SKYDRUM Chapter 3: Three Years of Stars

The drying loft above the drum shop: low beams, drumskins hanging like sails, one shuttered window leaking a single gold line of light. Vela sits cross-legged in the darkest corner, goggles off, a thick battered notebook open on her knees. Tam hangs upside down from a beam, bored.

Caption (narration): "The loft above Pell's shop. The darkest room in Halfsun."

Tam says: "So. You fell out of the sky."

Vela, not looking up from her notebook.

Vela says: "I fell off a roof. The sky is much higher."

Tam swinging down to sit in front of her.

Tam says: "Fine. Who are you, roof girl?"

Vela.

Vela says: "Vela. From Starhold."

Tam, blank.

Tam says: "Is that past the fish market?"

Vela, a long-suffering pause.

Vela says: "It's on the far side of the world. Where it's always night."

Tam leaning in, delighted.

Tam says: "Always? Like, you just never get a morning?"

Vela says: "We get stars."

Vela's memory, drawn soft: a dark city of domes under a sky crowded with stars, telescopes poking out of every roof.

Vela says: "Thousands of them. Every night of my life."

Back in the loft. Vela touches her goggles on the floor.

Vela says: "Then I walked the Clock Road and crossed the Seams to get here, and your sun nearly took my eyes out."

Vela turns the notebook toward him. Pages packed with tiny columns of numbers and star sketches.

Vela says: "I'm an astronomer. I read the sky."

Tam squinting at the numbers.

Tam says: "That's a lot of maths for someone my age."

Vela says: "I'm seventeen. You're behind."

Vela, serious now.

Vela says: "The stars shiver. Once, all together, every time the world's heart beats."

Tam goes very still.

Tam says: "The thum."

Vela, a small sharp nod.

Vela says: "You hear it. I can only see it. A shiver of light across the whole sky."

A field of stars, every point trembling at once. A single ring of movement passing through them.

Sound: "shimmer (silent, lettered small)"

Vela, flipping pages.

Vela says: "I've counted every shiver for three years. Written every one down."

Pages and pages of tally marks and times, columns marching toward the edge of the notebook.

Vela, quieter.

Vela says: "They come in a pattern. Patterns end."

Vela.

Vela says: "The world is getting close to its First Beat. Much closer than anyone says."

Tam, wide-eyed.

Tam says: "The First Beat. Like in the songs? Someone hits the Skydrum and writes a rule into the world?"

Vela says: "Not songs. Maths."

Tam jumps up, banging his head on a beam.

Sound: "BONK"

Tam, holding his head, still excited.

Tam says: "Ow. Then tell everyone! You'd be famous!"

Vela's face closes.

Vela says: "I told the Throne. The royal observatory."

Vela, flat.

Vela says: "They took my work, sealed it in a vault and called me a clever child."

Tam sitting back down slowly.

Tam says: "They buried it."

Vela, gripping the notebook.

Vela says: "A girl with a notebook is easy to ignore. Maths needs a second witness."

She looks straight at him.

Vela says: "Someone who hears the world's heart. A hearer."

Tam pointing at himself.

Tam says: "And you found me. Out of the whole world."

Vela.

Vela says: "There's a rumour on the Dawn Edge. A busker in Halfsun who stops in the middle of a song and stares at the floor."

Tam, flattered.

Tam says: "I'm a rumour."

Vela.

Vela says: "Rumours are cheap. I need proof."

Tam, crossing his arms.

Tam says: "I said your number. In the square. You heard me."

Vela.

Vela says: "You could have guessed. You could have heard a Warden say it."

Tam.

Tam says: "Do I look like Wardens tell me things?"

Vela, a beat, conceding.

Vela says: "...No. You look like Wardens chase you."

Vela.

Vela says: "How do you count it? Do you add one every time it beats?"

Tam, scratching his head, struggling to explain.

Tam says: "No. I don't count up. I just... know where it's got to."

Tam, drumming two fingers on his knee.

Tam says: "Like a song you know. You don't count the bars. You just know how far it is to the end."

Vela writing that down, word for word.

Vela says: ""Like a song." Unscientific. Keep going."

Below, through the floorboards: Pell at his bench, stretching a new drumhead over Tam's old frame, a lamp beside him. Before he laces it, his needle works at something small on the underside of the skin.

Sound: "tok. tok. tok."

Tam glances down through the gap in the boards.

Tam thinks: "He hasn't said a word since. Not one."

Tam, quieter.

Tam says: "Pell knew your goggles."

Vela, careful.

Vela says: "A lot of people know Starhold glass. It's sold on every road."

Tam.

Tam says: "He went white. He doesn't go white. He didn't go white when the canal flooded the shop."

Vela, closing the subject.

Vela says: "Then ask him. Later. First, the test."

Vela flips to the back of the notebook. A page covered by a folded flap, held down with wax.

Vela.

Vela says: "I wrote this in Starhold, before I left. One line for every day, counting down."

Vela.

Vela says: "I worked out what the count would be on every single day. I never looked ahead."

Tam leaning over the page, curious.

Tam says: "That's either really clever or really sad."

Vela's finger on the flap.

Vela says: "What's the date today?"

Tam, thinking.

Tam says: "Bell tower says day one-forty-five. Year one-oh-four."

Vela.

Vela says: "And your count. Again. Don't look at me."

Tam closes his eyes.

The cutaway again: under the shop, under the canal, the slow ring of the world's beat rolling through the stone.

Sound: "THUM"

Tam's lips.

Tam says: "One thousand, two hundred and ninety-six."

Vela's thumbnail breaking the wax.

Sound: "tik"

The page under the flap, in neat small handwriting: a long column of dates and numbers. Halfway down, one line: "YS 104, day 145 . . . 1,296."

Tam opening his eyes, reading it.

Tam says: "...That's today."

Vela, her hand pressed flat on the page, as if it might fly away.

Vela says: "Three years of maths. Thousands of nights."

Vela looking at Tam like he is a star she has finally found. Her voice very small.

Vela says: "And you just knew."

The two of them in the dark loft, heads bent over one line of one page, the single gold line of light falling across the notebook between them.

Caption (narration): "To the day."