Chapter 12
“I’ll go,” I said with not a second’s hesitation.
“I’m going with him,” Charles and Maranissa said, tripping over each others’ words.
There was a slight pause.
“I would like to help tender care to my fellow choristers,” said Pollo, “and I would like to go with Nathaniel to bring back Mirry, Denny, and the inscription.”
“I think you are most needed to go on Nathaniel’s mission,” said Masteress Oldham.
“I will tender care to the sick boys,” Preston offered. “I will make a strong shield for them, and I think I can keep them alive long enough for you to sing the healing substance we need into being.”
“What in the name of the most venerated Gifted Leaders of our Glorious Guild are you proposing now?” yelled Master Medwick.
“I propose to create and steer a boat composed of song and elemental melding into the etheric depths on a rescue mission.”
“With a clutch of apprentices who are not even of this Guild?” Master Medwick raged.
“Nathaniel, Pollo, Charles, and Maranissa are all highly Gifted,” Masteress Oldham replied. “They all have a deep love for Mirry and Denny. Moreover, I perceive a deep bond between these four so that their combined strength will be much more than their individual strengths. And moreover again, I would not leave these four, gifted and loving as they are, to their own strengths and ingenuity. I myself will be their anchor.”
“I can’t believe that you would squander the personal and etheric resources of the guild on such a hopeless and scrambled-mind venture when we need you to assist me with my own work which I am on the verge of completing,” said Masteress Jakelyn.
“I do not happen to believe that your spell, even if perfected, will be as efficacious as the healing chant that Nathaniel is questing for,” said Masteress Oldham.
“There is no sense in bothering to talk further with this madwoman and these swell-headed apprentices who believe her,” said Master Medwick to Masteress Jakelyn. “Her shipwreck will turn the entire guild in our favor.”
“Don’t count on that,” said Lucy just as Master Medwick and Masteress Jakelyn disappeared.
“I will take care of the choristers,” Preston promised, and then he left the hall.
“And I must return to the pestilenced in my charge,” said Master McDermott.
Only then did I think of my father, and wonder why he hadn’t come to meet me on my return.
“Why didn’t my father come?” I asked Masteress Oldham.
“I do not know,” she answered, looking troubled. “I just don’t know. I certainly called him. It might be that he was caught by a most urgent task on behalf of one of his care-people. We must now direct our attention to the task at hand, which is to build a ship that will take us into the etheric depths.”
“I can’t even sing a toy boat that will float for two seconds,” said Charles glumly. “Kenter is the best I know for Gifted Singing Building, but if he’s pestilenced, he’s too sick to help.”
“I can’t even get a stool to come out right,” I complained. “The rest of you will have to do the best you can.”
“I should think I can sing a few things together as long as I treat the ship like a recipe,” said Maranissa. “Since you’re a Gifted Finder, Charles, you can give my material the sense of direction it needs.”
“How about a gingerbread ship?” Charles suggested.
“That’s one of Mirry’s favorites,” said Pollo. “I can lay out the fundamental structure of the ship. It will be like the radicals of a mode from which we build our tunes. As for you, Nathaniel, what you must do is fill our ship with the willow song mixed with the water mode that you sang before, which song must also be filled with your bond with Mirry and Denny. We will do the rest.”
“You’re not asking much of me,” I said with a twisted grin.
“We’re only asking more of you than has been asked of any Gifted Singer I’ve ever fed,” said Maranissa.
“The four of you know well what you must do,” said Masteress Oldham. “I will weave healing spells into the fabrics of your ship so that the wounds of mind suffered by Mirry and Denny and the four of you will not bleed the thought out of you.”
That was reassuring, as I was wondering how I would be able to stand traveling through such murky territory with my sanity intact.
We didn’t waste any time getting to work as time was precious. Nobody had to tell me that a couple of kids can wander in the etheric depths only so long before they’re past the point of no return. Maranissa produced a few cakes that were sort of like carrot cakes with the icing mixed into them to help fortify us for the work. Pollo sang a pattern of notes the combined the two modes we needed in his rich voice. Maranissa mixed a paste in a pot and applied it to Pollo’s frame. Charles sang a simple song about Mirry and Denny to guide the ship. I started with the willow song I’d sung before and added verses about Mirry and Denny. The thought of losing so good a friend as Mirry almost as soon as I’d met him made me ache inside. I think that made the song flow into little runs like what you get in Bach’s music, and then made my song soar up to the highest notes I could sing. All the while, Masteress Oldham hummed on a deeper note than I thought a woman could sing and moved her hands in a steady rhythm over our work. I don’t know how long it took—and I hoped it wasn’t long—but we ended up with something that looked like a ship. I could only hope it would really work.
“Do you think she’s etheric-depth worthy?” Pollo asked Masteress Oldham.
“If she isn’t,” said the old woman, “than no ship will be. Climb on board and disembark now. We must not allow any more time to lapse.”
