Chapter 4
I started to scream, but my scream turned into singing, very loud and very shrill singing. I switched to the tune of “Steal Away:”
Let me go, let me go,
Let me do my quest.
Let me go, let me go,
All the way on quest.
How I had the presence of mind to sing like that, I’ll never know. I guess being desperate leads to strange things. I had no hope that my singing would work, but it did. The fire in the eagle’s eyes dimmed until it seemed to give me a look of human sympathy. I was coming down fast, but I felt secure in the eagle’s wings. Before long, I thought I heard the pounding of an ocean’s surf. I still felt the wind pushing me away, but the eagle held me steady. I switched back to singing “Saint Percivale’s Church” until a small, dark, gray stone church came into view. The church was by a seaside on a cold, windy, cloudy day, just as Masteress Oldham said it would be. From inside the church, I heard the sound of high-pitched voices singing away. I seemed to have come to the right place. The eagle let go of me and I started to step forward, only to find that my feet still hadn’t touched the ground yet. I floated toward the church and the church ate me up. A few seconds later, my feet landed on a slate floor inside the church.
In the front of the church, where they had an altar, a group of boys were standing around a keyboard instrument of some sort. Its sound was something like a harp and piano and organ and synthesizer all rolled into one conglomeration. Sitting at the keyboard was a thin young man with loose dark hair tangled up with his cape. An elderly heavy-set man with a mop of iron-gray hair directed the boys. Showers of sparks erupted from the director’s green cape with each movement of his arms, and his arms were moving all the time. All of the boys and the keyboardist wore green capes except for one boy in a light gray cape and one other whose cape was tan. Under their capes, the boys wore different styles of shirts and slacks, some familiar, some not. A couple of the boys were playing small harps, and a couple more boys were pattering on little drums with their hands. The church was pretty dark with just a few floating lights shining where the boys were singing. Up above the altar was a cross with just the head of Jesus showing at the top. There were stained glass windows high up one each side of the church. They looked pretty colorless in what little light came through on such a cloudy day, but I could make out some of the shapes. One window had a picture of an angel riding a dragon who was fighting another angel riding a dragon. Another window had a picture of a man pulling a girl up to her feet. I didn’t know what stories were behind those pictures, and I still don’t. One other window had a picture of a bearded man playing a harp. I knew that could be King David making up one of his psalms. Dark wooden paneling covered the walls on all sides and that did a lot to make the church as dark as it was.
I was standing pretty far to the back, and I stayed there and listened. I was stunned; the singing was overpowering! I had no idea what the music was, or what it was about, but it was getting pretty emotional about something. Except for seeing a TV program where the Vienna Choir Boys did backup vocals for some hotshot tenor, I’d never heard boys sing much. This was a whole universe away from the choir in my middle school. These boys had me wondering where I’d been all my life. I thought right away of Master McDermott’s saying that every town should have a boys choir for people like me, and I wondered why people didn’t do just that. The choirmaster, having his back to me, seemed to have no idea that I had popped into the church, but a couple of boys noticed me. They gave me odd looks, poked the boys next to them, and pointed at me. That started a chain reaction of poking and pointing that went through the choir like wildfire. Before long, the singing broke down and the choirmaster stopped it all with a thunderous clap of his hands.
“Is there a reason why, all of a sudden, none of you see fit to pay attention to one of the greatest hymns to the Divine Presence that has ever been conceived by a Master of the Guild of Gifted Musicians?” asked the choirmaster.
There was no sense in hiding, so I didn’t even think of it. I just stood where I was. The boys stared at me and exchanged glances, probably trying to decide who was going to tell the choirmaster that a strange boy was standing at the back of their church. The young man at the keyboard stared into space, giving no sign that he saw me. The glances focused on one of the older boys and he raised his hand.
“You may speak, Denson,” said the choirmaster.
“Master Lesentrange,” said the boy. “A boy wearing a purple cape has just appeared in this church out of nowhere.”
“Do you expect me to believe that?” thundered the old man. “You know this etheric space is protected against all intruders by the strongest of etheric shields and guarded by three thunder eagles.”
That went a long way in explaining the resistance I encountered in trying to get to the church.
Several boys insisted in a ragged chorus that I was really there. Master Lesentrange clapped his hands hard. The noise in the church came to a screeching halt.
“When you speak,” said the choirmaster, “speak in a proper order and with no interruptions.”
The boys absorbed those words, and then another boy raised his hand.
“You may speak, Jorland,” said Master Lesentrange.
Jorland smiled like a cat that had caught a choice mouse.
“If you look over there,” said Jorland, pointing in my direction, “you will see that what we say is true.”
