by Tonya Hurley
She placed her guitar down on the stand and left the stage to cheers and the loudest applause she’d ever heard. It was almost deafening. She noticed Jesse and Agnes standing in the wings applauding for her and she smiled at them. Shouts for an encore filled the room.
Less watched it all from the back, nervously.
Cecilia leaned against a backstage wall in the wings, overwhelmed, and began to sob.
The house manager ran up to comfort her, gushing with breathless praise.
“If no one ever saw you before, or never sees you again, they saw you. Out there. Tonight. One for the ages, baby. Legend. Know what I mean?”
She composed herself.
“Thanks,” she whispered, putting her trembling hand on his shoulder. “Listen, I’m going to go out in the crowd during the encore. When I do, I want you to turn the lights off, okay.”
“That’s really against club policy. I mean, there are fire laws and . . .”
“Just promise me, okay?”
He couldn’t refuse, not after what he’d just seen. “You got it.”
Cecilia returned to the stage and acknowledged the raucous reaction of her fans, their smartphones raised, snapping pictures and videos. She waved to them, a melancholy smile on her face. She strapped on her guitar and took a moment to address the audience. She was feeling emotional but kept it together to say what she needed to say.
“When I first came to this city, I thought I knew who I was, what I wanted, what I was meant to do.”
Scattered cheers of encouragement and whistles of appreciation rose up from the quieted crowd. Less gave her a wink from the back.
“But I didn’t.”
The room fell almost completely silent. This was not the gracious stage patter of a rising rock star but something more.
“If there’s anything I can leave you with tonight, any thought, any message, it’s only this. Know yourself. Not the person you see in the mirror. The person you see inside. Once you know that, you know everything. Once you know that, you’ll know who you are, accept who you are, and be who you truly are, do what you were meant to do. With clarity. Without judgment. Without fucking fear.”
She hit the space bar on her laptop and triggered a video. Jesse’s video of Lucy. Smoke poured once again from the fog machines and the lasers beamed.
“This is for a boy I miss.”
Cecilia bowed her head for a moment and stepped to the mic. A hypnotic beat and washes of atmospheric synthesizers began to play. She strummed the first chords of her favorite song, the one she played for Sebastian in her dream when they were together at Precious Blood, “Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails, and began to sing.
The crowd joined in quietly at first, then full throated, with abandon.
She started singing from her soul, looking toward the back, toward Less. “I will make you hurt,” she wailed.
Cecilia picked up the iron cello bow and drew it across the strings of her guitar as she continued, turning it into some sort of space age cello sound. Fans could see blood running from her palms down her arms and onto the bow and the guitar.
I wear this crown of shit
She raised the bow in her hand and pointed it upward. As she did, she rose off the stage, floating a foot or two above it, and turned in the air to face the video playing behind her.
Gasps at the miraculous occurrence filled the room. Less, too, was shocked. “What the fuck is she doing?” he whispered. She struck the guitar strings several times with the bow, forcing an ear-shattering clang that sounded like nothing less than the tolling of a cathedral bell.
“I have a bad feeling, Jesse,” Agnes admitted. “Very, very bad.”
Agnes felt her insides tighten and reached for her abdomen. Jesse grabbed Agnes by the arm.
Cecilia’s eyes turned toward Agnes and she blew her a kiss.
As Cecilia’s feet touched the floor again, she dropped her guitar into its stand, still clanging in time to the beat. She turned her back to the audience. Stretched her arms out wide, closed her eyes, and fell backward into the faceless crowd. Just as she did, the lights dimmed. Agnes dropped to her knees, chanting something over and over: “Sanctus Fortis” (Holy and Strong).
Cecilia was body surfing, face up, arms spread like a cross. The first few rows of fans passed her over their heads toward the back. She was singing. It was like a revival. A baptism. Fans reaching up to touch her, crying, kissing their fingers after she’d passed over them. There were so many reaching for her. So many hands. Boys, girls. Indistinguishable. Less was confident he could do the deed in anonymity. In the dark. The way all Ciphers did things.
