The teacher paused mid-sentence when all thirty children smiled at once. Mr. Bellamy lowered his conductor’s baton. The choir room suddenly felt freezing cold. “...Did I miss something?” he asked weakly. The children stared back at him silently from the risers. Their mouths curved in identical smiles. Then the piano played a note by itself. One sharp, clean key. Mr. Bellamy turned toward the instrument. No one sat there. Another note sounded. Then another. A melody. Slow. Ancient. Wrong somehow, like music played backward and forward simultaneously. The children inhaled together. And began to sing. Mr. Bellamy stumbled backward. The language wasn’t English. It wasn’t any language he recognized. But the harmonies vibrated through his chest like a second heartbeat. The lights flickered. The windows fogged instantly. Outside the glass, dark shapes gathered in the snow-covered courtyard. Listening. The children sang louder. The piano keys hammered themselves harder and harder, strings shrieking inside the instrument. Mr. Bellamy covered his ears. “Stop!” he shouted. Every voice ceased instantly. Silence crashed into the room. Then one child whispered: “It heard us.” A deep sound answered from somewhere beneath the school. Not loud. Just impossibly large. Like something ancient shifting in its sleep. The children smiled wider. Waiting. Listening. And for the first time all day, the silence finally made sense.