RoseBlood

by Howard, A. G.

  “How you suddenly seem to have control over your ‘stage fright.’ Unless maybe it’s the kitty giving you voice lessons,” Katarina adds, a wicked grin on her pouty mouth. “That would explain the gift you left him. Payment, right?” She fluffs up her honey tresses, tucking a red barrette into one side to bring out the color of the tie at her collar.

  Everyone has noticed Diable’s recent devotion to me; he even sits at my feet during class, in the instances when the teachers are chill enough to accommodate him. So there’s nothing new there. No, Kat’s referring to something else entirely.

  I turn on my heel and prop my hip against the counter to face her. The sudsy water I spilled earlier seeps into the ruffles stitched along the side seam of my uniform, chilling my skin. An ice-cold splash of fear rushes through my spine, as if following in the water’s wake. What if she and Roxie saw my note and gift for the Phantom in the orchestra pit before he found them?

  Roxie rubs her hands under the faucet’s stream. “Then again, maybe it wasn’t his payment. Maybe Rune was saving it for dessert. Crow brulee is the perfect complement to chicken rolls.” I flinch as she flutters her wet hands in my face like wings, an obvious allusion to the dead bird on my chair in the cafeteria a month ago.

  It’s a relief they didn’t stumble upon my secret, but why bring up the bird now, so many weeks after the fact? I swipe droplets of water from my forehead, wondering how they know about that event at all. Unless . . .

  “Jackson confronted me the other day,” Roxie says before the suspicion fully forms in my mind. She pumps soap into her palm. “Asked if I was the one who put the crow in your chair. If I made coleslaw of your uniforms and gave you some fake invitation to the morgue club. Imagine that. My own twin, having so little faith in me. Because I guarantee, if I wanted to scare you, I’d come up with something way more creative. As you already know.” She rinses and dries her hands.

  I scoff, tempted to tell her that the mannequin prank is nothing compared to what I’ve encountered since, or to what I’ve done myself before I came here. Instead, I dole out more sarcasm. “Yep. Definitely fraternal. There’s no way you and Jax are from the same egg.”

  At the mirror, Kat coughs a laugh, nearly smearing the coating of gloss she’s brushing on her lips. She turns all her attention to Roxie, wearing a strange expression. “She’s got ya there, Rox. As much as you and your bro look alike, you could never be identical . . . not in the ways that really count. Too bad for us, huh?” The eight-minute warning bell rings and she leaves without a backward glance.

  I consider her parting jab at her friend—how it seemed to drip with double meaning.

  Roxie stares herself down in the mirror, raking a hand through her shimmery platinum crop. Her brown eyes flash inside their black liner and mascara . . . or maybe they’re tearing up.

  Ever since I’ve been spending time with the Phantom, I’ve been letting myself notice the colored halos around my classmates’ heads and bodies. The ones I used to force myself not to see. And after researching auras on my phone during a couple of the Paris trips, I have a sense of what emotions the colors portray.

  While I’m studying Roxie in the mirror, her halo shifts from a feminine, affectionate pink to a depressed and gloomy gray, and a hypothesis starts to form.

  I stand there awkwardly, battling a bout of unexpected sympathy. “Does Kat know how you feel?”

  “How I feel about what?” Roxie slides her harsh gaze to mine in the mirror.

  “Never mind.” Obviously this girl and I aren’t tight enough to ever share any secrets. “Look, we don’t have to be enemies. I want to get along with both of you. But you’re making it personal.”

  “You made it personal,” she seethes. “You had to go and help Audrey. If Kat ends up as the understudy, she’ll walk away from the entire opera and sign up for sets. She has too much pride to play second fiddle to anyone.”

  “That’s her ego trip, and her issue,” I say.

  Roxie grinds her teeth. “You know what your problem is? You’re from Podunk Texas and you’ve never lived in the entertainment world. Kat has grown up saturated in opera and is expected to be the next”—her fingers form air quotes for emphasis—“‘Christina: world-renowned prodigy.’ That’s a lot of pressure from her family. A talent scout is coming to our performance at the end of the year . . . they’re planning to offer two scholarships for la Schola Cantorum Conservatory in Paris. One girl and one boy recipient. This is something she’s been working for since she was in grade school. Then you come in without any training . . . all freaky savant who wants to upstage everyone. Yeah, as Kat’s bestie, I’m gonna get in your face. Unlike my brother, who claims to be crazy about Audrey but doesn’t care if you crash her hopes and dreams, I’m loyal to the ones I lo—” She stops herself short, her delicate features flashing bright red.

