Silent Echo (9 page)

This conversation was going nowhere. If Felix was afraid of losing her to the new guy at school, she could only imagine how he’d react to knowing that the label of ‘handicapped’ was now exclusively his…

“Yeah, it’s Max, I guess. He seems like a pretty cool guy. The whole accent thing is kind of charming—”

“I hadn’t noticed.” His tone was facetious. She couldn’t believe how badly she was bungling this conversation.

“And you’re right,” she attempted to assuage him, “I’ve only known Max for like a millisecond…” She had stopped speaking out loud, allowing her hands to pick up where her voice left off.

The door to the darkened auditorium suddenly swung open, and the darting figure of Jared Weber crept into the auditorium as if he was on a black ops mission. Portia and Felix sunk down at the sight of him. They looked at each other and laughed, a cautious laughter that reflected a vague awkwardness between them.

As Jared started warming up to a medley of show tunes, Portia wondered how things with Felix could ever go back to the way it was before the voice.

Or, for that matter, before Max Hunter.

♪

That night Portia took her laptop into her bathroom and turned on both the sink and bath faucets. Certain that her voice would be fully camouflaged by the running water, she invited Charlotte Trotter to a video chat. Charlotte’s hollow face appeared on the screen, offering Portia a pitiable smile as the dark rings around her eyes revealed what must have been another sleepless night.

“Hi.” And there it was again. That one syllable, spoken out loud, assuring her that she was still released from the shackles of silence.

“Hey. You sound like you’re under a waterfall.”

“Yeah, I still don’t want my parents to hear me yet. Just not ready. Um, how’d it go today with your mom, Charlotte?”

Charlotte’s bed was so tightly made that Portia half expected her neighbor to be bouncing a quarter off of it. “It was rough.” She picked at an imaginary piece of lint. “My mom, like, wavered between hating me and thanking me for making that call, you know?” Her voice broke a bit and she batted away the dew at her eyes. “Jesus Christ, I haven’t stopped crying. What the hell is wrong with me? I don’t know, Portia. I don’t know if I did the right thing—”

“You did, Charlotte. You’ll see in time. You’ll see. It just hurts so much now—”

“Will it ever not hurt?” she sounded so desperate.

“I don’t know. I wish I did. But people learn to live with all kinds of pain, right? And you’re not alone now. I promise you.”

Charlotte’s face softened at the reference to their new friendship.

Portia tried to lighten things up a bit. “Hey, why don’t you kick off your new life by untucking your blankets a little bit? Nobody’s bed should look like that,” she teased.

Charlotte scanned her bed. “You’re right,” and she started ripping her blankets up, deliberately tossing her pillows all over her pristine room, causing the laptop to crash to the floor.

“Portia, you still there?” Portia could hear the laughter in Charlotte’s voice, though she was now eye level with the casters of a desk chair. When Charlotte brought the webcam back into focus, Portia was delighted to see that the bed had become a mess of billowy clouds.

“God, that felt good.” Charlotte plopped down on her stomach, clearly enjoying the feel of the mess beneath her. “So tell me something juicy, Portia. How’s that new hot guy in school?”

“Which guy?”

“Oh, come on. You just turned like ten shades of red. You know, the tall one with all the dimples.”

At the mention of Max’s dimples, Portia spilled it. The whole thing. The Lyrical Poetry encounter, the music room, the song. The only thing she left out was the situation with Max’s parents. She felt bound by some unspoken ‘music room confidentiality agreement.’ “I think he just needed some time away from the big city,” she offered as a reason for Max’s resettlement.

She had downloaded Max’s song to her music library and was excited to play it for Charlotte.

“Holy shit, Portia! That was ridic! Does Felix know?” And just as quickly, the balloon of Portia’s euphoria was popped.

“Know what? About Max? I think so. I mean, today I tried telling him about the voice—I just don’t think I can keep something so major a secret from him. I mean, he’s always noticing my moods and if I’m, like, floating on cloud nine, he’s gonna pick up on it. But then I just couldn’t. I can’t leave him behind. So I kind of used Max as an excuse for my newfound happiness. He was weird about it. I don’t know why—I mean, Felix and I are just friends. It’s complicated, I guess—”

As she chatted with Charlotte, Portia scrolled through her e-mails.

