To pull me out of the only life I had ever known?
The answer seemed to come from the cloak, from the fire, from the roasting, glowing nuts, which had began to hum, as they sizzled.
The answer was: they were my kin.
My anger faded.
“You look much better now,” Kara said. “Just a little charcoal soap, maybe, when we get into camp.”
“Thanks,” I said, pulling the coat tighter around me.
“The coat fits you well,” Kalle said. “Let it comfort you in our Wald.”
The nuts were making some kind of vibration, a buzzing, humming noise that was musical and random at the same time, like some crazy dance music, music that made my head hurt and my teeth ache.
I brought my hands up to my ears, but it made no difference — I realized that I heard the song inside my body, through my skin, instead of through my ears.
Kara was looking off into the distance.
Kalle, though, met my gaze and nodded. “The song takes some getting used to,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over the nutsong. “You can’t drown it out, so try to enjoy it. The problem is it will pull enemies to us like moths to a bonfire. Kara is watching but we must be quick.”
I looked at the fire then and let my hands drop from my ears. Kalle was right. It made no difference. I opened my inner eye and looked. Luminous bands shot out from the roasting nuts, pulsating different colors as the song played on.
The song rose in pitch and the colors changed. My body vibrated with the song.
I was sure my ears were going to burst. The more I resisted the song the harder it got to bear — there was pain now, a dull throbbing, growing sharper with every note of nutsong.
I shook my head to clear it. That only made it worse. Kara, waiting at the side of the clearing, nodded at me. Let it in, Anders. Relax.
Was she crazy?
I wanted to run away into the forest. The noise was driving me crazy, and now it really hurt. My hands were pressed again tight against my ears.
And yet.
I’d trusted her so far.
Why not trust her now?
I was lost here anyway, without Kalle and Kara. If I couldn’t trust them, I was doomed.
And they had called me kin.
Maybe I should stop resisting. Stop trying to drown it out. I let my hands fall to my sides. I opened my inner eye and inner ears.
The song burst through me. My body became an instrument playing the song of the haselnuss.
The song took hold of me and my body sang. Pulsating light and music covered me, filled my every p
ore.
But the pain was gone. It was glorious. I smiled, and looked up.
Kalle was smiling too. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Normally, when a boy has his first experience with the opening of his inner ears, through nutsong or the song of an ancient tree, we have a special ceremony. It’s a right of passage. You let the song into you or it will rip apart your inner ear. You, Anders, have gone through the opening of your inner eye and your inner ears today, without ceremony. We should celebrate, but we have no time. The haselnuss already finishes its song.”
I realized the song that coursed through me was in its last notes, fainter, more drawn out.
The song stopped.