Chloe felt the words forming on her tongue.
“That’s right,” Mr. Dromnel whispered. “It’s the only thing that matters. The only thing you’ve ever wanted.”
In her mind, Chloe could see his face. There was something new shining in his dark eyes, something like triumph. Then Mr. Dromnel’s face dissolved. In its place she saw the beasts that had pursued her in her nightmare and Dante urging her to destroy the rosewood box.
“What will it cost me?” Chloe demanded again.
“There’s always a price for greatness,” said Mr. Dromnel. “There’s very little room at the top. The winners in life are the ones who want victory the most, the ones willing to climb over everyone else to get there.”
“No,” said Chloe. She shook her head. “It doesn’t have to be that way.”
There was an edge of impatience in Mr. Dromnel’s voice now. “Don’t be naïve, Chloe. If you don’t climb over them, they’ll climb over you. Think about what you stand to gain—the money, the fame.”
Once again Chloe found herself in the auditorium of her dream. Applause was pouring over her, lifting her up. But she felt strangely hollow this time, empty, as if something was missing. A final sequence of images flickered through her mind. Chloe saw Nyssa being flung from her bicycle, Nyssa lying in a hospital bed, her head bandaged, her arm in a cast. Chloe opened her eyes. “No,” she said again with more conviction. “No!”
Her legs were over the side of the bed in an instant. With the rosewood box clutched in her hands, she ran from her bedroom, down the hall to the sitting room. The fire that had burned so brightly earlier that evening was still flickering as Chloe crossed to the hearth. She lifted the rosewood box and shoved it into the very center of the fire. Hungry tongues sprang to life around the dry wood. As the clock on the landing began to strike midnight, the rosewood box disappeared behind a curtain of dancing flames.
Chapter Fourteen
The storm had passed by the time Chloe opened her eyes the next morning. She let her eyelids fall shut again as she tried to make sense of the strange images and half-remembered dreams that still clouded her mind. “The box!” she said, leaping from her bed and running to the closet. Aside from a few pairs of shoes and a shirt that had fallen off its hanger, the closet floor was bare.
Chloe hurried down the hall to the sitting room. The fire was dead; only ash and charcoal remained in the stone fireplace. Chloe used a poker to dig through the charred debris. She found what she was looking for almost immediately: two hinges, a latch and a tiny key. She stared at the remains of the rosewood box; then she returned the poker to its hanger and stood up. There was one more thing she wanted to see.
A minute later, Chloe stood on the landing between the first and second floors. “They’re gone,” she breathed, staring in wonder at the painting that hung on the wall beside the grandfather clock. What had once been a painting of Dante’s carnival now displayed an empty meadow bordered by trees. The performers had disappeared. There was no trace of them. The tents, props and animals were gone as well.
Chloe ran her fingers lightly over the surface of the painting. It was dry, the pigment parched and cracking with age. She tried to lift the painting off the wall, but it wouldn’t budge.
“I was afraid you weren’t coming,” Nyssa told Chloe a few hours later. “I’m sorry if I was a bully yesterday.” Nyssa stood in front of St. Mark’s Theater. She held one of the lobby doors ajar with the arm that wasn’t in a cast. “I am glad you’re here though.”
Chloe was breathing hard as she followed Nyssa inside. “No worries—you were right. Sorry I’m late. Abigail’s car battery died, and a neighbor tried to jump-start it but it didn’t work, so I got a ride from the neighbor at the last minute instead. And there’s so much more I have to tell you afterward!”
“They’ve just started,” Nyssa said as they hurried across the empty lobby. “Are you nervous?”
Chloe nodded. “But I’m here.”
“This is the easy part. It’s just a tech rehearsal.”
“Will I get a chance to play the piano before the show?” Chloe asked anxiously. “I need to get a feel for how the pedals and keys respond. Every piano is different.”
“I’ll check with my dad, but I think there’s a sign-up sheet posted somewhere for people who want time on the stage this afternoon. I think everyone gets fifteen minutes. Is that enough?”
Chloe nodded. “That would be perfect.”
“Here we go then,” Nyssa said as she opened the door that led backstage. “Time to take your place in the lineup.”
Chloe took a deep breath and followed her friend through the door.