“Speak of the devil, I think Max just gifted me another song on iTunes.”

“He did? What song?”

“It doesn’t say. It’s just an e-mail from iTunes with a gift card saying, ‘Hope this gets the ball rolling.’ It’s signed just ‘M,’ but who else could it be?”

“Well, why don’t you go find out?”

“Yeah, OK. I’ll see you tomorrow, Charlotte.”

The girls signed off and Portia opened the e-mail, her heart pounding with excitement. She couldn’t imagine what Max thought might top his own song, but she was thrilled that he was thinking of her at all.

The song began downloading, something called “Music We Once Made” by Marsyas. She had never heard of the singer but was always up for something new. What she got, though, was not what she was expecting.

The album cover that appeared on her screen featured a faded illustration of a gaunt man in tattered robes, some ancient wind instrument in his hands. When the song started playing, the image became something of a music video, the man blowing into the instrument with the ease of a great flautist, bringing forth a melody drenched in sadness. The music rose up, higher and higher, until finally the instrument sailed out of the withered man’s hands, soaring up into the sky, all the while sustaining the melody. When he began singing, or more like chanting, his voice was old and tired.

Once I knew the sisters’ song,

When it was good and true.

“Marsyas, come play along,

And we will sing for you.”

And the glory of their voices,

Never did I doubt.

Their mother, Terpsichore,

A Goddess who danced about.

Their father, Achelous,

The God of Rivers flowing,

To his daughters gave the gift

Of rhythm ever-knowing.

And so three Sirens came to be,

Sisters of flaming hair.

With eyes of jade and ivory skin

And voices to ensnare.

And then the voice of Marsyas mimicked that of a teasing girl:

“
Marsyas, Marsyas,

Ever is he smart with us,

Thinks he’ll play the harp for us,

But now he’ll play apart from us…
”

Portia hit pause. Why the hell would Max have sent her this song? She wondered if he still felt bad about the Zachary Wilson incident and was trying to help her out with her Siren research. Though how this song was supposed to help, she wasn’t exactly sure.

She decided to text him.

“Hi, Max—it’s Portia. Where’d you find this Siren song?”

While she waited for a response, she powered down her laptop. She wasn’t ready to tackle her
Odyssey
assignment yet.

“Huh?” came his reply.

“The song you sent me on iTunes, to ‘get the ball rolling.’ ”

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about, Portia. And, btw, I knew it was you. You’re like the only person in my contact list…”

As she read his words, she could have sworn she saw the light on her laptop reignite, despite not having pressed a single button. Portia tried to convince herself that maybe she had never fully powered the machine off, though she was never careless with her laptop—it was, by far, her most prized possession. A familiar fear that she was losing her mind crept up her spine as the screen came back to life, picking up right where it had left off.

“
You cannot escape this song of truth,

A story fierce and sad,

To make a God or mortal weep,

Of Sirens going mad.

One indeed remained pure,

Her heart never straying,

But her older sisters’ joy,

Came from mortals slaying.

And the purpose of my song?

Portia, you will see,

Is to etch into your mind these names:

Ligeia, Parthenope.

At the sound of her own name in the song, her heart crashed hard into the wall of her chest.

She held her finger on the power button of the MacBook. She held it and held it. But the voice kept sounding off the chorus of the bizarre chant:

“Marsyas, Marsyas,

Ever is he smart with us,

Thinks he’ll play the harp for us,

But now he’ll play apart from us…
”

“Portia? Are you there?” Max texted a couple of times.

Was he playing a joke on her? This song was clearly written
for
her and who else would write a song for her?

“Marsyas, Marsyas…”

“To get the ball rolling…”

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about…”

She was drowning in confusion as her heart rate soared, her panic intensifying.

What the hell is going on?

She gave her laptop one last desperate glance.

On the screen, Marsyas straightened up his bent posture.

“Sleep now, Portia.”

And thankfully she slept.

“So has your mom been up at all?” Portia asked Charlotte the next day.

