Sing Me Forgotten

by Jessica S. Olson

  Letting go of my other hand, he reaches up to cup my jaw on both sides. I’m sure he can feel the rush of my blood in the veins of my neck.

  I want him to kiss me. With every part of my trembling, weak body, I want him to pull me closer. I want to touch those dimples and feel his eyelashes against my cheek and knot my hands in his hair.

  My eyes flutter closed as I imagine how it might be. Him and me, breath tangled in our mouths, hearts crushed against each other, bodies as entwined as our voices were moments ago.

  But then the edge of my mask begins to lift away.

  I jolt back, crushing it into place. My feet skid off the edge of the organ bench, and I topple to the ground. A shriek bursts from my lips as my elbows ram into the stone.

  “Isda!” Emeric leaps down beside me. “Are you okay?”

  I scramble away from him, wetness filming across my vision. The image of Saint Claudin’s sword slashing for Rose’s heart flashes through my mind.

  I can never let Emeric see what is beneath my mask.

  Because even Emeric—beautiful, kind Emeric—is unmarked. And the unmarked are taught to fear me. To hate me. To kill me.

  “Just go.” My voice comes out a strangled sob, and I turn my face away from him so he won’t see my tears.

  His hand rests on my shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Is. I didn’t mean—”

  “Emeric, please.”

  He pauses, and then the weight on my shoulder disappears as his footsteps shuffle slowly toward the door.

  I push to my feet, hugging my arms across my chest as though that could keep my heart from cracking.

  Emeric’s footsteps stop.

  “You sing like a goddess.” His words are quiet but strong.

  I steal a glance at him. He stands facing away from me, his hand braced against the doorframe.

  “You could shatter the sky with a voice like that. If only our world would let you.”

  I open my mouth to reply, but he disappears into the catacombs before the words come.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Every time we practice after the night he tried to take off my mask, I make sure to keep my distance. Inhale. Exhale. Find my center. Settle in the silence. Don’t let the feeling of his hands on mine or his voice sliding its way along my skin distract me from the task at hand.

  We don’t speak of what happened between us. Instead, we focus entirely on practicing every song and every moment of Emeric’s part in Le Berger until I’m sure he could perform the whole show in his sleep.

  I sneak up to watch his rehearsals with the cast during the day. Cyril surveys from the audience, his attention never straying from Emeric. To everyone else, Cyril’s face likely seems smooth, impassive, impartial, but I know him better than that. I see the slight arch of his eyebrow, the gentle upward curve of the corners of his mouth, the slow blink of a man afraid to miss a moment. He is impressed. Pleased.

  As he should be.

  Opening night comes quickly, and the gentle murmur of distant crowds becomes a roar as I hide in my place behind the cherub. People trickle in and take their seats, tugging off shawls and pulling gloves away from dainty, soft hands. Their gowns and their shoes gleam in the chandelier’s light.

  I watch, silent and still. I don’t fiddle with my necklace or adjust my mask. I survey the audience with a wry smile. Just wait, I think to them, imagining myself whispering the words into their bejeweled ears. Just wait until you hear him.

  Excitement makes my whole body tingle. Because once the show ends and Emeric meets me in my crypt tonight, I’ll be able to experience the joys of the performance through his memories, as real and vivid as though I lived them myself.

  Cyril strides onto the stage. A spotlight illuminates his benevolent smile.

  “Welcome to this year’s production of Le Berger,” he booms. “I’m pleased to say we have a full house tonight! Now if you’ll direct your attention to your playbills, I’d like to point out a small change. The role of Arnault is being played by Emeric Rodin, as our original tenor, Guillaume, sustained an injury last week. I assure you, you are in for a treat. This is Monsieur Rodin’s debut performance. Remember, you saw him here first!”

  The crowd cheers as Cyril takes a bow and exits the stage. With a cue from the maestro, the symphony starts its overture. The audience hushes, and the curtains billow for a moment before rising.

