Song of Souls

They arrived at the corner of Glise and Alden. A big brown sign framed the shop that’s corner was cut off to make a more artistic angle with a view of the north, west, and south. Across the top was a large guitar with neon quarter notes hung like they were dancing above the strings.

“Shall we?” Nell said.

Niels nodded and pulled open the large door. From inside, a must radiated. Niels coughed, while Nell swallowed the pungent fumes of old wood and dust and, somewhere beneath a firm chaise, a dead mouse left by the brilliant orange cat now perched on the counter, licking his paws.

“We’re not here for the cat,” Nell said aloud.

Niels looked at him. “I know.” He nodded toward a wall of guitars in various wood stains as well as polished black and gold, hot pink with zebra stripes, and another that was buried beneath the limelight of the others that was indigo and silver with a striking mahogany handle.

Niels walked past the guitars, Nell on his heels. He lifted his hand toward each one, but kept his fingers away from the pristine (or, possibly clawed at and germ laden) instruments.

When they arrived at the end, at the mahogany guitar colored just the shade of his dearest sister’s name, he noted little etchings along the neck, buried beneath strings.

Niels knew a bit of most languages, and was capable of guessing for others.

“Can you read these?” Nell asked.

“Ja,” Niels tilted his head. “It says He who plays this will be badass.”

Nell laughed. “Then we’re buying it.”

He had decided the moment they walked in the door, but now standing before it, he had to have it. More than his son, Robert, had to have anything he was forbidden from.

“You want to be badass?” Niels asked.

“No.” Nell pulled his shoulders back and held his head like he was a pompous well-to-do. “I thought you might want to try it, as I am already badass.”

Niels shook his head. “I’m already badass. It might cancel itself out.”

Nell thought of his love, hiding away behind a book more often than he was acting as badass as his potential. “Maybe Ach needs it?”

Niels rolled with laughter. “It would take a miracle,” he joked.

Nell laughed. “The guitar for Ach.” It was for Nell, not to be badass but because he had to have it. Ach…It would be for his decorating needs. Ach loved to find places to display new knick-knacks Nell accumulated.

Literally, it was a passion to organize.

Nell concluded his latest shopping spree would benefit Ach, even more than it would benefit himself. His thoughts were interrupted by a breeze.

The cat at the front of the room meowed and rubbed against Nell. Touch it.

Nell cleared his throat. “Something for your mother?” he asked Niels. “Have you considered something ornate, such as…” Nell’s hands drifted to a thick-woven baskets full of hand painted maracas. He shook them in the air so the rice or beads, or whatever else they’d used to fill them with, shook.

“I was looking for something more…” Niels crouched to pick up a different set – his in a blood moon red and matching moonlit-sea blue. “These?”

Nell hm’d at set his hot pink and white maracas back in the basket. “Wise choice.”

He turned back to the guitar. The cat meowed again and goosebumps coated Nell’s arms. “The guitar, then.”

Nell reached for it and lifted it from the wall. As he did, his fingers knocked against the strings. A menagerie of tones filled the air. Behind it, a grey-green mist foamed from the sound hole. The dense mist drifted up into Nell’s face. He coughed and scratched his ears. There was a hollowness to sound. Voices filled the air. Help, Where are we, Come, Please. Don’t.

Touch it, the orange cat urged.

“Dusty,” Nell said.

Voices continued to assault Nell. Help. Find us. Where. The song. The song!

“What was that?” Nell asked. He turned, but there was no one there except the cashier leaning over the register with a magazine beneath his gaze.

“Wow it can’t even make you badass,” Niels goaded.

Nell narrowed his eyes and squinted, attempting to pierce Niels with eye-flames (he didn’t have them). When it didn’t work, he relaxed his shoulders and tried to shake off the feeling like Niels was not who he seemed. “We should…” he looked around the room.

“Not give it to Ach.” Niels took the guitar and moved to put it back on the wall.

“Try it,” Nell urged.

Niels held the guitar still, almost re-attached to the wall. He lowered it and turned to Nell.

He looked down at the guitar, then played a simple selection of notes that sounded like dying garbage cans as they churned inside of a steel jaw.

Niels set the guitar down and covered his ears. The same mist floated from the sound hole and drifted to encompass Niels’ face.

Nell backed away from the guitar. He set his hand on the back of the chaise and the maracas fell onto the cushion.

“Do you hear it now?” Nell asked.

“Yes.” Niels looked around, then to the guitar again. “So.”

Touch it more.

Nell’s skin bunched until a shiver recoiled through his body. He shook his head. “So.”

The orange cat rubbed against his leg. In a split second, Nell reached for Niels and the guitar and the two maracas, because he couldn’t forget the maracas, and transported to a secluded place – Niels’ apartment in Manhattan.

Niels shook his hand free. While he paced and got water, Nell delicately placed the guitar on the coffee table. Niels returned from the kitchen. “Did they come from the guitar?” He looked around the room.

The voices had followed them. The song, they chanted. Help.

“It needs to be exorcised,” Niels said. He set his water down on an end table and walked to the base of the guitar. He raised his hands into the air in flaming balls of fire. “I banish you from Ach’s guitar, by the power of Saint Michael the Archangel!” He doused the guitar in flames, but it remained.

Nell kneeled and touched the strings. The voices got louder, urged him to play the song. To help.

“Perhaps you should exorcise it in Chainskull Death fashion?” Nell suggested.

“And get more voices?”

Nell grazed the wood body “I doubt there are more voices…but I do sense a song in B minor…” He glanced at Niels.

Niels shook his head. “Nice to know you’d sacrifice me so Ach can have a cool guitar.”

Nell laughed. He stepped away from the guitar. “Not for Ach, for the voices.”

“And that creepy cat.”

“You noticed?” Nell asked.

“A talking cat? Who wouldn’t notice.”

The room turned icy. Niels picked up the guitar and began to strum something in the soul-striking and somewhat ominous, flat chords

The smoky mist filled not just Niels’ face but the room. Shadows formed from the smoke, and in one last stroke of the guitar, Niels was gone. The mahogany clattered to the floor.

“Niels?” Nell crouched beside the guitar. “Niels?” He tapped on the wood.

Screams filled the air.

“There’s a whole city in here,” Niels’ voice rang above the rest. “Don’t come.”

“Shall I smash the guitar?”

“No!” No! A hundred times over the word echoed. Nell covered his ears but the sound didn’t diminish.

“I won’t.” Nell took a deep breath as the voices settled.

“There’s a song you have to play,” Niels began. He groaned, so loud Nells eardrums vibrate. “Maybe Tali or Jace can do it.”

“Nonsense.” Nell took the guitar in his hands. He began playing, ever so carefully. With every wrong note, mist oozed.

Nell felt himself compress and lengthen and squish and at once, he was mist, and he was inside the guitar.

“Well. Then.”

Niels rolled his eyes. “It’s fine. There’s…” He looked around. Above them, the gaping hole of the guitar loomed. Too far to reach, but close.

“People have luck,” Niels assured him.

Nell looked around. “I believe this calls for something beyond luck.”

His skin was flush, except his skin was gone.

Niels nodded. “It’s fine.”

It isn’t, Nell thought.

Mmm, the cat’s voice rang through the air.