Cecilia’s eyes were fixed on the video of Lucy behind her as she surfed the crowd. Watching her beautiful friend in a moment of terrible sacrifice. Drawing strength and consolation from her.
“This ain’t part of the show,” Tony yelled in Jesse’s ear, as she surfed to the back. “I gotta get to her.”
“Don’t move,” Jesse barked. “We can’t leave Agnes.”
Jesse’s heart was pounding along with everyone else’s but for a different reason when, without warning, the lights in the venue went out completely. Cecilia was nearly at the back, close to Daniel Less. Tony started to run toward the floor, toward Cecilia, but Jesse grabbed his arm, holding him back.
“Come to me, Cecilia,” Less said.
She sang even louder as the clang of the guitar began to wane. Finally the crowd delivered her to Less standing in the darkness. She looked at him knowingly, and he stared back like a deer in headlights. In the throng, Less grabbed at her chin the darkness and pulled it back, exposing her throat. She raised the iron bow in both her hands and as she felt the edge of Less’s switchblade against her skin, she thrust the bow toward him and through him, impaling him to the wall behind. There were loud screams, not of joy but of sheer terror. Agnes fell to her knees in torment, wailing Cecilia’s name.
The lights came up and there was a shower of crimson pouring from Cecilia’s wounds; her white dress was now red. Blood was spurting from her neck onto the few who had remained with her, who did not run. Christening them in her blood. Cecilia went limp and fell to the floor as the crowd, realizing what had happened, stampeded for the exits.
She muttered the last of the song, gurgling on her own blood. The show and Cecilia were finished.
She felt a hand take each of hers and in her dying moment smiled at the faces of Sebastian and Lucy on either side of her. She felt herself lifted, floating over herself, watching from above. Singing until she could sing no more.
“You stopped me. I could have helped her!” Tony screamed, grabbing Jesse by both arms. “Do you know what you just did?!”
Jesse was silent. In shock.
Agnes looked up at the doorman and spoke for Jesse through her tears.
“He knows, Tony. He knows.”
Turn it up Louder
So You Cannot Hear,
The Beating of my Heart,
The Blinding Sound of Fear.
Sacrifice and Pain,
Self-respect or Shame
Trade Meaning for the Fame.
Shout my Name. Shout my Name.
A Woman Stands Here now,
Where There was Once a Girl
It Only Takes One Person
To Show You the World.
Be Yourself
It has been Said
This Struggle Between Heart and Head
Can Give Us Life
Or Strike Us Dead
Only the Good Die Young,
Hear and Remember
What I Say,
Far Better to Burn Out,
Than it is to Fade Away.
Cecilia, Pray for Us.
Jude sat quietly in his room staring out the window into the dark night. He could see the upper floors of the brownstones where families were settling down for bed. Mothers and fathers kissing their children, helping them brush their teeth, reading to them, and tucking them in. An experience he had never truly had. Fo
r Jude, it was like watching a Disney movie or a family sitcom, an idealized version of life. Still, he didn’t feel sorry for himself or the least bit envious. It looked like a movie and that’s how he processed it. Like a movie. A fantasy version of reality, most especially his.
He was grateful, despite the turmoil. Grateful to the nuns, who sheltered and fed him. Grateful to Sebastian, who’d brought him together with Agnes. It was Sebastian who first understood Jude, what was special about him, not just different. He’d been charged with a lot of responsibility and Jude hadn’t shirked any. He continued to watch out the window at the scenes of domesticity and a sudden chill went through his body. The sound of sirens—police, fire, and EMT—filled the air. He lifted the window and stuck his head out, looking from side to side for signs of the emergency vehicles and smelling for smoke. But there was neither a sign nor a smell. Just the distant cry of sirens and horns echoing down the blocks.
