Chapter Thirty-Four

Timmy swam in his own head, fighting to hear his own music, fighting to hear the music that surrounded him without being lost in it. The star kept calling to him.

Spring was coming. He knew it in rare moments when his mind would clear. Each time his awareness returned it seemed there were different people around him. His classmates who he recognized from their regularly scheduled visits, remained the same, but it seemed each time he was able to swim to the surface of his mind, there was someone new.

There was the lady in her colored turbans who showed up one day and seemed to be there each time. He would look around the room and see an Asian-looking man watching him silently in bright silk jackets embroidered with insects or birds.

They never spoke when he looked at them, so he briefly wondered if he should talk to them, but the moment was gone and he was pulled back under.

The next time he came out of it, he felt more alive, more excited than he may ever have been. He looked around the room and his eyes rested on a young girl seated next to him. Her eyes were looking right at him but she appeared not to see him. He watched her and for a moment the whole universe of sound that had been stealing him away disappeared. There was music that was cold and still and broken, weirdly atonal, simple and slow. It was captivating and uncomfortable at the same time. He listened for a while, wondering about the odd girl and her unseeing eyes, but he could not escape the music forever. The universe called. This time as he felt himself sinking back into the music, he slipped more slowly and found himself pondering in his last conscious thought about the new weird music that seemed to emanate from the girl with the dead eyes.

Renoi stared intently at Timmy. For a while his eyes were seeing and conscious, though his gaze never wavered from Samantha. The singing around him never ceased, but he did not seem to be aware of it. He did seem to be more alert than she had seen him in the days, or was it weeks? since her arrival. The tinkle of silver bells announced the arrival of Magda, whose gasp, though small, was still audible.

"I thought I heard laughter." Magda turned to Renoi in puzzlement. "I was so sure of it that I ran down here."

"There was no laughter." Renoi's spoke quietly, her words smooth, and rich, carrying in them the sounds of her native country. Her hands sat still and peacefully in her lap. Magda felt some of her own anxiety slip away.

"How do you do that?"

"Be so quiet and calm when things around you are so chaotic." Magda's voice was quiet but intense, taking her eyes from Timmy and Samantha for no more than a second. In that time she felt the warmth and deep calm of Renoi and heard her song, like deep, slow-moving waters through steaming jungles, or the lazy move of a lioness conserving her strength in the bright heat of the desert sun.

"We take things more slowly in my country. But then, you know that." Renoi turned her dark liquid eyes toward Magda, who turned back and sighed, "Yes, I know. I'm just so jumpy and frustrated. I was so sure something had changed, only to find everything still the same."

"Things are not the same, Magda." Her voice grew thicker as her eyes seemed drawn to the two children. "Samantha makes them bring her here. She refuses to be still until they do. Something is happening here."

Magda stood silently, watching the two children. Timmy's eyes grew focused and then glazed over, repeating the pattern over and over. Each time his eyes seemed to focus on Samantha, Magda thought she heard laughter. Without turning, she called softly to Renoi, "Are you hearing this?"

"Hearing what?"

"Listen."

Magda waited until she heard laughter twice more before she turned in triumph. "There. You had to hear that."

"Let's go talk."

The two women left the room as quietly as possible, and found the main room empty. They pulled two chairs close together in front of the fireplace and sat facing each other. Magda sat silently, waiting for Renoi to speak.