A rare gift, to be able to see the fair folk.”

“I don’t want it.” He was weird enough, being the musical genius kid, but this—just, no. “I can’t play Gran. It’s not fair. I can’t play ever again unless it goes away.”

His voice cracked on the words. Music was the air he breathed—the thing that carried him through the bitter halls of Taft Junior High, the shell protecting his soft, inner core. He couldn’t
not
play. But he couldn’t bear what the music brought.

Gran studied him, her thin lips pursed. “Well now. Bide here a moment.”

She stumped into the parlor, and he heard her opening drawers and rustling around. When she returned, she laid an odd assortment on the table in front of him: a small square of linen, a spool of red thread, a four-leaf clover leached to gray from decades of being pressed in her Bible, and a hard, dry berry the color of old blood.

Jeremy stared at the objects, trying to guess their use. They made no pattern he could see, especially when his grandmother added the tin of oatmeal and her prized crystal salt cellar.

“Um, Gran. What are you doing?”

It looked like a crazy recipe—one he had no intention of tasting. She sat across from him, the spindle-backed chair creaking when she leaned forward.

“You need a charm, my lad. A ward to banish the fair folk, to keep your own heart from breaking. I see how it is with you. Open this.” She handed him the smooth yellow tin.

He pried the top off, and she took a pinch of oats and dropped them in the center of the linen square.

“Wait, what? Is this some kind of magic spell or something?” Jeremy frowned, feeling his lips squeeze together. “That’s crazy.”

Gran gave him a stern look. “This, from the boy that sees the fair folk. Come now, Jemmy. Give me the rowan berry.”

That must be the dried bead of fruit. One by one he handed his grandmother each item she requested. She carefully placed them on the cloth, humming softly. At the end, she picked up her saltcellar and gave the entire concoction a thorough salting. Grains of salt drifted over the table like snow.

“Thread the needle, there’s a good lad. Double-strung.” She folded the edges of the linen square together.

Jeremy licked the end of the thread and managed to get it through the eye on the second try. Gran nodded at him and deftly began sewing precise red stitches against the white cloth, making a neat little packet. Her humming turned to words, the crush and wash of Gaelic like waves on a distant island shore, soughing and sighing up against stone.

When she finished, she tied a firm knot at the end and snipped the thread with a small pair of scissors.

“Some string now,” she said. “Fetch it from the top drawer, there.”

Jeremy pulled the drawer open and studied the jumble inside. The catchall, the one place in Gran’s kitchen that wasn’t perfectly tidy and neat. A long curl of one of his old cello strings sprung up to tangle his fingers. Boy, Gran sure kept some useless bits around.

“Bring that,” she said.

“My old
D
? What for?”

“It’s string, isn’t it?” She gave him a level look.

No point in arguing, though technically it was made of nylon and steel, not string at all. Still, he wouldn’t argue with Gran—not when she put the eye on him like that. He handed the string to her and she affixed the linen packet halfway down with loops of red thread. Murmuring in Gaelic again, she took the needle and stabbed her index finger.

“Gran!”

“Hush now,
acushla
.” A fat, bright drop of blood fell to the center of the linen, spread and wicked into the cloth, a crimson starburst. She held up the weird-looking necklace, the ends of the
D
string corkscrewing around her fingers. “Your charm of safekeeping. Wear it when you play, and the fair folk will stay their distance.”

He took it, weighing it in his palm. The doubt must have shown on his face, because she cupped her wrinkled hands around his.

“I promise,” she said.

“Okay.” He tucked the charm in his pocket. “Thanks, Gran. I should go home.”

She firmed her lips. “Believe.”

“I will.”

He’d try, anyway. And she was right; he’d seen way more strange things than he could explain. Maybe the charm would help save him. Jeremy kissed her dry, rose-scented cheek, and, hope catching in his throat, caught the bus back midtown.

When he got home, he didn’t say anything to his dad, just got his cello out, tuned it up, and started practicing.

Gran’s charm worked. At least, it did for the next seven years.

***

Inside the church, the dimly lit air swirled with candle smoke and incense. After the priest finished saying the words he nodded to where Jeremy sat, to the left of Gran’s black coffin. Jeremy pulled his cello back against his body, the wood gleaming like rich toffee. The long scratch marring the finish was hidden by his black trouser leg—a small mercy in a day filled with too much misery.

