Strange Sweet Song

by Rule, Adi

  The young man closed his eyes again, and George was suddenly aware of his own ordinariness. Round face, biggish nose, stubby fingers. He stared at the sad, angular face and the long, graceful hands that had captivated him the night before. There was something otherworldly about them—about him. Where had he come from? Who was she, who had changed him? But George kept his conversation practical; he didn’t want this strange spirit to evaporate in the light. “Why do you have to be a singer?” he asked. “If it’s music you love, music, then why not play another instrument?”

  A frown. “I don’t understand.”

  George rose. “Play an instrument. With those hands, I’m sure you’d be a fine pianist. Come here.” He opened the glass door to the echoey room. “Come on, let me show you.” The young man looked skeptical but held George’s eyes. “Look, it’s okay. I want to show you the piano. It’s okay. Nathan.”

  “Nathan?” A change came over the young man’s face now. He seemed as though he might smile. “Is—is that my name?”

  George looked down. “Well, only if you want it. It was my brother’s name.” He twisted his fingers together. “I had to put something on the paperwork. We can change it if you want to.”

  “No. No.” He spoke softly now, and George wondered if even this crackling, growling voice might be beautiful to someone. “Thank you,” Nathan said, and rose hesitantly. He was tall and moved with a slight, strange awkwardness.

  Inside, Nathan’s steps grew more uncertain. He kept looking up at the dark ceiling. George pulled up the shades on several of the long windows, and the floating dust motes sparkled and swirled like spirits.

  “Here.” He gestured as he crossed the room to where a drab sheet covered something large. “Go ahead,” he said. “Pull it off.”

  Tentatively, Nathan reached for the sheet and slid it off the smooth wood. George watched his face, which seemed to brighten at the sight of the baby grand piano. It was just a spare—more trouble to move than let be—but it was a good piano, ornate enough to show its age and dignity, but warm and weathered enough to show its worth as a working instrument.

  “There was a piano last night,” Nathan said. “At the concert.”

  “Yes. Gloria Stewart is one of the finest pianists in the world.”

  Nathan was transfixed by the instrument. He made no move to touch it, but it undeniably held his full attention. George pushed open the cover, revealing the dulled keys. “Try it out,” he said. “Make some noise.”

  Now Nathan looked at George, his dark eyes wide. “I could make music with a piano?”

  George pulled out the rickety bench.

  Nathan carefully sat down. His first note blossomed into the empty room. Then another, and another, and three together, and four. “They are like flowers,” he said. “So many of them.”

  “They are,” George said. “And I will teach you how to play.”

  Nathan turned to him. “I will devote my life to the piano, if you think I can learn.”

  George smiled. “I think you will be an excellent musician. Especially after we get you some shoes, and you start playing with your hands.”

  Ten

  THE YEAR SHE DIED, in addition to concert appearances and recording sessions, Barbara da Navelli was scheduled to sing three leading roles: Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, and Angelique in Angelique. The last was a role written for a lighter voice, a sweeter sound, different from any other she had performed. A role beloved by opera fans. Had it been sheer vanity that compelled her to accept the engagement? Or had she just enjoyed the controversy?

  Sing doesn’t remember the events immediately following her mother’s death in detail—lots of rushing, muttering, lights, hands—but she does remember the nagging, shameful question that pounded her mind: Why Angelique?

  She was two people that night. She was Barbara da Navelli’s daughter, swept away by the current of journalists, doctors, and acquaintances, waiting to be told the worst but already knowing it, cursing her mother for tainting the perfect world of Angelique with her last, greatest scandal. But Sing was also an observer, horrified at her own selfishness and by the question Why Angelique? Why did she have to ruin my opera?

  Sing sits on a cold stone step of DC’s Woolly Theater, her back against a white column. The Woolly is the newest addition to the conservatory, unfinished last time she visited. Now, its gleaming dome dazzles visitors as they arrive.

  What shall we call it, carina, our new theater? Her father didn’t need to ask. He knew the answer even before he wrote the last check to his alma mater under the pretense of the school’s one hundred fiftieth birthday.

