Strange Sweet Song

by Rule, Adi

  This night, Sing wakes with a smoldering determination, her mother’s words as fresh in her ears as if she had only just spoken them. Take what is yours. But in the dimness, Sing finds herself clutching not an electric, golden crook, but a soft, worn lamb with button eyes.

  As her senses continue to awaken, she frowns. Something is glowing. A chill courses through her body, not from the air, but from what feels like an icicle driven into her chest.

  The crystal.

  She unclasps the necklace and holds the pendant away from her body, squinting at it in the dull gleam it is creating. She remembers the ashy smell of snow, trees as glossy as tar, and the gentle rustling of leaves.

  Fifty-one

  “I DIDN’T KNOW he was your boyfriend. You never told me.”

  Crossing the icy quad, Sing blinks away the memory.

  “You’ve got to know about him, Sing. How could you not know?”

  She doesn’t want to hear it. Blink.

  “I thought we’d laugh about it. He’s screwing around with that Pinkerton girl as well. I thought we’d make fun of her.”

  She kicks a chunk of snow out of the path. At least it is morning, and Zhin is gone. They are both gone. She doesn’t need Zhin or her father anymore. She doesn’t need Jenny and Marta. The clockwork has been set in motion. Once Harland Griss hears her at the Autumn Festival, once she has gotten the New Artist position, then … then …

  She doesn’t finish the thought. She doesn’t know how.

  Blink.

  She should have done laundry last night, especially since Zhin took a pair of regulation kneesocks with her. She didn’t even offer to give them back. Now Sing is on her last pair and she’ll have to do laundry tonight, during the school week, when she should be doing homework. And she should really take a shower, as evidenced by her hair, shoved up into a messy ponytail. And the crows. She has to start thinking about her stupid report on the stupid crows.

  As if to rub it in, they caw horribly as she reaches Archer. Part of her can’t believe she is actually going to her coaching session after getting kicked out of rehearsal yesterday. But it doesn’t seem to matter much, now. Not after everything has settled, flurries of emotion slowing and drifting into stillness. Not after—

  Blink.

  She pushes open the door to the little practice room.

  Apprentice Daysmoor sits in the corner, head tipped back, eyes closed, mouth turned down in the smallest of scowls. His arms are folded and his legs crossed at the ankles, but his gray robes cover these bony angles in gentle folds.

  She yanks up one of the rusty music stands to the proper height and tosses her Angelique score onto it. Then she sits down heavily at the piano and starts playing her warm-ups.

  “Where’s the little master?” Daysmoor murmurs after a moment, as though he isn’t really interested. Sing doesn’t turn her head, but she can see him out of the corner of her eye.

  “Ahhhh-ehhhh-eeeee-ohhhh-oooo.” That “ee” was flat. She stretches her neck, one side and the other.

  The apprentice draws his arms out from his robes and crosses them behind his head. “Still abed? You want me to go fetch him?”

  “I told him I’d eviscerate him if he showed his face. Ahhhh-ehhhh-eeeee-ohhhh-ooooo.” A little better. She moves on to arpeggios. “La-la-la-laaaaa-la-la-la.”

  Daysmoor doesn’t say anything else, and he doesn’t stir. It is nearly twenty past nine when Sing finishes warming up. She sits for a moment, looking at the reflection of her tired eyes in the piano’s shiny music rack.

  “I hear congratulations are in order,” Daysmoor says. “For some unfathomable reason, Maestro Keppler has decided that you should sing Angelique at the Autumn Festival instead of Lori Pinkerton.”

  Sing’s heart jumps. It has happened, then. She knew it would. Even before her father’s conversation with the Maestro yesterday, something in her knew it would happen; she’s been groomed for two years to replace her mother. Yet it is still somehow unbelievable.

  Unbelievable, and more real than she could possibly have imagined it to feel.

  “So we have work to do,” Daysmoor says. “And no sign of Mr. Larkin. Am I supposed to play accompanist as well as coach today? You tell me, since you’re the one who decided to tell him not to come.”