I could hardly believe I was stepping onto the deck of a ship I had helped build by singing my heart out. Charles looked about as amazed as I felt. As soon as the four of us were on board, Masteress Oldham spread her arms across the stern.
“Remember that the etheric depths are filled with half-formed, ill-formed, and deformed thoughts that are not real in themselves. Only you can give them reality. If something looks real and threatening, you must remember that it is your own fear that has made it look so real. You boys must sing the song that will lead you to your lost friends and to the inscription of the healing chant. Maranissa, it is for you to constantly repair all damage that the ship suffers. When I push you off, I will pour my inner substance into the ship to keep it anchored to the guild hall. You will not see me or hear me, but your songs should tell you what I need to tell you. Begin your song now.”
Pollo established the mixed mode he’d worked out with a set of notes that was sort of like what a bass guitarist does in a rock band to support the melody sung to the words: “We move to somewhere, We move to someone.” Charles and I came in with the songs we sang to build the ship, and next thing I knew, we were floating in the middle of a cloudy substance where I couldn’t see anything past the boat except indistinct shadows. I felt pressure on all sides like the pressure water puts on you when you’re swimming underwater, but I didn’t feel wet. I felt like there was no air, but I saw Pollo and Charles take breaths and go on singing without drowning, so I tried it, too. Somehow, I got enough air to keep on singing. The boat moved further into nowhere and I felt my first fear that we might never get out of it. I shoved my thoughts back to Mirry and Denny and the inscription. I thought about how scared I’d be if I was floating around in this stuff with no sense of direction, and I thrust my song out as far as I could, hoping Mirry and Denny could hear me. I remembered the flood of gratitude that covered Mirry’s face when he first realized my song had healed him of a wound that would have crippled him. That helped. From time to time a large shadow came near the ship and then moved off. Some shadows were sort of alligator-shaped shadows, and they made me nervous, while others were bulkier, more like hippopotami. When one of those alligator-type things got near enough to our ship that I could start to make it out, a bulky shadow swam in between the alligator and us.
“I knew they’d help us out,” said Charles.
“What are they?” I asked.
“Friendly friends,” Charles answered.
Seeing them from underneath in the murk, they looked more like large manatees as they had large flippers to propel them along. But when one of them turned enough for me to see half its face, I saw something more like a hippopotamus face.
“Stop talking and keep singing,” said Maranissa.
Pollo had kept his bit going all this time. Charles came back in with his part of the song and I came in after him with mine. Without really thinking about doing it, I started mixing in bits of “Wayfaring Stranger,” “Somewhere” and some hymns I knew. These sounded kind of odd when changed into the mixed willow and water mode we were singing in, but I liked the effect. Before much longer, I heard the soft beating of a drum. I pointed excitedly in the direction where I thought I’d heard it. Charles nodded. The boat turned to follow the sound. It seemed that just willing the boat to go a certain way was all it took to steer it. The drum beats started to get a bit louder, and then I thought, or hoped, I heard the tinkling of a harp. It had to be Mirry! The ship gathered strength to head in their direction.
With the manatee-like hippopotami, or hippopotamus-like manatees guarding us so well, I began to think it was going to be all plain sailing for so brave a crew as we. Big mistake. About as soon as I thought that, a dark shadow came right up to the side of the ship and Denson’s face emerged out of its darkness. At first I thought he was coming after me, but then he lunged at Maranissa, aiming for her thigh and no mistake. I reached over and pushed him back overboard. Hard.
“Some nonviolent healer you are!” Denson shouted back at me.
“Thank you very much, Nathaniel,” said Maranissa, “but please remember, that was just a shadow.”
I’ll try to remember,” I said, even as I heard Denson laughing at me from below the ship.
Just as quickly, a shadow loomed over Charles and Master Fintchel yelled at him for breaking every rule ever made by the Guild of Gifted Archivists. When I saw Charles give up singing and start to fold, I leaned over and sang into his ear. He sang what I was singing as best he could for a bit, and then returned to his own song. Unfortunately, just then Pollo’s supporting line dropped out.
“I’m trying to help them!” Pollo yelled at the shadows that were floating into his face. “I can’t help it if we can’t find the chant!”
I had to think a minute to remember the supporting line Pollo was singing. Charles dropped out, not able to sing without it. The ship started to pitch in several directions.
“You’ve got to keep singing you dumb throats!” Maranissa yelled.
“I can’t think when you yell at me like that!” I yelled back at her.
“I didn’t run away and let them die!” Pollo yelled at his shadows.
I could see that Maranissa was pretty busy slapping her goo in one spot of the ship after another. I tried again to remember the supporting line and then I heard again the sound of Mirry’s harp and Denny’s drums. Hearing those chords was all I needed. I sang the Pollo’s part to the words: “We are helping them; We will find the chant.”
That seemed to break the spell on Pollo. He gradually picked up his part, and that made it easier for Charles and me to get back to singing our parts.
“You’re turning the choir against me just because you want to be the master chorister,” Denson accused me.
“No I’m not!” I answered back.
