Hethan is making gestures at me. The bar has got busier while we were talking, and at some point an interrupt in Hethan’s mind triggered, saying ‘there needs to be music now.’

I get the message. “Sorry guys. I’ve got to earn my keep,” I excuse myself and stand to make my way to the small stage. The moment I put a foot on the stage, it seems, the noise level in the bar drops. ~Oh shit,~ I think, and turn around to see a room full of expectant faces. ~Oh deep shit.~

I manage to unfreeze myself and smile, trying to point out to myself that it’s really not that many people. Only, oh, thirty or forty? “Hello,” I say. From some deep recess of my subconscious I’m pushed to bob a little curtsey. “I haven’t played for an audience before so… be kind and I’ll try not to suck too much.”

Confused faces, except for Kerilas and Lotan, damn them, who are grinning broadly. I don’t think Jeodine uses ‘suck’ in that context. “I mean, I’ll try to play well.” I get out.

I think I’d better just play. I only know one song, so I find a way to hold the box-harp while standing. It has a dent in its bottom that sits comfortably at my waist. I start playing Selkie’s Lament again. I just try to forget the audience and concentrate on the music, and out it comes. Again, like before, it’s not removed from me. I remember learning it. I remember playing it before. I remember playing on deck on a warm summer evening and a still moonlit sea. My eyes are closed, and I think I’m moving a little to the music. I have to not think about that or I’ll get self-conscious. I have to concentrate on what my fingers are doing, and play.

Selkie’s Lament is not a short song, but eventually it has to end and I open my eyes. Everyone is still watching me, and the bar is quiet. I smile as if to say ‘that’s it,’ and a sigh ripples through the bar. I think that means they liked it. Lotan claps once, then a second time, hesitantly, realising no-one else is joining him, before Kerilas thumps his arm to make him stop.

“Thank you,” I say. “I’m going to try something different now. This might not work. This is something I heard a long way away. I haven’t tried to play it before.” I smile again and concentrate on the box-harp and see if I can play the opening bars to Street Spirit. I fumble the first time and try again starting from a different note. It comes out wrong again, and dissonant, but I stare at the instrument and suddenly figure out why. The notes are spaced differently. No wonder it sounded strange. You probably couldn’t even play Selkie’s Lament on a piano, for the same reason. It would sound out of tune. “Sorry sorry,” I say aloud. “That’s not going to work. All right, I’m going to stop now so Hethan can sell you more drinks and food.” That gets smiles and a few laughs. “And I’ll come and play some more later on.”

I escape off the stage and make it as far as the table Kerilas and Lotan are sitting at. “Fuck,” I say. “That was embarrassing.”

“No, it was good, the one you played,” Kerilas said.

“What happened with the other one? What was it?” Lotan asks.

“That was supposed to be Street Spirit. You can’t play it on this.”

“Why not?”

“I need to get hold of Jalese,” I mutter, turning away from the table to look for Jalese. Hethan himself is taking orders at the tables, as is another young woman I haven’t been introduced to yet.

“The musical scale is different,” Kerilas explains to Lotan behind me.

“I should’ve thought of it,” I mutter.

“You haven’t had musical training back home, have you?” Kerilas asks.

I shake my head, then turn to look at him. “Have you?”

“Parents made me had piano lessons when I was younger,” he says, shrugging. “I didn’t keep it up. You should talk to Sam about it.”

“What do you mean it’s different?” Lotan asks.

“You know what a piano keyboard looks like?” Kerilas explains.

“Yeah…”

“Okay, so a simple scale is,” and he sings quietly, “do re me fa so la te do” up the octave. “Eight notes, got it?”

“And the black notes,” I add. “Where is Jalese?” Helping Samila, I remember, slightly annoyed.

“Yes, and the black notes,” Kerilas agrees laconically. “Tani, can you play a scale on that thing?”

“Um…” I have to shift my attention properly. “Sure.” I sit and rest the box-harp on my thigh and play a scale.

“See?” Kerilas says, to both of us. “That’s sixteen notes, total, from one note to the same note higher up. And that’s a straight sequence isn’t it? There’s no major or minor keys.”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Yes, I’m right. I remember,” Kerilas says. Of course, it’s reasonable to think that he has memories of music too. “May I?” he asks, holding out his hand for the box-harp.

I actually hesitate for a moment, then I shake myself of the silliness and hand it to him. He hefts it, and shifts his sitting posture so he can rest it on his own thigh and plays a few notes, a scale, then a phrase out of Selkie’s Lament, then something I haven’t heard before, played with a completely different fingering technique.

“What’s that?”

“I don’t know,” he says, sounding very distant.

“It brings back memories doesn’t it?” I say.

He stops playing and passes the box-harp back to me in silence. “Yes,” he says, quietly. Then he clears his throat. I can only guess that his memories are less pleasant than mine. “You could re-tune it to play our music, I reckon,” he says. “You’d have to keep tuning it back and forth though, which would suck. Be better to get a second one. There’s Jalese if you’re still looking for her,” he adds, looking past my shoulder. “Why?”

I turn to look. Jalese’s appeared at the bottom of the stairs. “Oh, finally. I need her to teach me more Jeodin songs,” I explain, and get up and head through the bar towards her.

“I have to serve food. Hethan’s–”

“Yeah I know. It’ll just take a minute. You saw how quickly I picked it up last time.”

“And your friend’s upstairs in her room. She’s upset about something.”

“Uh…” Samila. Damn it, I don’t have time for this. “Did she say what?”

Jalese shakes her head. “She wouldn’t tell me. She says I won’t understand.”

