The Troupe (58 page)

“And she kept calling me Bill,” George realized. “I see.”

Silenus nodded. “And yet it was all for nothing, in the end.”

“When you showed me her gravestone in New York, you said that the thing it signified was gone,” said George. “That it had faded long ago.”

Silenus looked at him, eyebrow cocked. “So?”

“So I don’t think it’s gone,” said George. “I don’t think it ever faded. You still remember her. Otherwise you wouldn’t grieve at all. And she would not have done what she did if she did not remember you.”

Silenus bowed his head. “Perhaps so,” he said quietly.

“She was right, you know,” said George. “Creation isn’t a machine that’s thrown a few gears. I saw that.”

“Then what is it?”

George could not answer. Silenus grew grim, and he nodded. “Then it’s as I thought,” he said. “We know nothing. All the long years, all the generations of our family… It’s all been for nothing.”

“Would you tell me something?” asked George.

Silenus shrugged.

“I know that Stanley was my father. But why do you and I look so much alike? That was what made me think you were my father in the first place.”

For the first time since he’d returned, Silenus smiled a little. “The Silenus family resemblance is extremely predominant in our clan, that’s so. But not totally predominant. Stanley got lucky. He got the hair and the eyebrows, yeah, but for the rest he had the look of his mother. She was a lovely girl, Ellen. She and Stanley were the best of us.” He sniffed. “We had to make sure no one could realize Stanley and I were related. We got lucky with his looks and height, and we took care of the hair and eyebrows later. It’s amazing what you can do with only a difference in wardrobe and a dab of hair coloring.”

“Another performance,” said Colette, a little bitterly.

“Another in a long line of them,” said Silenus.

“So that makes you… my great-uncle?” asked George.

“Give or take a few greats. I have been the guardian of our line for a long, long time, George. I didn’t inherit the ability to host the song, but I carried it in my own way. Long ago I found certain… methods that allow a sort of suspended vitality, which ensured that I could
always look over the song. These methods have all kinds of side effects, one of which is sterility. I knew I could never father a child, George, so I knew from the start you were not mine.” He looked at Colette a little shamefully. “And what I told you is true, Lettie. There was never any chance of getting you in trouble in a family way. I just had to pretend otherwise when George came along.”

Colette shut her eyes and turned away. “I still haven’t forgiven you. For what you did to Franny, and to me. The idea is just so… so…”

“I don’t expect you to understand,” said Silenus. “You are very young, in comparison to me. That was what drew me to you. I’ll accept whatever judgment you give.”

“Why did you pretend George was your son, anyway?” she asked.

Silenus recounted the story of Stanley’s idea. George had, in a way, witnessed this moment firsthand, and Silenus did not deviate much from what he’d seen. “Stanley loved your mother, George,” Harry said at the end. “I know. I was there. He was very reluctant to leave Rinton, and I know the look of a girl-addled young man. But we had to. We’d come searching for a very, very large piece of the song—the piece you once carried—but the wolves came much too close, and we had to flee in the night. It broke his heart, I think.”

“Why did he not remember her, or Rinton?” asked George. “I asked if you’d been there from the start.”

“You don’t understand how much traveling we did,” said Silenus. “After our first visit to Rinton we saw thousands of towns and states, and even countries. And holding so much of the First Song changes a person. It makes it hard to remember details. I’m sure you know the feeling.”

George nodded. He did, a bit. Stanley had been holding the blueprints for billions of lives within him. It must have been very hard to hold on to a memory of one, George realized, which made him pity his father all the more.

“But he remembered when you told us who you were,” said Silenus. “You don’t know how much it pained him, to have you so close
and yet so far. I’m sorry for both of you, George. But at the time it seemed as if we didn’t have a choice. Stanley had to be protected. He was the bearer of such a valuable treasure.”

“I know,” said George, sighing. “But that reminds me of something… I’d always thought the song was stored in your trunk. You were always carrying that with you when you looked for it. Why was it important?”

“Don’t you remember what was actually in there?” asked Silenus.