She had gotten off at Charlotte’s bus stop, and they were sitting on the Trotters’ patio, inches from the infinity pool that Portia never even knew her neighbors had built. The rendezvous was unexpected, and Portia tried telling herself that Charlotte really needed a friend right now, but the truth was she herself was feeling pretty needy. Throughout the day, she had exhausted all of her mental and emotional resources to try to make sense out of the bizarre iTunes gift.

When she saw Max at school he had confirmed for her once again that he had nothing to do with the iTunes song, and Portia didn’t press the matter. She certainly didn’t need him thinking she was some kind of paranoid lunatic.

Mr. Morrison and Felix also proclaimed innocence, and Portia believed them to be sincere. She thought of who else might have pulled such a weird prank on her but came up empty. Luke and Lance probably didn’t even know she was taking
Odyssey
, and Jacqueline prided herself on her lack of virtual interaction—she never even bothered to check her e-mails. In a last-ditch effort to gain some understanding, Portia decided to see if Charlotte could shed some wisdom on the situation.

Charlotte kept her voice down as she addressed Portia’s question. “Not much, and I’ve been trying not to wake her. I keep turning the ringer off on her cell, you know, just in case he tries to contact her…”

When Charlotte referenced her father, she looked like someone who had just been forced to swallow something rancid. Yet every day since she took her own life back, her head tilted another degree higher and her posture was a bit more proud, though still she remained encased from head to toe in thick clothing, preserving that final barrier between her and the rest of the world.

“…Anyway, I figure I’ll give her another couple of weeks to wallow in her depression before trying the tough love thing, you know?”

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Portia offered, following Charlotte’s lead of a hushed tone. She marveled at her ability not only to speak, but to manipulate her voice, its volume and tone.

“Anyway,” Charlotte said, “Let’s change the subject. Tell me about the song Max sent you last night. Was it as awesome as the other one?”

Portia reached into her backpack to retrieve her laptop. “Well, you see, that’s the thing. It actually wasn’t from Max. It was from some guy named Marsyas. But, well, Marsyas seems to be like a gazillion years old.”

As she spoke, she pulled up her iTunes library. Scrolling down her list of artists, she found that Marsyas’s name was no longer there.

“Wait, let me look under tracks—”

“Portia, if there’s, like, some old pedophile stalking you online, you better tell someone.”

Music We Once Made
was no longer listed in her songs. She opened her e-mail, searching for the notice from iTunes and suspecting, correctly, that her efforts were wasted.

Had she imagined the whole thing?

“I’m not gonna start a relationship with some lunatic on the Internet, Charlotte,” she offered offhandedly, though the mercury of her fear was steadily rising as she failed to recover even a trace of the mysterious gift. “Anyway, I must have deleted it by accident.” She tried sounding blasé, though her mind couldn’t find a comfortable resting spot that would explain the iTunes gift. She just couldn’t rid herself of that nagging sensation that someone had hacked into her screen name. Hacked into her life.

“Maybe it was a mistake,” Charlotte said dismissively. “So, hey, are you planning a big reveal any time soon?”

But Portia was lost in thought, her eyes fixated on a manicured wall of purple flowers, swarming with butterflies.

“Hello, Portia? Are you listening?”

“Why do they all fly to that one bush?” she asked Charlotte distractedly.

“What are you talking about?” Charlotte followed Portia’s gaze to the butterfly bush, which had always been her favorite. “Oh—it’s a butterfly bush. It’s meant to attract butterflies.” Charlotte got up and approached the bush, extending her hand until one of the spotted creatures landed gently on her palm. “When I was younger, this was actually one of my, like, ‘focal points,’ you know. While stuff was going on inside, I would stare out the window at the butterflies, wishing I was one of them and that I could just fly away…”

“What attracts them to it?”

“They say it’s the flowers,” Charlotte said as the butterfly flew off her palm. “Hummingbirds come by, too.”

Portia welcomed this bit of unknown bird trivia.

