Chapter Text
Sixteen eyes stared at him.
From every angle.
A resounding echo of glass cracking.
There was silence.
Except he didn't know how there could be silence.
Electric sizzle.
Right arm outstretched and frozen.
"Over your shoulder now, Fiddleford. Go on so your Mama can clean that up."
"Y-yes, Nana."
The matriarchal head of the table.
Salt under his nails.
Salt over his shoulder.
"The Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace."
Chatter at the table resumed.
His Mama returned with a dishrag to wipe the spilled salt and placed a kiss on his temple.
Unsalted sweet corn and mashed potatoes.
It's a school night.
The children are sent to wash up and get ready for bed.
Fiddleford is always last.
As he passes the bedroom mirror, he could see grains of salt on his reflection's left shoulder.
His right.
As he chewed his nails, he could taste salt.
He showered.
He chewed his nails.
He could taste salt.
He lay in bed.
Bad luck seemed to drip off along his body, soaking into the sheets gripped in his fists.
Blurry eyes watched his cousin work diligently at their shared desk.
If Thistlebert failed this test, he wouldn't pass this class, and if he failed this class, he couldn't graduate from high school, and if he couldn't graduate, then he'd have to repeat his senior year, and if he had to repeat 12th grade he couldn't move to the city like he wanted and get a job and make real money and-
He quickly stuffed his face into his pillow and wrapped it around his ears, hoping it was possible to quiet his brain through an external source.
Outside through the muffled cushion, he could pick up on a new accompaniment to the summer night chorus. Slowly raising one edge off his ear, he could hear alongside the chirps of crickets echoing from the dark corners of the field the melody of an old homestead waltz gently adding its voice, creating an almost perfect harmony among nature.
Pappy was still awake.
"Cover for me, Thist." Leaping out of bed, he went under his bed to remove Daddy's old banjo from its case and shoved his glasses on his face.
"Your sisters gonna hear you, and God forbid Nana catch you up on a school night."
"You're up late," he retorted.
"My ma's given me permission 'cause of my big test tomorrow."
"Laaast chance- you can ask me for help," Fidd offered, teetering on his feet while leaning over the teen's shoulder.
"I can't. Told ya, you ain't always gonna live with me, so I can't always have my eleven-year-old cousin doing my math for me. Gotta be able to do this stuff on my own."
With an exaggerated sigh of annoyance, Fiddleford crawled across the room towards the door and peered under the gap for a quick look. He couldn't see any lights from any of the other rooms, nor any reflecting up from the stairwell. "Coast is clear."
"Good luck there, cowpoke," Thist dismissively replied with a wave of his hand. "Don't get yourself grounded before summer starts."
"Hey Thistle?"
"Change your mind already?"
"No." Creaking the door open as he began to back into the dark hallway. "Wanted to let you know the answer to number 13 is 3c+d=-9 after you invert the 0 and 9 from 9+3c+d=0."
"You know why Nana doesn't sit outside at night anymore, right?"
Fidd's hand froze on the knob as he snapped around. "I told you, no scary stories. I'm not gonna believe another ghost living in the barn tale from you again."
"It's 'cause she got abducted by aliens one night. Saw it myself from this very window when I was just a little younger than you are now. Reckon they'll come back someday soon, lookin' for a big brain to keep as their pet."
"God don't like liars, Thistle."
Narrowing his eyes, Fiddleford backed into the hallway, holding the knob tight as he gently shut the door, slowly releasing the latch once it could silently slide back into place. Across the hall rug, he crept with baited breath, the false sense of okayness in front of Thistle gone the moment the door closed. Maybe giving him that particular answer and leaving the room would bring him better luck in his studies, but the thought that something could appear in the dark never sat well with him.
All he had to do was wait with Pappy.
He'd be safe.
Nothing to worry about.
Aliens weren't real.
Down each step, he silently ventured, until he met the back door. Together, he opened the screen and the wooden door, the latch of the lock clicking a little too loudly in the dormant kitchen. Once his bare feet hit the grass, Fidd ran round the side of the house, freckle-dusted cheeks flush with life as he hopped up the steps to the front porch.
The rocking chair creaking against the old floorboards paused only for a moment before resuming. Tobacco gave him a comforting welcome as he settled himself into the mirrored chair.
"You remember the front door's been a-squeakin'?"
"Didn't hear it before you came outside, figured you musta gone out the back."
A content hum and another ring of smoke as Fidd began to tune the instrument resting on his lap.
