Strange Sweet Song

by Rule, Adi

  Sing pries her gaze from the apprentice and smiles genuinely at the crowd. And when Ryan whistles appreciatively, she can’t help but beam.

  Thirty-five

  AT THE EDGE OF THE FOREST, the Felix watches the tower. She stares wide-eyed into the yellow windows, ears pricked to capture what they can. She still does not understand the patterns of sound that captivated the crow those years ago. All she understood then was his despair, his longing. That she understood well.

  But ever since, she has wondered. For the first time since her fall, she has wondered about the world outside despair. And somehow, watching the tower makes her feel closer to that world, watching the man-crow play his instrument. Every night he plays, and every night she watches.

  Recently, she has begun to feel that the child should be with her. That perhaps he too is a link to this other world and not just a thing she must feed rather than kill for reasons she can’t quite grasp. This evening, under the gray sky with the gentle but chilly breeze riffling her fur, she feels it especially. Enough to pull herself away, back through the crunch and scrape of the piney woods, through the icy streams and into the safe, tamped-down place where he will be waiting.

  But she returns to find only marks in the earth and his scent. He is gone.

  The rain starts.

  Thirty-six

  THE STEEP ROAD FROM DUNHAMMOND to the conservatory is less appealing after dinner. Skipping down the hill and playing in the puddles along the way was fun, but now most of the students are hitting up those with cars for rides rather than walking home, tired, in the rain.

  Marta has again chosen Mr. Bernard’s old coupe, but now Lori squeezes into the backseat as well. Sing decides to walk.

  She pulls up the collar of her garbage bag raincoat and starts up the hill. It’s only a mile, she tells herself as her right boot squishes down into a cold mud puddle. Chilly raindrops slide down her face and under her collar, but they don’t bother her. Though it will be dark soon, she is still full of light and warmth from the Noble Call.

  After a moment, she hears the splash of someone running up behind her. Before she can turn around, an arm is around her waist and a friendly voice breathes into her ear, “A little damp?”

  Ryan slides his umbrella open and holds it up. Sing is grateful for the shelter, but she’s also afraid she is going to collapse—it can’t be healthy for someone’s heart to be beating as forcefully as hers is now. She turns to him and says, “Thanks,” in a completely professional voice, but she makes the mistake of looking into those mischievous green eyes and nearly falls over.

  “Easy, there!” He catches her elbow. “We’ve still got almost a mile to go.”

  Remain calm, Sing thinks. A gorgeous rehearsal pianist has his arm around you and is protecting you from the weather with his own umbrella. Don’t screw this up!

  Indifference—that’s always a good tactic. She remembers Lori’s indifference toward Aaron and how it seemed to make him even crazier about her.

  Sing smiles. “You should have gotten a ride. It’s going to be a pretty soggy walk.” Was that indifferent enough?

  Ryan feigns indignation. “And leave a damsel in distress to slog back to the castle alone? What kind of knight in shining armor would I be then?”

  “Oh, is that what you are?” Sing raises her voice above the wind, the swishing trees, and the clatter of the rain on the pavement. It is difficult to flirt when it’s cold and noisy out.

  But Ryan doesn’t seem to notice. “Did I not win your heart with my love ballad back at ye tavern?”

  “You’re lucky I didn’t have you thrown in the moat!”

  He laughs and squeezes her. “You sounded amazing, by the way. But I’m sure you know that.”

  Sing hopes he won’t notice her pink cheeks. Does he really think she sounded amazing?

  Ryan stops abruptly. “Hey, can I show you something?” He gestures to a heap of large rocks at the side of the road where an old stone wall must once have been.

  Sing looks dubiously at the rocks, which seem to her as ordinary as the dripping pines behind them. But she notices the adorable way his copper hair is just a little damp and disheveled and says, “Okay.”

  He takes her hand and pulls her to the tree-lined roadside, around behind the rocks, which hide a biggish boulder. In this shelter, he perches the umbrella between the boulder and the top of the rock pile.

