Pay the Piper (10 page)

He put down his guitar, laying it carefully on its back on the step beside him. His hand hesitated for a moment over the instrument, as though he were comforting it, calming it. When he looked up at her again, his face seemed strange, pained, as if she'd just stuck a dagger into his heart. Then he sighed, and as though attuned to his every utterance, the guitar echoed the sigh back.

“So, it's true,” he whispered. Callie had to lean far in to hear him.

She realized that he wanted her to ask. So she did. “What's true?”

“For years…” he began. Stopped, took a deep breath, and started again. “For years I've worked hard at
not
understanding. ‘Just play the music, man,' I told myself. Because the music is all that matters. The song that has to be played. Not how we get paid or how much. Not what the venue, where the gig. Not even the audience. Long as I've got enough for food and some new leathers and my picks and strings, as long as I've got gas for the bike…” He nodded at the motorcycle parked near the bottom step which Callie hadn't even noticed before. “As long as I've got that, I'm fine, man.” He sighed again and once more the guitar sounded like wind stroking across the strings. Callie saw that in the moonlight, his blue eyes looked faded, ghostly, the skin of his cheeks almost translucent, like rare glass.

“But this time it's different?”

He nodded. “
Silver or gold or souls,
he said. And I thought that was okay. Because it's always been silver or gold. Every seven years. Like clockwork, man. I never asked what Gringras meant by ‘souls.' I thought it was a joke. He jokes a lot, you know. And I don't understand half of what he's gassing on about. But it never seemed to matter much. At least to me. The music's been
that
good.”

She sighed back and all the while her head thought,
I've never been a sigher. A fairy tale type. I'm a hardheaded journalist.
But she sighed nonetheless. Because she wasn't a journalist, not yet. She was only fourteen years old and in high school.

“But it matters now,” she whispered.

“Because it's children,” Scott said. There was a powerful cry in what he said.

“Then you believe me?”

He nodded. “Yes, I believe you. Because it all fits. Silver or gold or souls. Not a joke. Not a joke at all. And I can't let that happen. Not to kids.” He shivered. “Kids—I don't know a lot about them. Except I can't let it happen.”

“
We
can't let it happen,” Callie whispered, daring to put them together. Then she added,
“Again.”

“Again?”

She sighed again, mostly at what she now had to say. “I tried to write about it for my school paper, before the kids in the neighborhood disappeared, but it seemed too far out, like I was trying to force the puzzle pieces to fit. But now they all slide into place.” She held up her hand and counted on her fingers. “Hamelin. The Children's Crusade. The little princes in the tower. All the other places kids have disappeared and were never found. He's a regular milk carton creep.”

Scott leaned over, picked up his guitar, and stood. “Not on my watch.” He sounded like a soldier. “My dad took me from my mom. Moved us away across the country. Gave me a new name. I don't even know my old one. I never saw her again.”

“You could still find her,” Callie offered, thinking all the while:
I'm talking to Scott. Really talking.
“After this, I mean. You could find her.” She hesitated, then added, “I could help. There's computer searches and stuff.”

He shook his head, and the golden hair shimmered. “She'd be…” He hesitated. “Awfully old now. Maybe even dead.”

“Not much older than my mom and dad,” Callie said. “Couldn't be.”

“You don't know,” he said, started to say more, and stopped himself. “You couldn't possibly believe it anyway.”

“Try me,” she whispered.

But as if he hadn't heard, he said, “It's the children who count now. Not me and my old problems. So, reporter girl—”

“Callie,” she said. “Callie McCallan.” She wondered if she should say more. Like where she lived. Or how old she was.

“Callie, put this on your back.” He handed her the guitar and she grabbed it with a kind of reverence. “We'll take the bike. It'll be faster.”

“Faster to
where?
” Then she suddenly remembered—to where Nicky and the other kids were. How could she have forgotten?

But her question seemed to stop him cold. “Damned if I know,” he replied.

The minute he said that, she heard the flute again. It was less compelling this time because she was standing so close to Scott, but there was no mistaking it.

“Do you hear that?” she asked.

He nodded and held out his hand. “If we find the flute…”

She nodded back. “We find the kids.”

Without hesitation, she took his hand and followed him to the motorcycle, a black Harley Electra Glide.

“The Classic,” he said, fishing two helmets out of the backpack and handing one to her.

The helmet fitted her head as if designed for her.

Then Scott climbed on the bike and Callie, like a princess out of the old stories, got on behind. Putting her arms around his waist, she held tight, her head cheek down against his leather jacket. It smelled of many winds and many streets. It smelled of Scott. She made herself forget about all the girls before her who must have ridden with him.

“Which way?” he asked over his shoulder.

At first she had a hard time hearing with the helmet on, but she strained to listen for a minute. Finally she heard the flute song, as if it were being piped into the helmet, and she pointed down the hill toward the center of town.

He kicked the bike into gear and the motor caught.

For a moment the flute song was hidden.

For a moment Callie despaired.

But once they were out on Elm, going down the hill, Callie heard the flute again.

“That way!” she called out, pointing over Scott's shoulder at every turning. “Now that way!”

So street by street, she guided them along till they crossed the bridge spanning the Connecticut and the turning onto Route 47.

“There!” Callie said, and they headed along the winding road toward the little mountain range ringing the foot of the Valley.

19 · Resurrection

Gringras' casting was nearly at an end. As he tied the loose ends of his spell with notes both sung and played, he remembered the words his father had spoken on the day Tormalas's body was to be burned.

“I thought you should both hear this together.” King Merrias had stood and motioned Gringras to an empty chair by Wynn's side.

