The Scent Keeper(36)
THE NIGHTINGALE
Once upon a time, there was a nightingale that lived in the woods. Her song was so beautiful that it could take people back to all the things they wished they had done, and all the things they wished they could be. Even the Emperor in his golden city heard tales of it.
“Bring the bird to me,” he said. “I want to hear her for myself.”
The courtiers and soldiers and cooks from the kitchen were all sent out to search. They brought back the small brown bird, which sang so sweetly it made the Emperor cry. After that the nightingale was kept in a golden cage. She was let out twice a day, with twelve silken ribbons attached to her legs, and each ribbon held by a trusted servant.
The bird became famous, and people sent gifts in her honor. One day a package arrived. In it was a mechanical bird, encrusted with rubies and emeralds and sapphires. When the Emperor turned a key, it sang a song, complicated and beautiful, but always the same.
“This is better than the nightingale,” the music master said, clapping his hands in delight. “The nightingale never sings the same song twice, but with this one we never have to guess what is coming.”
While they were marveling over the jewels and the intricacies of the song, however, the little brown bird escaped from her cage and flew away. No one noticed.
Some months later, however, the jeweled bird stopped singing. It was taken apart, but the gears were worn, and the Emperor was told it could only play a song once a year. Heartbroken, the Emperor fell into an illness so deep that everyone thought he was dead, but the little brown nightingale came in through the window and sang so soulfully that death went away and the Emperor awoke.
The Emperor wanted to keep the bird, but the nightingale said she would never live in a palace again. She would come and sing for him sometimes, but he must never tell anyone. Then she flew back to the woods, where she sang for the trees and the sky.
And once again her song made the travelers stop on the path, and remember the things they wished they had done, and the things they wished they could be.
THE STORIES
For the first time in four years, I couldn’t wait to get to school. I didn’t know what the nightingale story meant, but it was a clue. It had to be—why else would my father have cut it out of my book? Maybe this time I would find an answer. I just needed to get to the computer in the library.
I was dying to tell Fisher, but he didn’t come down to catch a ride to school in the morning. When I got to the classroom, he wasn’t there, either. I spent the morning alternating between anxiety and impatience. I’d worry about Fisher, then I’d check the clock, trying to speed the hands toward lunchtime and the library. Then I’d worry about Fisher again.
For once, I didn’t care about the other kids. Dylan passed me a note, and I absentmindedly opened it to find a handwritten fairy tale, graphic in its descriptions of what the prince did to the sleeping princess after he woke her up. I read the first paragraph and tossed it into the trash can, leaving him gaping.
When the lunch bell finally rang, I sprinted to the library and claimed the computer. When the Google page showed up on the screen, I typed in Nightingale, watching each letter as it appeared so I wouldn’t make a mistake.
The list of links was long and unhelpful. There was a Wikipedia page describing the actual bird itself, with paragraphs filled with multisyllabic terms like those in my father’s science books. There were Web sites for a security system, a restaurant, and something called an Experimental Marketing Agency. I looked through each one, but saw nothing I could connect to my father.
I even found an audio recording of a nightingale, and clicked the Start button. The clear, liquid notes filled the room like raindrops, causing the librarian to shoot me a stern look.
I went to the images next, photo after photo of little brown birds on tree branches or in nests—their tiny bodies unremarkable, but lovely all the same.
Lunchtime was almost over, and the tenth grader waiting behind me had begun tapping her pencil on the table in irritation. I was getting nowhere. Because I didn’t have any other ideas, I clicked the Next option at the bottom of the screen.
And there it was. Two-thirds of the way down the page, a photo of a sleek silver box, about the size of a fat paperback. The image was small, but I would have known it anywhere.
My father’s machine. I clicked through to the source. But just as the words John Hartfell appeared on the screen, the end-of-lunch bell rang. I let out a small groan of frustration.
The librarian came over.
“I need to read this,” I said, desperation clear in my voice. “Five more minutes.”
The librarian shook her head. “You’ve got to go back to class. I could print out the page for you, though.”
“Please,” I said, and went to stand by the printer, waiting impatiently until the paper emerged. I grabbed it and sprinted back to the classroom. The teacher wasn’t there yet; the kids were milling about. Dylan glowered at me as I hurried down the aisle to my seat.
“I worked on that fairy tale,” he griped. I instinctively dodged the hand that reached out to grab my ass as I passed. I had other things to think about. I sat down and started to read.
JOHN HARTFELL DISAPPEARS
THE DAILY SUN
SEPTEMBER 26, 1999
The mastermind of last year’s phenomenon, Nightingale, has been reported missing. John Hartfell had been at the center of a firestorm of controversy …