Page 106 of The Song Rising

Panic. At this age, she hardly understands it. It crashes, breaks, and surges into the crowd, a living, monstrous thing. The grown-ups are scared, as scared as the children. An airless crush of bodies, pressing in on her from all sides. Mouths that scream, hands that shove.Mercy.Pushing. Falling over her own feet. Bronze statue that glints under the sun. Climbing, clinging to Molly Malone.Don’t let them see.Crawling underneath her wheelbarrow.One, two, three. Tears soaking her cheeks.We’re coming to get you, Paige.

Beyond, a giant watches. Lanterns in its eyes. It sees her.

Finn, help me, please.

My eyes flickered beneath their lids. Petrified inside my mind. Warden knelt with me in the dirt, in the damp, his hands grasping my arms.

A toy left in the blood, never to be reclaimed. Wandering through streets of death, past the bridge. Faceless soldier. Running. Nothing. When Aunt Sandra found her, she was a doll. Not a girl.

Flowers at the lovers’ funeral, bouquets of wildflowers on the coffins. One stands empty. They wanted to be buried by the tree. Only fair to respect their memories, despite the absence of his body, despite her father’s fury that he took a child into the carnage. That she was brought back dripping red, mute, and drawing monsters in her schoolbooks. Her family singing the song from that day, the song of Molly Malone and her ghost. First time that she’s spoken at the grave.

Finn, she says,I’m going to make them pay.

Warden framed my face between his hands. The sleep-dealer was deep within the dark vaults of remembrance.

Listen to me, Paige. We have to change our names.His features blurring, distorting.Paige, it’s not enough. At school, you say your name differently. Mar-nee. Like an English name.

A Dhaid, scanraíonn an áit seo mé.

We don’t speak Irish anymore. Not anymore.

Spinning. I was falling into a whirlpool of memory. Down, down into the depths of decades.

Molly Mahoney! Molly Mahoney!Hands twisting her hair.She smells like death. They killed our soldiers.Jeering faces.Dirty boglander. Go back to your swamp, brogue.Never heard the word before now. Sounds so cruel, like a sentence, like a curse. An older girl shoving her, girl with parents in the army. Girl whose mother was in Dublin that day.Where’s your red hair, Molly Mahoney? Wash my mother’s blood out, did you, did you? Don’t want dirt like you in this school. My dad says you’ll kill us all.

Sounding out those syllables.Mar-nee. Mar-nee.Broken record. Don’t recognize this word. Not her name. Not a name. One day she will show them all this fire that lies inside her, fire that burns the inside of her skull and fills her to the brim with rage. One day she will haunt them to the grave.

One day I will show them what it means to be afraid.

Stop.

Reels of recollections, tapestries of colors. Somewhere in the vortex, I recalled myself. No more of this. With my last drop of conscious thought, I struggled against Warden’s influence, kicking free of the current. The golden cord burst into flame, and—

—darkness—

Water pearling over stones, mirror-still and crystal-clear. No reflection; only a steep drop to the deep below, and a bed of stainless pearls.

Nothing lives. Everything is.

Cloud forest. Emerging-place. Instinct guides him here. Above, twilight—blue hour, time of Netherworld. Time without time.

Silhouettes of trees in the mist, taller than any Earth-tree. Amaranth. Before the conflict. Veils between this world and theirs. Nothing living here, and nothing dead.

Stranger. Dancing. Not his kin, but kith to his spirit. Dark hair stream-fast on sarx. Lilt of their bodies. Collision of dreamscapes. Feel of her, scent of her in the water. Her name is a song on his lips, a name not tamed by a fell tongue.TerebellandArcturus, names they will bear when war has begun.

Beyond the veil, mortals sleep. When their lives end, Rephaim are waiting. Free of pain, free of sickness. Dislocated half-things. Wandering. They pine for a place where a falling sun puts them to sleep, where hunger never ends, where the ground waits to be fed with flesh—

I wrenched free of the memory and lurched to my feet, backing away from him until our auras ripped apart. Sweat and tears bathed my cheeks. Voices echoed through my ears; I tasted fear and smelled the blood and smoke again. The nightmare was over, but all of it was real.

“How—how did you do that without salvia?”

“I do not need salvia. It is an aid,” he said. “No more.”

“It’s not really your numen.”

“No.”

My throat was a clenched fist. Everything in my body felt contracted with terror.

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