It all started with a tree, and a drive.

Marvellous stuff for a folk song, right?

And it was eight months later. I noticed it first, I think, before Lyric did. It wasn't like our recruitment was picking up its pace. Erynn showed up a few days later, after we found Her. Then Emi, but it took them a couple weeks. Skye was a little over a month later. Rita a couple months after that, at the end of the spring.

No one else, all summer, but that didn't matter at all.

It started with a tree and a drive, and it ended with the five of us moving to suburbia. We got rid of our apartment, and Emi's, and kept Erynn's for any time we had to spend a night in the city. Erynn and Skye used it mostly, when weather was bad or they just didn't feel like making the commute back out, and that was fine, we didn't have to have them around all the time. Emi was as good a helper as anyone could want, and Rita was always just next door. More often than not, Rita was over spending time with Emi, helping with their chores, buying a little time for the two of them to spend together.

Lyric moved into Skye's bedroom, I got the other upstairs bedroom, and the three (or four) others split the two in the basement. As far as I knew, Rita had only paired up with Emi, but I couldn't say for sure, and it wasn't really any of my business. If they could sort all that out between themselves, it sure didn't matter to me who was fucking who. All I had to know is that they were all happy, That's what was important to me, and to Lyric, and to the other four, and probably most importantly, to Her.

Happiness. Also good stuff for folk music. I couldn't just get by being maudlin. I love Stan Rogers and Finest Kind and the Wailin' Jennys, but I had to do my own thing, especially now. I had dropped all the covers from my shows, and I had been writing furiously. With no worries about anything other than the need to make music, I had obligation to do my best by the four who supported me, and Lyric. And she was doing something similar, spending hours a day creating graphics and designing images. Lunch was brought to us in our rooms if we didn't go to get it, but suppers was our together-time. Whoever was at the house would be participating, which was almost always Emi, usually at least one of Erynn or Skye, and sometimes we would see Rita. I think her parents had been getting a bit suspicious of how much time she was spending at the house, especially given that Skye and Erynn left for work every morning. Maybe we should have got to know them better, but some intuition told me that that wasn't the best plan, and Rita agreed.

Some regulars requested some of their old favourites, some didn't want to hear my new creations, and that's fine, everyone has their own taste. But some did. Some just enjoyed them, some came back, some brought friends... Those were the ones who would send me letters, or emails.

Slowly but surely, my following was growing.

I played a few bigger shows in the summer, too, and got a little notice. Erynn insisted on getting a post office box instead of giving out her address for fanmail, and that seemed reasonable. Whoever went into the city would check it at least once a week. I got a few notes over the summer, nothing special, but definitely encouraging.

Then it was time for Rita to head back to school. She said that she wanted to spend a lot more time in theatre classes than math, maybe swap her majors around. We all gave her our support, held a bit of a feast, and I played a set in the back yard around the fire again. Watching my best friend dance nude with the four others always made me smile. I loved watching her have fun. Not that I didn't enjoy the ecstasy of the others, of course, I couldn't possibly find a better audience, and they were all having a great time, but there was something pure, genuine, and artless about Lyric's joy. It was weird to think of her connection to the Presence, as Rita had been calling Her, as being purer for being nonsexual... though that, too, was the wrong term. Lyric and I had a deep, deep connection to the Presence, and there was definitely a sexual component to that connection, but the other four had that sexual connection to each other that Lyric and I didn't share. No, the Presence was the only woman for me, or for Lyric.

Men, meanwhile, weren't off the table. But that's another story, and a different folk song.

The first day she was back at school, Rita found the time to sit down and write the rest of us a letter. We got the envelope in mail (at the house, not the PO box) on the Monday following; Emi got it and opened it and read it to the rest of us at dinner, though she said that there was a second letter just for her. It was a message full of optimism and enthusiasm, and most importantly, love. She missed us already, she said, but she had already reconnected with some of her friends from the year before, and she was sharing my music with everyone she could without being obnoxious about it. I basked in the glow of that while Emi talked about Lyric's eye-catching designs, Skye's cute crocheted scarf that she'd made for Rita over the summer, Erynn's poetry, and how much Rita missed Emi's cooking. She had already made new friends in her theatre classes, including a couple that she suspected might be good recruits. We all had a good laugh about that; we knew Rita would definitely be able to tell

Later that week, Erynn came home from work with a package, addressed to me. I didn't recognize the return address, but for some reason it felt private, so I took it upstairs after dinner to see what I'd got. I unwrapped the outer layer of the paper to find a similar one inside, and a note scotch-taped to the inner layer. The note inside was typed out very cleanly.

Hi Tempest,

I caught your set at the folk festival, and even though you were early in the evening, I couldn't stop thinking about your music, even while the other acts were on stage. I can't stop, even two months later. Something about it just touched me deep inside. I started listening to your stuff on all the apps I could, bought your tracks, followed your newsletter, all that, but there was something more that I needed to do.