  Before she can stop herself, she says, “Just give me another write-up, then.” A mumble, barely audible. Why is she angry? Now, when she should be ecstatic. When the plan has worked.

  It’s his smirk, sitting under those cold, dispassionate eyes. He probably won’t say anything about my comment. He’ll probably just shut his eyes and lean back in his chair, pretend he didn’t hear—

  “You left rehearsal. Not me. And you did it again yesterday. I should give you another write-up.”

  “I only left yesterday because you were being a jerk,” she says vehemently, yet bracing herself for the backlash. “And it didn’t even matter that I left the other night! Nobody noticed!”

  “I noticed,” he says.

  They are silent for a few moments. Sing slowly plays a scale with one hand.

  “Would you rather have a different coach?” Daysmoor says.

  Sing looks up. “What?”

  The smirk is gone, but his voice isn’t harsh. “You’re obviously not my biggest fan. Would you rather have someone else?”

  What kind of a question is that?

  He sits up. “Well?”

  Anger tightens her chest. “Well what? You don’t even coach me.” She didn’t mean to say it aloud, but now that it is out there, she lets her hesitation drop away from her like a heavy old coat. “You don’t give me any advice. Any real advice. Nobody does!”

  “Would you listen if I did?” His voice hardens. “How could I possibly have anything useful to say to Miss da Navelli? How could anyone?”

  “You don’t know me,” she hisses, rising.

  He stands as well, a head taller than her, slouched, ungainly. “You don’t know me.”

  She will not be intimidated. “I know you well enough. You gloom around this place like a dusty spirit. You actually haunt. You act like you’re better than the rest of us. But you know what? You’re a total hack and you know it. You’re a hack amateur. You can’t even play. That’s why you’re so critical and horrible and lazy. That’s why you’re not entering the Gloria Stewart competition.”

  He smiles coldly. “Tell me what you really think, Sing.”

  It is the first time he has called her by her first name. She doesn’t like it. “What I really think? How about what Carnegie Hall thought when you tried to play there?”

  His expression doesn’t change. “You’re attacking me for your own reasons.”

  Sing snaps, “Why don’t you give me a censure, then? Give me two. Get me expelled.”

  “I’m not doing you any favors. You want to use your name to get roles? Go ahead. You’re stuck with it now.” His face betrays no emotion. It never does, she thinks. Never more than a flicker, an edge.

  Fury bubbles up from her lungs. “Why can’t you just leave me alone? You said yourself you think my singing is garbage.” The words come faster now, accelerando, appassionato. “I can’t help it if my father wants me to get ahead. What’s it to you if I’m not a great singer? What’s it to you if one stupid school production of Angelique is horrible because I couldn’t do it?”

  He raises his voice. “You want the truth? You say I don’t know you. You’re right. I don’t know you. How can anyone know you? Are you the egomaniac your mother was? Sometimes I think so. Or are you a pathetic little mouse, afraid of your own father, your own voice? Sometimes it seems like that.” Now he points at her, accusing. “And that’s what you’ve done to your singing—it’s constantly shifting between two extremes. Ninety-five percent of what comes out of your mouth is garbage.”

  She freezes, clutching the score, its dry cover chafing her fingers. He closes his mouth and turns away. For a moment, all she can do is stare.

  Because it’s tr
ue.

  In the silence that follows, Sing’s hot anger dissipates into nothingness. She doesn’t say anything but slides the Angelique score off the stand and turns to the door.

  Daysmoor is right.

  “Where are you going?” His voice is cool again, detached. “You have a rehearsal.”

  Sing turns. “Are you serious?”

  “This is a required coaching session. If you skip it, I’ll have to report you to Maestro Keppler.”

  She leans against the door, cold metal against her forehead.

  “Miss da Navelli. We have a rehearsal to run.”

  Her voice, when she finds it, is weak, and she doesn’t look at him. “We don’t have a rehearsal. Go ahead and tell the Maestro. Tell my father, too. The music world doesn’t need me if all I sing is garbage, anyway.”

