Strange Noises Fiction by Rachel Greenham

I’m halfway through only the third song of the evening when I realise Hethan is waving at me to stop. Everyone turns to look at him, but he just beckons, ‘come here.’

I feel a flutter in my stomach, that I’m in trouble for something and it must be pretty bad if he’s making me stop in the middle of a song. So I collect myself and give a look to Kerilas and Lotan at their usual table, and step off the stage to go and see what’s up.

Hethan practically pulls me into the back room. He seems excited rather than angry, though, saying I have a visitor. Jalese is there already, attending a tall Neri, standing in the centre of the room. I think he’s a he, but his appearance and dress is quite androgynous and he has that ethereal beauty I’m still trying to work on. Immediately I know this must be about my encounter with Fareis the previous day. I hadn’t told anyone about that, not even Jalese. I’m not sure why.

“Um, hello?” I say. I can hear how nervous my voice sounds.

“Mistress Taniel,” he begins. His voice is light and delicate. In fact, I think it’s unbroken, but I haven’t really spoken to a male Neri before, so for all I know their voices don’t break. “My name is Deidas, child of Satthei Fareis. My mother has asked me to bring you gifts and hopes you may consider favourably an offer to be joined and to sojourn with us.”

I stare at him. He’s at least a head taller than I am. So this is how it comes. She wants to take me into her ship, into her family. “I don’t want to,” I say. “My friends…”

“Indeed. I’m not here to try to persuade you myself,” he says, letting his speech become less formal. “The Satthei asks merely that you accept these gifts and that you would come to the ship tomorrow evening as a guest, that you and she may talk. She has asked me to convey her regret for causing you alarm yesterday.”

“I don’t think—”

“Tani,” Jalese interrupts me. “You mustn’t refuse the gifts. It’s a great honour.”

“Quite so,” Deidas confirms smoothly. “It is understood that through some calamity you have come to forget much about the ways of our people. Therefore, the first of the Satthei’s gifts to you are a selection of books.” He turns to the table in the corner, where I belatedly notice are arranged a number of items, and returns carrying two books. Examples, as I can see more still on the table, in an open box of a design I know will be waterproof when sealed. There are rich fabrics and made-clothes and jewellery and boots and boxes containing I’ve-no-idea-what. I can see a long recurved bow leaning against the wall next to the table, and next to a beautiful dress in deep turquoise. It’s evident that Deidas must have spent a significant time arranging the gifts before I was called in.

He shows the books to me; paper bound in a fine wood veneer cover, hinged, with strangely familiar names inlaid in the wood. “These give accounts of some of the history and stories of the Neri. Stories that still shape the way we live today.”

I take one. It’s surprisingly light, and closes with a clasp. I open it, and thick coarse-grained pages open before me. Pages with exquisitely calligraphed text and almost luminous hand-painted illustrations; lacking realistic perspective, like Medieval art, but rich in colour and detail and symbolism I can only guess at. It’s a book of stories for a child; and it’s a thing of almost transcendant beauty.