Song of the Spirits (95 page)

“Lainie? What’s wrong? Lainie?”

One of the guests rushing past the entrance to the room answered for her. “That Maori witch killed a man.”

“Nonsense, he’s not dead,” William Martyn said, supporting Kura, who was completely disoriented. She could have kept herself on her feet without him, but he felt he should be prepared to assist her when the magic—or whatever it was—had drained from her unnaturally rigid body. “He’s just had a shock. But how that happened…”

“Find an explanation among yourselves,” said Julian Redcliff, who was rapidly gaining esteem in Timothy’s eyes. He had brought Elaine, who had come completely unraveled, and Kura, in her agitated state, into the safety of his bedroom. He scored points with William as well by producing a bottle of whiskey right away. With an awestruck look at the flute in Kura’s hands, he took another deep drink himself before taking his leave. “I’m going to sally out and calm the hysterical. My
wife chief among them. Perhaps afterward, you can explain to me how you knock a grown man to the floor with a flute. To be honest, this is the first time that art has really impressed me.”

“I don’t know either,” Kura said, reaching for the bottle. “I have no idea. When the man began to threaten Lainie, and she looked like she was about to fall down dead with terror, I just started playing. Hoping to draw William over, really. He can’t resist the spirit voice. I thought if I played a bit of it that he would come, thinking he needed to feed the guests a line.” Kura laughed nervously. “But then the man reacted so strangely. The flute clearly terrified him. So, naturally, I kept playing.”

“What sort of song was that anyway?” William asked. “Some kind of conjuration?”

“Now you’re being absurd, William.” Kura shook her head. “It was a lamentation for the dead. From a
haka
Caleb wrote down. But we thought it too sad for the program, and it’s quite difficult to play. The volume works for a room, but it would not fill a hall.”

“So Sideblossom became completely hysterical because he heard a sort of… er… keen?” Timothy asked incredulously.

Kura nodded. “You could put it that way. The equivalent would be if a Maori man were to collapse because a
pakeha
played “Amazing Grace.”

“And the curse?” Timothy continued. “I hear that you said something afterward.”

Kura blushed. “I can’t translate that. But it’s… well, a
makutu
, an insult. I can assure you that something along those lines gets said every day among jealous men or brats without any consequences—other than maybe causing one of them to punch the other in the nose.”

“And what did
you
say?” Timothy said, turning to Lainie. “Didn’t you also add something at the end?”

“Me?” Lainie started as though woken from a gloomy dream. “I hardly know any Maori. I said what came to mind just then. Something that roughly means, ‘Thank you, you also have a very good-looking dog.’”

“That explains everything, of course,” remarked William.

“But the Maori woman who manages the Sideblossom household also has a
putorino
,” Elaine said. She spoke without inflection, as she always did when she recalled her time on Lionel Station. “And I hated her, because whenever she would play, Thomas seemed to fly into a rage, and then he would be even crueler than usual. But I don’t know if it was the spirit voice. I never listened that closely.”

“She probably couldn’t,” said Kura. “It’s not easy. My mother taught me to do it. And I didn’t find it scary. Marama would play the spirit voice for me when I couldn’t sleep. Then she would say the spirits sang me to sleep.”

“Emere was Thomas’s nanny. Maybe she did it the other way around?” Elaine reflected. “Perhaps she scared him with it?”

Timothy shrugged. “Whatever the case, we’ll probably never know. Maybe he was just scared that Elaine would sic Callie on him. He deserved it. Though he may be terrified now, I’ll nonetheless feel better when we put a few thousand miles between us and these crazy people. I’m just sorry about your concert, Kura. After this evening, no one is going to come.”

William grinned. “I wouldn’t count on that.”

A
round ten the next morning, the hotel’s business manager appeared with an urgent request to be allowed to bring fifty more seats into the concert hall.

“It might affect the acoustics, and the crowd cannot be good for their concentration, but people keep rushing in. This morning there were a few remaining tickets, but they were gone by five after nine. Now they’ve lined up downstairs, and we don’t have any more seats.”

Kura graciously gave permission for the new seats. Elaine did not care one way or the other. William beamed, and Timothy realized he did not understand the world anymore.

Around noon, the man returned with a bottle of sparkling wine and the offer to let them spend another night in the hotel free of charge as long as the artists would give a second concert on Monday.

“All of our rooms have been booked as well. People are hoping to catch something from their rooms. People keep outbidding each other for the rooms near the hall. I don’t know what happened yesterday at your reception, but everyone seems to have gone mad about your concert.”

William promised to consider the matter as he set out with Kura, who was in high spirits, to explore the city and investigate the situation. Kura showed no sign of stage fright; she was wholly in her element.

