25

Moira

Moira felt awkward. She had her arms wrapped around Jakob, left hand on his elbow, right holding a bow. Jakob had the fiddle tucked under his chin, the neck balanced on his left thumb.

Foss pranced around them. “Good, good. Pull your elbow up a little, human girl. Good.”

“Let’s get on with it, Foss,” Moira said.

“We will begin when you are ready. And I will say when you are ready.” Foss looked at her critically. “I would rather not have you two miss a note and turn me into a cuttlefish.”

“A what?” Jakob asked.

“A cousin of an octopus,” Moira said. “Don’t you know anything?”

Foss sighed. “All right, we will try a simple song.”

“But we still don’t know how to play this thing,” Moira said. “Is it a fiddle or a harp? A sitar or a guitar? Techniques differ, you know. Pluck, strum, bow…”

“You are musicians,” the fox shot back.

“Well, I am.” Moira frowned at the back of Jakob’s head. “He’s a pop star.”

“Hey!” Jakob said.

“Sorry, Jakob,” she said, “but it’s true. You’re not a real musician.”

“And you are? Because you play classical?”

The tone of his voice set her teeth on edge. She’d dealt with this kind of thing before. “Look, every teenager who strums a guitar thinks he’s the next…” She paused, realizing she didn’t know who teenage guitarists would want to be. “Andrés Segovia,” she finished lamely.

“Andrés who?”

“See!” Moira turned to Foss. “One of the greatest guitarists of all time, and he doesn’t even know the name.” Sneering at Jakob, she said, “Because Andrés Segovia was a classical guitarist.”

Jakob’s face burned bright red. He opened his mouth to retort but Foss interrupted, barking his annoyance at them.

“You both know what music is, and how to make it.” He sighed again. “Now pay attention.”

“What are they talking about?” Galen said to Erik. “And who are they talking to?”

“Haven’t got it yet, big brother?” Erik paused. “The fox speaks in their heads.” He smiled. “And mine.”

“I don’t hear anything.”

“He only speaks to real musicians,” Moira snapped.

Galen glowered. “And what do you call me?”

“Front man,” Erik said.

Foss ignored the exchange as he circled around them. When he spoke again, it was only to Moira and Jakob. “The fiddle is in the huldastilt tuning. Most hardanger fiddles would be useless after playing a song in this tuning. But the Fossegrim’s fiddle is an exceptional instrument. The body is of wood cut from Yggdrasil, the world tree. Bones of the great worm, Fafnir, line its fingerboard. The playing strings are wound from the guts of the cats that pulled Frigga’s carriage; the understrings forged from the same metal as Sigmund’s sword.”

“Yada, yada, yada,” Jakob said. “Get on with it.”

But Moira had dealt with composers and conductors easily as arrogant as Foss. The only thing one could do was wait patiently until they grew tired of the sound of their own voices. Eventually, they’d want to hear some music.

“Little Doom, you will guide the melody with your nimble left hand.”

“While I flail madly away with the bow?” Moira said. This time she couldn’t help herself. Standing with her arms around Jakob was embarrassing if they weren’t actually playing music.

Jakob twisted to look at her and shook his head.

Shut up Moira, she told herself.

Foss didn’t react to her sarcasm. Instead he said, “You have had some training in bowed instruments. I can see it in your fingers.”

Moira gasped. How had he known? She hadn’t actually played a bowed instrument since elementary school where she’d taken two years of Suzuki lessons on a quarter-size violin.

Ignoring her reverie, the fox continued his instructions. “Do not rely on the bow overmuch. The hardanger is different from anything you have played before. And the Fossegrim hardanger even more so.” He finally stopped circling and stood before them. “I will put the song in your mind. You have only to let it out through your fingers.”

Moira’s eyes widened. That’s exactly how she felt at times, reading a new piece, or playing an old familiar one—as if the songs filled her to bursting, and shot out of her fingers on to the strings.

“Ah,” said Foss, “you begin to understand.”

Moira nodded.

“Then let us play. This is ‘Fille Vern,’ a simple dance tune.” He bared his teeth. “I am sure your trolls will enjoy it.”

Just like that, she and Jakob began playing. And as Foss had said, there was a song in their minds, and now they were releasing it onto the fiddle.

Moira’s right hand with the bow sawed back and forth in two-four time. Jakob’s fingers moved confidently over the strings. The rhythm was contagious, and Moira began tapping her foot in time. When she found she had some small control over her right arm, she leaned into it on the nearly atonal bridge, adding some accents that were all her own.

Foss raised an eyebrow at her.

Grinning her defiance at him, she thought: You may call the tune, but we still play it our way.

Then Jakob played a trill that Moira was certain Foss hadn’t put in their minds, and the fox’s other eyebrow went up, too.

Moira laughed out loud then, laughed for the sheer joy of playing, for the pure sound of music and the feeling it gave her. And Jakob laughed with her, their limbs moving in concert, the music flowing as if they were one person.

