"Want? No. Need? Yes." I turned down the radio. I was suddenly aware that I had goose bumps across my arms, despite the heat of the day. I pulled my arm into the car. My psychic subconscious was whispering at me in some language I didn't understand, flooding cold through me in a subtle warning: something weird is afoot here. It was a feeling I thought I'd left behind, something I hadn't felt since this summer. I managed to look back at Paul. "Yeah, sure."

Paul's face split into relief, as if he'd expected me to say something else, and he started to chatter about our calculus teacher and the kids in the class. Even if I hadn't been somewhat preoccupied by the iciness trickling along my skin, I wouldn't have listened. People talk too much, and generally if you listen to the first thing they say and the last, the middle will take care of itself.

A sudden phrase pulled my attention back to Paul, like a single voice rising out of many, and I spun the knob on the radio all the way, switching it off.

"Did you say, 'So sing the dead'?"

Paul frowned. "Huh?"

"So sing the dead. Did you say it?"

He shook his head firmly. "No, I said, 'To sing today.' I had sightsinging. With--"

I opened the car door, nodding before he'd even finished his sentence. Even without the radio on, I heard music. And it pulled at me, important in a way that Paul would never be. I had to work to pull a sentence together for him. "Hey, let's congeal at the room in a few minutes, okay? Just a couple of minutes."

It was as if that misheard phrase--so sing the dead--had unlocked a door, and now I could hear music through it. Urgent, insistent music: a lilting, minor-key melody with a lot of weird, archaic accidentals. Sung by a low, male voice that somehow reminded me of everything beyond my reach.

Paul stammered out an agreement as I got out and slammed the car door shut, locking it.