Master Lesentrange snapped his head in my direction, then turned his head back to Jorland.
“Obviously, you boys have been rehearsing for too long,” said the choirmaster. “All this singing is causing you to imagine fanciful sightings. Choir dismissed!”
The whoops of joy hurt my poor eardrums. The boys streamed down the center aisle of the church like so many tornados. I ducked in behind one of the pews to keep from getting trampled. A little ball of fire flared at my ankle as the last of the boys scooted by. I cried out a bit, but not much. The shot stung a little, but the pain wore off just as quickly. It was sort of like getting flicked with a thick rubber band. I was pretty sure one of the boys had done it on purpose. As soon as the back door of the church slammed behind the last of the boys, their loud yelling and screaming battered the walls of the church. I slowly straightened myself up and got to my feet, waiting to see if the choirmaster and his keyboardist were waiting to give me a private audience, or if they really couldn’t see me when the boys could. The choirmaster walked slowly down the center aisle. Although he didn’t look at me, there seemed no mistaking his purpose. The young man at the keyboard started to play softly. It sounded nice. The choirmaster walked past me as if he hadn’t seen me after all, then whirled around and faced me. His hawk-like nose, high cheek bones, and mane of thick hair made him look like an angry beast, part hawk, part lion.
“I order you to gift me with your name and to state your purpose in appearing so unceremoniously in this church during a choir rehearsal without my prior permission, and to state further how it was that you broke through an etheric shield that should have kept you out,” demanded the old man.
Not a promising start for getting the singing master to teach me the chant I needed to learn. I felt I could negotiate better with the eagle that caught me than I could with this man. If I really was just a gate crasher, I would have melted in my shoes, but since I was on a quest and other people were depending on me, and the clasp on my cape was still bright, I stood as tall before this man as if Masteress Oldham was standing right behind me.
“My name is Nathaniel Hawthorne Brown,” I replied, somehow keeping my voice firm. “I have been sent by the Guild of Gifted Healers to ask you to teach me a healing chant that we need right now. As for how I broke through the shield, all I can say is, I wasn’t about to give up without a fight.”
My cape crackled as I said those words and a few sparks flew about in the dark church. Master Lesentrange stared at me hard.
“Surely the masters of the Guild of Gifted Healers know that they must send an accomplished singer to learn such a healing chant,” said the old man.
“Masteress Oldham says that I am the only one in the guild who can sing a healing chant,” I replied. “That is why she sent me.”
“Then the musical accomplishments within the Guild of Gifted Healers must have reached its lowest point in the history of all Gifted ministries,” said Master Lesentrange.
I wasn’t about to dispute that. If a kid who hadn’t sung much of anything in his life was all the guild had, then I wasn’t about to turn to them for my musical instruction.
“If that is the case,” I said in return, “then teaching me the chant I need to learn will be a great challenge for you,” I said in return.
Master Lesentrange just about turned purple, and I feared he was going to have a heart attack. I could hardly believe I’d spoken like that. I never talked back to my teachers at school, no matter how many choice words I dreamed up and wished I had the nerve to say.
“I don’t like the idea of using up our talents for other guilds,” said Master Lesentrange. “Music is above such worldly uses.”
“But many people will die if they are not cured of the smothering pestilence!” I protested.
“The smothering pestilence!” Master Lesentrange bellowed. “Have you brought that plague here to wipe out my choir?”
“Uh—no,” I stammered. “I came to learn the chant so that anyone who gets sick can get better. If any of the boys get sick, I’ll be able to heal them, too. I haven’t been anywhere near anybody who’s been sick, so I don’t see how I can be contagious.”
“It is to protect the boys from being pestilenced that I created the etheric shield that you broke through,” said Master Lesentrange. “I still don’t understand how you got through. I may need to conjure a stronger eagle that can turn little boys like you away.”
“Sir,” I said, “the eagle caught me when I tried to come here. He seemed to think I was okay, and he brought me down to the church.”
“Then I need to conjure a smarter thunder eagle,” Master Lesentrange grumbled.
“I have been sent by the Guild of Gifted Healers to ask you to teach me the healing chant that will bring together a windmere willow’s blossom and a dalebark solution that will cure all the sick people,” I insisted. “Will you please teach it to me?”
“Hmpf!” Master Lesentrange snorted. “Can you even sing?”
The choir director’s tone of voice suggested he assumed I couldn’t.
“Yes,” I replied.
I could hardly believe I’d said that either. Claiming I could sing on the basis of one song sung to a few people who probably didn’t know much about music was skating on pretty thin ice. Still, there wasn’t much sense in telling this man I couldn’t sing if I needed him to teach me a song that was as difficult as he said it was. I certainly wasn’t about to leave without a tryout.
