Strange Sweet Song

by Rule, Adi

  Harland Griss, managing director of Fire Lake Opera. Why is he telling her this? “Oh. It will be nice to see him.”

  Her father laughs. “So polite. This you get from me, eh? He will be there on business. I want you to know. Don’t let it get out, all right?”

  “All right.” Business? What business? “I’ll see you later, Papà. At the Autumn Festival.”

  “Okay, carina. I may see you before then, eh? And Sing—we will talk later about your censure.”

  They told her father? Sing’s chest judders. What is he going to do?

  Wait a minute—she was in the woods again! Wasn’t she? Her mind is fuzzy, but she is fairly certain. Will she get another censure for being in the woods? And how did she get there?

  How did she get here?

  “Call me if you have need of anything,” he says. “Ti amo.”

  “Ti amo, Papà. Ciao.”

  The nurse takes the phone from her and replaces it.

  “Your dad? He’s been worried. I’m glad he got through to you. I’m Mrs. Foster.” The woman’s voice is comfortable, and her face, though serious, is pleasant. She smells like plastic. “How are we feeling?”

  “Okay.”

  Mrs. Foster takes Sing’s wrist and presses. “Any pain?”

  “Not much. A bit of a headache, I guess.” She almost doesn’t ask but can’t help it. “What happened?”

  The nurse puts on a bland smile. “You don’t remember anything?”

  Again, Sing pictures those black-violet eyes. But for some reason, she says, “No.” She doesn’t remember what happened, she assures herself. Not really. She doesn’t want to acknowledge the idea floating and buzzing at the back of her mind. Something dangerous in the forest … Durand’s great beast …

  No. The Felix is a myth, that’s all. Sure, Marta believes, but she probably also thinks rainbows are made of flying unicorns.

  Mrs. Foster sighs. “You fainted out on the quad last night. Someone saw you and brought you in. Good thing, too, with the cold.”

  Sing blinks. “I—fainted? On the quad?”

  “Probably exhaustion. Or stress. You needed the sleep, my dear. Goodness knows how they run you kids into the ground. It’s a wonder you’re not all dropping like flies.” Mrs. Foster clicks her tongue in disapproval.

  Exhaustion. Was it exhaustion? Could those eyes have been just a hallucination? Yes. Yes, she was on the footpath. She had just left Ryan—

  Ryan.

  The nurse has turned to the door, but Sing says, “Mrs. Foster, have I gotten any visitors?”

  “No,” she says. Sing’s face falls a little, and Mrs. Foster adds, “I’m sure your friends are very worried about you. But they wouldn’t have been allowed in while you were still resting. You’ve been awfully groggy and difficult to rouse for the last twenty hours.” And she leaves, moving with the purpose of someone who has somewhere else to be.

  Sing lets her head slump to the side. After all that sleep, she feels like getting up. Especially since she knows if she closes her eyes, that terrible, snarling face will be there. Or maybe Ryan’s face will appear. Would that be worse?

  Maybe he will come soon. Maybe he will assure her of what she can’t believe right now, that he really did kiss her. He really does like her. Her, not Lori.

  She sits up, and though her head complains a little, the rest of her feels decent. The light coming from the French doors draws her. She finds a thick bathrobe draped across a chair and pulls it on.

  Opening the doors reveals a ground-level private terrace and Hector Hall’s impressive back garden. The sky is gray but bright, and the air is warmer than Sing expects. She lowers herself slowly onto a curvy stone bench. The damp breeze feels good on her face as she gazes at the dying garden.

  The pain in her head is dull and not overly terrible, but each throb seems to murmur another question. What happened? Who brought me here?

  The garden is a small, meandering landscape of stone fairies, gravel, dry grass, and wide beds of drooping brown flowers. Crows disagree with one another from the trees.

  Suddenly, a sound comes from just over her shoulder, almost as soft as the breeze itself, but so close it makes her heart jump.

  “Chrrrrp?”

  She has the presence of mind to turn slowly, and when she does so, she is met by a pair of ice-blue eyes with big, black cat-pupils.

