by Rule, Adi
“It’s not better for me.”
“Well,” he says, “you’ll just have to come hear me play. I might even get you a backstage pass. Ha ha! I’m kidding. No violence! Anyway, you’ve got a lot to do at DC. You need to get ready for Fire Lake.” He takes her hands. “Congratulations.”
Sing wonders if they were really together in that dark stairwell or if those memories are merely phantoms. Is this new reality creating itself around them? Are all these people and relationships as new as they feel? Or are the past few months a trick of her mind now, seamlessly replaced by a solid chain of events that has always existed?
Nathan smiles. “Thank you. For wishing for me.”
She looks down. “I didn’t. I mean—I would have. But Tamino did this on his own. There was no tear. There was only this warm light.”
Nathan steps to Sing’s bed and sits on the edge. She sits next to him. He says, “There doesn’t always have to be a tear.”
The light from Sing’s window is white like the snow and the sky outside. She rubs her thumb along the inside of Nathan’s forearm. “Your tattoo’s gone.”
He weaves his fingers with hers. “You sound disappointed. Should I get another one?”
“I’m pretty sure there’s a tattoo parlor in the village,” she says.
“Well,” Nathan says, leaning in, “I suppose I could leave tomorrow instead of today.”
She tries to decide if this kiss feels like the first one or if, in this reality, they have already done this. But it doesn’t really matter.
“Wednesday at the latest,” Nathan says.
The door opens, but Sing doesn’t even open her eyes. She hears Marta giggle. Then Jenny’s voice. “I knew it!”
Sixty-nine
THE FELIX DOES NOT KNOW how long she has been on earth. She felt little of its rotations and orbits, of the rise and fall of mountains. She was aware of time as one who is not a sailor is aware of the sea.
But she knew about forever. She knew that death was forever for the creatures around her, those she devoured and those who simply stopped breathing for their own reasons.
Yet here is the child, back from death.
For the first time since her fall, the Felix is joyful.
And she will choose to spend the rest of forever in the sky.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to everyone who made this book possible, especially—
My mom (who only sings karaoke), my dad, and Mr. K; Ammi-Joan Paquette; S. Jae-Jones and Mollie Traver at St. Martin’s Press; Beatrice Clerc, Sarah Ellis and Leda Schubert, Katie Bayerl, Liz Cook, Alicia Potter, Laura Sanscartier, the Pathfinder Academy junior high, Dr. Jiahao Chen, Piero Garofalo, the Thunderbadgers, Alan Cumyn, Ellen Howard, Blessy Alancheril, and the VCFA community.
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.
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.
STRANGE SWEET SONG. Copyright © 2014 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 designed by Ervin Serrano
Cover photographs: girl by Yolande de Kort/Arcangel Images; forest by Shutterstock.com
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Rule, Adi.
Strange sweet song / Adi Rule.—1st edition.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-250-04816-5 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-03634-6 (e-book)
1. Singers—Fiction. 2. Conservatories of music—Fiction. 3. Schools—Fiction. 4. Supernatural—Fiction. 5. Forests and forestry—Fiction. I. Title.
PZ7.R8875Str 2014
[Fic]—dc23 2013032020
e-ISBN 9781250036346
First Edition: March 2014