I

The silent house was alive with memories. Laughter, joy, anger and sadness rushed to echo round the emptiness that occupied every room; small memories forgotten in the moment, but enduring like long-discarded packaging, stubbornly refusing to break down. Here, a thickly-cut slice of chocolate cake taken from the kitchen on a Sunday afternoon. There, kicking an undersized football around the immaculate garden with Dad.

I didn't know you too well, Nan, not in recent years. I'm sorry I wasn't there at the end, but I suppose this is some way to pick through the past and say goodbye. From among the sparse remnants of my family, I was the only one able to attend either to the task of sifting and sorting through the accumulations of a quiet life, or the funeral. I could hardly describe it as a holiday, and yet any break from the mutual apathy of my office was a welcome one. So, time, travel, and a Travelodge were all booked, and I found myself here, in a dusty attic, surrounded by mildewed steamer trunks, newspaper-clad ornaments, and stuff.

I had no idea how to approach a job like this; how to decide on behalf of someone who could no longer give reason, what items held meaning and what didn't? This brittled, half-completed puzzle magazine might have been the last thing Gramp was reading. Or maybe it had just been dropped in a pile to be used as packing material. And with you both gone, does any of that still matter? I could lose the whole week at the entrance to this labyrinth if I don't just start. Somewhere. Take a box down into the light and make a decision.

Opening the very first unlabelled box I put my hands on, I found a square, firm object swaddled in packing material. Three entirely distinct editions of The Guardian protected a layer of old clothing, which in turn protected some kind of scrapbook or journal at the heart. It was old, but not like the other things in this place; not tired and decaying. It bore its years with pride. “Those other things,” it seemed to say, “are the rubble of life, but I am the foundation.”

Its pages overflowed with writing, music, and illustrations; seemingly the product of an explosive outpouring of creativity. But I hadn't the time to sit and read in detail while yet further mysteries could be lurking beneath Home Weekly Brainbursters #493, so I decided to take this one back to the hotel later where I could give it the attention it demanded, and resumed my work.

The day passed slowly enough but, satisfied that I had at least made the first incision, and recalling the advice to leave a task half-done so you have somewhere to pick up from the next day (excepting, of course, certain time-sensitive professions), I decided to wind things down and let the ghosts of silence have their house back.

I stopped to pick up Nan's scrapbook and, as I did so, something fell out. Written in the same hand and clearly from the same collection, this page of music was somehow distinct and different from the rest. It had no title, and depicted a relatively simple tune that caught and immediately began to loop and swirl through my mind as I read it.

Taking the yellowed sheaf of paper, I made my way back downstairs to the living room where sat an upright piano, creaky and dust-worn. It was true my last lesson had been some years previous, but I could still find Middle C and, while I might be done with work for the day, I had nowhere but a starched white hotel room to be. It's a long time since I've been noticed arriving late anywhere. Or at all. The lid groaned apologetically as I opened it, as if to warn that it might fall shut without provocation, but only through fatigue, not malice. Studying the score and refamiliarising my hands with the weight and feel of the keys, I gingerly began to press out the first notes.

A sharp warmth jagged up my spine, not pleasant but not painful either; a warning sign of wrongness. I stopped playing the notes, but the Melody persisted in my head as the room softly unbalanced around me. Turning to place my empty glass of water under the tap of the kitchen sink for a refill, I paused in thought to gaze out of the window at the traffic speeding past: cars of blue and green smearing through my oversaturated vision, radios thumping deadened rhythms, while bright orange sunlight glinted from the railing on which I was leaning. Taking my focus off the drink in front of me and allowing the room back in, my ears were filled with the revelrous tumult of so many patrons, singing, drinking, conversing, as the bartender across from me looked out over the scene. As I did so, surveying my tavern, wiping down the glass in my hand ready for the next customer, I felt my thoughts catch on the thread of an old tune sung by my grandmother on cold winter evenings such as this, when the air was thick-fogged with company, to aid me to sleep. So I lay down on the floor, allowing the harmonious threads to entangle me, and, as they began to drag me upwards to surface, their tune gave way to a single everlasting rung bell that cut clear through the burgeoning rush of water.

Five minutes had passed in three hours had passed in thirty seconds.