Chloe was still forcing herself to take slow deep breaths as she made her way through the same door eight and a half hours later, this time without Nyssa at her side. Nyssa, Abigail, Bess and Kitty were all on their way into the theater to find their seats.
Chloe felt like a prisoner being led to the executioner’s block as she followed the long concrete-lined hallway to a large dressing room. She was barely aware of the other young performers—her competition—already milling around as she entered the room. She found a folding chair and carried it over to an empty corner. With her eyes closed, she tried to visualize herself out on stage, lifting her fingers to play the first notes, playing her music smoothly and confidently from beginning to end.
“Are you all right?” someone asked.
Chloe opened her eyes and saw one of the festival organizers, a woman with long red hair tied back in a ponytail. “I’m fine,” she said, forcing a smile.
The woman nodded sympathetically. “Last-minute jitters. Don’t worry, you’ll be fine once you’re out there.”
Chloe squeezed her eyes shut again and tried to return to her visualization exercise, but all she could see this time was the scene of her last humiliation. Her stomach gave a sudden heave. “Where’s the washroom?” she asked a boy standing a few feet away. She made it to the toilet stall just in time.
A pale girl in black pants and a white blouse was standing at one of the sinks when Chloe emerged from the stall a few minutes later. She looked about Chloe’s age. “Are you a first-timer too?” the girl asked.
“I’ve never been in this show, if that’s what you mean. I’ve played at lots of recitals though,” said Chloe. She turned on the faucet of the neighboring sink and cupped some water in her hands to rinse out her mouth.
The girl nodded. “My sister won second prize once in the dance category. She’s in the Royal Winnipeg Ballet now.”
Chloe dabbed at her face with a paper towel and straightened one of the clips that held her curls out of her face. “Well, good luck and all that,” she said as she moved toward the door.
“I’m so scared,” the girl said suddenly, her voice breaking.
Chloe turned and was surprised to see tears trickling down the girl’s cheeks, leaving wet lines through the powdery foundation that covered her pale face. “You too?” said Chloe. “I just threw up. I’m terrified!”
“You are?”
“Completely,” said Chloe.
“I’m Kimberly,” the girl said as she wiped her tears away with a wadded piece of tissue.
“The cello player,” said Chloe, remembering the name from the printed program. “You’re on two people ahead of me.”
Kimberly shook her head. Her long black ponytail swung behind her like a rope. “I can’t go out on that stage tonight. There’s no way.”
“C’mon, you must have played at lots of recitals before.”
“Never in front of an audience this size,” Kimberly said, her voice taking on a desperate edge. “And there are tv cameras out there too. I can’t do it. I just can’t!”
Chloe felt her heart accelerate at the mention of the cameras. “So what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to hide out in one of the stalls. Don’t tell them I’m in here, please!”
Chloe hesitated. “One less competitor,” a voice in her head whispe
red. She took a deep breath and forced the thought out of her mind. She shook her head. “No way. If I’m going out there tonight, so are you. We can do this. C’mon, fix your makeup and let’s get out of this bathroom.”
The two girls stood together in the wings and watched their competitors performing on stage. Chloe felt her own anxiety ebb a little as she stood shoulder to shoulder with her new ally. She squeezed Kimberly’s arm when the cellist’s name was called.
“You can do it,” Chloe whispered, repeating the words so many other people had used to encourage her. “Just keep breathing. Don’t let yourself think about the audience until it’s over. Don’t think about the judges. Just think about the music. It’s all about the music.”
Although she had never heard Kimberly play before, Chloe sensed a little hesitation at the very beginning of her performance. After that, Kimberly seemed to get her bearings. She played the rest of the piece flawlessly, with just the right amount of emotion. Chloe clapped as proudly as any sister when Kimberly finished playing her second piece and came backstage to stand beside Chloe.
“Chloe McBride?” a man with a clipboard asked, causing her heart to leap back up in her throat. “You’re up after the next kid. And here, I was asked to give you this.”
It was a good-luck card, signed by Kitty, Bess, Nyssa and Abigail. Bess’s short note caught Chloe off guard and brought her close to tears. Trust yourself, Chloe read, her hands trembling. Whether you know it or not, you’ve spent half your life preparing for this moment. The music is inside you. Block everything else out and just focus on it. Let it out when you’re ready. And no matter what happens on stage tonight, you can be proud just knowing that you were there when the curtain rose. By showing up tonight, you’ve proved that you are greater than your fears.
