PART THE SEVENTH

Chapter the First and the Last of Part the Seventh

In which the narrative recounts acts from the life of Brendan McLish and his many friends in Chicago.

Brendan climbed into the bus and turned around to make sure that Kyle was finding his way up the steps. Coming from a world that used horses and carriages for transportation, Kyle still needed assistance with just about everything that Brendan took for granted. It was a challenge for Brendan to keep watch over his friend and help him navigate this new world.

“Making it?” Brendan asked.

“Yea.”

Brendan took Kyle as far to the back as seats were still available, standard procedure for loading the choir bus. Luke Kenney sat down across the aisle from Brendan with Pir Min. Without anybody planning it, Luke and Pir Min had become best friends while Brendan had become best friends with Kyle. Pir Min had been adopted by the Kenneys and Brendan was sharing a room with Kyle at the Maxsons’ house, Brendan’s parents having further disowned their wayward son. The four boys were enough of a foursome to be known as the Gang of Four. Meanwhile, Tel Arman had been adopted by Miles Maddox and his family and he had all but made the other boys forget what his Empire had done to Pir Min and the other Fairheads.

As he sat down, Brendan did yet another double take when he saw Dan Singer, as he styled himself, come on the bus. It wasn’t just his sharp-looking blazer that replaced the furs he wore in Baschdynn. When Father Morton demanded that Dan not wear his oversized ear rings in choir Chet Maxson was ready to fight a duel with the rector over the boy’s right to wear what he wanted, but Dan Singer said that the ear rings didn’t mean anything to him now that he was no longer an apprentice to the Spirit Speaker of the Baschi, and so he took them off for good. Like all of the boys who came into Brendan’s world, Dan Singer was subjected to a physical examination and the doctor let it be down that the boy wore him out with questions about everything he was doing. Dan seemed set on becoming a doctor himself and combining, somehow, his spirit speaking skills with medicine as practiced in the world that had taken him in. Kit Mason and his family had their hands full with him. They loved it.

Mark Streeter came on noisily with his friends from Hooglaan and Craig Pafko. Somehow, Craig was a little more under control under Mark’s influence than he was before. As soon as Mark saw the homeless people who came to the church for meals and shelter, Mark took an interest in them and spent as much time as he could talking to them and then pestering Mother Stephens or Kit’s father about doing something about their problems. Already, Mark seemed to know more about American politics than Brendan did and he was showing an ambition to be a lawyer and a politician devoted to helping all of the poor in at least two worlds, if not all seven. Mark had paid a couple of visits to Fresnik Singer who was as amazed as he was relieved to learn that most of his singers were safe. So far, the Venerable Nemor Gray, Fresnik Singer and Renssa Reader were making plans to start a new choir but keep it secret and also make it part of a larger scheme to help the streeters with their plight. All three had come to the choir’s concert and they knew where to go if Hooglaan became too hot for them and any children they were working with.

Malcolm North, as he was calling himself, and Dunsland Dilworth came on the bus together. Their friendship seemed to the other boys to be an uneasy one, but it seemed to be growing in firmness. Since the two of them also lived at the Maxsons, Brendan saw a lot of them and he was further along in letting his lingering distrust of Malcolm dissolve than many of the other boys. Timmy Sanders, of all people, had become best friends with both boys, although his parents still had not the slightest inkling as to where their son’s friends came from. In any case, nobody had been turned into a toad or attacked by a magical arrow. Raissa relieved any lingering fears by doing some experiments of her own and concluding that the spells of Drakkenfleiss didn’t work in Chicago. If she was still searching for spells that did work, she was keeping that to herself.

A cheer went up for Passenell and Polnar as they came into the bus. Understandably, Passenell wanted to return to his own tribe and family once he had the chance and he had done just that. He took Polnar with him and, so far, Passenell’s people had accepted him. The two boys still met with the others in Merithwell and regularly joined the choir for rehearsals and concerts, such as the concert they were going to give that night. Brendan doubted the Passenell would ever become a cheerful person after what he had been through, but at least he had the support of a loving family and a good friend.

Gwendarin, Forsikt and Morrass had managed to negotiate returns to their families, who were horrified with the way the Master Magi tried to use the students in their absurd war against Merithwell. Drakkenfleiss seemed to have fallen into a state of intense civil war as a result of that venture. Raissa, however, did not feel that she could return to her family any more than Dunsland could. She boarded the bus with Deanna and Sue Pafko, the three of them known affectionately as the Three Witches. Deanna had persuaded her mother and disinherited brothers to set up an apartment in Chicago near the church and adopt Raissa. Both of the boys had become probationers in the choir. Unfortunately, Deanna had lost her father and inheriting brothers in the process.

With everybody on board and counted by Mrs. Pafko, the bus pulled away from the curb with a groan and headed for the night’s concert venue. The concert at St. Dunstan’s the week before with all the new boys had been such a success that many invitations followed immediately with large fees promised, a great help to the choir’s finances. This concert, however, was one the boys and men were giving for free to a group of men and women who were no longer free to go anywhere.

“Did you find Franco?” Brendan asked Kyle, hoping this would not be another painful matter.

Kyle’s reaction showed that it was another painful matter, but that he could talk about it. Brendan knew that Kyle had decided to try and find Franco and bring him to Chicago if he wanted to come. Apparently Kyle either did not find Franco, or Franco did not want to leave Mastruum.

“I found him,” said Kyle.

“How—was he?” Brendan asked hesitantly, noting Kyle’s glum state.