He glanced at his parents sitting in the front pew, their hands tightly woven together. Dad was thinner now, his skin grayish from the chemo. He’d removed his ever-present cap, and the bare skin of his scalp shone with perspiration. Beside him, Jeremy’s mother looked smaller, the strain of the last year etched on her face in new lines.

The priest cleared his throat, and Jeremy began to play. He started with one of Gran’s favorites,
Si Bheag, Si Mhor
, the notes rising up to flutter like moths against the stained glass.

On the day lit side of the windows, he glimpsed twiggy creatures crouching. A distant siren sped through the city streets, and he heard the echo of his name in its high wailing.

No. Oh no.

The fair folk had returned. They couldn’t enter the church, but he felt them outside. Waiting.

Fear thick in his throat, Jeremy kept playing. He’d promised Gran he’d play at her funeral.

“Not just the sad tunes, Jemmy,” she’d told him, her fingers frail in his grasp, her skin yellow against the too-white hospital pillows. “You must remember the good, as well. Play a reel for me. The angels will like that.”

She’d looked at him, the echo of her old self-brightening in her eyes.

Don’t go, Gran.
Grief had crushed his breath, but he’d managed a smile for her.

“I will,” he said.

But he’d never expected the cost. As the music spooled out from under his fingers, the charm that had held the fair folk at bay for so long faltered, its power fading. Still, he played.

Jeremy’s dad frowned, his way of holding back tears, and Jeremy slid into a different tune,
The Broken Pledge
, an old reel in a minor key. For Gran’s memory, for the scrap of linen and string still tucked beneath his shirt—useless now.

He played the tune three times through, then lifted his bow from the strings, the cello still vibrating against his knees.

Nobody applauded—they wouldn’t at a funeral—but he could see how the power of the music touched them. His mother blew her nose discreetly into her linen kerchief. The priest gave a final blessing, and freed the congregation. The burial would be later that afternoon.

Jeremy waited for the church to empty, fear and sorrow curdling in his stomach. He didn’t want to set foot outside those consecrated walls. Didn’t want to say goodbye to Gran, and the magic that had protected him for so long.

“Lovely playing,” his mother said, still clutching her handkerchief. “I’m so sorry about…. Well. Your gran would be proud.”

His dad gripped his shoulder, with a hand that still had some strength to it.

“Well done,” he said, a gruff edge in his voice—pride and guilt tangled together.

It wasn’t Dad’s fault he’d gotten sick and the money had run out like water through a sieve. The scholarship Jeremy had from Juilliard wasn’t enough to bridge the sudden, yawning chasm in his family’s finances. The only option was to drop out of music school. They called it a “leave of absence,” but Jeremy knew he wouldn’t be back. Not unless things changed drastically—which wasn’t going to happen.

The back of his neck tightened as he trailed his parents out of the church. He couldn’t see the fair folk, but he sensed their presence. Watching him.

When Gran was buried and the last words said, Jeremy took the subway back to his apartment. He stuck his cello case in the corner, facing away from him. There was no reason to play—no teachers demanding concertos, no quartets depending on him—and every reason not to.

What if, the next time he played, the banshee came again, warning of his dad’s imminent death? No. He wouldn’t bear that guilt. To keep the fair folk at bay, he’d stop playing, though his soul might bleed dry from it.

Jeremy ignored his cello for three weeks, spent his days handing in job applications everywhere. But apparently a Juilliard dropout wasn’t even qualified to wash dishes at the deli down the street. The smell of their pastrami sandwiches made his mouth water—he’d been living on ramen and canned peaches for a week—but he couldn’t afford anything more. He left, the doorbell jangling behind him. The winter wind slapped his cheeks, but colder still was the knowledge he’d run out of choices.

Pulling his wool pea coat tight, Jeremy trudged back to his unheated apartment. The tiny studio would no longer be his if he couldn’t come up with rent within the next three days.

He could sell his cello—but the thought made his stomach churn. No. Gran had helped pay for it. Besides, he couldn’t get what the instrument was worth on such short notice, and he refused to pawn it.

Hands cold, trying not to dwell on what he was doing, he slung his cello over his shoulder and headed to the West Avenue subway station.

After he’d left school, he’d made a decent enough living—all right, a scraping-by—playing for tips in the subway. He’d found a perfect corner to busk in; close enough to the heater vents so his fingers didn’t stiffen from the cold, and enough out of the way that nobody tripped over his cello as they rushed past.