Excerpt: The Hollow of White Hazel
And then he sang.
He sang the harmony, not the melody, but the notes seemed to reverberate in Ethelwyn’s chest. She could feel the emotion of the song better now, the agony of the woman, the desperation of the male back-up to get her to just turn around and see him. She felt tears pricking in the corner of her eyes, and a desperate desire deep within to sing along, to help, to add her voice to the notes that seemed now to fill the whole street. She opened her mouth, but a sweaty hand reached around and covered it, choking the sound.
She twisted in her seat. Arthur covered his own mouth with his other hand and shook his head. He pointed to his ears and mimed covering them. Confused, and still wanting to sing with a desire that shook her to the core, Ethelwyn plugged her ears with her fingers.
It helped, a little. She no longer wanted to sing, at any rate, and muffling some of the sound took some of the reverberation out of it. She could listen now. Arthur pulled his hand off of her mouth, and covered his own ears.
The pixies didn’t seem to have the same sense. They stopped what they were doing, dropped whomever they were eviscerating, and capered slowly towards Emrys, who was still standing in the middle of the road. The street became deserted of human beings; in the distance, sirens were wailing, coming closer. The song was nearing the second verse, the music swelling until, even with the fingers in her ears, Ethelwyn wanted to join in. The reverberation grew stronger in Ethelwyn’s chest, and she realized that the pixies were actually singing in harsh, piping voices that sounded more like a broken-bellowed organ than anything melodic. They wheezed and puffed and screeched along, adding their meagre voices to the harmony, until, with a gut-wrenching twist, the lead singer proclaimed that, every now and then, she just fell apart…
Emrys brought his arms down, and held the note.
The pixies exploded into a thousand splinters.
