Free to Fall by Lauren Miller Page A

jacket. He tossed it onto the coffin. It landed with a wet slap. I shuddered. “Don’t worry, no one’s buried there,” he assured me.
    “How do you know?” I asked him.
    “North opened it.”
    I gaped at North. “You opened it?”
    North shrugged. “I figured if it wasn’t sealed, there couldn’t be a body inside. The lid is really light,” he said, putting his hands under the rim and lifting it a little. “No way it’s actually marble.”
    “So why would they put a coffin in here if they weren’t going to put a body in it?”
    “Good question,” Nick said, unzipping his mandolin case. “Better one: Why put a building with perfect acoustics in a graveyard?”
    “Ah. So that’s why you come here to play.”
    “It’s better than a recording studio,” Adam replied, tugging open the large rectangular case at his feet. “And it’s free.”
    “But why the need for rain?” I asked.
    “It masks the sound,” North explained. “Plus, it’s the only time we can be sure no one will be out here. It’s a private cemetery, so technically we’re trespassing. Fortunately, only a crazy person would come to a graveyard in a thunderstorm.” He grinned.
    I knew I should be worried about getting caught, arrested even, and what it would mean for my future at Theden, but I told myself the odds of that actually happening were slim. Thunder and lightning were crashing just seconds apart, which meant the storm was right over us, and the rain was coming down so hard, it sounded like we were standing under a waterfall. North was right; no one in their right mind would venture out here now. I could start worrying about consequences when we left.
    Nick had started to strum his mandolin. The instrument had to be at least a hundred years old, but it was in perfect condition, not a single scratch in its veneer. I was watching his fingers dancing effortlessly over the strings when the others joined in. Adam on a bongo drum, Brent on an upright bass. Even just riffing like that, they were awesome.
    “Okay,” North said, setting his laptop and the mic down on the floor in the center of the little circle we’d formed. “Which one do you want to do first?” he asked Nick.
    “The chain in the small can,” Nick replied. “With a snap on the five beat.”
    North looked up at me. “Just count it out in your head,” he said. “One, two, three, four, snap . Over and over.” I nodded, suddenly nervous I’d screw it up.
    The guys tinkered with their instruments as North got the chain and the canister from the top of the coffin and knelt on the floor by his laptop.
    “‘No Vacancy,’” Nick said when everyone was ready, and the others nodded. “One, two, three—” And they all started to play. I was so taken with the instant fury of their fingers and hands that I almost forgot to snap, but North caught my eye just in time. He, meanwhile, was dropping the chain in the canister and picking it up again. I closed my eyes so I could focus on my snapping and immediately got lost in the music. The snaps came instinctively then. I didn’t even have to count them out.
    They played three songs, and there were snaps in two of them. North used the coins in the cans, and the chain on the marble, each combination becoming its own instrument, integral to the whole. Something inside me stirred and moved as I listened to the last song, the one without any snaps, watching North’s face from behind my lowered lashes. This music was better than anything on my playlist. It baffled me that these guys could be so off the radar.
    “That’s a wrap,” North said when they were finished. My heart sank a little. I didn’t want it to end.
    The guys said their good-byes and cleared out as quickly as they’d come, leaving North and me alone again.
    “So, you’re their sound engineer?” I asked as North slid his laptop back into the front pocket of his backpack.
    “Basically. They used to record at a studio in Boston, but it was expensive,