  I lean forward, ducking between the cherub’s calves to get a better look.

  Emeric stands, solitary in the light. Even with the makeup and the costume and the wig, he is my Emeric.

  The music mounts. I tighten my grip on the cherub’s leg.

  Then Emeric begins to sing.

  His voice is pristine and perfect, and every patron in the seats below stills as it rolls over them. Their eyes widen. Their jaws go slack. One woman freezes with her hand halfway to her face. A man pauses in the middle of whispering something to his wife, his gaze riveted on the stage.

  I find Cyril. He sits in his premium box seat, grinning like a fool.

  When the first number ends, the air stills for a moment as the echoes of Emeric’s final notes fade away. Then the audience roars to life, applauding like they’re ready to bring down the chandelier with their noise.

  I sit back on my haunches, pleased.

  I did this. Emeric may have had the voice and the talent, but I honed it. I made him what he has become. Through his song, they hear me. They are enraptured by my spell, entranced by my music. I am no longer hiding in the shadows, powerless and meaningless.

  I control this theater. They all belong to me.

  As the performance continues, I settle against the wall. There will be no need to modify any memories tonight. This run of Le Berger will be the most successful show in Channe Opera House history, thanks to me.

  I relax into Emeric’s memories, letting the weight of them pull me under and trickle over every part of me. Instead of searching for Arlette and signs of her power, as has become my habit, I simply allow the images to swirl past in shocks of gold and crimson, of light and music.

  As I drift through, places and faces flash past. Emeric’s mother. Arlette. His uncle. Cyril. Me.

  I sit up, churn back to the image of myself, and drop into the memory.

  Emeric is speaking, and I feel the thrum of his voice in my throat, the rumble of his speech in my chest as I experience the moment from his perspective. “I also know that whatever Cyril Bardin has been to you in your life,” he is saying, “whatever he has given you, whatever he claims to be, he does not care for you.”

  Past-Isda is turned away from him. Her hands clench at the pendant at her throat. Her body quivers. She circles slowly, lowering her arms to her sides. Her hair quakes around the sparkling black planes of her mask, a crown of crimson. But her eyes are what draw Emeric’s gaze. They blaze, icy fire whipping in their depths.

  A tremor of fear slices through Emeric. His hands begin to sweat.

  “Get. Out,” Past-Isda spits.

  “I wanted to warn you. He’s—”

  “I said GET OUT!” Her scream reverberates in Emeric’s chest.

  “I was just—” he stammers.

  She raises her hand as though to strike him, and he flinches away.

  Past-Isda laughs, an eerie sound that splits the night open wide and drags claws through all its darkest parts.

  “Please, Isda. At least consider that Cyril—”

  She hisses. “I thought I told you to leave.”

  “But—”

  Growling, she twists, wrenches a candlestick from her organ, and flings it at him. He dives out of the way, and it whizzes past his face. The sound of shattering glass splinters the air as the lantern on the wall behind him explodes.

  Emeric cowers as past-Isda prowls forward.

  He scrambles out of her path, wrenches the cryp
t door open, and flees into a tunnel lined with bones.

  I resurface from the memory and peer down at Emeric on the stage, his fear still jolting in my gut. My cheeks burn hot, and my breaths come out shallow and shaky. How could I have behaved like that? It’s a wonder Emeric ever came back to me at all after a tantrum like that.

  But as my mind replays the memory, the beast of flame and shadow that lives in my chest purrs. A tiny tingle of pleasure seeps into my blood. A grin steals across my face, pulling my mangled lips tight.

  I’ve never seen myself in a memory before. Clothed in shadows and wreathed in a halo of blood-red curls, I was a sight to behold.

  Chills jolt straight through my bones and into my soul.

  It’s as though I was one of Les Trois, someone with authority. Someone with power. The fear—the absolute terror—that shook through Emeric during that memory was real and raw and rabid, and I was the cause of it.