"Can you show me a new song, Pappy? Been practicing the last one you showed me a whole lot. Hear, listen." The callouses on his fingers knew exactly where to go as proof of his previous lessons joined the evening air. Fidd bit his tongue as he played, focused on each note he played. Shaky, slow notes of 'Camptown Races' traveled into the evening air.
"Relax, junebug. Promise you'll start sounding better once you just start playing, not 'cause you memorize a song by ear. You ever see me make a face like that when I play? You're gonna bite your tongue off doing that. Just start playing what your hands feel like playing. It'll come to you."
Fiddleford envied how effortlessly his grandfather's hands moved across the strings, like he didn't even need to think twice about how to bring a song to life. He knew what the answer would be if he ever stated the question aloud; it was just because he was a kid and still had a lot of growing to do, no matter how smart he was. Even after decades of working on the farm as well as engineering equipment for the war as things got tough, his grandfather's hands didn't seem to ache as long as he got to sit on the porch when the sun went down and got to play his banjo.
With a deep breath, he readjusted his hands and closed his eyes. Distressing, tuneless notes mingle discordantly alongside his Pappy's soothing strings.
He could still feel grains of salt under his nails.
Blue eyes pierce eigengrau.
The salt shaker lay prone in the middle of the table.
He should have asked anyone to pass it to him, lessening the risk of making a mess in the first place. He should have grabbed it with his left hand so that he automatically knew it would go over his left shoulder. He should have stayed in his room instead of visiting the junkyard that afternoon. He should have dialed back his joy at breakfast.
A good day meant a bad night.
Fortune brings misfortune.
"Fiddleford."
Hands frozen, the cacophony of noise ceased, and his eyes burned with fresh tears at the sudden loss of resistance under his fingers as a string snapped.
"I…" His throat clogged with shame, salt splattering his lenses as he fiercely tried to wipe the tears away. "I'm- I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
"Strings snap all the time, bug. Shocked me the first time it happened to me, too." His grandfather's voice was level as he carefully set his own instrument aside. "Lemme take a look."
Sniffling, Fiddleford handed the banjo over and rubbed the sting on the back of his hand. He watched quietly as Pappy loosened the tuning peg, uncoiling the shimmering thread in the brightness of spring's flower moon.
"You didn't tune your 5th string right," he assessed. "You got it an octave higher than it should be. Easy mistake to make. Go into the chest there and reach me that pack of strings. We'll fix it right up, change the others while we're at it."
For a long few minutes, it was only the green frog's plucked banjo string of a cry that held the stage. Knees curled to his chest, Fidd watched and waited, chewing at his salty nails as the old strings were cut off and discarded.
"You were playing somethin' mighty sad. What's a-troublin' you?"
"Nothing…"
I ruined your evening.
I ruined dinner.
I ruined Thistle's chance at graduating high school.
I ruined Daddy's banjo.
I heard something I shouldn't have.
"God knows when you tell stories, Fiddleford, and your Pappy knows even more."
Graphite from a pencil helped slip the knot of the new string through the slot more easily, a trick passed down from one player in their family to the next. Lemon oil was the best at cleaning the fingerboard if you didn't play often. You should change the strings every two weeks if you play every day. The fourth string always gets dirtier the fastest and was critical to keep it free of grime; the whole set could sound bad if that string wasn't maintained.
"Fiddleford? Staying quiet ain't gonna help you."
"I know how to change the strings myself."
"I know you do, junebug, but that ain't what I'm asking you right now."
Burying his face into his knobbly knees, glasses shoved up to his forehead, his voice cracked out, "I heard Daddy talkin' 'bout the farm…"
Delicate tuning and rustling wind filled the pause between words. "How long have we had this farm in our family, hm?"
"Hundred years give or take."
"And we'll have it another hundred more, give or take."
"But Daddy said we're one of the last hog farms in town- everyone else had to move to the city or change to cows. Say there might soon be more people than pigs."
"My grandfather used to drive hogs. Back then, everything had to be on foot or horseback. Five hundred miles or more he would go, said it was the most beautiful ride every time he went as he took hundreds of pigs down south through the mountains. Along the road he went, able to cover about ten miles each day before the pigs got tired. The first time they stopped at an inn for the night, the swine feasted on bushel after bushel of corn; on that frosty night, it was like a song my grandpa could never forget. Folks are always gonna eat pork, gotta keep bodies fed for workin' or trade it for other stuff. They can't get rid of all of us."
"Daddy said I'd do better in the city than takin' over…"
The rocking chair creaked slowly, and another string clipped. "You believe him?"
"I… I don't know. I love the farm and helpin' it, but…"
Salt on the table.
Salt in his eyes.