Gringras would have preferred standing but the old man had stared silently at him until he took his seat.

Then the king began to pace the long crimson carpet. “I have given much thought to my choice. Balancing precedence. And this is what I have decided. We are nearly at war. The Unseelie test our borders daily. If I die in battle, Faerie will need a warrior to lead it.” He looked pointedly at Gringras. “Not a musician.”

Not a musician?
thought Gringras frantically.
But I am next in line!
“Respectfully, sir, but tradition…”

“
Tradition favors the oldest living son—it does not require it.” The king looked almost pained as he made his proclamation. “Gringras, I am sorry. You are a fine young man. Charming. Intelligent. Talented.”

Talented.
Gringras wanted to spit on the palace floor.

“
But I have made Wynn heir to the throne,” the king continued. “It is for the good of Faerie, you understand.”

Gringras could not speak. He could not breathe. Tormalas was sure to know who was at fault when he recovered. Gringras knew his only protection from his brother's wrath was to have been his position as heir. Without that he was ruined. Because his father was right. He was no warrior compared to either of his brothers. Just fine, charming, intelligent.
Talented.

And ruined.

Ruined. Like a cracked pillar thrown down in the wood.

He almost smiled.
Thinking of lyrics at a time like this!

Wynne looked at him with honest compassion.

If you only knew,
Gringras screamed at him silently before stumbling silently and dramatically out the throne room door.

I need air. I need room to think.
Perhaps he could go back in time and undo this disaster. Surely there was a spell for that. He looked down at his ring, hopefully.

Reaching the castle's main door, he threw it open. The sun was just lowering in a blaze of red and yellow and Tormalas' pyre was silhouetted against the bloody sky. Suddenly, all of Gringras' fears and regret turned to anger. He no longer cared what happened to him; he needed to punish someone for his misfortunes. And Tormalas was a handy and helpless target.

He marched straight for the thirty-foot tower, on top of which lay his brother's funeral pyre. Spectators and mourners crowded the square. Brownies, red caps, boogies, and peris, who in life never associated, now stood elbow to elbow waiting for the spectacle of the prince's funeral fire.

Ignoring their disapproving stares, Gringras bulled his way through. As he edged closer to the pyre, the way became too crowded for mere physical blows to clear it. Thrusting his hand forward, ring outward, Gringras uttered a word of power. A blast of wind threw aside any creatures in his path.

Mounting the steps three at a time, he came to the bier where his brother lay. Drawing out his sword, Gringras lifted it high over his head two-handed. The crowd gasped and the door to the castle burst open once more, this time spewing forth Alabas, the king, and the new heir, all running toward the pyre.

“Gringras!” Alabas shouted. “It's over!”

The sun finally dipped below the horizon. Gringras turned, sword still raised, and looked back toward the castle. The courtyard was lit now by faerie fires in four corners, the magical glow washing the color from faces, making the onlookers look as dead as Tormalas.

Alabas spoke once more, softly, for now he was on the tower, too, close enough to touch Gringras, though even he knew better than to dare any such thing. “Don't add murder to our crimes.”

Our crimes,
repeated Gringras to himself. It was that phrase that finally stopped him. Whatever happened now, at least he would share it with one other. The other conspirator. His one true friend.

The anger drained from him and he lowered his sword.

The sun set.

Tormalas sat up.

20 · Trail of Sweets

For a long while Callie buried her face in Scott's leather jacket, shutting out the Halloween dark. That way she could concentrate on sounds: the high temptations of the flute, the ground bass of the motorcycle, the moaning of the wind as it whistled past her ears.

When Scott suddenly slowed the bike to a stop and cut the engine, she looked up, startled.

“Why have we…”

He pointed to the roadside. “Look.”

“I don't see anything.”

He got off and—after a minute—she did, too.

“Give me my guitar,” he said, stabilizing the bike with its kickstand, then holding out his hand.

She swung the guitar off her back and gave it to him.

He strummed his fingers across the strings. The sound seemed to light up the roadside, because suddenly Callie saw what he saw. There were four discarded wizards' hats, a set of Velcroed fairy wings, and seven light-saber wands. Dozens of plastic orange jack-o'-lanterns filled with candy lay on their sides, scattering Hershey bars and lollipops, candy kisses and Baby Ruths, candy corn and Almond Joys on the grassy verge.

“It looks like a Halloween graveyard,” she burst out, not meaning to be funny, yet both of them broke into nervous laughter at her observation. The laughter was liberating, and not just because it exorcised some of the dread of the night. It also seemed to have cut through the incessant piping of the flute.

Scott stopped laughing first. Kneeling down by the discarded costumes, he stroked the silken inlay of the fairy wings with his right hand, his expression somewhere between anger and relief.

“How did you see these things?” Callie asked.

He paused as if considering. “I guess I've been with Gringras and his music too long.”

She nodded. That made a kind of sense. “So how come I didn't?”

“Glamour.”

She looked puzzled. “What do you mean,
glamour?
Like Hollywood? That kind of glamour?”

He shook his head slowly, then stood up and, turning toward her, started singing one of the songs from the concert the night before. Not full out, as if in performance, but in a strange, whispery voice which made it even more powerful. She hadn't caught all the lyrics when they'd played at Greene Hall, surrounded as they'd been, drowned by the hard-driving guitar, the bass, the heavy drums. But now she understood every single word.

“I put the glamour on this space,

Transforming every human face,

And leaving nothing left to trace

When morning finally comes.

“I put the magic on this spot

So what you see and think you've got,

And what you fear is what is not,

When morning finally comes.

                
“When morning comes

                
The mundane morn