“Terrible. He makes me look like the most cheerful person in all seven worlds. But I couldn’t help him. He’s mad at me for fouling up his plan and he doesn’t want to leave his family, even though his parents make him as miserable as he makes himself. His mother caught me visiting there and she yelled at me for what I did to her son and she called for all the disinherited servants and so I get back to Merithwell before they could get me.”

“I’m sorry,” said Brendan.

“Yea. Chet says some people won’t let you help them.”

“I know.”

“It’s hard when you need to be helped by others all the time,” Kyle complained.

“I know that, too,” said Brendan. “I couldn’t have lost my family any more than I have if I’d moved into a different world. I hate to think of where I would be without the Kenneys and the Maxsons.”

“I wish I could do something in return for everything I’ve gotten here,” said Kyle.

“But you’ve done lots, Kyle. You’re one of the big reasons we have a choir at all and you’re one of the big reasons we’re as good as we are now.”

“I am?”

Brendan sighed. He wished he could erase the brainwashing Kyle had been subjected to, but he knew that was not possible. Brendan was beginning to see that Kyle’s difficulty in believing in himself mirrored Brendan’s similar difficulty after ten years of brainwashing inside his own family. Brainwashing like that threatened to drown out the many encouraging words he got from Chet, Martha, and many other people.

“What you said at the parish meeting had a big effect and it has a lot to do with why we’re on this bus tonight,” said Brendan.

“It did?”

The memory of that parish meeting was both severely painful to Brendan and highly encouraging, as it was to all the boys in the choir and to all who cared about it. The hatred of the choir that a few people expressed at the beginning of the meeting was so overwhelming that it made Brendan feel, as it made all the boys feel, that the whole world was against them. One man complained that the endowment was an albatross around the neck of the church, forcing them to have a boys choir because the generous amount of money could not be used for any other purpose. One woman complained that the existence of a boys’ choir was a slap in the face and the denial of the musical worth of fifty-two percent of humanity. She then said that if the endowment recovered, she would favor a court motion declaring the intention of the endowment to be immoral and therefore subject to revision. Brendan thought the words were a slap in his face and a denial of the worth of his musical worth. Father Morton said that having a boys choir was all fine and good but that worshiping the music more than God Himself was idolatry and the parish should be willing to give up the choir now that divine providence had taken away the funds for it. Comments then moved in the direction that it was great to have the choir, but if there was no money for the choir, they would have to do without the choir until the Endowment fund recovered, if it ever recovered. Then a man expressed his outrage that interlopers were brought into the parish from outside to furnish the music that rightfully should be produced by the parishioners themselves. That was when Kyle spoke.

“I’m sorry I came if you don’t want me,” said Kyle. “I only came because Chet and Brendan and Luke told me I was wanted here. I’m sorry I’m a stranger. If you don’t want me to, I’ll can go away.”

Brendan could see why Kyle thought his words were of no value. They were spoken out of a conviction that he was of no value. Brendan himself felt so devastated at that moment that he was beginning to feel that the church had turned into a den of thieves that had no use for him any more than it did for Kyle. However, Kyle had just sung a solo at Evensong that preceded the parish meeting. Brendan knew that was part of Chet’s strategy to save the choir and it worked. Kyle’s singing was so powerful that nobody could deny its worth. More important, Kyle’s wish to become a member and not remain an “interloper” seriously undermined the charge made against the boys. Brendan was shamed by the pace and fervor of Kyle’s Bible reading and study of Church teachings. Kyle was eagerly looking forward to being baptized on Easter Even and taking the baptismal name of Matthew Kyle Maxson.

Kyle’s words energized the choir’s supporters and their enthusiasm snowballed and overwhelmed the opposition. Most important, many people pledged their financial support to finance the choir’s program for as long as it took for the Endowment to become solvent again.

“Do you remember how good your solo was just before that meeting?” Brendan asked Kyle.

“I remember singing it.”

“Everybody remembers it, because it was so good. Do you remember how everybody in the choir and all our other friends mobbed you after that meeting?”

“Yea.”

“That’s because you reminded us of Jesus’ teaching and nobody dared oppose that.”

“You mean the words: ‘I was a stranger and you welcomed me?’”

“Yes. And at our concert, your solos in the Western Wind Mass were great.”

“So were yours.”

“Thanks. I guess I have to learn to believe in myself, too.”

The bus ground to a halt in front of the nursing home where the choir was going to sing.

“First rows first!” Mrs. Pafko called out when the herd of choristers threatened to run her over.

The boys filed out of the bus under Mrs. Pafko’s watchful eye and assembled on the sidewalk. There she lined them up and led them into the nursing home.

A few minutes later, Brendan and the other boys and the men were singing in front of a roomful of elderly people, most of them in wheelchairs. Deanna sat in the front row with a bent-over woman and held her hand. Sue and Raissa did the same with others. When the choir sang “Take Him Earth for Cherishing,” Brendan’s heart just about broke as he realized he was singing about death to people who were likely to die soon. Chet said that was precisely why he chose the piece for that concert. They followed that lament with “Faire is the Heaven,” an anthem where both words and music were filled with a vision of Heaven so convincing that Brendan was ready to believe in it for himself. The biggest moment in the concert was the singing of a musical meditation from Mastruum that Kyle had re-composed and set to the words: “Come unto me all you who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” With the choir providing a soft, wordless, background, Kyle sang the solo part that he had rewritten. Wanting to give his best friends a part in the work, Kyle had added echoing solos for several of the boys to sing. Singing his own echo solo was Brendan’s greatest thrill as his echo was answered by one of Kyle’s most beautiful soaring phrases. In the still moment that followed the final chord, the tears glittering on the faces of the men and women in the audience reminded Brendan of the stones of Merithwell.

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