  Sing isn’t sure she will prefer this new Woolly Theater to the one at home. At least in the original, a rough little wooden frame and two frayed curtains in her bedroom, she was always the star.

  She studies the campus. A few drab, square buildings—the dormitory, the classrooms—lend an air of mundane academia, interspersed with a mishmash of more beautiful structures that illustrate DC’s long history. The Woolly’s gentle Italian arches and dainty columns evoke aesthetics of centuries past; Hector Hall, the faculty housing, juts a pitched, Victorian silhouette; and St. Augustine’s seems to cast its forbidding Gothic shadow over all.

  Voices in the evening air tell her the Welcome Gathering, which all students are required to attend, is still going on in the Woolly’s spacious lobby. She would rather watch the seniors play Frisbee on the lawn. She’s technically at the Woolly—she’s on the steps. What does it matter if she goes inside or not?

  The slick poster in the glass case next to the door must have just been put up: DUNHAMMOND CONSERVATORY AUTUMN FESTIVAL, NOVEMBER 16–18. CELEBRATING 150 YEARS! It seems as if every group, from a senior string quartet to the symphonic band, has a performance listed that weekend, with Angelique looming at the top of the poster and the Gloria Stewart International Piano Competition splashed across the bottom as the grand finale.

  It’s her first full day at DC; she’s gone from orientation to auditions to the Welcome Gathering, and already this poster is shoving the Autumn Festival in her face. Ten weeks until she, her father, and Angelique are reunited. Will she be singing the last role her mother ever sang? Or will she be watching from the wings? Which would be worse?

  She fights the urge to pull her phone from her pocket to see if Zhin has texted. The handbook was clear: No cell phones. No Wi-Fi. There is no signal here.

  “Farfallina, bella e bianca; vola, vola, mai si stanca…”

  She gets through three verses before she notices herself singing. It’s not a nervous habit, she tells herself. I have nothing to be nervous about.

  “Miss da Navelli.” The voice is stern and scratchy. Sing looks up into a serious, angular face and the blackest eyes she has ever seen. The apprentice from her audition. As before, his gaze paralyzes her for a moment. She blinks.

  “Yes? Sir?” How is she supposed to address apprentices? It feels strange to call someone only slightly older than herself “sir.”

  “Get up,” he says. “This isn’t your dorm room.”

  She scrambles to her feet, surprised by his sharpness, and pats the dust out of her skirt. “I—um—”

  “First-years are required to attend the Welcome Gathering.”

  Sing raises her eyebrows. “I am, sir.”

  “Stop calling me ‘sir.’ You can go to the Welcome Gathering, or I can write you up.”

  Does he think she really needs to go to another damn party? Sing crosses her arms. “I am twenty feet from—”

  “Sprawling out here on the steps like you own the place is not the same as attending,” he says.

  She sets her jaw. He’s not a professor. What right does he have to order her around? “No, you’re right,” she says. “I don’t own this theater.” She looks the young man squarely in his arrogant eyes. “That’s my father you’re thinking of. And I didn’t get your name, Apprentice…?”

  He steps closer, smelling faintly of pin
e. “Daysmoor.”

  Plays-poor. The disgraced vampire. He seems to have the temperament for it. Booed off the stage during his only performance. “I’ve heard of you,” she says.

  If he has an opinion about this statement, he doesn’t say so. He just says, “And pull your socks up,” and lurches into the lobby.

  Sing stands with her jaw set for a few moments, then follows.

  Inside, the dark red carpeting and gold walls make a vibrant backdrop for the crowd of gray and black robes and slate-blue uniforms. Sing goes to the buffet before attempting to mingle. The idea of not mingling doesn’t even cross her mind; she’s well trained.

  It would be better if Zhin were here, she thinks, like she is supposed to be.

  She tries not to think about Zhin, who is absorbed in her new professional career now. They were supposed to have three years together, not one summer.

  Sing surveys the room. There is no one like Zhin at the Welcome Gathering; she would stand out like a jewel. Sing stands out only when people know who she is—usually because she’s among jewels.

  The sunlight through the Woolly’s tall windows slants with the evening. She spears a chicken cutlet and slides it onto her plate. She must stay in the moment. Barbara da Navelli was always on high diva alert at parties. Who is here? Who’s talking? What is everyone wearing?