  Perhaps this is why society has put a mask on me and locked me away. Why my mother was so horrified by what I was that she banished me to a cold, icy death.

  Because they fear us. Because we are powerful.

  Because we are meant to be their masters.

  As the lead soprano twirls onto the stage, her bell-like voice joins with Emeric’s and sets my teeth on edge. I should be on that stage. I should be singing duets with him and dancing across the floor on his arm. I should be the one he kisses in the final act.

  The beast inside me turns its hungry stare to the audience below, the people who have banished me to the dark. It imagines the golden elixir shimmering beneath their memories and licks its lips.

  I stroke it, calm it. Now is not the time. One day, perhaps, I will have power like that. The kind of power described in the red book where a gravoir could extract elixir from everyone in proximity simultaneously, regardless of whether they’re singing. But I am not there.

  Yet.

  So I sit forward to watch Emeric and try to ignore the way my skin prickles every time the lead soprano playing opposite him touches his hand.

  The audience sits spellbound throughout the entirety of the performance. It isn’t until the finale, when Emeric’s mouth comes down on the princess’s, that the people roar to life. They burst from their chairs, clapping, whistling, and crying.

  “Bravo!” they shout as one. “Encore!”

  When Emeric steps forward to take his final bow, their screams make the glass in the chandelier rattle.

  Emeric bows once more, then raises his head in my direction. Pressing his fingers to his lips, he blows a kiss to where I hide.

  I freeze, dodging a look at the main box seats. Cyril’s gaze snaps to mine. His smile twitches. His eyes narrow.

  An icy barb of fear lodges itself in my chest.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Once the people have gone and the lights are out, I drop into the hallway. A hand wraps tight around my arm, and I shriek as it pulls me into a shaft of moonlight. Cyril’s face shines silver, his expression hard.

  “What did you do?” His voice is something caught between a whisper and a snarl. His fingers are tense as wire on my elbow.

  My anger flares. “What are you talking about?”

  “You know precisely what I’m talking about.” He drags me up the hall toward his office.

  I yank backward, hissing when his fingernails dig into the inside of my arm. “No. I don’t. Please enlighten me.”

  He wrenches open his office door and shoves me inside, glancing behind us once before he slams it shut. I stumble forward and catch myself on my chair.

  “You’re the boy’s tutor, aren’t you?” He glares, arms crossed across his chest.

  The way he’s looking at me, with distaste knotting his mouth, makes my body quiver with rage. Haven’t I been nothing but obedient to him for years? Haven’t I done everything he’s asked of me? Hidden in the shadows, altered people’s memories, singlehandedly made every coin of the Memory-damned fortune he’s so proud of?

  Yet, at the first sign I didn’t adhere to his every whim, he’s jumped to the worst conclusion. No matter that his suspicions are correct, the fact that he’s already decided that they are makes me want to scream.

  I try to keep the blaze out of my expression and the acid out of my tone. “Even I’m not that stupid.”

  “Then would you care to explain why he blew you a kiss? No one—no one—knows about that little perch up there. Why would he look directly at it unless he was looking for you?”

  I shrug. “I don’t think he was looking at my hiding place. Even if he was, I was out of sight. He could have been blowing a kiss to the God of Memory for all I know.”

  Cyril moves closer, forcing me to tip my head back to maintain eye contact. “You do realize what would happen if you fraternized with him, right?”

  “He’d call the authorities. I’d be killed.”

  “Not just you.” Cyril’s voice slices like a blade. “I would be executed, as well. Then everything I’ve built, everything I’ve worked for since before you were born, would come crumbling down. The Council. The Opera House. All of Channe.”

  “He doesn’t know I exist,” I hiss.

  Cyril’s eyes search mine for answers, for lies, for truth.

  I give him nothing but a glare.

  “Do you swear it?” he whispers, brow knit tight and low. “On the name of Saint Claudin, do you swear he does not know you?”

  I draw two fingers across my brow. “I swear on anything you like.”

  He considers me for a long moment, then sighs and rubs the back of his neck.