  Tamino stands calmly on the other side of the stone railing, his large head level with Sing’s own. In the even, gray wash of the afternoon, he stands out like a sunset jewel. She looks around furtively. No one.

  “Chrrrp?” It is decidedly a question, but which question, Sing has no idea.

  “I don’t think you’re supposed to be here,” she says. Tamino leaps easily onto the stone railing that separates the terrace from the garden and begins to purr.

  “Big cats are unable to purr,” she says, but he continues anyway, pushing the top of his fuzzy head into her shoulder, which nearly knocks her off the bench. She scratches between his ears and he closes his eyes.

  “Were you in the woods last night, little guy?” she asks. “I feel like you were—like we both were.” She realizes that if she was attacked—and she is more and more certain she was—this big kitten might be her attacker.

  Ridiculous. She smiles to think of it. But her smile fades. Of course, if there is a kitten, there must be a cat.

  The owner of those death-violet eyes in her memory must be connected to this strange kitten, perhaps even its mother or father. How could she not have thought of it before? Or has she?

  Tamino only closes his eyes in a cat-smile.

  “Do you know about Prince Tamino, your namesake?” she asks. “He loves the princess Pamina. He fell in love with her picture before he even met her. But they have problems. The princess sings a sad song to Tamino about her tears.” She keeps scratching his head and sings, “Sieh’, Tamino, diese Tränen fließen, Trauter, dir allein.” It seems as if princesses and shepherdesses and servant girls in operas are always singing sad songs about their beloveds. Is love always sad? Is it always difficult? She thinks of Ryan’s relaxed smile. Is anything difficult for him?

  “Miss da Navelli?” Mrs. Foster calls from behind the French doors. Tamino tenses and is gone.

  “I’m out here on the terrace.”

  The doors open as the nurse says, “You have a visitor.”

  Sing’s heart tickles and she sits up straight. Could Ryan be here, now, just as she was thinking about him?

  A stooping, dark form emerges from the doorway. It isn’t Ryan after all.

  It definitely isn’t Ryan.

  “Don’t stay outside too long,” Mrs. Foster tells her. “A little fresh air is fine, but don’t get cold.”

  “Okay.”

  Mrs. Foster is gone again. Sing’s eyes flit to Apprentice Daysmoor, who stands still in the doorway, perhaps a little awkwardly. He is the last person she wants to see right now. She doesn’t know what to say to him.

  He clears his throat. “I’m sorry to have surprised you, Miss da Navelli. I can see you were hoping I’d be someone else.”

  Did her disappointment show that clearly on her face? She feels a pang of embarrassment; she was rude.

  “No, I was just … expecting someone else. That’s all.”

  He nods but doesn’t approach. “How are you feeling?”

  “Fine,” she says, and adds, “Thanks for coming.” A hint to leave.

  But he crosses the terrace and puts his hands on the stone railing. “How are your spirits?”

  His grave tone surprises her. “Fine,” she says lightly. “I’m a little rattled, I guess, but that’s probably normal. Well, you know, if there is a ‘normal’ for this type of thing.”

  He looks at her now, and she thinks his dull black eyes are a little less dull. She feels the weight of her secrets, as though he is searching for something behind her own eyes.

  “I overheard you just now,” he says. “You were singing a very sad song.”<
br />
  “Oh,” she says. “That was just Pamina’s aria from The Magic Flute.” Does he think I’m crazy?

  “I know what it was.” The familiar, arrogant edge returns to his voice, and he turns his face to the garden.

  “Well, thanks for your concern”—Sing hears an edge in her own voice now—“but I was just singing. I’m not lamenting my lost love out here or anything.”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  He says it in a way that just invites her to snap, And what does that mean? But she doesn’t. She remembers his silhouette in the window just before she and Ryan said good-bye. Jealous, Ryan had said. Yes, he’s probably jealous of Ryan’s talent, his good looks, his charm. And he should be.

  She sets her mouth, crosses her arms, and leans against the bench. They are silent for a few moments.

  “Tamino’s not lost,” Daysmoor says.

  Her head jerks in surprise. “What?” How much did he overhear just now, exactly? What does he know about Tamino?

