“I am rather remarkable, aren’t I?”
He grins, pulls his cap from his head, and sweeps into a mock bow. “Undoubtedly so.”
“You know, as observant as I am, I’m beginning to wonder if my initial assessment of you was incorrect.”
“How do you mean?”
“Lately I’ve been thinking that you’d be more suited to a circus than an opera stage.”
“World’s most dashing lion master?”
“Hmm...” I tap my chin. “I was thinking something along the lines of ‘Human Ape—Looks like a man, behaves like a monkey!’ You’d be the talk of all Vaureille.”
He mock-scowls at me. “Apes are very intelligent creatures, you know.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean to mock your intelligence.”
“Just my looks? I mean, I know I keep the hair a little shaggier than most, but I was always under the impression that it wasn’t too bad.” His voice softens, and I meet his gaze over the dancing flame on the cigar lighter in his hand.
My eyes trail upward to the dark hair sweeping across his brow, and I am suddenly overwhelmed with a desire to reach out and touch it.
“Your hair is...fine,” I say, the jovial, teasing feeling suddenly gone. In its place, a timidity makes the words stick like paste to the roof of my mouth. “It’s not apelike at all, actually. It...suits you.”
He holds my gaze for a long moment, and it’s as though he’s stolen every bit of oxygen from the tunnel, leaving my hands sweating, my heart hammering, and my lungs tight. “Then what did you mean?”
“I meant...” I swallow. “I meant that I...it’s just that, well... I’ve spent a lot of time observing people, and you’re...different.”
He cocks his head and wets his lips. “The people you’ve spent all this time observing are the type who frequent the opera. I didn’t grow up in their world.”
“No?”
“Those who can afford to spend their money on music, dancing, and fancy clothing are usually born into a world of influence. I suppose I’m not unlike you in that I grew up pretty isolated.”
I stare as the words fall from those mesmerizingly perfect lips, as his flawless cheeks dimple with every syllable. What would it be like to be so beautiful and unmarked?
He settles the cap back on top of his head and crosses his arms, leaning against my crypt door. “It was just my mother, my sister, and me. My father died when I was very young in a mining accident. After my sister was born, we moved into a tiny little cottage practically in the middle of nowhere. Not another house in sight, and the nearest town was a few miles away. I didn’t get much social interaction.”
“Why so secluded?”
A shadow passes across his face, but then he shrugs. “I guess you could say my mother was a bit afraid of people.”
“Where is she now?”
His eyes turn somber, and I’m struck once again by how deep and dark they are—as though he stole a piece of the night sky. Drawn as I am to darkness and the things it hides, I imagine myself slipping into those eyes and falling and falling and never ever stopping.
“She passed away when I was fifteen.” His Adam’s apple bobs as he drops my gaze. “Almost three years ago.”
“Oh.” My hands suddenly feel awkward where they are at my sides, so I snatch nervously at the chain around my neck. What do people say in situations like this? “I—I’m terribly sorry.”
“Thank you,” he says. “At least she is free from the fear that plagued her in life.”
“Have you been in Channe for the past three years then?” I ask, eager to steer the subject away from mothers and death, not liking the way it’s drawing my thoughts to the few memories I have of my own mother before she sent me to be drowned.
He shakes his head. “No. I went to live with an uncle in a little village called Luscan in northern Vaureille for a time. Which reminds me...” He shoves a fist into his pocket and produces a handful of small, rock-shaped mounds wrapped in white parchment. “Would you like one?”
“What are they?”
“Caramels.” He holds out his hand, but I don’t take one.
“Candy is terrible for the voice,” I say.
“Ah, but Isda, it does wonders for the soul.”
I study the candies. Cyril has brought me peppermints before, and chocolates on holidays, but I’ve never tried caramels. My mouth waters at the prospect of finally tasting one.