  Whatever fascinating thing is back here, Sing is relieved to get a bit of respite from the weather. This little protected area is fairly dry and beautifully quiet. “Okay,” she says. “What did you want to show me?”

  He smiles and throws up his hands. “Nothing. I’m so sorry. I’m nothing but a dirty liar.”

  Sing laughs.

  “Really,” he says, moving closer, “I just wanted to get out of the rain and ditch that umbrella for a minute. I needed both my arms, you see.”

  And before she knows what is happening, both his arms are around her, and he is kissing her. He smells of aftershave and skin, he is warm and enveloping, and he is kissing her, not Lori Pinkerton, at least right now. She slides her fingers up into his copper hair and he holds her more tightly, and she is absolutely certain her heart is going to thump its way right out of her chest and fall with a splat onto the wet ground.

  Thirty-seven

  THE FELIX PACES THE TAMPED-DOWN place. She cannot smell the child anywhere in the forest. She cannot see him in the sky. But she knows, now, that she wants him back. She wants to run her tongue over his soft face, to nuzzle his pine-scented fur, to curl around him in the tamped-down place and shield him from the cold. She feels these wants more deeply than any she has felt before.

  She calls on the power of the sky and the stars, of her mother and the spirit of the Forest. The power dissipates like mist. The part of herself that is Sky is weak. But the part of herself that is Cat grows stronger. The Cat wants her child back, too, and knows what to do.

  She sniffs the wet air. She cocks her ears.

  The Felix bounds through the forest, sometimes forgetting to put her paws to the earth. His scent is more powerful here, now here … She skids and floats down the mountains; pine trees give way to beech and maple; the ground is more slippery here, covered with wet leaves.

  Voices slow her pace. She has come to the road. Her child is very near.…

  There. Across the road, creeping along just behind the trees—a shadowy, familiar shape; large, triangular ears followed by the slinky curve of a little back and long tail. The Felix gives a soft chrrrp and rises.

  But she cannot summon the child or call to him. He has surrounded himself with his own magic, and it is all focused on—

  On that human. The girl plodding up the hill in the rain with another human. The Felix’s tail begins to lash. The child’s adoration of this girl is a glittering blue fog that envelops them—he does not even know he is doing it.

  The Sky part of the Felix’s spirit, fallen and separate from its place, wants to lunge at them and tear them to pieces.

  But the Cat wants to wait at the edge of the woods. And so the Felix, crouched, watches with narrow, violet-black eyes as the humans pass.

  Thirty-eight

  THE RAIN HAS LET UP, but it is dark and cold when Sing and Ryan get back to campus. Sing doesn’t feel the chill. His arm is around her waist, and she is snuggled against his shoulder in a way that makes walking a little awkward. It is quiet inside the grounds; Mr. Bernard’s other students have long since returned from dinner, and now the sparse pools of light from various windows are the only indication anyone is awake.

  The wet gravel crunches under their feet as they make their way toward Archer. Sing finds herself wishing the walk home were twice as long.

  “Home, sweet home.” He releases her in the square patch of doorway light. Sing studies his face, partially shadowed, and it strikes her how much of his attractiveness he owes to his easy smile. Right now, she would follow that smile anywhere.

  His gaze flits over he
r shoulder. “I’d ask you up for a nightcap, but I think the warden’s watching.”

  She turns around, looking up to see the silhouette of someone standing in one of the tall windows of Apprentice Daysmoor’s tower. Watching them.

  “Creepy,” she says.

  Ryan laughs. “Probably just jealous.” And he kisses her again, and she feels the familiar flutter in her chest, but a small part of her hopes he isn’t doing it just for Daysmoor’s benefit. When Ryan steps back after a few moments, Sing glances behind her, up at the tall window. There is no one there now.

  “Good night, pretty girl,” Ryan says. “Thanks for walking me home.” He flashes that bright smile before pushing open the door and going inside.

  Sing leans against the wall, trying to keep the memory of him fresh. A minute passes, and she starts to feel the night air; her regulation raincoat doesn’t offer much protection from the cold.