“Restoratives, wasn’t it?”

“Exactly. And who would need restoratives?”

George remembered the strangled cry rising up from the little black island when they’d taken the last piece of the song. “Stanley…”

“Yes. Stanley often had issues after absorbing a new portion of the song. It’s common. Previous bearers have even gone comatose. The more he took on, the more extreme the issues became. It often took a lot to pull him back into the waking world. At first he only needed smelling salts, but then it took more and more, and soon I was using a whole host of chemicals and tinctures to get him back on his feet. Hence the trunk.”

“Oh,” he said. “I see. I do know more about how the song worked, but… it’s getting so hard to remember it now. I know Stanley couldn’t speak because then the echoes would come rushing out. But how was it that he performed it in the fourth act?”

“That’s right,” said Colette. “I was on stage with both of you every time, and I always thought it was
you
, Harry! I never saw Stanley do a thing.”

Silenus smirked. “You didn’t, did you?”

“No. How was he singing it?”

Silenus took a cigar out of his pocket and lit it with a burning branch from the fire. “Who said he was singing it?”

Colette’s brow creased as she wondered what he could mean, but George sat up. “Did he not sing it? Did he just… just hum it?”

Silenus’s smile broadened. “Very good.”

“What!” cried Colette. “He just hummed it as he played the cello? That’s all?”

“That’s all it takes,” said Silenus. “The song really only needs the tiniest opening to have an effect. That was
my
idea, I’m proud to say. Stanley—and several of the previous singers of the troupe—would hum as they played their instrument onstage, and I would conduct. And since I did nothing else, any agent of our enemies would assume it was all me. They’d never look at the other person at all. That’s how we did it, day after day, for decades, years on end. But now it’s gone.” His face grew grim again.

“You know I had to give it up, Harry,” said George. “I told you.”

“I know in my head that what you did seemed just, George,” said Silenus. “But in my heart there is no justification for what happened. At some level, there has to be an answer.”

“I’ve been as close as anyone, Harry, and I can tell you that you will never see everything,” said George. “You can never truly know.”

Silenus shook his head. “I can know. I
will
know, someday. You may have given up the First Song, but that doesn’t mean this is over.”

“What do you mean?”

“The song was sung,” said Silenus. “And what is sung must also echo. And those echoes can be collected, just as we’ve always done.”

George and Colette stared at him once they realized what he meant.

“You’re going to… to start all over again?” said Colette.

“I am,” said Silenus.

“But George used it all up! It’s all gone, Harry.”

“It may be gone, but I can find it again, in some form or another,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of practice at finding it.”

“But even if there is something to find, you won’t have anyone to carry it,” said George. “I won’t come with you, Harry. I’m done with this.”

“The ability to carry the song must surely exist somewhere outside of the Silenus line,” said Harry. “We can’t be the only ones.
Some boy or girl must be able to hold the song. If I search long enough, I’ll find a willing carrier. Then we can begin again.”

“You may have to search longer than you think,” said George.

“What makes you say that?”

He looked a little guilty. “The world is… a little bigger than it used to be.”

Colette and Silenus both turned to him. “What do you mean?” asked Colette.

“When I put it all back, I put it
all
back,” said George. “Even the parts that were lost, both long ago and recently. The parts you let vanish, Harry, and the parts lost in the First Days. They are out there again, somewhere. If you come at them the right way.” He smiled a little at Silenus. “When I gave up the song the world might have lost a little magic, that’s true. But I think it may have gained another one. A winter traded for a spring.”

“Wait, so you just… stuck them back in somewhere?” said Silenus.

“They were supposed to be there, before the wolves devoured them,” George said. “They were in the First Song, and were waiting to be sung when I performed it again. It was the only right thing to do. And with the time I’ve bought, those places will remain unharmed for a long, long while.”

“But… but what will people think?” asked Colette. “What will happen to everyone? Those people and places, they’ve been gone for so long!”

“It will definitely be an interesting time to live in,” said George. “Think of all the stories out there, waiting to be told. I’m looking forward to it.”