  Clamping her mouth shut, she slams her paper towel into the trash and walks out.

  The five-minute bell rings, but I don’t move. Finally, their animosity makes sense. Kat thinks I’m going to steal her shot at a scholarship. Whereas Audrey needs it more than any of us. And Roxie . . . she’s crushing on her best friend, who keeps her on the side as a plaything, but is ultimately in lust with her twin brother.

  This place isn’t just an opera house, it’s an opera: unrequited love, jealous rivals, eccentric personalities, stalkers, sabotage, and vandalism.

  And last but not least: mortals pitted against monsters.

  Taking one last look at myself in the mirror—black, wild hair that ties me to Dad like my possessed musical performances once did; eyes the same color as Mom’s but that see things no one else can; cursed, gypsy blood like Grandma’s—I have to wonder: on which side do I belong?

  There’s only one way to know for sure.

  To earn this week’s Saturday trip to Paris with my classmates, I’ve been diligent with my gardening duties during the two-hour span between helping Madame Fabre with the costumes for the lesser roles and dinner. I haven’t missed a single day, despite that the weather has decided to be fickle again.

  Friday after classes, I talk to Mom on the landline for a few minutes and finish reading a letter I received from Trig and Janine. Then I make my way out to do some weeding, trying not to think about Ben. He’s fully conscious now, but has amnesia. I chide myself for finding peace in that.

  It rained most of the morning, and soggy leaves drip water softly around me. The wet scent of foliage tastes refreshing on the back of my tongue. Invigorating, in spite of the clouds. My dark mood lifts as I weave my way across the parking lot and find the dead roses left in the Phantom’s wake staring back at me.

  Ever since I first saw them drained of life, I’ve been tempted to touch them, as if the ailing blooms and shrinking stems were calling to me, but my insecurities always stopped me. Today, I notice halos of blackish-gray light surrounding them.

  Dad used to say all organic things have auras . . . even plants and animals. But I thought these roses were dead. Somehow, they’re still giving off life energy. So, maybe they’re only dormant.

  I glance over my shoulder, assuring I’m out of view of the academy . . . hidden behind brambles and vines. I take off my gardening gloves and wrap my fingers around a rose’s crinkled, soggy head. At first, the bud feels cold and empty. A lifeless hull. Then, a thrumming sensation shakes through the petals, originating from the roots in the ground and trembling under my boot soles.

  Instinctually, I start to hum, drawing off an ability I’ve suppressed for years, ever since Dad died and music became a parasite. I hum like I used to when we gardened together. I hum like I do each night now, when it’s just my maestro and me alone in my room, calming and hypnotic. My song coaxes the earth’s heartbeat into the rosebush; my vocal cords become tributaries, channeling the life beneath the soil into the roots, stems, and leaves.

  By the time the final note leaves my vocal cords, a deep red, edged with burgundy so velvety it’s almost black, bleeds into the petals a
s they soften inside my hand. The spiky leaves unfurl from their coiled and withered stasis, plumping to a vivid green, as if a rush of chlorophyll races through them. The stems stand tall, and the scent shifts in one breath, from musty and decayed to a fresh perfume.

  I step back, staring in disbelief as every rose lifts its head and displays a halo of crimson light, the entire bush in full bloom. A memory comes back to me, quiet and soft: Dad bringing me outside when I was six, showing me how to use my music to revive the wilted places in our garden.

  He knew . . . he knew I was different and he cultivated it.

  In a daze, I gather my gardening tools and head for the footbridge, drawn by an irresistible compulsion to search for my maestro in the chapel, to get the answers he has—no more waiting. Each time I’ve attempted to find him there over the past few weeks, Mister Jippetto has been in the cemetery, repairing tombstones that were damaged during the storms, raking leaves, and pulling up weeds. A few times I heard him trilling that bird whistle, and down came several wrens. It seems to work like a dog whistle, because every time I see him outside, he has flocks of his feathered friends following him.