  She leaves the doorway and continues on the gravel footpath. Hud sits across the quad, barely visible. Unsettled by the shadows, she wishes Ryan had walked her all the way back, then scolds herself for being silly. Archer is closer to the road; it’s only natural he left her first. It’s not his fault the rehearsal pianist is housed with the apprentices. If he were in Hud with the other students, he probably would have walked her all the way to her room. It doesn’t matter that Lori might have seen them. He definitely wasn’t trying to hide their new relationship from Lori.

  Definitely.

  Sing suddenly remembers seeing Ryan and Lori under his navy-blue umbrella only that afternoon. She remembers his hands running over that long blond hair.

  That doesn’t mean they’re together. And even if they were, they probably broke up.

  … Over dinner.

  As she plods down the footpath, her mind is a swirl of fairy-tale euphoria overwhelming something deeper and sharper. Fresh memories jockey for attention—the feel of Ryan’s arms around her, the swelling applause at the Mountain Grill, the fierce dislike in Lori’s pretty eyes, Apprentice Daysmoor’s dark stare.

  “Who cares about Lori Pinkerton, or any of them?” her father would say. She doesn’t want to hear that now. She cares about Lori Pinkerton. Power was something her mother always understood better.

  “You have shown up the resident diva,” her mother would say now, granting Sing a rare moment of undivided attention. “You have beaten her at the Noble Call, in front of everyone.”

  Sing inhales cold dampness, but her body feels warm and strong. It’s true. It’s true, isn’t it? She clearly bested Lori at the Noble Call—that much was obvious from Lori’s icy stare. And it feels good.

  No.

  No. Singing feels good. Singing well feels good. Showing up someone else should not feel good. Lori Pinkerton doesn’t matter—that’s what her father would say.

  “And you have stolen her boyfriend,” Barbara da Navelli would say.

  Ryan felt good; everything about him. His voice, his skin, his hair, his warmth, the fact that he should have been unattainable. The fact that he was the one prize Lori Pinkerton clearly stamped the word MINE all over from day one.

  Well, no, she realizes. The conservatory holds two prizes stamped with Lori’s pink, glossy MINE.

  The other is Angelique.

  Beginning to shiver, Sing quickens her pace across the dark quad. Barbara da Navelli would have known how to take Angelique away from Lori, too.

  No. Barbara da Navelli would have been cast in the first place.

  When she has just about reached Hud, her eyes stray to the glistening black pines beyond the campus. Something stays her gaze—something big and still and quietly luminescent, just at the edge of her vision on the other side of the fence. Tamino?

  The stone hanging around her neck, the glittering, glassy crystal she found the night she went into the forest, feels heavier, cold against her skin, and she pulls it out from her shirt.

  Hud’s double doors glow yellow, but Sing moves away from them now, across the lawn, past the big maple tree to the picnic tables, and peers through a gap in the rough wooden fencing.

  The big shape is hard to focus on; it feels like a trick of the moon and shadows. But there is a solidness to it she can’t dismiss.

  She promised her father not to go into the woods. She has already broken that promise once and gotten a censure because of it.

  The shape, still shining faintly, recedes, and she feels it pulling her.

  Up onto the slick picnic table, hoisting herself over the damp fence, and she is in the forest again. The crystal feels cold even through her raincoat, sweater vest, and shirt. She picks her way toward the dull, pearly glow of the distant shape, which seems to keep moving away. Wet leaves slide under her feet, trees shiver clatters of raindrops onto her as she brushes past, and something deep inside her says, Go back.

  But she doesn’t go back. Her mind is tingling, fluctuating between the chilly forest and the new, exultant feelings bubbling up inside her—Ryan, Lori, the Noble Call. Will her small triumph at the Mountain Grill simply become smaller and more distant as time moves on? None of her past successes have solidified themselves into stepping-stones along some kind of great journey; they have all vanished like pebbles into a vast lake.