“It doesn’t matter to me,” said Silenus. “I don’t care where the boundaries end, or what lands the echoes reside in. I’ll always keep looking for the song.”

“Forever, Harry?” asked George.

“Until I no longer have to,” said Silenus. “Until I know.”

George and Colette tried to persuade him otherwise, but he would not listen. “I have done this for so much longer than either of you,” he told them. “To me, it’s not a lifetime. Just another day, perhaps another week.”

In the afternoon they all went back to his office door, which still stood open in the side of the rock. “A shame,” said Silenus, gesturing to where the great black door had once hung. “But it’s not necessary. It was mostly for decoration.”

He turned to them, and said, “George, I don’t know if there’s a train station at Lake Champlain, but I’m sure there’s something. It’s just east of here, you can’t miss it. You should be safe there, and warm.” Then he turned to Colette, opened his mouth, and faltered. The two of them looked at each other, and George grew aware that there were many things going unsaid.

He left them to make their goodbyes in private. He realized now, all too late, that the two of them were very close. How could he not have seen it among all their interactions, all their business discussions? Despite their different ages, it was obvious they were lovers of a very intense and contrary sort.

George glanced back and saw they were holding hands and staring into the open door together. Silenus said something to her. Then Colette shook her head, and they let each other go.

George returned as Silenus stepped through the door into his office. He fetched their bags from behind his desk and handed them off to each of them. He said, “It’s always possible we will see each other again.”

“Yes, I suppose it is,” said George.

“But unlikely,” said Silenus. “I doubt if either of you will ever visit where I am going.”

“Where are you going?” asked Colette.

He smiled slightly. “To where I must. To the far places at the end
of the sky, and perhaps beyond. I’ll resume my chase, and keep doing so until I can’t.”

“Are you really sure you want to do this, Harry?” she asked.

“I have never been surer, my dear,” he said. “It’s what I’ve always done. And it may be what I’ll always do. Perhaps it’s what I deserve.”

“I was once told by someone that we must be the authors of our own lives,” said George. “Was that a lie?”

Harry grew solemn. “Perhaps it is,” he said. “And perhaps it isn’t. And then again, perhaps it is a little bit of both.”

Then, with one last smile, he stepped back. “You and I both know you’re not my son,” he said to George. “But I do think you’ve made a fine addition to the family.” The sides of the door began to tremble and the stone started to grow together. The door shrank until it was a narrow crack, and through it George saw Harry step away and sit down in the chair behind his desk very, very slowly, the groaning motions of an old man. He swiveled around and put his feet up below the broken bay window, staring out at the darkness as he had so many times before. Then the stone fused together and he was gone.

Colette and George tramped back to Lake Champlain together. It was a long hike, and they were both very filthy and ragged by the end of it. When they finally found a hotel they bathed and changed and went to find the train station.

“Where will you be going, George?” Colette asked.

“Home,” he said. “To Rinton.”

“Why? I thought you wanted to tour vaudeville and see the world, performing.”

“I did tour vaudeville,” he said. “And I did see the world. And I’ve already given my greatest performance, Colette. But no one heard it.”

“I heard it,” said Colette. “A little.”

He smiled. “I suppose that’s enough, then.”

“How did you do it, George? I thought the wolves weren’t subject to the song at all. They could be repelled by it, but not changed.”

“It was a matter of making something out of nothing, I suppose,” he said. “And of performance. When the song was first sung, the wolves didn’t hear it. They only came alive after. This time, they listened. And no one can witness an act of creation and walk away unchanged. Not even the wolves.” His smile left, and he stared ahead sadly. “I hope what I did was just. But it seemed the only thing to do.”

“I’m sure it was.”

“Maybe. All I want to do now is go home.” He paused. “You could come with me.”

“I could,” she agreed.

“It might be peaceful there for you.”

“It might.”

“But you won’t,” said George.

“No,” she said. “I’m afraid I won’t, George. You know, Harry might not have been your father, but you two are very alike.”