“One morning,” Charlotte continued, her eyes a bit glazed, “after a pretty bad night, I found my mom out here, staring at the hedge—can you imagine that he planted a whole hedge of something so beautiful? Anyway, she told me that she thinks that all the butterflies are really souls in pain and that they have found this one spot, filled with beauty, where they can all come to be together. Help each other.” She unbuttoned her collar and leaned over suddenly. “God, it’s hot out here, isn’t it?” She peeled off her tights in one fell swoop.

It really wasn’t. If anything, there was a bit of a chill in the air. But Portia understood Charlotte’s need to start breaking down some more walls and offered her a supportive smile, trying to ignore the healing bruises on Charlotte’s bare legs.

Suddenly her iPhone sounded off—a ringtone which she wasn’t familiar with. The screen flashed an iCal reminder that said “Siren Research.”

As avid an iPhone fan as she was, Portia had never once used her iCal.

Ever.

“Hey, do you think it’s possible that Morrison figured out how to get into our iCals?” she asked Charlotte, who was looking much more comfortable, stretching her bare legs and curling them comfortably beneath her.

“I guess it’s possible. I don’t know,” Charlotte said dismissively. “So, like I was saying, are you thinking yet about how you’re gonna tell everyone about your new voice?”

Portia thought it over for a minute, stuffing her iPhone into the bottom of her bag.

“I don’t know…I don’t think I can do it, Charlotte. Seriously, what are people going to say about me? Half of them will think I’ve been faking all my life, and the other half will just think I’m a freak.”

Charlotte grabbed them a couple of sodas from the built-in beverage fridge near the pool.

“I don’t think you’re being honest with yourself, Portia. I think the only two halves that really matter to you right now are the Felix half and the Max half.”

Portia looked back at her friend, visibly impressed.

“What?” Charlotte asked, swigging her Diet Coke. “Do I sound like a therapist? Oh God—I sound like a therapist.”

“You don’t sound like a therapist. You’re right. It’s just hearing my predicament said out loud just makes it more, I don’t know, real, I guess.” She cracked open her soda. “I can’t even begin to explain to you the bond I have with Felix.”

“Try,” Charlotte challenged.

Portia closed her eyes, conjuring an image of her best friend. “You see, Felix has this theory—well, actually it’s something his grandmother once told him. She told him that you only have a certain number of words to say in your lifetime, and so you shouldn’t waste your words on anything stupid or mean. When he told me this theory, me who couldn’t utter a single word, he said, ‘so, Portia, you’re invincible, you see? You are my forever.’ And now I’m not invincible anymore. I’m going to be just like everybody else to him. I don’t think things will ever be the same. And now with Max in the picture… I mean, Charlotte, the minute I saw Max, I don’t know—it was like…it was like all this silence didn’t matter. He’s so full of music and sound. I don’t feel like an incomplete fraction when I’m around him.” She smiled. “Oh God, did I just use an algebraic metaphor?”

“You did, but I won’t tell anyone,” Charlotte offered. And then, more seriously, “Really, Portia. I won’t tell anyone. You’ll know when the time is right.”

Portia suddenly realized how selfish she was being—spending so much time talking about her own problems, which paled in comparison to Charlotte’s.

“Anyway, let’s change the subject,” she offered up. “Will you please promise to sit with us at lunch tomorrow, Charlotte? How many times am I going to have to ask you?”

Charlotte ran her graceful fingers over the pale flesh of her legs. “I’m getting there, Portia. Any day now…I’m getting there.”

♪

As the days wore on, despite the constant unsolicited alerts from her iCal reminding her about her
Odyssey
assignment, Portia couldn’t bring herself to start the work. Sleeping had become an overwhelming challenge for her, her nightly dreams a boxing match between the menacing white bird creature and the withered Marsyas, each with their own demands. For some reason Marsyas was fixated on getting her to do more
Odyssey
research and the bird was hell-bent on getting her to reveal her voice to the world.

Portia hoped it was this lack of sleep that was causing her erratic mood swings. She found herself snapping at her parents at the slightest provocation. On more than one occasion, she even started forming angry words in her throat before regaining control. She certainly didn’t want to debut her voice to her parents in a fit of fury.