The song ended too soon. Staring at the back of Jakob’s head, Moira thought, Maybe I judged him too quickly. And when he twisted back again to look at her, she shot him a smile so bright it made his cheeks blossom red. Sorry, she thought. But she didn’t say it out loud.

Sitting on his haunches, Foss stared at them. The seconds stretched into minutes and the fox’s eyes got darker and his nose twitched. Suddenly he reminded Moira of the Maestro who often waited like that, stretching the agony out, before finally commenting on the section just played.

“Well,” he said finally, “it seems that the two of you are more ready than I had imagined.”

Moira was pleased and she felt Jakob’s shoulders relax.

Standing, Foss balanced himself awkwardly on his hind feet. “Let us begin again.”

Moira smiled to herself. That was just what Maestro liked to say: Let us begin again.

This time the song that crept into her mind seemed much more subtle and complex than the dance number they’d just played. Its time signature was some bizarre compound of prime numbers. The melody was haunting and insistent, and the tones that rang from the fiddle’s understrings accented it in odd and unfamiliar ways.

She watched Foss carefully as they played, as if he were a conductor. And in two ways he was, she realized, not only leading them in the music but also soon he’d be conducting them home.

But then she noticed something truly odd. Unlike a human orchestra conductor who beats out the time, who cues the musicians in, who works for the good of the music, the fox was paying absolutely no attention to them. Instead, he was focused on himself. As the music swelled, he began to change. His red hair disappeared, receding like a tide into his hide. His nose and ears shrank. His back legs grew bigger, longer, developed knees, flexible ankles. When his paws turned into hands, he let out a gasp and flexed his fingers reverently. Only his eyes remained the same, unreadable black orbs. The changes came slowly at first, then faster and faster as the tune continued.

As her bow and Jakob’s fingers danced over the fiddle and its strings, strange scenes leaped into Moira’s head: a long wooden boat crashing into heavy dark seas, rows of burly men heaving at the oars; a lone figure capering around a bonfire, fiddle in hand; a waterfall with a cave behind it. She recognized the last spot. It was the cave Foss lived in, but there was no worn path leading to it, only a scruff of grass. The trees surrounding the river, another painted backdrop, barely saplings.

Suddenly, Moira realized she was seeing through Foss’s eyes. Or at least, through his memories. Somehow, to give him back his old form, they were playing his entire history.

Jakob turned his head and stared wide-eyed back at her. Moira guessed he’d experienced the same burst of history. She tried to speak aloud to him but she found she couldn’t. Ride it out, she thought.

Jakob looked away.

Then she saw that Foss’s change was nearly complete. Though small pieces of red fur still stood out on his pale skin—a beard, a mustache, patches at his wrist—they were fading fast. He looked almost like a normal person, Normal, except for those eyes.

Moira expected the song to end when the transformation ended. But she and Jakob kept playing, even as Foss stood, now an alarmingly naked young man of maybe twenty, with long teeth and rust-red hair.

Why? Moira thought before answering her own question: Because we’re not done.

With a nod from Foss the conductor, the tune’s tempo doubled, and Moira suddenly felt something pouring out of her. Energy, life force, something. Whatever it was, she didn’t like that it was leaving her—and apparently entering Foss. She looked up into his dark eyes and he smiled the same toothy grin he had when he’d been a fox.

Oh no, she thought, horrified. He’s tricked us! He never once intended to let us go.

As they fiddled, their tune more frantic than before, the scenes from Foss’ early life rushed through Moira’s brain. She saw him turning from fox to man and back again. Watched a young tree-tall Aenmarr knock the fiddle from Foss’s grip mid-transformation. Saw Foss swearing eternal revenge on the troll and all his kind as Aenmarr capered away, laughing uproariously.

“Yes,” Foss said, able to speak aloud for now he once again had a human mouth and human vocal chords. “You will never leave this place. And I am truly sorry. You are both very talented musicians.”

Hearing this, Erik lunged at the fox.

With a sweep of his arm, Foss hurled a wave of sound that caught Erik in the chest, sending him flying into the wall. His head hit with a thud and he crumpled to the ground.

Foss spoke louder now for the fiddle was practically screaming in its quest for higher notes. “I could have taught you music such as you have never heard. Music to sway the minds of kings and change the hearts of queens. Music to command armies and set foes to flight. Music to make graybeards dance and the lame to walk.”

He’d hardly finished, when Galen jumped at him, aiming a sloppy overhand blow for his chin. Foss shouted a single syllable. It seemed to stop Galen in his tracks and he looked at his chest for a moment, then collapsed.

“Blood and music flow much the same,” Foss said. “And I need a fair amount of both to complete my change.”

The troll women stirred and Foss simply growled at them. Selvi shot Moira a look full of resignation and just a touch of I told you so, before clutching her boy to her bosom and subsiding with the other two wives.

