Danny has pneumonia. That's what Dr. Megan said and she isn't ever wrong. It doesn't matter that she's a Nosferatu and spends her years in the sewers, she's a doctor and knows what she's talking about. I have to keep reminding myself of that fact, as well as that she knew me before I lost my memory. Dr. Megan is so kind, and she takes such good care of the children when they're sick; she's helped us out so much.
We can't take them to a mortal doctor because they don't have health insurance, and getting them CHIP would mean an investigation into the orphanage, and Josie told me that we've had trouble with the FBI in the past because of where we get our funding. Every time it seems I've solved a problem here, the fact of what we are comes back and ruins it. This is no way to live an unlife. Fortunately, Josie remembered that there was a Nosferatu who was a doctor in life, and who still lived under the city. Problem solved, for now.
There also used to be more helpers at the orphanage, Josie told me, and if it weren't for Alicia, a woman that came in at 7 in the morning and left at 6 at night, there'd have been no one there for the children during the day. Apparently, I was the one who took care of them in the sun-blessed hours, but that had to change after my…change of life.
It was a shock, that's for sure, getting used to being Kindred, that is. That and I'd awakened to a life that wasn't mine when I came to on the front porch at dusk. For at least a week I was in heavy denial and wouldn't feed. I was hungry, but couldn't stomach normal food anymore; every night I'd try to eat something and it would come back up. Josie tried to get me to go and feed, but the idea was too alien and barbaric, and I refused. Finally, after a few days, I was really weak, and when she slit her own wrist and offered it to me, some kind of bestial instinct took over. Now I hunt, but I don't like to think about it.
I learned a lot in my first month, but all Josie would tell me was matters of the vampiric society she'd brought me into. After a while, I stopped asking about my past. According to her, I was born to young, uncaring parents who dumped me in an orphanage in Philadelphia. I'd spent most of my childhood in and out of foster homes before wandering to Swarthmore and being taken in by her and her mother. As the oldest of the kids, I became the second-in-command, and eventually Josie decided to Embrace me. Some enemy of hers kidnapped me and wiped my memory, at least, that's what she claimed, but there were no details, and everything sounded vague.
Once I asked Josie who her mother was. She closed up suddenly and told me that her mother was in Chicago, and not to worry about it. It seemed that as soon as darkness fell, and the children were put to bed, a second orphanage was born of the cheer-filled one that slept. This night-orphanage was filled with unexpressed sadness, and every moment hung heavy with hidden tragedy and deep secrets.
Every now and again I'd find something of mine, and get a flash of sensation. It was slimmer than déjà vu, and was always gone before I could grasp it, but I knew it was there, and the very idea that every object and person in that house had a million different meanings to me that were locked irretrievable in my own mind, it terrified me. That, and I was never quite sure of my relationship with anyone who'd known me, the other me. Though Josie physically looked younger than me, she wasn't, and legally I was her adopted daughter, but we were on the same level, even if she was my sire.
Then there was Bastian, Josie's lover. He more or less ignored me, and I him. I got the opinion that he and I never really got along anyway, so there was no loss, but I just couldn't relate to Dylan, a disaffected punk who came by to talk with Josie and myself. All he wanted to do was tell me about how cool his Brujah buddy Reese was, and how they were going to take down anyone who'd slighted them and someday have the power they'd been denied. I listened, but none of it mattered to me. Did it used to?
I still couldn't see my reflection ever, and Josie told me that her enemy must have used vampiric powers to damage my senses. Strangely, she never spoke of this nemesis, or seemed worried that he or she might strike again. Also, she insisted that we have nothing to do with the rest of the Kindred in Swarthmore. What were we hiding?
Josie wanted to teach me how to sing as well as she, because she said I had a hauntingly beautiful voice, so every now and then she'd give me a lesson of sorts. This however, gave rise to conflict.
"No, it's not like that, but you've almost got it. Try again."
"What was wrong? I hit that note perfectly."
She rubbed her eyes. "It's not that you're not hitting the right notes, in fact you are, every single one in pitch, but it's more than that…"
"What?"
"There's no feeling when you sing, no emotion. It's like you're just repeating something you heard on the street or something. Music, especially singing, has to resonate with that, and if it doesn't, it isn't really true music," she replied. "When you hear me sing, how does it make you feel?"
"What do you mean? What emotion does it produce in me?"
"Yes."
"I realize that your singing is beautiful, and I should practice to sound that way."
"But when I sing, for example, 'O, Fortua', does it make you feel sad?"
"No. Why should it?"
Josie suddenly knocked the music stand over. "Can't you understand?!? Don't think I don't see how you've been since you got back! All you do is walk around and analyze things, you've become just…a robot!"
I bent down and picked up the sheet music. "And what would you have me be? You've refused to tell me anything of the way I was. What are you hiding?"
"Nothing, just forget it. The lesson's over, I have things to do."
"No. The lesson is not over. I can accept the volatile culture I've been brought into, and that everyone has secrets, but I know that something is very wrong here, and the more you try to forget it, the bigger it gets. How do I know that I wasn't always like this? Perhaps I've never been a very expressive person."
"Fine. You want the truth? You really think you want it? Come on," and Josie grabbed my arm and pulled me down to the basement, which was divided into her room and Bastian's studio. He was out.
She turned on his massive, complex keyboard/synthesizer and began sifting through tracks.
"What are you doing?"
"Bastian wrote this song for you because you used to sing it constantly. It meant something to you, and he made you a tape of it done in every instrument he could create. I want you to hear it again."
I started to ask why, but then a haunting, throbbing piano melody and counter harmony pulsed from the keyboard. It caught me instantly, losing all reality in its song until my chest filled and tightened with agony. Images flashed in and out and all I could feel was the rising, the divine pain of the music.
