more. “I hate you!” She raised her hands as though to cast a spell but the band held up the cold iron and she shrank back.
“You need to get out of here,” Isabella said. “Maryann!”
A glowing portal of energy appeared near the woman in white.
“Go home, winter fairy. This is no place for you,” Maryann ordered.
The fairy hissed at them. “Fine. I want nothing to do with this mundane, noisy realm anyway,” she snapped. She turned on her heel and marched into the portal.
It immediately closed and Maryann dropped to her knees in the snow.
The others rushed to her.
“Are you alright?” Nora asked.
“I'm fine,” she said as Leah helped her up. “I need to make an offering of thanks later.”
“We'd better get back to Sabra before she starts to think something weird is going on,” Nora said.
“Something weird? Like everything?” Leah said.
“I wonder how that winter fairy got here. She's an Unseelie, which means she was probably looking for trouble, but who would be stupid enough to let her in?” Isabella asked.
“We'll probably never find out,” Maryann said. “It probably wasn't even on purpose. Remember my friend Brittany at the Ren Fair when we all met?”
They nodded.
“Yeah, this is why I don't like people practicing magic when they don't understand what they're doing or the consequences,” Isabella sighed.
“I think we're all in agreement with you,” Nora said.
“Yes, but I'm still a little confused about what just happened. The fairy surely didn't come out that door you just made. So how did you know that door was right there?” Leah asked.
“The door where the fairy got in doesn't matter. Well, it does, but not for getting her back to her world. Anubis showed me how to open a door to her realm even though there wasn't one here to begin with,” Maryann explained.
“Oh, okay. If that makes sense to you, I’ll go with it.” Leah looked at Isabella. “Your eyes are normal again. Don't do that ever again, okay? Because it's totally freaky weird.”
“She's right,” Nora agreed.
They re-entered the chapel and slowly climbed up the 271 steps again as Sabra continued to play Christmas carols. The church bells outside slowly faded into silence but the carillon rang out merrily.
She turned to the band as she finished her recital. “You guys went outside?”
“Well, we wanted to hear the recital from all angles,” Nora answered.
“But it's so cold and you had to climb all those steps.”
“Tell me about it,” Leah grumbled.
“I may not have a chance to hear you play again, so I figured I'd get the whole experience,” Nora said.
Sabra kind of shook her head. “Well, I always knew you were dedicated to music even if you decided against going to Juilliard. So what do you think of the carillon?”
“It's a fabulous instrument more people should know about,” Isabella said. “This one has so much history.”
“It really does. Sometimes I think it even has a personality, but I'm not the only person who thinks so. But then again, we musicians are kind of weird.” She stood up. “Well, we should probably get going. It's weird, but I feel a lot better now than I did this morning.”
“Oh, that's not weird at all. Sometimes I feel way better after a show than beforehand,” Maryann said. “That's the magic of music, right?”
Sabra laughed. “Sure. Come on, I'll treat you guys to lunch.”
They walked down the steps again and exited the chapel to find it had stopped snowing and the sun had come out. The sky was brilliant blue and the snow sparkled like diamonds. It was a good day after all.
The Lyrics:
From the tops of churches
You can hear them chime
From the tops of schools
Calling out the time
From the medieval streets
Comes the dead bell
Its mournful cries
Are a soul's death knell
Refrain: From the tops of the towers
Hear the bells singing
Brass and bronze and iron
Hear the bells ringing
From the Eastern temples
Comes the rolling sound
The deep and slow tones
Across the land resound
From the sleigh harnesses
Warding off winter's tingling
Tiny, tinny, merry bells
In a song about their jingling
Refrain
With tongues of iron and copper
And bodies of bronze and brass
Their voices can be soft and treble
To alto, baritone and booming bass
Whether one voice or many
Creates such a clamorous noise
With resonance and harmony
For all to listen and enjoy
Refrain x2
Track 9: Tango and the End of Pompeii
The Interview:
Brad: This next track is an almost pop tune, but it's about the destruction of a civilization.
Lee: Yep.
Brad: Why write a song about the end of the world but give it such an upbeat tune with such catchy pop hooks?