  “Stop feeling sorry for yourself.” She hears him sit at the piano. “You can do it.”

  Something about his tone gives her pause. She remembers her first conversation with him, when she couldn’t understand why the Maestro had cast her. Someone he respects assured him you could do it.

  Could it have been Daysmoor?

  She doesn’t know what to think anymore.

  “Anyway,” he says softly, “I didn’t say all your singing was garbage. I said ninety-five percent of it.”

  To her surprise, she laughs. She doesn’t know why his remark makes her laugh, even as it seems her entire world is melting into oblivion. She can’t help it.

  When she looks up, she finds no malice in his eyes, only patience. “Well,” she says, “as long as five percent is okay, I guess.”

  He is silent for a moment, then fixes her with that dark gaze. “That five percent … Sometimes, I think I see the real you. When you are listening—really listening. When you smile, always at someone else, of course. That five percent…” His gaze falls to the floor. “That five percent that is worth something,” he says softly, “is the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard.”

  Something in her gives a jolt at this. For the first time, but for just a brief moment, she thought she saw beyond those dull, black eyes to the feeling person within. And it is she who has made him feel something.

  He extends his hand, and she looks at it for a moment in confusion before giving him the score.

  “You know your sound is lacking something,” he says. “That’s why you’ve been parroting your mother’s hot arrogance, or the cold, technical perfection that gets drilled into hungry young musicians.”

  She tries to see through his inscrutable stare, but a dullness at the edges of his eyes is keeping her out. There is something different about him as he speaks, though. A glint of wisdom beneath his hard face. And something else.

  “What your sound is missing,” he says, “is you.”

  Her shoulders slump. “I know. I try. I’ve never been good at acting.”

  “Listen to me,” he says. “I’m not talking about acting. I’m talking about you.”

  She feels a familiar frustration stinging her throat. “My father is the one who said I was ready for this. I never asked—”

  Now he stands and places a hand on each of her shoulders. “Sing da Navelli, look at me.” She does, and something tingles her insides. “I’m not talking about your father. I’m talking about you.”

  She starts shaking. “I know, okay? You don’t understand what it’s like. My mother—”

  “I’m not talking about your mother, or your teachers, or your friends. I’m talking about you.”

  “I get the point,” she snaps. “All right? But what am I supposed to do? I’ve been at this school for less than three months!”

  He grasps her shoulders more tightly. “I’m not talking about President Martin, the Maestro, François Durand, or goddamn Lori Pinkerton! I’m talking about you.”

  “Stop it!” She can’t control her hands, her ribs—why won’t they stop shuddering? She can’t look at him anymore and drops her head.

  His voice softens. “You can’t even stand to hear that word, can you? I … you poor thing. No wonder you don’t know who you are.”

  Without meaning to, she leans toward him, and he wraps his arms around her. His gray robes smell like the forest in winter.

  “I never wanted to be Barbara da Navelli,” she says, her voice muffled. “But, somehow, it became my only option.”

  “When did being Sing da Navelli stop being good enough?” he asks quietly.

  “Sing da Navelli was never good enough,” she says. “Not since I was little. Not since those afternoons with my father’s record players. And definitely not since Barbara da Navelli died.”

  “Sing…,” he says tentatively. “You need to allow yourself to be better than your mother.”

  She straightens up, stepping away. “What?”

  “Listen.” He seats himself at the piano. Then he starts to play.

  Eyes unfocused, staring at the floor, Sing hears those five famous chords.

  Only they are different now. Instead of heavy, clumsy steps toward the grave, they bubble up from the dark heart of a deep lake. They are Angelique’s ultimate anguish, knowing her prince will die in the forest. They are sung from the smallest, flattest, weakest, most shadowy place in the human heart.

  They are the saddest sounds in the world.

  Daysmoor has pushed up the sleeves of his robe and Sing sees his long, thin fingers. His eyes are open and calm, and he doesn’t rock back and forth like Ryan. He just plays. He has swept his black hair back from his face, mouth serious.

