Мэгги Стивотер - Ballad

Nuala's breath had when I met her--all autumn and rain and wanting. Or maybe it was me, my skin. The thought was something like unpleasant. I wrenched my attention back to

Paul. "But not ill in the conventional sense, I'm afraid. Do you think I can go to class like this?" I gestured to my T-shirt and boxers.

"Man, even I don't want to see you like that. Are you coming to breakfast? You'll have to hurry."

I dug around on the floor for a cleanish pair of pants while Paul hovered by the door, unwilling to leave without me. I jerked on some clothing and scratched my hair into universal messiness.

"Yes, I'm coming. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, dear Paul. I wouldn't miss it for the world. Do you think anyone will notice that I wore these yesterday?" Paul didn't answer, wisely understanding the question to be rhetorical.

"I'm ready. Let's go--Wait."

I knelt down and pulled my duffle bag from under the bed.

Rummaging through the odds and ends in the bottom of it, I felt like I was answering an exam question.

Multiple choice #1: What in James duffle bag will help him ward off a supernatural menace with a very fine set of boobs? a) a watch that doesn't keep proper time b) a novel--some horrible-looking space thriller--that his mother sent along, not realizing he would be spending every waking moment reading something some teacher had stuffed into his prone hands c) a handful of granola bars, brought along in case of a nuclear holocaust and a subsequent lack of fresh food d) an iron band that did absolutely jack-shit for him over the summer but seemed to work out for other people.

My fingers closed on the iron band--thin, uneven, with knobs on each end. I pulled it out. Paul wordlessly watched me as I fit the band around my wrist.

It had been weeks since the stain it left on my wrist had finally disappeared. I felt better with the iron against my skin.

Protected, invincible.

I had always been an ace liar, even to myself.

I squeezed the knobs together until they pinched my skin. "Now

I'm ready."

Breakfast was as it always was. A bunch of music geeks collecting in the dining hall too early in the morning. "Whoever had designed the dining hall had been clever, though; tall windows stretched from floor to ceiling on the east side. The morning sun flooded the room, illuminating the scratched wooden tops of the tables and the faded murals on the walls.

At any other time of the day, the dining hall was mundane, dingy even. But first thing in the morning, blasted with first light, it was a friggin' cathedral.

Conversation was muted and mostly drowned out by spoons in cereal bowls, forks moving through rubbery eggs. I stirred my cereal until it turned to paste, my mouth still full of the taste of the music in my dream.

"James, can I talk to you for a second? If you're done eating?"

The voice was Sullivan's. Most of the teachers who lived on campus ate later in a separate faculty room, away from us performing monkeys, but Sullivan often ate breakfast with the students. Since his class was first period, it made sense for him to be here at oh-dark-thirty. Plus, who else did he have to eat breakfast with, if not us?

"I'm holding court at present," I told him.

Sullivan peered over his bowl of cereal at my table-mates. The usual suspects: Megan, Eric, Wesley, Paul. Everyone but the person I wanted. Couldn't she even sit at my table anymore?

Sullivan said, "Can you minions spare James for a moment?"

"Is he in trouble?" Megan had been babbling about British swear words, but she broke off to observe us.

"No more than usual." Sullivan didn't wait for an answer; he took my cereal and headed back toward an empty table, as if certain I would follow my breakfast.

"It appears my presence is desired by an authority figure." I shrugged. I didn't think they'd miss me; I was being terrible company anyway. "See you guys in class."

I joined Sullivan and sat across from him. I wasn't about to eat my pasty cereal, so I watched him carefully pick the nuts out of his. He had very long fingers with knobby joints. He was a very long person in general, with a rumpled appearance like he'd been thrown in the drier and then worn without ironing. This close, I could see that he was quite young. Thirties, tops.

"I heard about your piping instructor," Sullivan said. The neat pile of nuts on his napkin toppled as he added another. "Or should I say, 'ex-piping instructor'?" He lifted an eyebrow but didn't look up from his careful sorting.

"Probably more appropriate," I agreed.

"So, how are you liking Thornking-Ash?" He finally took a spoonful of cereal and began to eat. I could hear him crunching from where I sat; there wasn't any milk in his bowl.

"Beats Chinese water torture." Inexplicably, my eyes focused on the hand he held the spoon with. On one of his knobby fingers was a wide metallic ring, scratched with shapes. Ugly and dull, like the band on my wrist.

Sullivan caught my gaze. His eyes dropped briefly to my wrist and then back to his own ring. "Would you like to see it closer?"

He put down his spoon and began twisting his ring, working it over a knuckle.

A sick, uncertain melody sang in my ears, and in front of me

Sullivan fell to the floor, then pushed himself onto his hands and knees, vomiting flowers and blood.

I squeezed my eyes shut for a second and then opened them.

Sullivan was still working the ring off.

I shook my head. "No. Actually, I'd rather not. Please leave it on."

The words were out before I could think of whether they sounded normal. In retrospect, they sounded like I was a head case, but Sullivan didn't seem to notice. In any case, he kept the ring on.

"Well, you're not an idiot," Sullivan said. "I'm sure you know why I called you over here. We're a music school, and you've basically graduated with honors before you've started. I looked up your stats. You had to know that we couldn't possibly have an instructor of your level here."

If I hadn't confessed to my own flesh and blood why I'd come here, I wasn't about to try it out on a random teacher. "Maybe I am an idiot."

Sullivan shook his head. "I've seen enough to know what they look like."

I wanted to grin. Sullivan was all right.

"Okay, so let's assume I'm not an idiot." I pushed my cereal out of the way and leaned on my arms. "Let's assume I knew that I wasn't going to find the piping equivalent of Obi-Wan here.

Let's also assume, for convenience's sake, that I'm not going to tell you why I came, assuming I even had a good reason."

"Let's do that." Sullivan glanced at the clock and then back at me. He had an intensity to his eyes that I was unfamiliar with in teachers; he wasn't just another runner on the giant treadmill of adult life. "I've asked Bill what he thought I should do with you."

It took me a moment to remember that Bill was the piping instructor.

"He thought I should just leave you be. You know, let you practice whenever you'd normally be taking your lesson, and leave it at that. But I think that sort of perverts the whole idea of having you come to a music school. Do you concur?"

"It does seem vaguely wrong," I agreed. "I don't know if I'd go so far as to say perverts--"

Sullivan interrupted. "So I thought we'd set you up with some other sort of instrument. Nothing woodwind or reedlike. You'd pick that up too fast. Guitar maybe, or piano. Something that will take you longer than five minutes to master."

"In the interests of full disclosure," I said, "I play some guitar."

"In the interests of full disclosure," Sullivan echoed my words, "so do I. But I'm better at piano. Do you play that at all?"

"I'll be taking lessons from you?"

"The real piano teachers have the lesson slots more than filled with real pianists. But because I don't want to see you wasting your time here, I'll find some time between grading horrendous