Chapter Twelve
Ham Sandwich and Dinner
or, It’s the End of the Prayer
The hall was narrow, darkly carpeted, leading to a long, narrow room. Posters of bands and pictures of friends were stuck to the walls jauntily. On a desk was a crystal pyramid.
“Have you heard Ham Sandwich, then?”
Shake.
“Then you haven’t really lived.” He ran a finger along the crystal, tapped it, slid, tapped, and the crystal boomed out an ear-shattering blast. Lenna covered her ears.
“Oop, forgot to adjust the EQ ...”
From down the hall, Pol shouted, “Tairn that down!”
Properly adjusted, a ghostly woman’s beautiful voice sang a hauntly song. Back at the big house Kaldi sometimes sang and hummed as he cooked, sometimes the two girls made up their little songy things, but this was different. It was Lenna’s first music. Chills took her shoulders.
“Now, if you wanted something a little wilder, I’ve the Saw Doctors--”
“No,” said Lenna quietly. “I would listen to this, sir Andy.”
Andy leaned his head to the side. “Aren’t we easily amused. Very well, Buttercup, as you wish.”
So Lenna sat in an office chair with one clay foot and listened while Andy stretched out on the bed and fidgeted impatiently. He sat up, then sat down, then stretched, then flipped over, then sat up, then sat down, but the song kept going, washing over Lenna and thundering her feelings apart. When it was over, she stood up and stretched.
“Are they done talking yet?” she asked Andy. “It’s hours past, hm?”
Andy grinned. “More like tree and a half minutes.” Lenna’s eyes became saucers and a new song began.
Four songs in, Andy took out an acoustic guitar with a scoop cut out of one side and played along.
As he played, a smell like candles and strawberry wine appeared. Magic. Looking around, Lenna saw that the music from the guitar was spinning into a thread of gold. Quickening like a cat’s tail, the golden thread curled into a line across the air, and from the line came tiny, reflective pictures: faces and landscapes and desperate storms and tiny, tiny adventures winding in front of Lenna’s eyes, all carved into the air out of the single bright gold line. At the end of the song, the gold thread became a woven knot, spilling into loops and whorls, criscrossing itself. Then it disappeared.
“Came out rather well, I thought,” mused Andy, setting aside his guitar.
Lenna stared.
“How did you do this?” she whispered. The next Ham Sandwich song started. Andy tapped it off.
“Oh, well ... little practice is all. I could teach you a chord or two, if you’re int’rested.”
She nodded.
Andy had a spare guitar, flat and very heavy and blue. He took it and gave her the giant boxy one. She lifted it. It was light, and it slid to a stop in the crook of her arm.
He taught her how to hold it, how to carry her arm.
He taught her how to curl her fingers, what the pieces of metal were.
He taught her how to press the strings and where, how to pluck and how to strum with her not-too-long fingernails.
How to combine strings into chords. E. D. A. Gloria, by Them.
And she played Gloria, bent over the cello-sized instrument, and Andy sang the letters, until evening clung to the two dormer windows.
Golden threads danced.
Kaldi knocked. “Dinner.”
“Say no more, my friend. We are there.” Andy set the guitars on their rubbery metal stands and bounced out to the kitchen. Extra leaves had been added to the table and mismatched chairs surrounded it.
“Champ, fresh farl, stew, black pudding and there’s stout, water or milk,” said Emily.
“Just water for everyone, although Lenna might have milk,” said Kaldi, giving Brugda a long, sad look. “And thank you, thank you for cooking for us, Mrs. O’Donnell,” he added.
Brugda glanced back at Kaldi, expressionless, saying nothing.
“Aaah, gives Em a chance to show off.” Pol kissed his wife. “Outdid yarself, mum.”
Lenna cleared her throat, glaring around at all the grown-ups, none of whom were telling her what they had been talking about together all this time. Talvi sat. Kaldi waited beside his chair. She cleared her throat again.
“Lozenge, dear?” Mrs. O’Donnell asked.