Salt on his tongue.
"I like school… even if the other kids are mean to me every day. I wanna keep goin'. I wanna go to college one day and get even smarter, but I don't want the farm to go away, and I know Thistlebert wants to move to the city, and Opal's boyfriend wants her to move in with his family on their farm once they get married and-"
"Slow your tongue, son. How do you fit so many nerves into a skinny boy like yourself? Frettin' more than a cat in a room full of rockers." He shook his head with a soft laugh. "You like school, you're a smart kid- smarter than most grown men in these parts. You've eh… you've been workin' real hard on those radio trackers for the hogs."
"And they don't work like they're supposed to," Fidd groused. "Be a heck of a lot easier to ask Daddy for the parts I need rather than gettin' lucky in the junkyard."
"You know, you come from a long line of innovative and smart McGuckets. My grandfather's voice wasn't the loudest; no matter how hard he yollered, it just couldn't carry 'cross any field or gorge. And when you're a-drivin' hundreds of squealing hogs, you make sure that voice of yours is loud enough to reach God himself. Ho-o-o-yuh! He'd shout, tryin' to get those dang pigs to go the right way."
Fiddleford glanced up through a crack between his arms. "Your Pappy was smart like me?"
"Right'ja are. So he's stuck up in the mountains, pigs blocking the road, and it's startin' to get closer and closer to sundown. What's he gonna do to get 'em moving again? Even with all the other men a-shoutin'- nothing. He notices, all o' a sudden, that every time they went to shout, they would cup their hands 'round their mouths to make their voices louder. Into the wagon he went, rummagin' through everything they had until he found sheets of paper. Folding 'em like funnels, he lined up three of them from big to small. Still nothing. So he made them bigger and bigger until suddenly, you could hear his voice a mile away. 'Course, all the paper he used was all official documents 'bout the livestock, so he had to deconstruct it soon as he's was done."
"But what if… what if I wanna make stuff that ain't for the farm? Stuff that everyone can use?"
"Then you go and you make something the whole world can do good with."
The freshly stringed banjo is returned to his arms, and Fidd delicately cradles its neck to his chest.
"Follow my lead, junebug."
A handful of notes is where they began.
Fiddleford followed his grandfather in suit with each new set of chords. Beat after beat, he followed along, even as the tempo picked up masterfully.
Accelerando.
Stringendo.
Faster.
Pressing on.
Tighter.
Joyful.
The song concluded with a burst of quick picking, Fiddleford's heart racing like a hawk in a storm. His fingers moved without thought, his soul soaring as his song's lingering vibrations traveled to distant hills and into the stars. Bursting out into laughter, the pair rocked in their chairs, admiring the echoes of the song at the realization that there was no way the sleeping family didn't hear the dueling instruments at this hour.
Fiddleford's voice didn't crack as he laughed, his bare feet easily resting on the creaking wood as his Daddy's banjo sat just right in his hold.
"Fiddleford Hadron McGucket." His mother's voice demanded, foot tapping in the doorframe. "Last I checked, we have a ten-hour drive in the morning. Bed. Now. Say good night to your grandfather."
"Sorry, Mama, got carried away," he apologized, jumping from his seat and stretching his arms above his head. "Hard to believe the first day of school is already here. So excited that I just couldn't sleep."
"I understand, but you should at least be in bed. Come on, you're lucky it was me who came down and not your Nana."
"Fiddleford," Pappy called.
"Need something before I head up?"
Rough, sun-spotted hands took hold of his own, giving them a gentle squeeze. "You're the first of our kin to go to college, and there won't ever be shame in that. You go and work hard now. Show those city folk a country boy can hold his own, no matter where he goes. Go and be a good man."
"Yes, Pappy. I promise."
Back in bed, he gazed out the screen window, taking in the last picture of the countryside summer to bring with him. With his eyes getting heavy, spots of blue light flicker just on the edge of the field before the treeline appeared in his dimming vision.
Odd.
Ghost fireflies usually only showed up in late spring.
A pounding at his door had Fidd bolt up in bed.
It was dawn.
Light crept in through the spot in the curtains above the shared desk.
Stanford Pines sat up, paper stuck to his cheek as he exchanged a look of confusion with him.
"McGucket! Your Mama's on the phone!"
"Hold your horses! I'm a-comin'!" he shouted, quickly reaching for a sweater discarded to the floor and his glasses. Boots tugged on, he was out the door and down the hall, where the common phone was put on hold. Fidd quickly thanked his floor mate and brought the receiver to his ear.
Salt in his eyes.
Salt in his mustache.
Salt under his nails.