And then there was the elation, the ecstasy. Maybe it was Max. She was finding it more and more difficult to spend time apart from him. Luckily he had decided to join their lunchtime gathering, which had also come to include Charlotte, an addition that her friends had welcomed with a remarkable measure of tact.

Max’s reception was not as welcoming. Though Jacqueline had been instantly charmed by him, Luke and Lance were more than a little cold the first time he set his tray down at their table. Their unspoken allegiance to Felix was like a stone wall.

This is not going to be pretty
.

Portia had tried easing the tension with valiant conversational efforts with Felix and the twins, which were inevitably lost on Max, who didn’t know how to sign.

No, not pretty at all
.

Felix seemed to enjoy watching her struggle to bridge the gap until finally he must have taken pity on her and told Luke and Lance to ease up on the new guy.

“No need for turf fights, right? It’s not
West Side Story
here, guys…” he had signed to them.

Portia
shot him a look of thanks, and he tipped his head toward her. The twins loosened up, immediately segueing into a conversation with Max about how hot Kate Middleton is.

“Yes, I’d have to agree, though I had already moved to the States before they got hitched…”

Ok, this is a little better—not that I need to hear Max acknowledge that another woman is hot…

“Hey, while we’re on the topic of dating—” Felix came out with suddenly.

Were we?

“Gabrielle said yes to a second date.”

Portia assumed that he must be talking about Gabrielle Parker, a freshman akin to the Heisman Trophy.

When had they had a first date
?

Luke and Lance high-fived their friend with great machismo, and Portia unconsciously inched her way closer to Max.

The rest of the lunch was filled with offhand banter. Charlotte even chimed in once when the boys got onto football. Her real father used to be obsessed, and it was the one thing she had always kept up with. But though the table talk might have been simple, the seesaw of glances between Portia and Felix were full of unspoken innuendo.

♪

Later that afternoon, Max threw another ball into the volley of Portia’s emotional struggles.

They were standing in front of his locker when suddenly he moved in close to her, gently forcing her up against the metal door. They had not yet shared a kiss and were running out of excuses to touch each other in ways like this. The other day his biceps had looked so inviting that she had purposely stained his sleeve with a chocolate pudding fingertip, just so she could have the pleasure of spot cleaning it for the rest of lunch.

“So, I’ve got this thing in about a week…”

God, he smelled good
.

She waited for him to elaborate.

“It’s kind of like a gig—at The Ridge Café…”

Portia took out her phone.

“You mean Café on the Ridge?”

He smiled and moved in even closer. She doubted that a sheet of tissue paper would fit between them.

“Yeah—that’s the place. Anyway, there’s this girl who I think about, like, all the time when I sing now. I mean, I can’t get her out of my head, you know?”

Portia brought her hand to her chin in mock wonder.

“It’s bloody hell.”

She loved when he regressed into his British dialect.

“Anyway, I was thinking of asking this girl to come see me perform. Do you think she might agree?”

“I think she wouldn’t miss it for the world.” She held up the phone to Max and then took a chance by gently brushing her lips against his cheek, coming dangerously close to the corner of his mouth.

It wasn’t until she saw Felix in her next class that she realized the double booking.

“Hey,” she signed to him, “is Wendy still performing Wednesday night?”

“Why? Do you have other plans?” he shot back. Why the hell was he so angry with her lately?

“No—I mean, um, I’ll be there, Felix.”

He continued to look at her while she took out her notebook and set up for class.

“What?” she signed, darting her hands angrily into the air. “I said I’d be there.”

Finally he looked away.

I’m just not sure who with…

♪

If Portia had any misgivings about accepting his invitation for fear that Felix might be hurt, Max totally sealed the deal that night when they chatted online for an eternity. They seemed to never run out of things to discuss. He had traveled throughout Europe and had a passion for Gothic cathedrals, which Portia found to be endearing.

She, in turn, revealed her own passions for reading and omithology.

“Omi-what?”

“Omithology—also called ornithology—weird, huh? It’s the study of birds,” she wrote back, taking in Max’s perplexed expression. “It’s something I’ve been drawn to since I was little. I like the way the birds sing to each other. You know, their mating calls…”