The school’s pitch-dark and cool, though still heavy with humidity. I look over the balcony down to the cafeteria and the wall of windows overlooking the lawn, and then, remembering this afternoon, I do a quick once-over of the shadowy foyer before taking off through the too-dark halls.
The farther I get from the doors, the more terrified I am to be alone in the dark. Grandmother’s voice echoes in my head with every step. You need to be prepared for what’s coming.
I spin through my locker combination, dig through the obsessively ordered rows of binders and memorabilia still left in there, stuff the phone charger into my purse, and turn to leave before the inevitable axe murderer arrives.
Something stops me.
Beautiful music, spilling down the dark hall from the band room.
I’ve been hearing the myth about the Band Room Phantom for the past four years, but whenever I’d thought about what I would do if confronted by its siren song, I certainly hadn’t pictured myself venturing toward it.
But there’s no ghost, I remind myself. There’s just a sneaky senior, whom I must know, and a hauntingly beautiful song trailing un-self-consciously across the keys of a piano.
I creep down the hall and stand outside the wooden doors, just listening for a while. The song is sad, heartbreaking even, and I’m overcome with frustration that I don’t have a better word to describe it. It occurs to me then that Grandmother would. She’d have a whole story that would sound exactly like this song. I open the door as quietly as I can and slip inside.
The black grand piano sits in the far corner, heavily scuffed but still elegant. The person playing it hasn’t turned on a single light, which makes him hard to see. But if the broad shoulders and long, slightly dirty hair didn’t give him away, the paper bag sitting on top of the piano definitely would have.
Who the hell is this guy? Maybe he really is a being like Grandmother. Either way, I don’t want to interrupt the song. I stay close to the door with my head tipped back against its dewy surface as I listen and watch. His too-big hands travel gracefully over the keys, his too-big shoulders tensing under his worn-out T-shirt, and the image—a grizzly-bear-sized boy hunched over a piano, who shouldn’t be able to make the keys sing like that, so tenderly, so gratefully—would be funny if the song weren’t so arresting.
I close my eyes and think about all of Grandmother’s stories, finding the one that feels the most like this song.
4
“This story is true, girl,” Grandmother said. “So listen well.”
“You say that about all of them,” I argued. I was nine, and, so far, none of the stories had seemed true.
“They have all been true,” Grandmother said. “But you’ll think this one is truer than the rest.”
“So you mean it actually happened.”
“No story is truer than any other story that has the truth in its heart.”
“What are you even talking about?” I asked.
“Stories are born from our consciousness,” she said, lacing her fingers in her lap. “They come from the things we already know. They come from the things we learn from our ancestors and our kin. We all learn different things, depending on where we’re born, so the stories you hear will be different. So too the things your kin decide to do will be different. So too the things you decide to do will be different. The way to make the best decisions is to listen to all the stories and to know them by heart and to feel them in your bones. You need to know, Natalie, that no story is truer than truth itself. All good stories and all our lives are born from that knowledge.”
“So, what’s the truth?”
“It’s hard to say. That’s why it’s so important to listen and to look both backward and forward at the threads that Grandmother Spider spins between things. You understand?”
“I never understand a word you say,” I told her.
She shrugged. “Well, anyway, you’ll like this one, because it happened, and a white guy in a frilly hat wrote it down and stamped it with wax to prove it. It starts in a place called Nee-ah-ga-rah, or if you like to say things in a stupid and wrong way just for the hell of it, you could pronounce it Niagara—like Viagra. It means thundering waters.”
“The waterfall?”
“The very same,” Grandmother said. “Nee-ah-ga-rah was a sacred place to the Seneca tribe, who believed the falls were a doorway to the spirit world, the Happy Hunting Grounds. When they went there, they could hear the roaring of a mighty spirit that dwelt in the waters.”
“You mean they could hear the water,” I said.
“Maybe,” Grandmother said.
“Definitely.”
“How do you know?”
“Because there are no spirits,” I said.
“How do you know?” she asked.