disembodied and disparate's meaning

Question

Someone was whistling. I started, the tune instantly recognizable. “Remember Him Still.” Eoin’s favorite. I was out in the middle of the lake, and someone was whistling. The whistling shivered through the mist, a cheerful flute in the eerie white, disembodied and disparate, and I couldn’t tell from which direction it originated.

What does this disembodied and disparate together mean? I know disembodied suggests that the sound wasn't emanating from any obvious physical source, and disparate means different (?), but what does it mean together, putting in the context?

What the wind knows, Amy Harmon.

Answer 1

"Disparate" means more than just different. It means "fundamentally distinct or different in kind; entirely dissimilar."

Together, the writer is emphasising that they cannot place where the flute is coming from. It is "disembodied" in that it cannot be connected to any person. It is "disparate" in that it seems out of place, not related or connected to anything else they can see or hear around them.