He returned to his chair and closed his eyes, envisioning what he dared not see. The horrible present, and potentially, an even more horrible future. Cecilia’s death. He ran to his bed, pounding on it. Jude scratched at his eyes and his throat mercilessly, drawing blood, which trickled from his brow and his neck, lodging under his fingernails. He slammed the walls with his fists in anger and anguish, throwing whatever he could find. The late-night racket woke Sister Dorothea, who ran down the hallway to his room. She knocked but he didn’t answer. Instead the room became suddenly quiet.
“Jude?” she called out to him, turning at the knob. “Are you all right? Please unlock the door so I know you’re okay.”
He did not come.
She ran back to her room and grabbed the master key. Her hands were shaking as she tried to fit it into the lock. It slipped in and she turned, opening the door. The bedroom was in tatters but Jude, his face a mask of blood, was sitting calmly and quietly sobbing in his chair by the window.
“Oh, Jude!” she said, relieved, running in to hug him. “What’s wrong, son?”
He looked up at her, the mute boy’s eyes bloody and swollen from tears. She wiped at his face and dried them and asked again, in sign language.
“Is something wrong?”
He shook his head up and down fervently.
“Is it the girls?”
Once again he nodded yes.
“Jude, it’s so late. We can go see Agnes tomorrow. That will make you feel better, won’t it?”
“Take me back!” he said, clearly.
The nun was stunned. This time she was the speechless one. The boy had spoken for the first time in her presence.
“Take you back where?”
“To the hospital. To Dr. Frey.”
Cat was pacing back and forth in the tiny dressing room, shaking out the nerves, mumbling to herself. Motivational slogans, pithy self-help maxims, “Fuck yeahs!” and anything else upbeat she could think of to make the wait until show time bearable. But as usual, doubt began to creep into the conversation she was having with herself. Her thoughts turned negative, berating herself, criticizing herself, both for not being good enough and for not being where she really wanted to be—by Cecilia’s side. She’d had a bad feeling, which didn’t bode well for a great show.
Hearing Cecilia’s music was inspirational for her, but also a little intimidating, a sonic reminder of how far she had to go. Unlike CeCe, Cat wasn’t a natural. Not the most charismatic girl at the party, the quickest wit with the best turns of phrase. She had been a fan after all, a follower, and despite Cecilia’s confidence in her, she had yet to muster much in herself. She wasn’t as tough, as thick-skinned, or as fearless, creatively or otherwise, as her mentor. And the fact that Less seemed to be spending all his time and effort on Cecilia’s album and show wasn’t helping. At least she’d booked the late show, so a few stragglers might turn up after Cecilia was done, that is if they had any energy left when that show was over.
Regardless of how she was feeling about herself just then, she could hear the sound of the arriving crowd bleeding through the peeling plaster walls of the Crown Heights dive bar turned hot spot and there was some satisfaction in that, or so she tried to convince herself. The promoter wandered by and smiled, which was a good sign. They never smiled unless they were making money, she figured, which meant the room was going to be full. The downside was that if she flopped it would not go unnoticed. All she could hope was that most reviewers and bloggers would be at Cecilia’s show in Gowanus.
“Stop it. This is your night,” she reminded herself. “Be here now. In the moment.”
She stepped back into the cubbyhole that served as a dressing room and eyed her guitar as she might a hot guy. Longingly. Lovingly. Besides Cecilia, the six-string was her best friend. It had seen her through the hardest times, the worst decisions, and the poorest judgment. She picked it up and began to strum, closing her eyes, doing a vocal exercise. The din from inside the club was actually comforting, a sort of white-noise background for the meditative state she was falling into. Less comforting were the sudden pings from her cell phone. The sound of social media alerts. Trolls, she figured, hating on her before the show, or glowing posts from Cecilia’s gig. She wasn’t sure which was worse. Either way, she didn’t look. Cat held down the off button until the power off bar came up and she swiped. The specter of Cecilia hung so completely over her, she just needed some distance from it, no matter how happy she was for her friend.