  “That kiss was a coincidence,” I say. “He blew a lot of them in every direction. Or didn’t you notice the young ladies fainting in the audience?”

  Cyril’s anger flickers. “There were quite a few episodes like that tonight, weren’t there?”

  “I didn’t have to alter a single memory.”

  He crosses to the desk and eases into his chair. Though his expression has begun to relax, the tension in his shoulders, the hard angles of his arms, and the rigidity of his movements tell me he still doesn’t believe me.

  I grit my teeth.

  Perhaps Emeric was right about Cyril after all. Perhaps he doesn’t care about me. Perhaps he only keeps me around because of my power.

  If he cared for me as if I were his own daughter, he wouldn’t automatically assume the worst. He’d trust me. Take me at my word.

  I hide my clenched fists behind my skirt.

  “You should have seen the bags of coins I had to have carted to the bank.” Cyril pulls out one of his many notebooks to scribble in tonight’s figures. “Hundreds of repeat tickets and season passes were purchased. People were practically throwing money at us.”

  “The new tenor was remarkable.”

  Cyril glances at me, but I keep my gaze steady, and he returns his attention to his notebook. “Indeed he was. I asked him who his tutor is, but he would not say.”

  “I’m sure as news of the boy’s success spreads, the tutor will speak up. Only a fool would let fame and fortune like that pass by.”

  “Only a fool. Or someone with something to hide.” Cyril’s tone is light, but its edge is sharp.

  He stoops to rifle through the briefcase propped against the nearest bookshelf. After a moment, his rifling becomes more frantic. His frown deepens. His fingers fly through the pages inside, tearing through file after file.

  “Is something the matter?” I ask, my thoughts snapping to the stolen red book under my bed. If Cyril has noticed it is missing...if he realizes it was me who took it... My mouth goes dry.

  He yanks the whole briefcase onto his lap and opens it properly, his hands whirring so quickly through the papers they become a blur. His cheeks take on a greenish hue. “Just...missing something important.”

  “A book?”

>   “No, a folder...”

  I breathe easier. “For the Council?”

  “What?” he snaps. “Oh, no. It was...personal.”

  “I see. Should I help you look for it?”

  He slams the briefcase shut. “No. Merci. I probably left it at home.” He pauses, then nods. “Yes, of course that’s where it is. My office at home.” He shoves the briefcase onto the desk in one tense motion, knocking a bulky envelope onto the floor.

  I pick it up. It is embossed with the King’s seal. “You heard from the King?”

  “Hmm?” Cyril is still glaring daggers at his briefcase, as though it’s the one at fault for the missing folder. He drums his long fingers on the edge of his desk.

  I wave the envelope. “King Charles sent you a letter?”

  “Oh, yes. That. He’s named me Head of the Council of Channe. Monsieur LeRoux has been deemed mentally unstable.”

  I drop the envelope. “It worked?”

  Cyril smiles in spite of himself and flattens his hands on the desk. “Yes. You did it, child.”

  I squeal. “Congratulations! Finally, the King is starting to recognize you for the work you’ve done. You can fix things here. Set the Council straight!”

  Cyril leans back in his chair. “It took him a few decades, but I’ll give the man the benefit of the doubt, considering the other issues he’s had to deal with during his reign.” He interlaces his fingers over his chest and considers me. “You know, with the success of Le Berger and my new appointment, I should throw a party. It has been far too long since my last.”

  “You are known for your parties.”

  But it’s as though he’s entirely forgotten that I’m here. “I should do a masquerade ball,” he murmurs, tapping his chin. “Yes, that would do splendidly. The only night we could really do it is Sunday, since we have performances every other night of the week. I do have that meeting in Chanterre, but I suppose I could arrive late to the ball.”

  I clear my throat. “A—a masquerade?” A little bubble of hope inflates in my chest. A masquerade is a party I could go to. No one would know that my mask is any different in purpose than anyone else’s. I could blend in.