"Stop it…it hurts!" was all I could get out as I pushed myself against the cement wall and tried to block it.
The red tears of blood streamed down my face as I screamed and fell to my knees, covering my ears and struggling to drown out that ecstatically heartrending song. Josie, shaking, began pushing all the buttons she could, but the music wouldn't stop, it just kept echoing and cycling around my mind as I cried wordlessly, so hard I could feel my throat burning.
It was all there, all real. Shadows, oh God, twisting shadows trying to choke me in the dark woods, fire, all fire, all around. He's going to…no, stay away from Josie! The baby, the baby is dying. White wings and light, incense in the attic, bleeding to death on the couch, Dylan pulled at the shadows, that man kicking a head out the window…we're monsters. The train, smoke and cloth, he…hit me. Gone.
It was silent, praise be, silent and still. A slow terror gripped me; it was never silent. Always in my mind there had been music, a TV jingle, operatic arias, hymns, or even just radio songs. Silence meant that I was no longer protected, that I was out in the open and out in the cold.
"Oh God, Nancy, I'm so sorry! I didn't…think it…" Josie knelt down across from me and took my hands. They were covered in blood. "What did you see?"
The images and memories were gone again. "Only shadows."
An overwhelming sense of loss washed over me and I cried. There was something wrong here, but maybe it was all better if I didn't remember it, didn't think about it. Maybe it was better to just…forget. Could it be that simple, or would it just make the pain worse?
Josie brushed my hair back from my face. "Shh, it's going to be Ok, just don't think about it. I'll ask Bastian to wipe that track when he gets home."
"Please, just tell me the truth." I met her eyes, and in their depth, her soul cried too.
"The truth is that you never had a last name, and neither did I, so when I chose one, I gave you mine too. When you were my ghoul, I made you my adopted daughter, though for a long time before that, it was you who acted the older one.
"The truth is that you witnessed a lot of anguish, both before you came to Swarthmore, and after. You got very sick, and we all knew that you were going to die, and not even my blood could save you, so I embraced you, even though I'd wanted you to live the life in the sun that I never had.
"The truth is that there never was an enemy that kidnapped you. Your illness wiped your mind and you wandered away. A friend of mine found you and left you on the steps of the orphanage that night a few months ago. The Prince asked me to kill you when he found out, but you're Al Coda, you're family, and now that he's dead, we're all safe."
I just nodded, too worn out to comprehend or process what she'd just told me. It must be the truth, it had to be, and even if it wasn't, it was good enough to believe.
"Nancy? Can you hear me?"
"It's too quiet. Sing something with me."
I didn't even wait for her, just came in on the first bar. It was midway into the first verse before I even recognized what I was singing; one Josie's favorites from Phantom, 'Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again'. She came in on the chorus, and used that wonderful magic power to make it sound like there was a whole choir in back-up.
Yes, this is what was missing; the blanket of music that would keep out the night and all its stalkers. There was no pain except what I myself created with my voice, singing out the sorrow written by some far-away person. Not my pain, not me. Who was Nancy Al Coda? Who is she now? We are all connected, I know that much, and someday I will find out how and learn the whole truth of every truth. Now should only be the music. It helps me forget. The song ended, but repeated in my mind; everything's back to normal.
"Josie, I'm going crazy," and I almost started laughing as I said it.
"Y-you're a Daughter of Cacophony, of course you're crazy."
She stood and helped me up. I started at a noise above us. "Aunt Josie?"
Little Stevie, our six-year-old who'd been six for the last fifteen years, was at the top of the stairs. His father had left before he was born and his mother was drunk so much of the time that you couldn't even call her a mother. We stepped in before the state did; we usually do, at least, that's what Josie told me. What she didn't know was that Little Stevie was HIV positive, and that he'd be so sick. Not knowing what else to do, she ghouled him, but his mind stopped growing along with his body. It struck me as very tragic, this eternal child.
"Was that you and Aunt Nancy singing? It was really pretty." He came down the stairs, eyes still raw from sleep. We must have been loud enough to wake him up; the basement's nearly soundproof.
"Honey, what are you doing up?"
"I heard singing and I thought maybe Unkee Bastian was back from playing. Did you cut your face, Aunt Nancy?"
The tears, the blood. "Um, yeah Stevie, I tripped and fell down the stairs and got cut. It's ok though."
The tow-headed kid skipped up to me, almost slipping on his too-long airplane pajamas. "I'll make it better," and he kissed me on the cheek. "I'll go get you a Band-Aid from upstairs."
"T-thanks, Stevie."
"Oh yeah." Little Stevie stopped halfway up the stairs. "I also waked up because I dreamed that I was dead and buried under the ground, but then I thought that Aunt Josie, Aunt Nancy, Unkee Bastion, and Aunt Alicia wouldn't let me get put in a grave."
"That's right, darling, we wouldn't. Why don't you go on back to bed, ok? Aunt Nancy and I will take care of her cut. Everything's going to be fine."
"I know, don't be sad Aunt Josie, I love you. G'night!" and he bounded back up the stairs.
Josie turned to me. "Are you going to be all right?"
"Yeah. Whatever happened, I've got to forget it or it's going to destroy me."
"I'll tell Bastian-"
"No. Keep that song there. It's important, I know it, and maybe someday I'll be strong enough to hear it again. Just…not now."
We walked up the stairs. "The Swarthmore Orphanage has been open for fifteen years, and that's just a second to our kind, but we're young yet as Kindred go. There's eternity for everything, even the children."
Yes, the children. I should check on Danny. Dr. Megan gave him medicine that's appeared to work, but he's always been slow to get better. I can't forget the children, God knows, they wouldn't forget me.