Page 13 of Bewitched By the Phantom
An hour ago, he’d strolled past behind me, his eyes on me as he hummed a melody under his breath. A melody I recognized because it’s been haunting me just the same. I don’t understand how he seems to know it, too, or even how it could be the same, but it’s there, haunting me everywhere I go.
Raoul had interrupted that moment before I could ask Erik about it, congratulating me on a good set, and when I’d turned to find Erik again, he was gone, leaving me with even more questions than answers.
Right now, the energy from the stage is gone. It’s late, quieter than it should be considering everyone is so nervous. Usually, I’d expect everyone to party, but it seems like every band is taking things seriously. Which leaves this room even more eerie. It’stoo quiet here. There should be the hustle and bustle of everyone moving around at least. There’s not even that though.
I’m alone with my gear, nursing a hangover of adrenaline, anxiety, and shadow-paranoia. Seriously. I’ve purposely looked away from every shadow I come across since our performance. I’m not one to be spooked so easily, but I can’t explain what I saw. And I don’t like not being able to explain.
I rifle through my case to find some fresh strings and instead, I find a folded-up scrap of paper tucked in between my pick case and a wrinkled setlist. Frowning, I pluck it out and unfold it, my eyes scanning the beautiful handwriting there. It’s elegant and old fashioned, inked with precision that feels like it can only be achieved with a fountain pen. It’s pretty much calligraphy, the strokes so precise, I know I could never replicate them.
The words form what look like a verse that I don’t remember writing, and notes that I never wrote here, but also somehow know.
“Some songs were born from silence, where your voice first lived in me. A note before your heartbeat, a verse that never sleeps,” I read out loud.
My first thought is that it’s from a fan or someone accidently dropped this in here. Or that maybe I did scribble it here and forgot it, but the moment I hum the notes written down, my stomach drops. I retch back, dropping the scrap piece of paper back into my case as I stare at it in horror.
I’ve heard that before.
I’vehummedthat before.
And it’s the same fucking melody that’s been haunting me, that Erik had hummed under his breath a few days ago, that he’d sung softly when he passed me earlier with that infuriating smile. No. Absolutely not. That can’t be what I think it is.
I brush it off, but I don’t remove the paper.
It’s nothing. Nothing at all. I’m just paranoid.
But that verse lodges under my skin and doesn’t let go.
As if it dislodges the memory, I find myself falling back a few years ago, before I’d met the girls, before we were Hell Hath Honey. It’s a shitty memory, one I don’t think back on often, but it comes flooding back to my senses now. I was alone in my dingy apartment after a gig where no one clapped and the sound guy hit on me more than he listened to my set. It’d been a bad night. The tips hadn’t come in, and I had nothing to show for my performance except for sore fingers and a headache.
I’d found myself curling on the floor, my guitar in my lap, crying in quiet frustration. The music industry had felt impossible, especially for an alt metal girl trying to make it in a world that preferred pop. I’d wanted out. I remember the feeling of needing to get away so thick it felt like I was choking on it. I couldn’t keep going like that.
But then I’d gotten a message from one of the weird chat apps I’d downloaded on a whim, the handle SongEater1892 flashing on my screen.
Our conversations were tentative at first. I was deep in my misery and the stranger had a melodramatic name, like he was a gothic fortune cookie. It was strange then, and it’s even stranger now to think about how that one night had turned everything around.
SongEater1892 turned out to be my Phantom.
In a moment of weakness, I’d told him about my shitty night, and after we’d talked for what felt like hours, he’s sent a short voice message, just a quiet trembling hum. That tune was familiar, one I hadn’t written yet, but would later turn into Lace and Lightning. We’d talked until almost morning, but before we parted ways, he’d told me a single line.
“You don’t know it yet, but you’re a cathedral of noise, Chris. You’re the prayer and the thunder. Don’t you dare fall silent.”
That sentence is the reason I didn’t quit music then. I’ve never even seen his face but his belief in me was binding. He knew my voice before I did. From that point on, his opinion became invaluable, and I fully believe it’s because of Phantom that I’m where I am now. He’d pushed me, encouraged me, helped me until I’d found my sound and eventually my girls.
As the memory fades away, the small scrap of paper comes back into focus. I stare at it, my chest aching in a place that feels older than my entire body. Why does this melody feel like Phantom? Why was Erik humming it?
I’ll see you soon . . .
He’d said he’d be here. Is he already here? Is Erik somehow my Phantom? Or is it someone else, like Raoul? But if Phantom is somehow also Erik, then he’s been haunting me for years, not just here in this competition. But if he’s not, then who else knows this melody? Who could have written it down and placed it in my case for me to find? I haven’t heard Raoul even hint at this melody, but there are at least a few dozen people here. It might not even be someone in a band. Maybe it’s one of the crew.
I don’t sleep that night. Instead, I strum the verse on my guitar until the sunrise scratches its way through the broken and hazy power plant windows.
I hum the tune, and somewhere in the shadows, someone else hums it, too . . .
Chapter
Nine
The next morning, I’m looking at the backstage board where every band’s name is posted for the lineup. By the end of the day, there will only be eight remaining on the list, but that’s not what has me furrowing my brows. I came to check the rehearsal schedule, to see what time our practice session is for the day. Instead, I notice a blank spot where I know a band was listed before.
