We Read by Rot

by Pamela Love

On last month’s Night of the Song, clouds, as they often did, walled off the full moon’s glow and the feeble gleam of the stars. Two years ago, the last of our devices’ batteries died at the same time as our last Tenor. So, we learned to read by rot.

That’s not how we navigated, though. We set out from the armory hand in hand, except for Alto’s right, which gripped the last of the swords, and Treble’s left, whose skinny fingers wrapped around one of the many remaining blank Song scrolls. Inching barefoot through the slick grass and oozing mud, our quartet felt for the safest path into the swamp to where we could find the illumination we would need for that night’s performance.

Originally, a Tenor had held the sword, but the Composer had deemed him lacking in breath control during our first command concert. Ever since that first night of horror, Alto had led the way. Thanks to her superlative memory, we reached the part of the marsh where unseen forces crafted bubbles of light from the dead, rotting vegetation beneath the murky waters. Thanks to Treble’s inexplicable luck—though how hadn’t it steered our choir clear of our nightmarish plight in the first place?—we found one of these will-o’-the-wisps sooner than we had any right to expect. Wordlessly, we released each other’s hands as he unrolled the scroll. Alto reversed her hold on the sword’s grip, touching the tip of the rusty blade to the vellum. Drawing in our collective breath, we began this month’s Song.

The will-o’-the-wisp provided us little enough brightness. Our four heads pressed together formed a bridge over which lice scuttled from Treble to Alto and back again. The rhythm of the vermin’s steps was a distraction, but our minds blocked it out. (Another Soprano had a better voice than I yet lacked the discipline to ignore the vermin and repeatedly flinched at this sensation, bringing us down to our current number from our previous quintet.)

We focused on the Song as it appeared, note by note, word by word, as the Composer created it. We dared not err in dynamics, tempo, pronunciation, or any other way. (That’s how we had lost so many of our choir, starting with every single one of our Tenors. Make of that what you will.) We could fall behind no further than six measures from the leading edge of the composition as it crept across the vellum, the dried blood on the blade turning liquid, flowing down onto the scroll where it was transformed into lyrics and melody. The Composer must not find our execution (oh, that word!) of Its composition unworthy.

Rot light won’t hold still, curse the stuff. We’d been using it for too long to be fooled by its tricky ways, however. As it drifted northward, we four followed, careful to test for soundness of ground with each step before resting our weight upon it, yet all without conscious thought. Alto’s wisdom in making us practice had saved the choir’s remaining lives more than once. And, as always, that canny singer kept watch out of the corner of her eye for the next nearest will-o’-the-wisp should this one vanish or lure us too close to deep water or quicksand.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw her sword hand trembling, which had never happened before. Alto is afraid.

Instantly, I blocked that idea. On this night of all nights, she was too strong to let fear affect her singing. Could I do any less?

Our four voices blended in flawless harmony. Every marked rest had us breathing in perfect unison.

Minutes passed. As we finished the Song, the blade Alto carried dissolved into mist, drained of blood to make the notes we sang.

Would our audience be satisfied? Composers are famously particular (though generally not lethal in their criticism) and none more so than this one in this place.

Not that night, however. Four began. Four finished. That had to suffice. There had never been any applause.

Silent, we waited until the sun clawed a path through the clouds. Only then could we retreat to our dwelling, enveloped in the memories of that night’s Song.

We trailed behind Alto to the swamp’s edge. It was what passed for dry in this world of ours. No, not our world, the Composer’s. I must remember that, whatever else I forget.

I still remember the day our college tour bus pulled off the road, so long ago, despite all our driver could do. We’d been riding so, so long. Impossibly long, now that I think of it, in ever- deepening haze. We were a choir, and as choirs do, we’d been singing, it seemed, just as long. It was the last time any of us sang because we wanted to.

Our driver bellowed as the steering wheel wrenched itself to the left, stopping the bus in some tall grass. It was dry, and sunlight actually found its way through the treetops across the road. We couldn’t resist climbing off in broad daylight for some fresh air and to stretch our legs. But the bus—and its driver, and the highway—had dissolved into mist like the swords now did. Our Composer’s command “concerts” began that night.

We called our quarters the armory. We’d found it that first day, drawn into the swamp in hopes of finding a link to civilization, or at least something to eat. Bushes growing unfamiliar berries grew by a one-room building with no door. Its walls were lined with row after row of bloodstained swords, each balanced on two hooks. Foils, the Alto had called them. She used to fence with them before our arrival here.

Now? She dropped the last remaining sword hilt onto the pile of the rest. All of us flinched as it clattered over the others onto the dirt floor, starting an avalanche of them all.

Storing the scrolls is Treble’s responsibility. Rolling this one up with his accustomed care so as not to smudge the blood-writing, he nestled it among the Composer’s work in the middle of one long shelf.

Baritone and Treble turned and walked away. “Alto, maybe there will be some other way to write the sheet music,” I told her.

“The Composer has already instructed me on how to supply Its ink next month.” So dry was her tone that it could have absorbed every drop of the swamp’s moisture.

“I could take the lead next time.” I placed my hand on her clammy shoulder.

She shook her head.

“We could toss a coin?” As if we had one. I hardly remembered what they looked like. The memory was lost, stripped from us, as so much had been, by the Composer.

“Soprano.” Though I have forgotten my true name, I will never forget the faint accent Alto placed on the final syllable of my title.

On yesterday’s Night of the Song, once again clouds shut out full moonlight and starlight both. We read by rot instead.

Joining hands, save for Alto’s right, which ended in a clenched fist—simultaneously defiant and ready to donate—and Treble’s left, his quivering fingers clutching a scroll, the four of us felt our barefoot way into the marsh. Will-o’-the-wisps were far more plentiful than usual, and larger as well. Had the Composer somehow summoned them, desiring more illumination for Its night’s work? Certainly, It knew what was going to happen to Alto.

We sang the Song. As always, we concentrated on Its words and music. Not the new source of this night’s… ink.

Wind blew the clouds away moments after we finished. Our (now) trio having been found satisfactory, I led us back to the armory. Baritone bore Alto’s emptied body over his shoulder. “Painful steps and slow,” I thought, listening to the rhythm of our feet. Normally, we cannot remember any music from our past, but those words were part of an old Christmas carol lyric. That’s what we were singing just before the bus pulled over…

“Where shall we put her?” Treble whispered shakily. It could be said that he shared Baritone’s burden, for the latest Song scroll’s music and lyrics had been written in Alto’s blood. “With the rest of the choir?”

“Tomorrow,” I said. “We need some rest. For tonight, we can sleep with her among us.” Unspoken was the understanding that next month it would be one of us who clenched the fist, on the last night we sang as a trio.

At dawn, I rose and stretched. I blinked at the sight of Treble standing over me, tears making their halting way down his cheeks. “We need to bury Alto here, in the armory.”

I blinked. “Why? Because the Composer took her blood just like the swords’?”

“No, because she died fighting It. Maybe beating It. Look.” He stabbed a finger toward the scroll’s other side.

On it was a map with a path marked through the swamp. We had never dared explore it in daylight for fear of awakening the Composer. During the composition, Alto must have had a connection with It, enabling her to discover this escape route. “She spent the last of her blood saving the rest of ours,” I said.