No! Moira thought. We have to stop him. I have to stop him.

She tried to move independently, tried to change the song as she had with the dance tune. Tried to change keys, meter, time signature. Anything. But the song had her fully in its grip, and she couldn’t substitute a single note or phrase. She looked at Jakob, saw him gritting his teeth and grimacing at his left hand as if he were trying the same thing.

And having no more luck than I.

“Child of man,” Foss said. Then grinned. “And woman. It will all be over in moments. And I do thank you for all your help.” He bowed low, like a courtier in an ancient court. “I quite literally could not have done it without you.”

Moira raged and screamed internally, all the while, her right arm bowing the notes that would soon bring about the end of her life and those around her.

Notes! She kept her face clear of her excitement. That’s it! She’d suddenly remembered how annoyed Foss had been when she’d whistled off key. As if the merest nonmusical sound didn’t just bother him. It caused him actual discomfort.

She abandoned her attempt to control her arm. In fact, she gave it even more fully to the Fossegrim, thinking: Let him have it.

Relaxing, she threw herself into the music completely. Well, almost completely. She let Foss have her arms, her legs, her body. Let him have everything but one thing. And she concentrated on that thing, concentrated harder than she ever had over a difficult piece of music, or a tricky fingering on the harp. Harder than she ever had for any test or practice or performance. Concentrated every part of her being solely on her own mouth.

Then with one massive effort, she managed to croak out one word.

“Notes.”

Foss arched an eyebrow. “Notes? I do not understand you, human child.” He shrugged. “Not that it will matter.”

Moira could feel herself fading, disappearing even as she kept bowing. As for Jakob, she could hear his breath rattling in his chest. But his fingers still flew over the guts and bone of the fiddle’s neck.

Foss stretched his new arms, hunched his sinewy shoulders. “It feels good to wear my true skin once more.”

Moira ignored him. Ignored the pain in her chest and her arms, and the fading, sinking feeling. She ignored everything but the need to send that one word across the room. Across to the troll boys nestled in their mother’s arms.

“Notes,” she rasped.

Buri looked up at her. She tried to encourage him, make him understand. But that effort made her concentration lapse, and she lost control of her mouth. She knew she wouldn’t have the strength to try again.

I never even got to play the new Berlin piece. Even as she had the thought, she realized what a stupid thing it was to regret. What about all the other things she’d never get to do? I’ll never graduate, never move to New York and join a big symphony, never get married, never … She would have sobbed if she’d had control of her tear ducts.

Just then Jakob—who must have understood her—spoke up. He’d saved up his energy for three whole words. “Arri. Buri. Notes!”

The troll boys looked up at him, then back at their mothers.

“Sing!” Selvi encouraged them.

“Be singing your notes,” Trigvi added.

“I do not be knowing why, boys,” Botvi said, “but sing!”

And grinning widely, Arri and Buri burst into glorious song, their astonishing lack of pitch topped only by their truly horrific timbre. It was awful and terrific at the same time.

Foss flinched and Moira felt a rip in the web of music that held her.

The fox shook a fist at the trolls and Arri went flying, but the spell missed Buri, and he sang louder to make up for his fallen brother.

That moment gave Moira an opening. She managed to twitch her bow arm, skipping the note that should have been there.

Jakob, too, was loosed for that moment, and he played an octave and two, where a fifth was called for. It was truly awful.

Screaming, Foss glared at them, but the three troll women suddenly lent their horrendous screeching to the cacophony and Foss dropped to one knee as if punched in the stomach.

“Oh, by Frigg and Freya,” he groaned. “That is horrible.”

And it is, Moira thought. Horrible and wonderful.

Arri stood, shook himself off, and began singing “Hang down, Drool, hang down Drool,” over and over at the top of his lungs.

The troll women chanted the “Little Doom Song,” while young Buri just howled one long note until he collapsed unconscious, having forgotten to take a breath.

Blood ran out of Foss’ ears and he clamped his hands over them to staunch the flow. Then standing, he shuffled backward toward the larder. On the way he slipped on the water that Moira had wrung from the cloths and this time went down on both knees. When he tried to stand again, all the energy he had stolen from Moira and Jakob rushed out of him like a river in spate, and flowed back into them. He only made it to one hairy knee before Galen and Erik scraped themselves off the floor and knocked him over with a double-flying tackle.

Then the troll women jumped on him as well, and the sound that he made as he went down under them was something like a tire deflating.

In seconds it was over. Foss was gagged and hog-tied with two troll boys sitting on him for good measure. He was not fully human but not fully fox, either, just somewhere in between.

“Hey, girl—what’s going on?”

Moira looked over in surprise. Helena was sitting up and rubbing her eyes. Her crown had fallen off and her dreads were all askew. “Moira?” she asked tremulously. “Where in God’s green world are we?”

The Dairy Princesses had begun to awaken.