Frowning, Lenna marched up to Brugda. “Well?” she demanded.
There was a moment of quiet. Pol clapped his hands. “Right chu are. Thar’s a hungry lass, and no mistake.” He lifted the platter of scallioned potatoes to the table.
“No. Brugda, tell me.”
“Why don’t you tell us about your music?” said Kaldi. “It sounded very nice.”
“Brugda. What did you say about Binnan Darnan?”
The old woman sighed. “Dinner first, Little Len. Then talk. Then bed.”
“Okay.”
Pol bounced his eyebrows at Talvi good-naturedly. “Dinner indeed.”
So everyone crowded into the assortment of chairs. Bumbly bad singing vibrated from the downstairs neighbors. The table was set with all sorts of forks and napkins and cork trivets. Platters of food were passed around, buttery and earthy and spicy-smelling. They filled up their plates.
Lenna and Talvi had both got a forkful of sharp-smelling potatoes halfway to their mouths when they noticed that nobody else had dug in yet.
A brief flicker brushed Pol’s face. “So ye’re Protestant, I suppose, God’s good upon ‘em all.”
Talvi set his fork down and looked at his wife. She pursed her lips sullenly. Kaldi smiled.
“No, we’re not, Pol.” He thought a moment. “If you’d lead grace, we’d be delighted.”
Lenna secretly ate the potatoes from the end of her fork before returning it. Andy winked.
“So, if yarn’t Catholics ...” frumped Pol, one eye wrinkled shut.
“Pol!” scolded Emily.
“Let it go, dad,” said Andy. “Jost say grace and let them eat.”
Lenna itched in her seat. Darkness streamed in the windows, and the headlights of strange vehicles below splattered smudges across the walls. She felt squashed. There was so much that pressed down on her right now. The old man was the only thing that they had in this entire country to help them find Binnan Darnan and fix things.
She had to fix things.
“Um, may a good angel bless this food and this house, um, or the part of the house where Andy and Emily and Pol live, and I hope I hope I hope we will find Binnan Darnan soon,” she said as loud as she dared.
“Amen,” said Pol, smiling. Everyone followed suit.
“Huh?” said Lenna.
“It’s the end of the prayer,” whispered Aitta with a grin.
“Oh. Amen,” finished Lenna.
And thunder was everywhere. The room went dark. A buzz of blue-white lightning seared a gooey hole in a window pane and ran into the room. The sparking line touched the food, swam through the flat, touched the O’Donnells one by one, then flung itself out of the hole in the window.
It did not happen quickly, but no one else noticed. Not even Brugda. Why didn’t anyone notice?
Oh. Time had stopped again.
A second lightning bolt cut a tiny hole in the wall. At first it was hard to see, a thin white line like twitching wire. Lenna didn’t notice it until just before it hit.
It was bad lightning.
It wound loosely around Brugda and dove into her mouth.
Brugda coughed. Her eyes darkened to solid shining black and her bonneted red hair spun outward and she laughed the horrible laugh of Indaell, her mouth unhingeing and stretching down like the jaw of a snake.
Then the second bolt left and Brugda’s thin red hair settled back.
Her eyes got clearer, but not as clear as they ought to be.
The thin veneer of time unveiled the world. The light rose suddenly, ominously, and the dark retreated out the window. Talvi grinned at Lenna an
d said, “That was very good.” Aitta nodded generously. Pol, as warm as he had been before dinner had started, chopped up his round slice of purple sausage, mixed it with a few odd carrots and stuffed them down with gusto. Andy might possibly have gotten food into himself first.
It took Lenna some time to remember how hungry she had been. She looked down at her bulging plate. As she reached for a thin slice of heavy bread, she kept her eyes on her dazed sister. The holes in the wall and window were still there, a touch of smoke escaping through both of them.
All throughout dinner her eyes flicked to Brugda and the wall. Brugda had an unplaceable expression but said nothing. Lenna ate uneasily.