The Hidden Twin
Page 21
Sing da Navelli stares across the moonlit quadrangle and up the snowy mountain that watches over the campus. A porter unloads baggage from her father’s Mercedes. Just inside the doorway to the dormitory, a haggard young man in gray academic robes speaks to one of her father’s secretaries. She is finally here, counted among the select few.
Dunhammond Conservatory. European prestige tucked away in New World mountain wilderness, surrounded by its own black forest. A scattering of mismatched buildings huddle in the shadow of St. Augustine’s, the famous Gothic church synonymous with musical greatness. Until her first visit, this spring, Sing had seen St. Augustine’s only in magazines. Now she is here to sing, in the place that has produced the brightest stars in classical music for a century and a half.
She drifts away from the yellow lights of campus toward the chilly northern woods. Not too far, not too deep, just the shadowy, crackling edge. The mountain snow tingles her nose as she peers into the twisted darkness. Quand il se trouvera dans la forêt sombre … She finds herself humming an all-too-familiar aria. When he finds himself in the dark forest …
When she was little, music was her nanny when her parents were gone, which was most of the time. Sure, various starched, soap-smelling women bustled around, but it was music that raised her, folding around her like a blanket—fuzzy or spiky or cold or sweet and warm. It sparked her, calmed her, made her want to get off the velvety floor and look out the window. Sing da Navelli is more music than words, inside.
Chatter from the campus drowns out the song in her mind. People are taking care of her registration, checking in, all those little details she has never had to worry about. Then it will be official. No more mediocre high school ensembles. She will spend the last of her teen years with her peers—those young musicians destined to attend the best universities and build careers like fireworks, explosive and brilliant. She is finally going to sing for real.
How can something so wonderful fill her with dread?
It would be better if Zhin were here. Zhin, Sing’s first almost best friend, who loves the violin almost as much as the soap opera world of classical music. She looked out for Sing at Stone Hill Youth Music Retreat this past summer—can it have been only a few weeks ago? They even got to do the opera together, Osiris and Seth. Sing loved the elaborate set with the big lotus pillars. Zhin loved the battle scene with all the shirtless baritones.
If Zhin were here, she would tell Sing what she can’t quite tell herself: You are good enough. You belong at Dunhammond Conservatory. You deserve this.
The voice in Sing’s head won’t say these things. It says, Not yet. Something is missing. But it offers no insight when she tries, every day at the piano, to perfect her imperfect voice.
She heard some of the other singers through the wall at the spring auditions; they were good. Very good, but not out of her league. Now, across the gravel driveway, Sing hears her father speaking. He wouldn’t let her come to DC if he didn’t think she could be good enough.
It’s just that, in her family, “good enough” means “the best.”
Her parents could have named her Aria, or Harmonia, or Tessitura, or a hundred other clever names that would have alluded to her ancestry. But they weren’t for her, these names that roll or sparkle or play or simply proclaim, I am normal!
No, it was Sing. A name and a command.
“Sing, must you wander off? It is time to go in.” Her father is suddenly there, speaking in that calm, unwavering voice, more used to command than leisure. Instead of his native Italian, he speaks to her in English, her language. Her mother’s language. “You must get to bed as soon as possible, but do not sleep too long tomorrow. When is your placement audition?”
It is a quiz. He knows the answer already. “One o’clock.” Her voice feels small here, at the edge of this great forest.
“So you must be awake and singing by when?”
“Nine o’clock.”
“Exactly. Eat a good breakfast. Go over your piece tonight, but don’t overdo it. It is there, eh?” He taps her head lightly. “You know it very well. I have heard you sing this vocalize one hundred times, eh?” Sing nods. Her father looks back toward campus. “It is a shame we are so late in arriving. I would like to see Maestro Keppler—I so much enjoyed his interpretation of the Little Night Music last spring. He has not aged one day since I last saw him! And I have not the opportunity to speak with my old friend Martin.”
It’s just as well he won’t get to speak with DC’s president. Sing already feels her father tugging on the invisible marionette strings of her budding career. The conservatory’s brand-new theater is evidence of his sudden interest in philanthropy toward his alma mater.
“I hope they have chosen a suitable opera for the Autumn Festival.” He puts an arm around her shoulders. “Something Baroque, eh, carina? That would be lovely in your voice. I would like to hear it.”
Something Baroque, she thinks. Something safe. Something technical and stylized. But in her mind she keeps hearing a different melody, a sweeping, wailing one that was born of this very forest almost one hundred fifty years ago. Quand il se trouvera dans la forêt sombre …
“This is where Durand wrote Angelique,” she whispers, and is surprised to have said it out loud.
Her father’s arm stiffens. “Yes, certainly it is. This is a beautiful place to write an opera. Vieni, it is time to go in.”
Sing hesitates, gazing into the dark forest, Durand’s dark forest. Angelique’s dark forest. She is unable to turn away.
After a moment, her father speaks in a heavy, quiet voice and calls her by a name she hasn’t heard in years. “Farfallina,” he says, “I leave tonight. But please promise me to stay always on the campus. They say this forest is dangerous.”
Sing tilts her head. “That sounds almost superstitious of you, Papà.”
He smiles. “I am just being your father, my dear.”
If he wanted to, Sing’s father could conduct Angelique as well as anyone in the world. But Sing couldn’t imagine him doing something as impractical as wandering around the very forest that inspired it. Her mother, perhaps. But she didn’t attend Dunhammond Conservatory and would never see it now. Who knows if she would have answered the forest’s call—or if she would have even heard it.
She shrugs. “I’m not afraid of ghosts.”
Her father continues to smile, but his eyes are grave. “That is good to hear.”
also by adi rule
Strange Sweet Song
acknowledgments
Thanks to my mum and dad, Mr. K, Ammi-Joan Paquette, Vicki Lame, Katie Bayerl, Liz Cook, Alicia Potter, Erin O’Halloran, the Thunder Badgers, and the wonderful communities of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus and the Vermont College of Fine Arts.
about the author
ADI RULE grew up among cats, ducks, and writers. She studied music as an undergrad and has an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Adi is a member of, and has been a soloist for, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, the chorus that performs with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Boston Pops. She lives in New Hampshire. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
&n
bsp; Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Excerpt from Strange Sweet Song
Also by Adi Rule
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE HIDDEN TWIN. Copyright © 2016 by Adi Rule. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Cover design by Ervin Serrano
Cover photographs: girl by Jenna Martin / Arcangel Images; glowing texture by kaisorn / iStock
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-03632-2 (hardccover)
ISBN 978-1-250-03631-5 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781250036315
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First Edition: March 2016