The Hush Read Online Free

been detected illegally connecting to the Song. That had to be it. This woman was on the hunt for an unlicensed Songshaper.
    Susannah’s lips curled into a smile as her fingers curled around the globe. She would tie up this woman, and take her radar globe. She would return to the echoship with her gang, and then send someone out on a little trip to Hamelin. Someone to test this fugitive, and bring him back into her clutches.
    An unlicensed Songshaper?
    This was exactly what she needed.

CHAPTER THREE
    At sundown, Chester peered out the window. The pegasi had vanished from the sky. Crimson light bathed the streets of Hamelin, painting the dirt a murky red.
    Time to perform the recital.
    Chester knelt in the centre of the room. The floorboards were hard beneath his shins, but it didn’t matter. This would only take a moment – just a single bar of music to reconnect his soul to the Song. All through the town, he knew, people would be doing the same. All over the region. All over Meloral. The recital brought the nation together. Wherever the sun was setting, people would be dropping to their knees, the notes of the Sundown Recital like honey on their lips. It was the nightly moment when every soul – no matter how rich or poor, how strong or weak or exhausted – shared a moment of music. A moment when all able-voiced folks sang that same run of notes, or sang it into the ears of those too sick or young to perform it themselves.
    Chester hummed a low note. His lips tingled. As always, the tune stirred a quiet little twist in his gut. The run of notes spiralled upwards, higher and higher. Downstairs, heheard other voices humming. It had to be Annabel, and perhaps her bar staff for the evening shift. Their voices rose together: that same run of notes. As they hummed, the air came alive with the vibration of their music. One, two, three, four. The beats of the bar thrummed like a pulse beneath the tune.
    Chester breathed out. The run ended.
    The recital was complete.

    At seven, Chester headed down to the bar.
    He wore a clean shirt and trousers, and a freshly scrubbed face. His dark hair was clogged with dust, and he suspected that he stank of the railway car, but his audience would be farmers coming in from a hard day’s labour. Hopefully their stink would drown out his own.
    â€˜There you are.’ Annabel had finished polishing glasses, and a hopeful scent of stew wafted out from the kitchen. She slid a plate across the bar towards him. ‘Eat up, boy. Folks’ll be here soon, and you’ll have a whopper of a crowd to play for.’
    Chester threw himself onto the nearest bar stool. The stew was hot and spicy, with a pleasant kick of pepper. He slurped it down fast and then – when Annabel had vanished into the back room – dared to lick the bowl clean with his tongue.
    She returned to find him mid-lick, and let out a chortle. ‘By the Song, boy. Don’t they teach manners in the other towns no more?’
    Chester wiped his mouth on his sleeve and offered his most charming smile. ‘Oh, certainly, ma’am. I just couldn’t resist the wonders of your stew. You could charge five bucks a plate for that.’
    Annabel raised a grey eyebrow. ‘So you’ll be givin’ me a bigger cut of your profits tonight?’
    â€˜Hey, hey – I said you could charge more for the stew. In the future. Can’t change a contract that’s already been shaken on.’
    The old woman snorted and took his bowl. ‘Tune up your fiddle then, boy. Folks’ll be here in a jiffy.’
    Chester dragged a stool into the corner of the room. He opened his fiddle case at his feet: a velvet-lined mouth, hungry for coins. He had barely placed his fiddle beneath his chin and picked up his bow before the bat-wing doors swung open.
    A horde flooded into the room. Bodies collided as people elbowed each other, brimming with backslaps and curses. Farmers the size of tree trunks,