  The wardrobe part is the easiest—teachers in black, apprentices in gray, students in slate blue. The faculty and apprentices converse awkwardly; students cluster in twos and threes and fours. She can tell the second-years—they’re the ones who know other people. The first-years huddle with partners, probably roommates, or have been snagged by friendly faculty members. She will have to insinuate herself into a conversation soon. Already she feels the eyes in the room finding her. The only thing worse than being Sing da Navelli is being Sing da Navelli standing by herself.

  “Sing!” a shrill voice calls, and she almost drops her plate. It is Jenny, striding across the lush carpet with a lanky, curly-haired girl in tow. Jenny smiles.

  Is that smile for Sing?

  “This is Marta.” Jenny grabs a plate. “Oh, is that chicken? Marta, Sing.”

  “Hi,” Marta says, and looks down.

  Sing nods. “Hi … I, um, like your necklace.”

  Marta is wearing a big silver pendant shaped like a dragon, strange and gaudy, which her hand flies to. “Thanks.” She grins. “I bought it in town.” Sing notices the dark sheen of the metal—it isn’t silver at all, probably steel or tin. She herself is wearing a nearly invisible gold chain with a single teardrop pearl, a birthday present from her mother—elegant, expensive, and devoid of sentimental value.

  “Some Welcome Gathering this is,” Jenny says, skewering cutlets. “‘Welcome to DC! Come to our lame buffet or get written up!’”

  Marta takes a plate, too, covering it with leaves, dark greens and purples. They make their way to a large window with a polished wooden ledge big enough for three. Uniforms and robes swirl around them; everyone is forcing conversation.

  Jenny says, “Marta’s a singer, too.”

  Sing smiles politely. “Great.” Marta doesn’t look like a singer. She slouches and twiddles her fingers.

  “Have you been singing a long time?” Marta asks.

  The question takes Sing by surprise. Two years, she thinks. Ever since my father decided I would become the new Barbara da Navelli.

  But that isn’t true. She thinks back to all the lovely, solitary afternoons with three closed doors between her and the nearest nanny, a pile of records on her father’s desk and the greatest voices on earth pouring from the record player. She sang, then, with effortless joy. Without the wrongness that pervades her sound now. She can almost remember what it felt like.

  She says, “I’ve been singing my whole life.”

  Marta’s eyes widen. “Wow! I just started last year. It’s fun, isn’t it?”

  Before Sing can answer, Jenny says, “You just started last year? And you got into DC?”

  Marta looks down. “It wasn’t that big a deal. I think I just got in here because of FLAP.”

  Sing blinks. FLAP? The Fire Lake Apprentice Program?

  Jenny says what Sing can’t. “You did FLAP? You must be awesome! Does that mean you’re in line for a contract?”

  “No,” Sing says sharply. “I mean, it helps, but you never know who’s going to get a contract offer. And it depends on the vacancies. It’s actually pretty rare for someone our age to get one.” She hadn’t imagined Zhin would, even though she’d started playing professionally when she was six.

  “Did you do FLAP, too?” Marta asks.

  “No.” Her father thought she would get more attention at Stone Hill. “But my … my father is the conductor. At Fire Lake.”

  There. It’s out. Fire Lake, one of the most famous opera houses in the world. Sing searches Marta’s face for dawning comprehension, the assumption that Sing doesn’t belong here after all, she simply has connections. But Marta grins. “You’re Maestro da Navelli’s daughter? I got to see him this summer—just from a distance. I took a picture. Wow! I’ve seen your picture in the newspaper—I didn’t recognize you.”

  The newspaper. “Yes, well, that was two years ago,” Sing says, remembering. The stream of reporters, the incessant flash of cameras …

  Marta flushes a little. “Oh, I’m sorry, I—I—”

  “Don’t worry about it.” A few students holding plates glance in their direction. Conversations ripple through the room.

  “That’s cool, though, your dad being Maestro da Navelli,” Marta says. “Hey, I heard there’s a New Artist vacancy coming up at Fire Lake Opera. Wouldn’t it be incredible to get it?”