  She pulls her raincoat tighter around her neck, and her ears buzz not with the eerie silence of the still night, but with the memory of applause—the applause, at last, of her true peers, not just the mediocre musicians from her old school. And her chest tingles with a strange new sensation: triumph.

  The forest is darker tonight, the tree trunks circling her have the sheen of liquid tar, and she knows if she looks back now, the conservatory will have vanished completely. The glowing shape is gone, too, but she keeps moving forward. Forward, and up.

  After a while, amid the noises of the dripping forest, she senses other, closer noises—rustles and swishes. She pauses, squinting into the inky background. It occurs to her for the first time that she is lost in the woods.

  “Chrrp?”

  The sound startles her, but she laughs with relief as Tamino emerges. His eyes are larger than she remembers, and his orange fur inexplicably seems to give off a blue, misty glow—different from the pearly shimmer she followed into the forest.

  “What are you doing up so late, little guy?” She runs her hand over one side of his head; his ear flattens under her palm and then pops up again. “I don’t suppose you know the way back to campus, do you?”

  “Rrrp? Hrrrrawl?”

  Sing laughs again and shivers at the same time. “Maybe for a song? How about, Farfallina, bella e bianca; vola, vola—”

  But even if she had been paying attention, she wouldn’t have heard the Felix coming for her.

  Thirty-nine

  THE FELIX SPRINGS. The girl is light and brittle and falls without a sound, like a feather. The Felix’s child cries and leaps, but he is too late; the great cat extends her lustrous claws.

  But something gives her pause. She looks up.

  It is the crow. The man-crow she made that night, the last night she was drawn too close to human sounds. Those eyes stayed her claws then, and they do so again. The crow, transformed now for nearly a century, reaches the Felix’s vaporous heart with their shared history. She asks him a question with her own eyes.

  “Please,” he says, placing a hand on one of her great paws.

  The child rubs his head against her. Already the glittering blue mist, the magic he used to hide himself, has faded away. Rage churns inside the Felix, and she bares her teeth at the girl, who lies motionless on the damp ground. But the man-crow places his other hand on her other paw and looks into her eyes. “Please,” he says again. The child gurgles, chrrrrrp, and she inhales his sweet, piney scent. He has missed her.

  The Felix turns away from the man-crow and snarls at the girl, tensing her jaws for the final snap.

  And then she hesitates. She stares at the girl, at the gleaming object around her neck, and then at the man-crow.

  The Felix�
��s low, warning growl shudders the pine needles, and she lopes back into the woods with her child.

  The man-crow takes the girl in his arms.

  Forty

  BEFORE SING REMEMBERS SHE doesn’t have a phone in her dorm room, she has awoken and answered the ring. Pain ripples down from the top of her head.

  “Sing?” Her father’s voice is distant and strained.

  “Sì, Papà.” She blinks to clear up the blurry room. “How are you?”

  “How am I? Ma carina, how are you? Are they taking care of you? Do you want me to come?”

  This is not her room. The wallpaper is cream-colored, and a vase of white flowers sits on the dark wood dresser on the opposite wall. Sunlight shines through the lace curtains of wide French doors to the left. “Where am I?”

  A sudden pressure, weightlessness, falling … Images begin sparking in her mind. Teeth. Eyes … black eyes tinged with purple … inhuman eyes …

  A door to the right opens. A stout woman dressed in printed cotton steps through and frowns.

  “You don’t know where you are?” Sing’s father sounds ruffled. “You are in the infirmary, my dear. Is someone there with you? Call for a nurse.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Sing says. “I think the nurse just came in.”

  “Hm,” the nurse says, putting a hand to Sing’s forehead.

  “Are you all right?” Sing’s father asks. “They said I do not need to come. But I can postpone—”

  “No, Papà. I’m fine.”

  Is she fine? The nurse looks into her eyes and is apparently satisfied with whatever she has found there. She turns to the French doors and opens the curtains. Sing shifts the phone to her other ear. “Papà, I should go. I’m okay, all right?”

  “Good, good. Listen, my dear, I want you to know—Harland will be at your Autumn Festival.”