The floor beneath my face was cold and wooden. My ears were filled with the roar of pure noise, muffling all else save a clear, high ringing. As my senses reconnected, I became aware of a pushing sensation in my back and side, to which I eventually yielded and rolled over like a sack, looking up at the sturdy wooden beams and planks of a ceiling to a room I was not in. Hadn't been in. I struggled for clarity and found purchase through the dissipating fog, meeting a voice both clear but undefined coming the other way.

Then the gruff, bearded face of a man appeared.

“Oh” he said, peering into my face with less surprise than I would have expected, “I wondered when you'd show up.”

A large, black, weathered left boot was anchored to floorboards beside my head, accompanied by a bent knee placed somewhere around my elbow.

“Listen,” he began, “I expect you'll have a lot of questions, probably the least-important among them being...”

“Where am I?” I asked, attempting to haul myself up into a sitting position.

He looked at me askance, “Oh... no, “how do I get back' is what I expected you'd... she didn't tell you where it'd take you? Where she's from?”

II

“So, it doesn't just nab you”, said the mountain of a man as he handed me a mug of what I would call a rich, spiced coffee, and one of water. Both liquids seemed to roll and tilt as I watched them. “You can't just play a tune at someone and have them pop out here. Truth be, I couldn't tell you exactly how it works except that it's more like a,” he clicked his fingers as if to beckon the word, “map, I suppose? Well not... not a map but it can help you read the map. She'd always say that it gets in your head and offers you a thread here, but it's up to you if you want to follow it or let go. There's some other bits of ballast too, plenty of folk more educated than myself spend time figuring that out, but that's about the short of it.”

“And where is 'here'?” I asked, having surveyed the small, wooden room and its furnishings while the coffee was made, but being none the wiser. I brought the drink up to my mouth to check if it had cooled enough yet. It hadn't.

He slouched back in his chair, pressed his lips together, and slowly exhaled in thought. “Quite a big question that... where do you even start? You're not where you were, you've probably worked that much out. I can tell you names of places and people, but what's that going to mean? So, let's start local. You're sat in the cabin of The Overture, my ship, after following the Melody through from your world. We're about, I think three degrees off kilter from your own and every so often we drift close enough for the Melody to work and guide people through.”

He took up his own drink and allowed the information to steep while he sipped.

“Okay,” I eventually offered after some time, “this feels real so I'm going to accept that it is; I'm not unconscious in an empty house or the back of an ambulance. You say that music...”

“Melody” he interrupted

“Melody's its name? Sure. That brought me here because 'our worlds drifted close together'. Kind of a lot, let's put that aside for now. You've also said 'she' a few times. I want to ask who, but I found the piece of music in amongst my Nan's stuff so I can probably assume hers? Celeste?”

“Cel,” he nodded with a warm smile,  “that's her. Been some years since I last heard anything. Best navigator I ever knew, really had her ear in.”

“Hah!” I interjected, “you sure? Mum used to say she could get lost pulling out the driveway.”

“In one of your... 'cars'? She drew me a picture once; fascinating machine! She'd complain about how noisy they were: how much noise there was everywhere, in fact. That changed at all?” he asked, with the cracks of a friendly smile breaking out across his face.

“Can't say it has.”

We both paused as if waiting for a third participant to chime in.

Casting his eyes down to his hands as they rested on the table, he eventually asked “How is she, anyway? She happy?”

The hesitation before my response was as much answer as he needed.

“She uhm...”

“Gone? That's a shame. Comes for us all, hey.”

“She was, though, I think. Happy, I mean.” I added.

“Good... good, she deserved it.”

At that point we both raised our mugs and took a slow sip from our drinks, letting the conversation have its own moment of respectful peace.

The cabin looked sturdy and practical. I was slumped on a bench that ran along the wall, next to a table fixed to the floor. He, apparently my nan's old friend (shipmate? News to me!) was sat on a chair opposite. In the pause I began to take in the sounds, first from the room and then further afield. There was the percussive creak of timbers, a chord of whistles from ropes carving up gusts of wind, and the punctuation of a bird call as if marking a new phrase, but the seas must have been like glass because I couldn't detect any splash of water. The gentle rocking motion of the ship, combined with my recent ordeal, was whispering a persuasive argument to close my eyes for a few minutes. Not to sleep, but just to shut off some senses and let the flywheel in my brain disperse some of its energy.