  It was how Barbara da Navelli got her start. Nineteen and married to the conductor. But she was an exception. The exception.

  Sing shrugs. “There’s no way Fire Lake would offer a New Artist spot to some teenager, even a DC student. FLAP might be competitive, but it’s basically a glorified summer camp, like Stone Hill. Fire Lake New Artists are part of the company itself, and every one has gone on to sing major roles in all the great houses of the world. Most professional singers don’t even get to audition. They have to be special.”

  “It’s just a rumor,” Marta says. “But I did hear it from Lori Pinkerton.”

  That name again. “Who’s Lori Pinkerton?” Sing asks.

  She’s met with unbelieving stares from both Marta and Jenny. By now she’s getting used to them.

  “Oh,” Marta says. “She’s a—a girl. A senior. Who goes here. I met her at FLAP.”

  “Resident diva,” Jenny says.

  Diva: successful, glamorous, talented. Haughty.

  Ruthless.

  Just like Barbara da Navelli.

  “Lori’s nice.” Marta fidgets as though she’s uncomfortable gossiping.

  Jenny isn’t. “She’s not even here yet. They don’t make her do placements anymore.”

  Sing’s stomach prickles. The evening chill seeps through the window behind her. Her competition has a name, now.

  “She’s not here because she still has a couple performances,” Marta says. “That’s why our rehearsal pianist, Ryan, was late, too. I heard them talking about it at Fire Lake.”

  Ryan? At FLAP? With Lori Pinkerton?

  “You don’t even know her,” Marta says to Jenny.

  “My sister went here; she’s an oboe,” Jenny says. “She graduated last year—she knows Lori. The darling of the conservatory opera scene.”

  “Ryan was at FLAP, too?” Sing tries to sound casual.

  Jenny narrows her eyes, but Marta buys it. “Yeah. They were excited about doing the opera together.”

  Jenny frowns. “Oh, jeez, Sing, don’t get all freaked out.”

  Sing blinks. “I’m not freaked out.”

  “It’s okay,” Marta says, misreading Sing’s paleness. “Jenny’s just being dramatic. Lori’s nice. I’m sure we’ll all get along great.”

  Sing tries to belie
ve her, but it’s hard to ignore her pleasant, open face and kind spirit. Marta wouldn’t know a resident diva if one dumped a bottle of purified water over her head.

  Eleven

  THE FELIX CLENCHED HER FRONT PAWS, pearly claws digging into the bark of the tree limb high above the snow.

  Darkness she knew. She remembered it. In the sky, the galaxy glittered, but when she chased the lights, the emptiness between them seemed endless. This never bothered her, when she was all Sky and no Cat. More room to romp and spiral and throw her own sparks into the void.

  But this new darkness was different. Close. Trees and little creatures and air pressed in on her, cutting her mind off from the stars. Sometimes she didn’t remember the sky at all.

  She wasn’t sure how the Cat form came into existence. Before she came to earth, there had been something catlike about her. But that vaporous felinity was different from the reality of clinging to this black branch in the freezing night.

  And the reality of hunger. She might have retained more of her Sky mind if her Cat hunger hadn’t grounded her so solidly in this new, tiny world. She had understood want, even need, but it was the urgency of physical hunger that first trapped her in this Cat body.

  Fortunately, her new form had known what to do. Her first kill was a tom turkey, hurrying through the woods with his family. A few loping pads, a lunge, a snap of the neck, the earthy, sweet scent of feathers, and her teeth clamped down onto satisfying warmth.

  The turkey had not expected her to chase him into the air.

  She had hunted many times since then. No fear, no hesitation. She had come to look forward to each kill, so tactile and messy. So different from the death of her brother. His blood had splattered the heavens with glitter; his soul had exploded. The creatures of this place died quietly and easily. Even so, the Felix could never quite kill enough of them.

  Now, in her old tree, she listened to crunching snow. Her ears twitched. Over the generations, the songbirds and small creatures of this forest had learned they usually weren’t enough for her to bother with, and the larger creatures had become timid and scarce. What sort of animal would stagger around so noisily after sunset?