Mayluna: A Novel by Kelley McNeil

Author:Kelley McNeil [McNeil, Kelley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Published: 2024-02-01T00:00:00+00:00

The day before I was scheduled to fly back to New York, I joined them in the studio, where they were recording the first songs for the new album, which was still untitled at the time but would become Sigma Five. I loved watching them work, whether they were writing or recording.

Carter would often play them the first draft of the song on the piano. Gradually, the others would join in, arranging their own parts, tweaking lyrics or notes, until the end result was a distinctly Mayluna sound that could be achieved only by a group of musicians working perfectly together to create magic. It was otherworldly, as if some greater source energy was shining down on them and through them, and they were merely the instruments and scribes.

Sometimes I filmed. Other times I sat curled up on a black leather couch in the dimly lit room with the producer and engineer, the scent of whiskey and the occasional cigarette filling the air. When the label suggested a photographer be brought in, I recommended Derek. I trusted him and knew that he would be the perfect fit. It began his lifelong friendship with the band.

We were all there one day, and it was nearly midnight when it came time for Carter to start laying down the lead vocal track to a new song that I hadn’t yet heard in completed form. He’d been somewhat secretive about it—working on it while I was away or asleep. Before he started recording that day, he went outside on his own for a bit. I remember it was a clear night, with a few rare stars peeking through the crisp winter sky. When he came back in, he took me by the hand to follow him.

“Come on, I want you here in the booth for this, next to me,” he said.

Tommy, who was usually the joker of the group, grew serious as Alex started the intro. It had a haunting quality and an ever-building crescendo that captivated me instantly. A few measures in, I recognized it as the song that Carter had been fiddling with our first night at the beach house. That strange melody that felt so inexplicably familiar to me from another time. It sounded like the feelings of falling in love—intense, passionate, sweetly lulling, and dark and safe—all at the same time. When Carter sang the lyrics he’d written to accompany it, a stillness came over me as I listened.

An ancient road down we’ll go

You and I

The moon that to the water led

A dance along the razor’s edge

With tangled hands in secret lands

You and I

The music sounded like us. With the microphone in hand, Carter watched me, reflecting the darkly sultry feel of the song, eyes locked on mine. He leaned down, singing just inches from my face, and my eyes warmed with tears. He repeated the final words with the perfect simplicity of just Alex’s guitar behind him.

There was at once

an appearance of light

Above the cloud with its shadow

beyond the

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