  “When Pamina sings that aria,” he says. “Tamino isn’t her ‘lost love,’ he’s undergoing the test of silence. When he won’t speak to her, she thinks he doesn’t care about her anymore.”

  “I know that,” Sing says. Everybody knows the story of The Magic Flute. Daysmoor doesn’t know about the big kitten after all.

  He seems to study something in the distance. “That’s such a tragic scene. Having no voice.”

  Watching him, Sing is reminded of the night he found her beyond the fence. What does he know about this forest, and the creatures who live there?

  She says, “Marta says the Felix really exists.”

  Daysmoor doesn’t move, but Sing feels a decided stiffness pervade the atmosphere. She can swear his fingers, which had been lightly touching the railing, tense just for a moment into claws. The garden is quiet except for the rustling of dry leaves and the intermittent cawing of crows. Did she cross some kind of line?

  “Does she?” he says without emotion. “And what do you think?”

  Before she can think, the truthful answer escapes. “I don’t know.”

  “Is that why you were running around in the woods that night?” he asks. “What did you find there, I wonder?”

  “What did you find there?”

  He shrugs. “It’s no secret that I go to the forest sometimes. Most people just don’t notice. And I’m not going to get a censure out of it.”

  What does that mean? Her head aches. “Maybe you should,” she says without meaning to. “Since you love giving them to other people so much.”

  Okay, that was rude. She almost claps a hand over her mouth but instead turns her head toward the dying garden, hoping he will evaporate.

  “What?”

  She lets her eyes flick to his face. For the first time, she can read his expression clearly. He is confused.

  She doesn’t say anything. Her sockless feet, tucked up under her, are cold.

  His confusion seems to resolve itself to amusement. “You think I turned you in after your little escapade in the forest?”

  Does he seriously want to feign innocence here? “I don’t know,” she says. “I’m a little groggy.”

  Cautiously, he moves a step closer to the bench. “Do you…” An uncertain pause. She frowns at him. He begins again. “Do you think it was the Felix who attacked you last night?”

  She looks away, voice hard. “I wasn’t attacked by anything. I fainted out on the quad.”

  He stiffens. “Of course. Why would I think that?”

  “I don’t know. Why would you?”

  Now he leans in uncomfortably close and lowers his voice. “Somehow, I got it into my head you were attacked by an animal in the middle of the woods, where you shouldn’t have been. Isn’t that strange? I got it into my head you collapsed in the dark, cold, wet middle of nowhere, and that someone had to haul your carcass back to campus and then lie about it in order to avoid your getting another censure.”

  She opens her mouth, but no words come out.

  He straightens up. “I know, it would have been so much more romantic if it had been your handsome boyfriend. Oh, well.”

  “That’s not what I—” She brushes aside the image of Ryan using Excalibur to hack his way to her through nettly underbrush. “It’s just—why?”

  “Why not leave an unconscious soprano to freeze to death in the woods?” He taps his fingers on the stone railing. “That’s actually a very good question. I have no idea.”

  Sing almost laughs. “I mean, why would you care about my getting another censure? Why lie for me?”

  He sighs theatrically. “Look, I know it may create an imbalance in the world you’re choosing to live in, but I am not, in fact, out to get you. And by the way, a student reported you going into the woods after the party that night, not me.”

  She raises her eyebrows. “Really?”

  All he does is blink.

  It is a long shot, but she has to try. “Who?”

  His eyes crinkle just slightly. “You know I can’t tell you that.”

  “Okay.”

  “But her initials are Lori Pinkerton.” Now Sing does laugh, and Daysmoor says, “Aha, has the egg finally cracked? Is that what you asked the Felix for—the ability to smile?”

  “Why? Is that what you would ask for?”

  He is silent for so long, she feels she must have overstepped her boundaries. But eventually, he inhales broadly and says in a light tone, “What makes you think the Felix would even grant me a wish? She must find utter despair in your eyes before she’ll do it, or she’ll just eat you. Do I really seem that miserable?”

  Yes, she thinks. But, studying his face, she realizes it isn’t true. He doesn’t look hopeless or despairing—a little sad, yes. Tired, yes, and too guarded for someone so young. “Not right now,” she says. He catches her eye, and for just a moment she thinks his face lightens; his features come together somehow, the straight nose, the smooth jaw, and those tired, sad eyes, almost lovely in the gray light.