I know it sounds weird to say, I feel like a fucking stalker saying it, but I just can't leave my life behind and join you. I don't even really know what I mean by that, it's not something I would normally tell someone I was writing fanmail to (I don't normally write fanmail, I hope I'm doing it right!) but I really wish I could! There's so much I think I would like to do, but my world can't just revolve around one musician, no matter how amazing her music is. I have responsibilities and obligations and people counting on me. And now this feels like a breakup letter! Even though we've never met.

Anyway, I wanted to say that knowing your music and your work for the last couple months have made my life so much better, and I'll keep listening and following you and showing up at your shows when I can. I don't think I'll ever work up the courage to introduce myself, and I kind of think that if I ever did I would probably never leave your side, but you can know that I'll be there. Please don't look for me, though! I don't think I could handle it.

After your show, I got inspiration again. I haven't picked up my paintbrush since my kids were born, but I just couldn't help myself. I went out after work and bought supplies, and every night after bedtime, I'd spend some time on it. Five minutes one night, an hour another, time I used to spend watching TV or doom scrolling on my phone. As it came together, I just felt this strange energy running through me, and I couldn't stop until my vision was realized. I was still working when the sun was rising, and when I finished, naked (I don't even know when I stripped!) and paint-spattered, I walked into my room and had the absolutely best lovemaking session with my husband that we'd had since our honeymoon! I wasn't even a little bit tired (even though he was worn out). I was able to get the kids to school and myself to work with no trouble at all and put in a full day like I'd had a good eight hours.

In this package is that painting. I didn't let my husband or my kids see it. I don't think they would understand. But I know that you will. It's not going to be the last thing I paint, but I don't think I'll send you any more, unless you really want me to.

Thank you for everything,

Your fan,

Nikita

I looked at the plain unmarked brown paper wrapping around what had to be the painting. I hesitated. I wasn't sure that I wanted to know what a fan would paint for me. I could tell the letter, and the emotion behind it, were genuine, which was both warm and a little uncomfortable. It was one thing to be roping in an unmarried, unattached office worker, and another to be taking someone away from their partner and kids. For just a moment, I questioned.

We all knew, every one of us, that there was no punishment for questioning. Or even for walking away.

I opened the package, and my questions fell aside.

The painting was a riot of colour. Blues, greens, reds, oranges, wild slashes across the canvas like the wind, subtle pools of texture like water, the music I made coming to life in a still portrait. And only if I looked at the whole thing at once, I could see myself in it, reflected like a mirror, standing on a stage in the middle of the outdoor field and the trees of the folk festival, and behind and all around me, I could see the Presence.

It was the best representation I'd ever been able to see. Looking at the painting, I felt like that night in the woods, in the snow. I could feel the Presence with me, like in the painting, around me like the movement of the air in my room.

Like Erynn, like the others, I needed to be naked, to feel more of that Presence all around me. I wasn't just captivated by the painting, I was captive to it. I fell to my knees. I held the painting up on the bed and worshipped it with my eyes, and I started singing, a hymn of joy and love, just my voice and nothing else.

I hadn't heard the others come upstairs, but I felt them come into the room. Lyric's hand fell on my shoulder. She wasn't naked, but Emi, Erynn, and Skye were, as usual. None of them said anything. I don't think they saw what I did in the painting. It didn't matter. They knew what I was going through, they all knew. They had all gone through it. I had gone through it, in the woods, once before. But here, I was experiencing it with someone else, or maybe in place of someone else. And what's more, the other five times it had happened to us, I had been the conduit. The power came through me to take hold of my roommate, and Erynn, and through Lyric and Erynn to bring us Emi and Skye, and through us all to convert Rita.

This was my first witness of the power coming from someone else, to me.

I finished my song, put my head down, and started weeping. Lyric's hand never moved, and the others never wavered. We were all together in that moment that was entirely mine. I couldn't have asked for better company.

At just the right moment, Lyric said, "You're going to get more."

I nodded, letting the painting fall and wiping my eyes. "Yeah."

"You should see some of the emails I get." I could hear her grinning.

And sincerely, I answered, "I think I'd like to, sometime."

"Sure thing."

She squeezed my shoulder, then helped me to my feet, and I was swarmed by three lovely naked bodies in the warmest hug I'd ever experienced. I started to laugh, and so did they, and soon we were all holding tight and giggling in joy.

"I'm gonna hang this," Emi said, stepping out of the embrace.

"Up here?" Skye asked.

I nodded. "Yes please. I want it to be the first thing I see in the morning, and I want it to hang over my writing desk."

"I'll need to move the desk then," Erynn said, moving to shift some of the furniture around.

"Here let me—" I started, but Lyric cut me off.

"You're coming to sit with me downstairs and process this," my roommate said. "I'm putting on some tea."

I didn't argue.

"Let the others work for you," she continued as we walked down the stairs. Emi breezed past us heading upstairs with the picture hanging kit. "It's what they want to do."

I nodded. "Okay, yeah. I... I get it, Lyric. I just—"

"I know."

I sat, naked, at the kitchen table, like Emi, Erynn, Skye, and Rita had all done so many times that summer, while Lyric put the kettle on.

I smiled at her. She smiled back. We didn't have to say anything. We listened to the sound of furniture moving upstairs while we drank tea and ate some of Emi's ginger snaps.

And finally, I understood.