  Sing swallows and takes a step into the curve of the piano.

  “Stand up straight and breathe,” he says.

  And she does.

  “Quand il se trouvera…”

  Daysmoor’s words come back to her: Be a servant of the music, not your ego. She understands now. She lets go of fear, of showmanship, of the magic party mask. She has nothing to lose, now.

  From the first note, it is different. It is all going to be different.

  “That’s better,” he says. “Keep reinventing the sound. Every second. Keep re-forming the vowel. Don’t let it decay.”

  “—dans la forêt sombre…” All the hundred little things she has to force herself to think about every time she sings just fall into place. Spine straightened, tongue relaxed, jaw loose, she lets everything drop away—the weight of years, the weight of self—

  “More,” he says.

  “—il comprendra ce que c’est que d’être seul.”

  And the air. The air is amazing. Her ribs spread and stretch to let in what feels like every bit of air in the room, in the building, in the world.

  “Legato,” he says.

  She has never sung it so quietly or meant it so much. When her last pianissimo has faded, she turns to watch Daysmoor play the end. He wears the same serious, almost blank expression.

  When it is over, he turns to her and says, “That was good.”

  She can tell he means it. That was good. And she knows he is right.

  He has been right all along.

  The air that has been holding her up leaves her now, and she leans against the piano. Daysmoor stands, the sleeves of his robe falling once again over his hands. She looks up at him, face slack, eyes wide. To her surprise, his face lightens—he doesn’t smile, exactly, but he loses his seriousness just for a moment. “It’s Brahms that does that to me,” he says. “I suppose that’s enough for today.”

  Fifty-two

  SING’S DRESS ISN’T READY for dress rehearsal.

  It’s still being altered. She’s thicker than Lori, shorter. Lori is a swan. Sing is a duck.

  She doesn’t use the women’s dressing room like everyone else; she doesn’t have a costume. So she sits backstage on a metal folding chair, ready for the cue that won’t come for at least half an hour. Other singers walk by, alone or in small groups, but no one speaks to her.

  Marta flashes a weak smile as she passes but doesn’t make eye contact. Lori Pinkerton doesn’t show up
.

  I should be triumphant, Sing tells herself. Or maybe it is Barbara da Navelli telling her.

  Eventually, Ryan finds her. “Hey.” He pulls over another metal chair. His voice is flat, subdued. She looks at his round face. Without that mischievous smile, he doesn’t seem quite as handsome. “Look, Sing,” he says, “I screwed up.”

  Why is Ryan the only person talking to her? Is all this about her stealing Lori Pinkerton’s role? Nobody even likes Lori Pinkerton.

  Ryan stares at her, waiting for a response that doesn’t come. “I’m sorry,” he says. “You know what Zhin is like.”

  How can he say her name like that, so easily? Zhin belongs to Sing and Fire Lake and last summer, not to Dunhammond Conservatory. And certainly not to Ryan.

  “Hey.” He takes her hands in his. “I know everyone’s mad about this whole Angelique thing right now. But I believe in you. You deserve this role.”

  She looks at him. The warmth of his fingers feels good. He smiles. “There you are,” he says. “I knew you were in there somewhere.”

  “Everyone hates me,” she says.

  “Who cares about them? You’re moving on to better things. You don’t need them, especially not Lori.”

  Who do I need? she wonders. Her father? Harland Griss? Ryan?

  And who needs me?

  Ryan pulls her fingers to his mouth. “Come back to me, Sing. I miss you.”

  On the other side of the thick velvet curtain, the overture begins with a flourish. Sing rises. “You’d better get out to the house,” she says.

  “But do you forgive me?” His voice is more urgent now. There is something new sparkling in his eyes; could it be panic? She remembers Lori’s confident declaration: I’ll have him back as soon as Gloria Stewart is over.

  Ryan pulls her to himself. The familiar scent of his cologne envelops her. “Forgive me, Sing. Please forgive me.”

  “I’m on soon,” she says, breaking away. “You need to go. I’m sorry.”