  Sing’s head throbs and she blinks. What is the matter with me? “Anyway,” she says, “it’s despair greater than hers she has to find. I wonder what she’s so sad about? You know, I’ve listened to Angelique hundreds of times, and I’ve never wondered that before.”

  Daysmoor smirks. “That’s step one to becoming a diva I can tolerate.”

  Sing draws herself up. “Oh, thanks.”

  He puts up his hands, mockingly protective. “Sorry, sorry. Well, Miss da Navelli, what would you wish for? Fame and glory?”

  She doesn’t know right away why the remark wounds her. Then it strikes her—that’s the goal, isn’t it, the legacy of the da Navellis? Fame and glory. “No,” she says, running her hand along the curve of the stone bench. She sees him turn to look at her out of the corner of her eye. “I mean, fame and glory would be … would be…” Nice? As nice as they were for her mother, dead at thirty-eight from heart failure due to some outrageous combination of drugs and stress? As nice as they are for her father, gray-haired, never home, hounded by the press? “It would be nice to get to sing the roles I want, yes. But I’d rather get there on my own.”

  “I wonder if you mean that,” he says, his raspy voice crackling like the dry brush around them.

  “I don’t know what I’d wish for,” she says, truly imagining for the first time the weight of such a choice. “I suppose if the Felix ever caught me, and saw despair enough to want to grant me a wish, I’d already have something to wish for then.”

  He is studying her. “Yes, I suppose you would,” he says quietly. “But what would the Felix want with you? Why would she seek you out, if not to grant you a wish?”

  She watches his fingers, which are remarkably long and somehow entrancing. All of a sudden, he reaches for her crystal pendant. “What is this?” His eyes are fixated, his voice sharper.

  She pulls it away, wrapping her fingers around it. “It’s my necklace.”

  “Where did you get it? What is it?”
r />   His tone disturbs her, and his sudden intensity. “I found it,” she says. “I found the stone. On campus, in the grass.” Then, without knowing why, she asks, “Is it yours?”

  He frowns and takes a step back. “No. I … don’t think I’ve ever seen it before. I just—I probably just noticed it because it sparkled. I—like shiny things. But it … feels like it’s mine.”

  “Oh.” The glassy object is cold in her hand. It glimmers unnaturally in the gray light, as though it is lit from within. “Here, then,” she says, unclasping the necklace. “You can have it.”

  Daysmoor looks at her for a long moment as crows caw in the distance. Then he reaches out, but doesn’t take the necklace; he curls his fingers around hers and gently closes them over the stone. “No,” he says. “I think you should keep it. And keep it hidden.”

  Forty-one

  SING CLASPS AND UNCLASPS her Angelique score as she walks across the dewy grass, the cold morning sun making her squint. Marta plods beside her, smelling of cinnamon. Her curly hair bobs in the restless air.

  In truth, Sing hoped to get Marta alone this morning, but now that they have these few minutes crossing the quad, she’s not sure exactly what she wants to ask or how to begin. I found this perpetually cold crystal on the lawn, and I’ve been singing to this wild orange cat, and then Daysmoor said all this weird stuff, and now I think the Felix might be real. No. Definitely not.

  “Les oiseaux chantent dans mes bras…,” Marta sings lightly as they walk, the harmonics of her voice almost completely dissipated by the outdoors.

  “You’ve got to connect les and oiseaux,” Sing says automatically. “Lay-zwa-zoh, not lay-wah-zoh.”

  “Oh, I knew that!” Marta wrings her hands. “I have so much trouble remembering when they connect and when they don’t.”

  “It’s okay,” Sing says. They are already halfway across the quad. “I make those mistakes all the time. Just listen to a recording.”

  Marta adjusts her books. “I know. I just don’t like listening to recordings. I want to sing my own way.” She laughs. “I guess that’s not such a good idea if I get the words wrong.”

  “I know what you mean about singing your own way,” Sing says. “But sometimes listening to a great singer will help you figure out the song a little better. The parts she chooses to make important, you know?”