“Denny was Mirry’s best friend until this boy came along and stole him away,” Denny’s mother yelled.
“If this boy had not come along, my son would be alive and healthy and singing like a bird in the choir!” Mirry’s mother yelled at me.
“This boy turned most of the boys in the choir against my son and then tried to kill him!” Jorland’s father yelled.
“Nathaniel Hawthorne Brown has just murdered all of my choirboys!” a teary-faced Master Milo Lesentrange cried. “No sooner did your Gifted so-called Healer break down the protective barrier, then Tomko was pestilenced. Every single boy in the choir is lying in bed, desperately gasping for his next breath of air!”
“I’m just trying to get the healing chant for all of the boys!” I yelled at the choirmaster.
“You threw the pestilence at me!” Tomko accused me. “I taught you how to play fireball and you pestilenced me!”
“Why did you pestilence me?” Bursen asked me. “I gave you my best tooth cleaner.”
“I can’t breathe!” Rusentel cried.
“Help me!” cried Stanley, who looked misshapen now that he wasn’t laughing for once.
“We’re dying because of you!” groaned Davy, “and I made you a light maker.”
“You deserted us!” Peter accused me.
“I’ll never live to write the treatises I planned to write,” Meredith moaned.
“I’m trying to help all of you!” I yelled back at the boys.
The faces of the boys were contorted as they all struggled to breathe, but couldn’t. They turned purple, they turned black. Their eyes bulged, they turned red. Just as quickly, the boys’ faces turned pale and their eyes turned black and blank.
“We’re taking you with us,” said Tomko, his voice drained of all emotion.
“If we have to die, then you have to die, too,” said Lewis.
Tomko and Lewis and then a whole lot of boys grabbed at my arms and started to pull me overboard. I struggled, but sluggishly. I was too convinced I’d failed them to put up a fight. I was almost over the edge when something soft and mucky hit me in the face and several hands pulled me back into the ship.
“How many times do I have to tell you that you aren’t exactly talking to the real boys who are dying of the pestilence back in their cottage?” Maranissa yelled at me.
The mucky stuff slid down my face and I began to realize that Maranissa had thrown a handful of her ship-making mush at me. I could hardly blame her. I felt the steadying hands of Pollo and Charles on my shoulders.
“These faces aren’t real,” said Pollo. “They’re just your fears.”
“And that’s why I’m afraid of them,” I replied.
Charles almost laughed, and then I almost laughed.
“Fear makes the things you fear come true,” he said, quoting his master.
“My Dad keeps saying that all we need to fear is fear itself,” I said.
It gave me a pang to think of my father, desperately trying to keep pestilenced people alive long enough for me to make the medicine they needed with my singing. But it was a comfort, too, to think of him.
“Your father speaks wisely,” said Pollo, “as befits a healer.”
The ship lurched and tossed from one side to the other. Maranissa raised a fistful of her goop at me threateningly.
“How about some singing?” she asked.
As I opened my mouth to resume my song, I heard Mirry’s harp and Denny’s drums quite clearly. I didn’t even have to wait for Pollo to start us off. As it turned out, all three of us started singing at about the same time. I expected that our singing in time with Mirry’s harp and Denny’s drums would set the ship on a straight course again, but that did not happen this time. First, the ship veered sharply in one direction, and then just as suddenly, it veered in another. Maranissa slapped her goop into a breach on one side and then lunged to the other to plug a hole there. I braced myself for another lurch, but the boat stopped, as if it couldn’t make up its mind what it was supposed to do.
“You’re supposed to head straight for Mirry and Denny and the inscription they’ve got!” I yelled at the boat.
Then I sang louder until I was screeching more than I was singing. It felt more and more like the boat was caught in the middle of a tug of war. The ship’s sides were cracking dangerously.
“I can’t keep up with this!” Maranissa yelled desperately.
“Make up your mind, you stupid ship!” I cried.
“Make up your mind,” I heard a grumbly voice say. It was almost like the ship was throwing my words back in my face.
“We’ve already made up the ship’s mind,” said Pollo. “It should know where to go.”
“Look!” Charles cried as he pointed off in one direction. “There’s another ship!”
I could see it for myself. I only saw its shadowy outline, of course, but it seemed a grand sailing ship that was moving just a little above and beyond us.
“Then the boys are rescued!,” I said, relief flooding me like the end of a bad dream.
“Or, the boys have been kidnaped,” said Pollo.
“We’ll follow the ship and find out!” I said.
With no hesitation, I plunged back into my song. Although a little less sure about singing, Charles and Pollo joined in. I expected our boat to fly up to the ship like a nail to a magnet, but no sooner did the boat take off in that direction, then a force just as strong pulled it the other way.
“The boat is breaking up!” Maranissa cried.
“Fix it!” I yelled.
“I can’t!”
It was too late. With an explosion that sounded like a peel thunder, the two sides of the boat split apart and then broke up into smaller pieces. Screams filled the murk. One of them was mine. I went flying and swimming into nowhere with nothing to hold onto.