Sighing dramatically, Emeric tugs my wrist upward. His hand is warm, and I stifle a gasp when it brushes against my skin. He places one of the little wrapped mounds into my palm and curls my fingers over the top of it.
My whole arm is shaking, every nerve zinging with an awareness of his touch on my knuckles.
He meets my gaze and smiles softly. “Go on. Try it.” Releasing me, he unwraps one for himself, popping it into his mouth and closing his eyes. “Ahhh...my soul feels better already.”
My hand tightens around the caramel as he swallows and unwraps a second.
“Come on.” He points at my clenched fist. “I made them myself. I promise they’re not poisoned or made with goat’s blood or anything like that.”
“You made them? I thought you were a janitor.”
“I hate to be the one to tell you this, but sometimes janitors do other things.” He feigns a dramatic gasp. “Shocking, I know.”
“Oh fine.” I unwrap the caramel and put it into my mouth. “Are you happy now?”
He grins. “Quite.”
It melts quickly, warm and sweet on my tongue, even more decadent than I imagined it would be. “You made that?”
“Don’t ask for the secret ingredient. I won’t tell you.”
“I wasn’t going—”
“It’s sugar.” He winks. “Don’t tell anyone.”
I snort in spite of myself, then make the sign of the God of Memory. “Your secret is safe with me.”
He drops the rest of the caramels back into his pocket.
“All right, if you’re ready,” I say, pushing against the crypt door. “I think it’s best we get started.” Tonight, I plan to dip into his memories to look for the gravoir girl. At the prospect of hearing him sing again, of finally getting a chance to plunge into a world so very different from my own, my magic prickles, eager, waiting, ready. But my body is still weak from the expense of power during my encounter with the Forgotten Child upstairs, and I can’t seem to muster the strength to open the crypt. I struggle with the door. It doesn’t budge.
Emeric’s smile fades. “You all right? I’ve been thinking you seem a little...drained tonight. Is everything okay?”
“It’s been a long day.” I shove my shoulder against the stone.
“Would you prefer if I let you sleep? I could come back tomorrow instea—”
“No!” I almost shout. Easing the panicked edge out of my voice, I murmur, “I mean, no. I’m fine. The music will make me feel better.”
“Allow me,” he says, never taking his eyes from my face as he steps in so close I can almost taste the burnt sugar and vanilla scent of him. He places a strong hand on the door and eases it inward.
“Merci,” I manage before darting under his arm and into my room to light the candles.
He trails in behind me and sets his stack of music books on my organ’s bench. “I went through the practice drills you sent me home with. Several of them proved rather difficult.”
“Perfect. I’d like to hear your progress.” I finish lighting the candles and toss the cigar lighter onto the collection on my shelf before sliding his books aside and taking my place at my organ. “First let’s warm up.”
We run through a few scales and simple tunes to get his vocal cords warm, and then spend half an hour going through some of the drills in the books I gave him.
“No, no, no.” I stop him midarpeggio. “You’re
still breathing into your shoulders. You’re going to give me an ulcer.”
“I’m sorry.” He gives me an apologetic smile. “Wouldn’t want to curse a poor ulcer to the likes of your temper.”
“Very funny,” I huff and hop from my seat. “Place your hands on your abdomen and inhale like you’ve got a balloon inside that you’re trying to fill. You should feel your stomach expand into your palms with each breath.”
He obeys, holding my gaze as he breathes in slowly.
“No. Your stupid shoulders. I’m going to cut them off.” I place my hands on both shoulders and press them down. “Now breathe in and don’t move my hands.”
He sucks in a breath, and I push firmly on his shoulders to keep them in place.
“Again,” I order.
He inhales. Exhales. Inhales. Exhales.
The room fills with the slow, steady sound of his breathing. He blinks, and his eyelashes feather for a brief second against his cheeks. I stare. I feel like I’m plummeting, spinning into some oblivion, but somehow the sensation doesn’t fill me with terror the way it should. It’s not like tumbling from a great height into the unknown... It’s a fall like in that moment when I close my eyes and surrender myself to slumber. Cocooned in warmth, with the reassurance that I will reawaken to a world bathed in gold and light.