“All right, it’s your turn,” said the man with the clipboard.
“Good luck,” said Kimberly, her face shining.
Chloe felt herself being nudged on stage as the piano was rolled in from the other direction. The curtain went up, and suddenly there she was, standing in the spotlight at the front of a packed theater. It was too late to withdraw with any kind of dignity. For a second, Chloe remained frozen. “Run,” a voice in the back of her mind urged. Not this time, she told herself, standing her ground.
She bowed her head in acknowledgment of the welcoming applause and took her seat at the piano. After checking that her music was in place, she closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. Her lips moved in silent prayer, and she opened her eyes again. She lifted her hands to the keys and began to play.
She knew after just a few bars that she was going to be okay. At the back of her mind she was aware of Nyssa and her aunts and Abigail sitting somewhere in the audience, watching her, praying for her, wishing her well. She felt the muscles in her arms relax, the tension in her chest slip away. She let go and fell into the music.
“You were really good,” Kimberly said when Chloe was back in the wings again. “You’re going to win something for sure.”
Chloe let out a long breath and smiled. “I already did.”
“You came so close to collecting the big prize tonight,” said Nyssa. The two friends were seated on the steps of the veranda, Abigail’s famous root-beer floats in their hands.
One of Chloe’s curls sprang loose as she shook her head. “It wasn’t close at all. That David Mu guy blew me away. I bet he got his first violin when he was, like, a month old.”
“Yeah, well,” Nyssa grinned, “second place isn’t too bad, I guess.”
“A miracle, really.” Chloe shook her head again, this time in disbelief at the thought of what she’d just pulled off.
“You earned your award,” Nyssa insisted. “There are no miracles.”
“No miracles, huh? You still don’t believe, even after what happened to the painting?”
“There’s a rational explanation for everything,” Nyssa said as she wiped some foam off her chin with the back of her hand. “There were multiple paintings and someone switched them on you. I’ve been saying that since the beginning.”
“I told you, I tried to take it down this morning. You’d need a crowbar to get it off the wall. Besides, if there were multiple paintings, why didn’t I find the rest of them when I searched the house?”
“Did you search your aunts’ rooms? Or Abigail’s?”
“All right then, Sherlock,” said Chloe. “Since you seem to have an answer for everything, give me your explanation for Dante’s disappearance.”
Nyssa put her frosted glass down on the step. “Honestly? I think it was staged. Dante wanted to catch the world’s attention by performing the greatest vanishing act of all time. Magdala might or might not have been in on it. I don’t know.”
“If it was staged, why didn’t he ever come back?”
“Because the world didn’t care whether he came back or not. They still weren’t paying attention. Maybe he just lost it in the end.”
“His family cared,” Chloe insisted. “That should have been enough to bring him home.”
There was sympathy in Nyssa’s eyes as she faced her friend. “Sometimes people who disappear don’t know how to come back again. Even famous magicians.”
“Maybe,” Chloe said. “But in a strange way I think he did come back for a little while this summer.”
The two friends fell silent as the sun set over the canal.
“Who knows,” Nyssa said at last, pushing herself up from the step. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Thanks, Nyssa” said Chloe. “And thank you too, Dante, wherever you are.”
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Sarah Wood for sharing her insight as a performer and pianist. Thanks also to my husband, Bernard, and my daughters, Rebecca, Naomi and Emily, for their endless confidence and support. A special thank-you to Sarah Harvey, my editor, who led me with patience and much kind encouragement to the heart of Chloe’s story.
Rachel Dunstan Muller was born in California and immigrated to Canada as a young child. With the exception of a year in Northern Ireland, she has lived on the west coast of British Columbia since the age of ten. She has been an English tutor, a ferry worker, a newspaper columnist and a training consultant, but writing fiction is her favorite occupation. Rachel currently lives in a small Vancouver Island community with her husband, four children, and an ever-changing assortment of cats, rabbits, birds, rodents, amphibians and fish.
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When the Curtain Rises Page 10