I look back towards the bar. “I’ve got to play. We can’t afford to lose this work.”

“I know.” She bites her lip, thinking. “You really don’t remember any other songs?”

I shake my head. “But it’s really quick. You just have to remind me. I can’t keep playing Selkie’s Lament all night. People are going to notice!”

“Oh that depends how much wine they pour through their gills,” Jalese comments dryly.

I blink a couple of times at the unfamiliar idiom. “I don’t think it’s that kind of place,” I say.

“Oh, suddenly you know all about it?” she quips back, with a smile to remind me she’s not being mean.

“Well, there are kids in there. People aren’t going to get really drunk around them are they?” My reasoning actually makes her hesitate. “Look, you could’ve taught me a song by now instead of explaining why you haven’t got time to teach me a song,” I point out.

“Um–”

I play my trump. “Otherwise I’ll have to pull you onstage in front of everyone to teach me,” I say.

“You wouldn’t!”

I grin. “Look, I’ll talk to Kerilas. He can go up and see Samila, find out what’s up.”

“I don’t think that’s appropriate!”

“No, it’s… It’s all right. He’s her friend. They’ve known each other a long time. Longer than she’s known me anyway.”

She looks at me oddly. “But he’s Reki,” she points out, as if it should be obvious. The word for a dark elf.

I stare at her. “So? You were on a sloop with him for four days–”

“It’s different at sea. The ship comes first.” Her words have the weight of proverb. She stares at me critically. “How could you possibly forget that? You’re Neri.”

“Kerilas is all right,” I insist, trying not to get sidetracked. “He wouldn’t do anything. He’s my friend, I trust him.”

“He’s too familiar with you, Miss,” Jalese says, interjecting some of that formality she used on our first day.

“Me?” I stare back at her. “You think me and him… No. No, we’re not like that.”

“I should hope not. It’s not correct.”

We’re just looking at each other. Neither of us know what to say any more.

“Not like what?” Samila says, making me jump. She must have come down the stairs quietly while we were arguing. She’s standing at the bottom, almost hanging onto the wall, almost hiding behind it as if she might bolt back upstairs.

“Nothing,” Jalese says. “Are you feeling better?”

Samila shrugs. She’s clean and her hair’s practically shining like a black grand piano, and she’s wearing a pretty, if a little folksy dress with a bodice front that on her creates quite a cleavage. I’m almost envious. “Just thought I’d better get it over with,” she says.

“What?” Jalese wonders.

But finally I get it. “Ohh.” This would be the first time Lee’s ever worn female clothing then, as opposed to the anonymous tunic and trousers we had from the camp. “You look great,” I say, trying to be reassuring.

“R-Really?”

“Really. Doesn’t she, Jalese?”

“What? Yes, I suppose so. You look very pretty. Why, is there someone here you’re trying to impress?” She gives me a look. I shake my head minutely.

“I feel like a right fucking narner,” Samila says in English.

“You don’t look it,” I promise her. “Trust me.”

“How can you just–” Samila starts, in Jeodine, then catches herself with a glance to Jalese. “How can you just do this girl stuff like it’s nothing?” she asks me in English.“

“It’s not nothing,” I say carefully, replying in English. “It’s just what we have to do okay?”

“I know,” she sighs morosely.

“I mean, what choice do we have?” I press. “Look, you’re not going to have any problems. You look lovely. Really you do.”

She shivers and folds her arms around her breasts, as if trying to hide them.

“I just need Jalese to teach me a few more songs quickly so I can play tonight,” I continue, deliberately changing the subject and switching back to Jeodine, for Jalese’s benefit.

“Songs?”

“Yes I’m… employed,” I explain, showing Samila the box-harp.

“You’re kidding!” Her hands automatically reach for the instrument and I hand it to her. Odd that I feel no hesitation in doing so, compared to Kerilas.

“Why don’t you sit in? Kerilas said you know music, back home.”

“Uh…” She looks between Jalese and myself. “Okay.” She picks out a scale on the box-harp. “Whoah, that’s funky.” All her awkwardness seemed to have just vanished, as she engrossed herself in the instrument.

“Jalese?” I ask. “It’ll only take a little while.”

“I hate to be the one to say this,” Samila says, still plinking on the box-harp, “but there’s too many notes.”

“We noticed.”

Jalese sighs. “All right. But we can’t spend too long. Hethan’s going to get impatient as it is.” She walks off, towards the stairs to the basement. I glance at Samila and follow.

It does go quickly. There’s still that emotional tug as I catch on to each song. Strong flashbacks to times in the past when Taniel has played them. But I’m prepared for them now, and I’m focused on getting them remembered so I can go out there and play them.

“No, you have to sing this,” Jalese explains patiently, to the Dugong Song. It’s a lullaby. “People will expect it.”

“All right, I’ll try.”

“Try now.” And she starts singing the song again. I play, as I have been, and then I join in with the words, uncertainly at first but she matches me and encourages me. “That’s right,” she says, leaving me to sing alone. Only, I’m not singing alone, I realise. Samila is singing too, softly, from where she’s sitting in the corner of the store room. “Don’t stop,” Jalese whispers at me, and goes to Samila’s side. “It’s supposed to be a happy song,” she points out to Samila.

“I know.”

“It’s a children’s song. What does it remind you of?”

I don’t hear her reply. She’s talking too softly into Jalese’s ear, and I’m still singing and playing. But Jalese stands and comes back over to me. “Go upstairs and play. You’ve got enough now?” I nod. “We’ll come upstairs soon.”

“Okay.”