It isn’t until my knees bump against his that I realize we’ve moved closer together. So close our breaths twist the air between us into a vapor of caramel-scented warmth.
I drop my hands and turn away, trying to ignore the way I can still feel the dip of his collarbones on my thumbs and the broad curve of his shoulder blades on my fingertips.
“I’d like you to try singing the opening number to Le Berger,” I say through a mouth thick with cotton, crossing to pull the new sheet music Cyril gave me from my shelf and handing it to him without meeting his gaze.
I need to stay focused. If I’m going to find out anything about the gravoir in his memories, it is imperative that I spend more time rifling through his past and less time getting distracted by his dimples and his shoulder blades.
Settling in at the organ, I ease my hands into place. The opening number of Le Berger is an old favorite of mine, one I could perform flawlessly in my sleep if I wanted to. It’ll be the perfect song for me to play as I dive into Emeric’s memories—I won’t need to focus on the music at all.
I plunge into the familiar prelude lines, and then, when Emeric begins to sing, instead of barring myself against the flood like I did last night, I open my soul wide and let the flow overtake me. The tide rips me under, the emotions filling me so deeply and so wholly that I almost cry out with joy. Biting down on my tongue, I swim backward. Further and further until the images of a small village are replaced with glimpses of golden sunlight, rolling hills, and a tiny cottage nestled at the edge of an apple orchard. My heart leaps when the gravoir’s face flashes by, but I kick my way even deeper into the past.
I need to get to the beginning, to see where this girl started, where her story began.
After several long moments of swimming against the tide, I settle into one memory that, though the images show it occurred in the gloom of midnight, sparks as though charged with lightning.
Emeric is a child—maybe five or six. The night is dark, lit only by a pale, yellow moon in the window and a sputtering lantern on the bedside table. Emeric’s mother lies half upright in her bed, her face red with effort and her hair dripping with sweat. He clutches her hand. “It’s okay, Maman,” he says in his high-pitched voice. “You’re almost there.”
A tremor of fear, an urge to run, to hide, courses through his tiny body, but he holds firm against her bed and squeezes her knuckles, trying not to look down at her swollen belly or the bloodied sheets at her legs.
A midwife bustles about at the foot of the bed, setting out a pot of hot water and a pile of rags as she murmurs comforting things to Maman about breathing and letting the labor surges roll through her.
When the next surge hits, Emeric screws his eyes shut, wishing he could clap his hands over his ears to keep away the sound of his mother’s howls.
“That’s it, Danielle,” the midwife urges. “The baby’s almost here. One more push!”
With a final cry loud enough to crack the cottage in half, it’s all over. The baby’s wet little body topples out into the midwife’s hands, and Maman collapses back against her pile of pillows, sobbing and clinging so tightly to Emeric’s hand he’s lost feeling in all of his fingers.
“You’ve done it, Maman,” Emeric says, holding back tears of fright and relief.
“How is the baby?” Maman asks the midwife.
The woman does not respond.
Maman sits up in her bed, her voice ringing with a slice of panic. “Is it okay?”
“She’s fine,” the midwife manages, but her back is turned, and the baby has not cried.
“Is she...alive?” Maman’s voice breaks on the last word. “Please don’t tell me she’s...”
“She’s alive,” the midwife says after a moment.
“What’s wrong?”
The midwife clears her throat.
“Give her to me.” Maman releases her grip on Emeric’s hand and holds out her arms, eyes blazing. When the midwife still does not turn, Maman shouts, “Give me my baby!”
Emeric’s gaze darts back and forth from his mother to the midwife, that urge to run making a sudden return and filling his body with hot adrenaline.
The midwife takes a slow step around until she’s facing his mother. “The child,” she says, her tone impossibly quiet, “is a gravoir.”