“Then sing me a song,” Master Lesentrange ordered. “Show me what you can do.”
Master Lesentrange sank into the nearest pew and sat with his back to me. The man at the keyboard had stopped playing his instrument, and he sat there, daydreaming. Only when Master Lesentrange stopped yelling at me did I realize how quiet everything was. I didn’t even hear the boys yelling outside the church anymore. I decided that my best bet was to sing the song that went over so well before, and so I sang it again:
I am a poor wayfaring stranger,
A trav’ling through this world of woe;
Yet there’s no sickness, toil or danger
In that bright world to which I go.
I was surprised at how good my voice sounded in that church. I was also surprised at all the feeling I put into the song. Maybe that’s because I was feeling like a poor wayfaring stranger myself. The guy at the keyboard started to accompany me with odd-sounding chords that fit the song pretty well.
I’m going home to see my mother,
I’m going there—
I stopped on that high note in mid-phrase, because I heard a strange crackling sound. What I saw scared the living daylights out of me. One of the stained-glass windows was melting in such a way as to distort the face of the bearded man playing his harp. Master Lesentrange stared at the window. I cringed inside, wishing I could say I was sorry I had wrecked the window, but knowing that this was way over the top for an apology.
“Finish the song,” the choirmaster ordered me, his voice firm and level. “Now.”
I had nothing to lose by obeying him and nothing to gain by delaying, so I picked up right where I’d left off, hoping the window would fix itself.
—no more to roam,
I’m just a-going over Jordan,
I’m just a going over home.
To my amazement, the melting stopped and King David’s face stabilized somewhat, but it wasn’t quite the face it was before. King David seemed to be smiling at me a little, but I wasn’t sure. I felt pretty wiped out by my singing, by the window melting, and my anxiety over what Master Lesentrange was going to do to me. The choirmaster sat still as a statue for some time. He did not look at me and he did not look up at the window. All I could do was wait while the pins and needles inside me got sharper and sharper.
“Nathaniel Hawthorne Brown,” Master Lesentrange finally said, “it is obvious that you have no ability to control the power of your singing. Trying to sing a healing chant with so little control can cause great harm to many worlds and make the strangling pestilence even more out of control than it is already.”
That threat gave me a burning sensation that really scared me. Still, I had promised to make this healing quest and so I had to stick to my guns.
“Masteress Oldham, of the Guild of Gifted Healers must think that it is better that I try to learn the healing chant and then try to sing it, rather than not have me try at all.”
“I am not about to meet the outrageous request you have made in the name of the Gifted Healers Guild,” said Master Lesentrange. “However, I can use your Gifting Singing here. I direct you to rehearse and perform with the choir. You will gain lodging in the cottage of the boy choristers of the Gifted Singers Guild. Master Harold Galleon will give you preliminary voice lessons.”
“But—my quest is urgent, Sir,” I protested.
“Music is urgent,” said Master Lesentrange.
With that, the choirmaster rose to his feet and melted into the darkness. The light in the front of the church went out. Either Master Harold Galleon, if he was the guy at the keyboard, had also left the church, or he was sitting at his instrument in the dark. Not knowing what else to do, I felt my way to the back, fingering one pew after the other to keep from stumbling, until I got to the back door. I pushed hard at the door and managed to open it. The cold wind socked me pretty hard. I could hear boys yelling from a small distance. I pulled my cape about me and a few sparks danced about. The cape seemed a lot warmer than its thickness accounted for, but I was already getting the impression that this Gifted World did not work the way the science I’d been taught made me expect it to.
The boys were playing catch with a bright yellow fireball. It flew through the air on a stream of flame toward a boy who did not seem to be in position to catch it, but the boy raised a hand that sent a stream of flame out to meet the ball and change its direction straight to his chest where he got a hand on it, juggled it, and held on. Among the boys was an animal I first took for a silver dog, as it was about the right size for one, but when I noticed some gold spots on it, I decided it looked more like a fawn. I lingered to watch the boys at their game, hoping they would notice me. I thought maybe one boy did catch a glimpse of me, but he gave no indication that he had. The fireball shot out of the hands of one boy and another boy tried to field it the way the first one did. He didn’t quite manage it, and the ball sped past him. The fawn loped after the fireball and brought it back in its mouth to the boy who had missed it. The fawn was doing what dogs do in my world, but it moved like a young deer. When the boy took the fireball out of the fawn’s mouth, he saw me. I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad; I couldn’t read his face. Suddenly, a blur of yellow came straight at me. I had no chance to react in any way before the fiery object hit me hard in the stomach and knocked me over.