Lenore: We're hardly the first band to do that.
Brad: I guess that's true. But it creates kind of a disconnection between the music and the lyrics.
Belle: Not all civilizations viewed death in the same way our modern Western society does. No one wants to see their world end, but for many civilizations, death was only the beginning.
Anna: The ancient Egyptian dynasties are famous for this kind of thinking. There have also been many civilizations that practiced ancestor worship and still do.
Brad: So death is good?
Belle: No, but when something like this happens, what can you do?
Anna: 'Sit pretty in the dust that was a city?'
Lenore: 'Listen to yourself churn?'
Lee: 'Just purse your lips and whistle?'
Brad: Am I missing out on some kind of inside joke?
Belle: The song contrasts harsh imagery with a peppy tune so the lyrics are more palatable.
Brad: Well, why didn't you just say so in the first place?
Lenore: I thought we did.
The Flashback:
“So, Mr. Rafel booked us on a holiday? That's nice of him,” Nora said from her usual spot in the front passenger seat.
“We work when we can work,” Isabella sighed, driving the van. “Anyway, Valentine's Day isn't a big holiday or anything.”
“Well, not if you don't have a boyfriend,” Maryann replied.
“You don't. None of us do. We spend too much time on the road,” Leah said pointedly.
“Yes, but if I had a boyfriend, I'd want to go out with him tonight.”
“So we make other people's dates tonight awesome. And we get paid.”
“Leah does make a good point,” Nora said. “Fine, playing on Valentine's Day. It's not the end of the world, and we don't have anything better to do.”
“Anyway, this one might be fun. The club is apparently hosting some sort of masquerade theme for the night,” Isabella said.
“But we always wear costumes,” Maryann said.
“Well, a masquerade isn't necessarily a costume party. It's probably supposed to give the whole evening an air of mystery, as a writer would say. Usually before someone finds a body. But anyway, it should be fun,” Leah said.
“As much fun as anyone can have in Buffalo in February,” Nora replied.
“More fun than I'm having driving, how about that?” Isabella asked.
“Mr. Rafel,” Maryann said, shaking her head. “Good agent, bad timing.”
Eventually the band reached the gig, which was a trendy nightclub in the West Chippewa Street district. It was still snowing lightly when they parked and started to get their
gear in order.
“I hope we don't get stuck in a blizzard or something,” Maryann said, looking up at the grey, cloudy sky. Her voice was muffled by her thick red scarf.
“Don't jinx us like that,” Leah sighed, her breath freezing in her brown scarf.
“The weather forecast says light snow, all night,” Nora replied, tapping at her phone. Her leather gloves gave her no difficulty operating the device.
“Right, and that makes me feel better now because weather forecasts are always hundred-percent accurate,” Leah said sarcastically.
“I was trying to make Maryann feel better, not you,” she shot back.
“Ladies,” Isabella interrupted. “I leave you alone for five minutes to talk to the manager and you're sniping like this. It's too cold to bicker. Let's get the gear in and then find a place to get into costume. Cocktail hour has already started and we're scheduled to go on in about an hour and a half. And yes, we have to wear masks too.”
Eventually they got their gear in and set up, which didn't leave them with as much time to get into costume as they might have liked. They wore identical long-sleeved black dresses with high necklines and short skirts, black hose (except for Nora), and black wigs pulled back into buns (except for Nora whose own black hair was pulled back). They all had identical black leather ankle-high boots and identical vaguely cat-looking black masks.
“Come on, Nora, you look fine,” Isabella said as she hung back a moment.
“Yeah, you're simply irresistible,” Leah added with a smile.
Nora rolled her eyes. “Right, right, I'm coming,” she said, with a final touch-up, and then joined her band-mates on stage.
“Wait, did you guys feel that?” Leah asked suddenly.
“What?” Isabella said.
“I felt an earthquake.”
“That's the bass line,” Nora said impatiently.
“No, it wasn't. I know it wasn't.”
“There are no earthquakes in Buffalo.”
“Actually, the intercontinental US has the largest recorded earthquakes in the country's history, and Ohio at least is over I think