“Bring her to me.”
“It’s best if I take her away now.” The midwife tucks a white blanket over the baby to hide it from view. “Holding her will only make what needs to be done more difficult.”
With a screech, Maman dives at the midwife. They wrestle over the child, who lets out a tragic wail.
Emeric clings to the bedpost as his mother lands a slap straight across the midwife’s cheek. The midwife gasps as Maman rips the bundle from her arms and pulls it securely against her chest.
The midwife stares at Maman, one hand reaching up to touch the bright pink mark on her cheekbone. “I must take the gravoir. It’s the law.”
Maman tightens her arms around the infant. “Are you sure she’s a gravoir? She could just be a fendoir...”
“Even if it was, you would not get to keep the child. Fendoirs are raised at the Institution.” She inhales a staggering breath, pressing a palm to her chest. “But there is no doubt in my mind. That child is no fendoir. It doesn’t have the spiral birthmark on its sternum.”
Maman turns her attention to the bundle in her arms and pulls the bit of blanket away from the baby’s face. The determination in the set of her jaw twitches only for a moment when a spasm of shock flits through her eyes, but then she smiles, trailing a thumb along the baby’s brow.
“Maman?” Emeric’s fright is a sharp slice of ice in my chest.
“Arlette,” Maman breathes, turning toward Emeric and lowering the bundle so he can see. “Isn’t that a lovely name? Arlette. Yes, I think that will do quite nicely.”
Emeric peers into the face of his tiny sister, his gaze tracing the hills and valleys of her gnarled features. The purplish, mottled skin, the knot where the nose should be.
He reaches out a tentative hand to pat her belly.
“I’m—I’m so sorry, Danielle,” the midwife says to Maman, laying a hand on her shoulder. “But I really must—”
“Look at her ears,” Maman says, her tone gentle.
“I—”
“Look at them.”
The midwife obeys, her gaze darting to the baby and then back to Maman. “They’re nice.”
“They are, aren’t they? Sort of round, right? And a bit too big. Exactly like her fat
her’s were.” Maman stares down at Arlette, tears trembling like dewdrops on her eyelashes. “You know he died before I found out I was pregnant?”
The midwife wrings her hands. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“He always wanted a daughter, my Richard.” Her voice breaks. “I wonder what he would say if he were here now.” She squeezes her eyes shut, sniffing.
Emeric stands up on his tiptoes to get another look. His new sister’s arms flail jerkily in the air.
The midwife lays her palm against Maman’s shoulder. “I know this is hard, but I really do need to take the baby. It’s the law.”
“No.” Maman’s voice is like the edge of a serrated blade, and when she opens her eyes, they blaze like an inferno. “You’re not taking her from me.”
“If I don’t and it is discovered, we’ll all be beheaded.” The midwife watches Maman with caution, as though afraid she might strike her again.
“She won’t be discovered.” Maman crosses to the bedside table and, holding the baby in one arm, yanks open a drawer to reveal a bulging bag. When she heaves it out, it clinks with the sound of hundreds of glass vials. She turns to the midwife and holds it out. “For your silence.”
The midwife frowns but takes the bag and peers inside. The glow of the elixir within shines on the planes of her face. “How many?”
“Two thousand three hundred and forty-two,” Maman says with finality. “It was all they were able to extract from my husband before he died, and it is everything I can offer you. It should fetch more than enough money to earn your discretion. Please.” She approaches the midwife with tear-filled eyes. “Please.”
The midwife meets Emeric’s mother’s gaze with a furrowed brow, her lips pulling down into a wrinkled frown. Emeric clings to his mother’s bloody nightdress with sweaty fists, his heart pounding in his ears.
After a long moment, the midwife finally sighs and nods. “Fine. But I won’t be putting my neck on the line for you. If the child is found, you must tell everyone you gave birth without the aid of a midwife.”
Sing Me Forgotten Page 7