“I don't expect you'll hear it”, he observed after a few minutes, “but you might. Given time.”

“Hmmm go on. Hear what?” I murmured back in response.

“That's another big answer, and I have neither the time nor textbooks to catch you up to everything we know. I'm barely smuggling the half of it myself as it is, just knows enough to get me where I need to go.”

“Well, how would you explain it to someone who just fell down a hole and woke up here?” I urged, since apparently it was time to cram yet more information into my overstuffed head.

“Right. It's...” a pause to organise his thoughts, “it's the background to everything. It's not magic, it's not music, but it kind of lives between the two. Me, I use it for navigating,” he slapped the table, “got all manner of instruments to help with that, but you can tune in to it yourself if you know where to listen. Like I say, it's not music but it's its own kind of musical. Chords and vibrations rippling about; you wouldn't want to play it but it's pleasant enough when you catch it!”

I swirled the fines in the bottom of my coffee cup while I listened, aware that I was in the middle of a choice whether to just accept and go with this story, or to challenge, resist and... what? Wake up? Run? Neither of those seemed like a practical option. But even if I was here, I still need a way to...

“Hey, how do I go back?” I asked

“Yes, back!” he blurted as he clicked his fingers into an enthusiastic pointing gesture, “Good news is you can, in much the same way as you came here. Bad news, though, is it has to be when things are lined up, and also you have to want to go.” He dropped his forefinger onto the table “And, sure I've not known you for long, but I don't think you want to.”

“I mean...” I began, and was immediately beset by thoughts of an attic filled with boxes, a workplace filled with disinterest, and a life filled with the pursuit of mediocre beige highlights. “But I'm not a sailor, I don't know this life!” I attempted, but could already feel the words drag and decelerate on their way out.

“Well, hate to tell you but you just got in before the flag dropped, so you've a bit of time to try this life on and see how it fits. And besides” he followed, “that's her blood in your veins and it don't dilute that quickly.”

“Sounds like I'm short of options anyway.” I retorted, but knew his argument added sufficient weight to his point.

I became aware that for some time now I had been repurposing the cup as a fidget, passing it between my hands and rolling its base around on the table.

“This coffee's amazing, by the way.” I remarked as I finally put my empty cup to rest.

“My thanks to you! That last batch was getting a bit stale if you ask me, but we're actually just on the way to pick up some more. You got here just in time.” and he tossed his head in the direction of the cabin's door.

I shuffled along the bench and out round the table, across the room, and over to the door.

As I twisted the handle and began to push, he called after me “We should be nearing port, you can probably see it out there.”

Turning back from him to face outwards, I immediately felt my senses stumble in the effort to reconcile being on the deck of a ship, and the sheer, enveloping silence I encountered there. Then my stomach lurched at the falling sensation brought on by nothing but clean air around our ship. No water, nothing to float on, just endless empty leagues in every direction. Almost. Out on the horizon... if that's even the right word for it? I saw an island, seemingly inhabited, layered with buildings and spires, also floating on absolutely nothing. Suspended in the sky. Above me the sails caught the breeze and thumped their percussive rhythm. Far, far below I could at least see the saw-edged outline of a mountain range, rising up to catch a molten, dripping sun.
I did my best to keep my senses gathered, and turned back into the cabin.
“Where's... where's the water? We're just floating on air,” I braced myself against the doorframe “Your islands are floating on air!”
He watched me with amusement, once again the impact of a smile fissuring out from the corner of his mouth. “Yours don't?”

He stepped across the room and clapped me on the shoulder, grinning broadly before escorting me back out onto the deck. The scene was still the same, still just as incomprehensible, but I had already been tasked with accepting a number of impossibilities today so what was one more?

“Oh,” I muttered, standing alongside him as we both gazed outwards across the air-sea ahead, “you haven't even told me your name?”

“Never could remember my manners! Ostin Elzevir, delighted to meet you!” and out came his hand. “And you, my new friend, who might you be?”

I took his hand firmly, and replied

“Well since you're asking, I'm...”