  Even when I couldn’t see or hear him, a couple of his mannequins were always propped against the side of the chapel with his wheelbarrow, as if standing guard. Their presence prevented me from venturing past the footbridge and kept me on the garden side, on the chance he’d return.

  But today, I’m more determined than ever. And since he’s nowhere in sight, and neither are his mannequins, I slip into the chapel unnoticed. Sunlight slants through the jagged stained glass, painting the walls. I shut the door behind me. There’s enough of a dim haze to see I’m alone. A niggle of disappointment winds through me, but I continue toward the baptismal, led by Jax’s claim that it’s always been bone dry.

  When I lean over the edge to study the basin, it’s exactly as he said. Even more confusing, the bottom stops at around four feet. Not consistent with my experience in the endless depths of water.

  As uneasy as that makes me, it could be chalked up to one of the Phantom’s architectural illusions. He’s famous in the stories for crafting escape hatches and hideaway places. If he could construct an entire palace in Persia with sophisticated traps and torture devices, he could make a false bottom in a well that would open, and once triggered, fill with water.

  Still rocking on the restless waves of my discovery about Dad and myself, I’m about to turn and leave when I see something on the floor where shadows drape the other side of the baptismal. It’s cardboard, the size of a shirt box, and wrapped with violin string. Using my gardening sheers to pry free the strands, I pop off the lid.

  Phosphorescent blue light greets my eyes and brightens the chapel, pulsating. It’s fabric. Lifting out and opening the silky folds reveals a sleeveless, knee-length fitted dress made of shear stretchy mesh—the color of my skin. On the bodice, fiber-optic panels—like galaxies of tiny blinking blue stars—crisscross in the shape of a corset, then plunge down to the hem in the front and lower back, covering all of the appropriate places and leaving the sides and upper back see-through.

  The flashing panels remind me of Professor Diamond Tomlin’s room . . . on those nights when an eerie orange glimmer throbs beneath his door, when he’s doing his science experiments.

  Confused about the gift, I search inside the box. A Fire and Ice rose waits within, and an envelope secured with a red wax skull resembling its metal counterpart on our dorm keys. Snapping off the seal, I pull out a note, written in the same tiny, neat script as the address on the wristband invitation:

  Dearest Rune,

  Thank you for the fairy tale. You brought my maman back to me when I needed her most. I want to do the same for you, with the father who taught you to sing and garden when you were a child. Follow the invitation’s instructions and meet me at the club tomorrow night. Wear this dress, and I will find you.

  O.G. (Opera Ghost)

  A thrilling rush of butterflies fills my stomach as I imagine my maestro’s raspy, deep voice speaking those words in his French accent . . . his calloused fingertips and strong hands folding the dress and wrapping the package for me.

  He called himself O.G.

  Opera Ghost.

  Maybe he no longer uses his given name, Etalon, because it stirs up too many painful childhood experiences. Recently, in one of his memories, I learned that his vocal cords were cruelly damaged when he was young, and that’s why his voice is broken.

  Somewhere, another epiphany wants to struggle loose about the initials “O.G.” and what they stand for—but I’m too preoccupied with his words about my father to give anything else my attention. I return the glowing fabric to its box and walk back to the academy, my mind spinning at the depth of our connection, now confirmed. Just as my maestro’s memories are on a frequency I can now somehow reach, the same is true of mine for him. He knows that I lost my dad at a young age, and that I’ve always wished we’d had more time together. But even as powerful as the Phantom seems, how can he ever give Dad back to me?

  It doesn’t matter. The slightest possibility is enough to warm my heart with hope. I’m going to that rave club . . . even if it means deceiving my friends and all the teachers, even if it means meeting the Phantom alone inside a morgue full of demonic creatures mingling with mankind.

  I can no longer fight the dark intuition that I’ll fit right in . . . that it’s where I’ve belonged from the very beginning.

  15

  MIRRORS

  “No one has more thirst for earth, for blood . . . than the creatures who inhabit cold mirrors.”