Elaine was preoccupied by matters of a completely different nature. She had learned that the Sideblossoms were staying in the same hotel, a circumstance that nearly paralyzed her. Elaine could not be convinced to even step out of her room until it could no longer be avoided. She entrenched herself in Timothy’s bed and started at every noise. Though she would have liked to post Roly in front of the door to stand guard,
Timothy waved off that suggestion. Roly had already spent the entire previous afternoon in the room with his boss. He was now eager to see the city, the famous bay, and some whales, if possible.

Timothy put a few dollars in his hand for a boat ride, explaining, “You can’t see anything from the shore.” Roly thanked him profusely and left with the promise to be back in time for the concert.

“Weren’t the Sideblossoms supposed to leave today?” Timothy asked hesitantly as Elaine crawled under the blanket. “God knows they must have better things to do with the death in their family than linger around here scaring you.”

“Thomas can’t travel; you heard it yourself.” Elaine had gleaned this information from the business manager, who had carried on at length about how he could have rented the Sideblossoms’ suite three times over that day. But the invalid had suffered a breakdown, so Zoé Sideblossom had been forced to extend their stay. “And you cannot simply toss the people out of their room, you understand,” the business manager had said.

“I don’t understand why he still scares you,” Kura said impatiently. The Martyns had returned late that afternoon and were perishing to relay the news they had heard. Both of them rolled their eyes when Elaine instead delivered her report on the Sideblossoms in a trembling voice.

“If it comes to it, I’ll give you the flute. You can blow into it once and pay him another compliment about his nice dog, and he’ll fall right over again. Though the man is clearly crazy, he’s completely harmless. You said yourself that he’s too sick to even leave his room. But you should hear what they’re saying in town. The way they look at me! Even Mrs. Redcliff seems a little… superstitious.”

“Some people are saying Kura’s music has the power to curse, while others are going on about its miraculous healing qualities,” William said, reveling in his wife’s sudden fame. “Either way, everyone wants to catch a glimpse of her—but then, when she appears, they make an awestruck circle around her. It’s unbelievable! Shall we change now,
dear? The first people will probably be arriving soon, and we need to think of our strategy for the reception after the concert.”

The Martyns floated out of the room. The spirits were undoubtedly on their side.

Timothy gave Elaine a pained look. “Lainie, is it very important to you that I be present for the concert tonight? I know you’ll play beautifully and look ravishing. But after these stories of miraculous healings, people are going to stare at me like a calf with two heads.”

For the first time that day, Elaine forgot her own panic and noticed the tense, narrow face of her beloved. Timothy had lost more weight in the last few days. The excitement, the renewed injuries, and the arduous journey had exhausted his strength. He looked as though he could not stand to suffer another shock or any further indignities.

Elaine kissed him. “I don’t mind if you stay here. I’ll be right back up afterward anyway. I’m not going to subject myself to that reception. Kura will manage it just fine on her own. And as far as stage fright goes, I’m well aware that it doesn’t even matter whether someone plays the piano next to Kura tonight or a seal balances a ball. People are only coming hoping to see a wonder.”

Timothy smiled. “In that respect, a seal might even be better. She could control it with the flute like a snake charmer. I can hear you two from here anyway. Roly and I were able to enjoy the rehearsal yesterday. So remember, you won’t be alone!”

The business manager had pulled off the remarkable feat of packing two hundred fifty paying guests into the concert hall. Before Kura and Elaine took the stage, William had feared the rumbling in the audience would drown out the music. But once the girls had appeared and Kura had said a few words of introduction, one could have heard a pin drop.

Likewise, the fear that people would quickly lose interest if a miracle did not occur by the end of the first piece proved unfounded. On the contrary, Kura took her audience captive. She gave the performance
of her life, and by halfway through the concert, no one was thinking of curses and miracles anymore; they had simply given themselves over to Kura’s magic. She swept Elaine right along with her. Seeming to truly comprehend the meaning of their music for the first time, Elaine finally put her heart into her playing and was hardly outshone by Kura.

Even Timothy, who now knew the program down to its last note, noticed the difference. He was standing on his room’s balcony, letting the hypnotic summons wash over him and enjoying the breathtaking view of the bay and the lights of Blenheim. The melancholy of the
haka
Kura had selected for the concert’s midpoint touched him. Timothy was tired and dejected. Though he yearned to be far away, he keenly felt the fear of failure. He would rise to the challenge—but what would he do if they wanted him as little in Europe as they did here? In Greymouth, he could follow Caleb’s example and crawl back to his parents’ house if all else failed, keeping himself occupied in one way or another in an effort to give his life some meaning. But in Wales—with a young family and no income?

Roly followed him onto the balcony and picked up on his gloomy state of mind.

“What is it, Mr. Lambert?” he asked shyly. “Are you in pain?”

“Just fretting, Roly,” Timothy said quietly. “How was your day? Did you see any whales?”

Roly nodded energetically. “It was unbelievable, Mr. Lambert! They’re so gigantic! But so peaceful. I was scared to death at first when one of them swam toward our tiny boat.”