  Alejandra Pizarnik

  This morning, when everyone left RoseBlood, I told my friends I’d decided to spend the day with Aunt Charlotte in Versailles. Two reasons: One, I wanted to use the Internet at the library across from the prison for research. The Phantom’s cryptic answer when I asked what I am and how I got that way keeps haunting me:

  “You were born into it. It’s in your bloodline. Look back through your family’s history.”

  And the second reason I wanted to come with Aunt Charlotte?

  I have a plan for sneaking away to that rave club tonight, and it hinges on my friends thinking I’m with my aunt, and her thinking I’m with them in Paris. But the latter part of my plan has to wait until I can make sense of what I’m seeing on the glowing computer screen in front of me.

  All it took was searching the Internet with three key words: Germain + France + strange power. So many entries popped up, each one touting the weird and inexplicable immortal life of Comte de Saint-Germain. I knew I was onto something immediately, because Dad’s middle name was Saint, to honor the original hyphenated surname from generations earlier. It’s a family tradition, passed down through the years, for each firstborn son to have the designation.

  The clicking of keyboards and shuffle of pages around me become nothing but white noise as I choose an entry and read. Hand gripped around the mouse, I scroll down, afraid to miss anything: Saint-Germain traversed France in the 1700s, and had a reputation for never aging. He adored wine . . . but was only vaguely interested in food. He had a fascination with mirrors . . . insisted they were the portals to other worlds. He knew twelve languages. Managed to out-philosophize the philosopher Voltaire, whom he befriended. He also developed sleight-of-hand tricks beyond what most magicians would even dare conceive to try. And he had the uncanny ability to impress his desires upon people, without them being the wiser. With this talent, he befriended dukes and kings. His closest friend was a Parisian emperor who built and owned the opera house Le Théâtre Liminaire. Saint-Germain spent many an evening there, socializing with royalty.

  My breath catches on that last detail, locking the scent of carpet and old books inside me. Liminaire . . . the building where I attend classes every day. Where I live. My ancestor used to frequent RoseBlood’s halls when it was an opera house long ago.

  I look around the room in search of Aunt Charlotte. She was on the other
side of the table earlier, checking the school’s email. I don’t see her now, but my gaze veers back to the computer of its own accord.

  Saint-Germain used his many connections to accrue great wealth in the form of gems and jewels. He stashed it away, keeping only what he needed to travel. His life was an unending quest for knowledge. He imbibed it, as if it gave him the energy to stay youthful and sharp-minded. It was said he died in 1784, but there were alleged sightings of him still alive and youthful all the way into the 1900s.

  “Rune.” Aunt Charlotte’s voice breaks the silence behind me. I let out a startled yelp and click the X to close the page. I turn and try to hide my trembling hands by tucking them into my tunic’s pockets.

  “Pardon! I didn’t mean to frighten you.” She pats the white bun at her nape and nods an apology to the librarian in the corner who’s now glaring at us. “What were you looking at so intently?” Her hazel eyes scan my face, as if they’re digging into my soul.

  I swallow hard and study her with equal intensity. “Nothing, really.”

  She squints beneath her glasses. “I hope you know, ma douce, you can talk to me about anything. About the music that has plagued you . . . about how it no longer seems to hold you in its thrall. It is wonderful, the strides you’ve made since you’ve been here. But if you are still having trouble, with anything, you can tell me. Or any questions to ask? You can trust me.”

  Can I? Where was she when my dad was sick? She didn’t even take the time to come to the States when we buried him. And now, she’s dragged me to Paris to appease her insane and homicidal mother’s dying wishes. So, no. I don’t really think I can trust her.

  What could she possibly know that would help anyway? Compared to the other teachers here, Aunt Charlotte is so normal she borders on boring. I’ve been eating dinner with her three nights a week since Mom left. Our conversations range from my grade-point average to if I’m sleeping well at night and waking up refreshed. Refreshed. Who even says that? Stilted, awkward conversations that go nowhere. If there is some strange affliction I’ve inherited from our ancestor, Comte de Saint-Germain, it passed my aunt by. There’s no glow to her eyes. There never has been. I’ve also never seen anything strange about her auras. But then again, I am new at reading them . . .