Cat returned to her guitar, but just as she was about to reach her most relaxed state, something changed. A chill ran through her body and she forgot the words of the song she was rehearsing. Maybe, she thought, a sudden bit of stage fright, but this felt different. Her hands became clammy and she began to involuntarily run one hand obsessively along the length of the steel strings from the saddle to the head, clutching the neck tightly, like a capo, with the other. Cat couldn’t stop. It was as if her mind and body were beyond her control. She was in a full-blown panic and there was nothing she could do about it.
A pall of silence fell over the boisterous crowd and then a few shrieks and a collective gasp went up. A short, sharp knock at the door startled Cat.
“Come in,” she said in a shaky voice, still rubbing her guitar.
It was the promoter. The happy expression on his face moments before was replaced with a grim one.
“What’s going on out there?”
He rubbed at his brow and looked away from her, clearly uncomfortable with making eye contact and with what he had to say.
“Have you heard?”
“Heard what? Is there some problem with the sound? Someone sick in the crowd?”
The promoter stepped inside and closed the door.
“It’s Cecilia.”
Cat stopped her obsessive rubbing of the guitar strings and felt a warmth in her palms. She checked them for moisture, nervous at the news she suspected was coming but still dreaded to hear. But when she looked down, it wasn’t droplets of sweat in her palms, but drops of blood.
“What about Cecilia?” Cat asked calmly.
“She’d dead. Less too.”
Cat placed the blood-smeared guitar down and leaned it against the wall. Her pulse quickened, her chest heaved, and she got an odd metallic taste in her mouth, as if she’d rinsed with rusty nails. Tears began to flow.
“What happened?”
“No one really knows. It’s insane over there. She went out into the crowd. One tweet even said it might have been Less that did it. I think she killed him too. Speared him in the stomach with her cello bow. Can you believe that?”
Cat didn’t answer. She could barely speak, she was so horrified and shattered. All of a sudden everything started to make sense. It was all planned. A brilliant setup by Less with Frey as the head fake. Daniel had used her to get to Cecilia with a promise of fame and fortune. The oldest trick in the devil’s gig bag and she’d fallen for it. Freeing Cecilia, getting her case dropped, fast-tracking her album, and stage managing every aspect of her show, it was all a smokescre
en for murder. The one thing he couldn’t have expected was the twist ending Cecilia provided. An iron rod twisted right in his fucking guts. Leave it to Cecilia to finish it.
“The room is still packed, Cat. Nobody’s leaving. I think they want to hear from you.”
“What do they expect me to say?” she asked.
“Listen, I understand if you don’t want to go out there,” the promoter offered sympathetically. “I’ll make an announcement from the stage. We’ll refund the tickets and take the blame for the cancellation. They’ll understand, believe me.”
Cat turned her palms upward and noticed that the long slits across them continued to fill with blood. As she clenched her hands tightly to stop the bleeding, she heard a chant building in the venue. Getting louder and louder. They were chanting her name. Summoning her in this moment of group sorrow.
“Cat. Cat. Cat Cat CAT CAT CAT!” they cried out desperately.
Catherine reached over for her guitar and picked it up, holding it by the neck like a battle-ax, the blood from her palms dripping down it.
“I’m going out there.”
The promoter swallowed hard.
“I don’t know if you should, Cat. I really can’t guarantee your safety after what happened. Every cop in town is in Gowanus.”
“I’m not afraid,” Cat said, looking him dead in the eye.
“Okay,” he said, reaching into his pocket.
Cat thought he might be pulling out some sort of last-minute insurance waiver for her to sign, but instead he just texted the sound and light engineers. The room went dark except for a single spotlight onstage. Catherine walked out onto the dark floorboards and stepped into the light. The place was silent except for the sound of sobs that emanated from every corner. Cat also couldn’t keep from weeping.
“My heart, our hearts, are broken,” Catherine said through bitter tears. “I don’t know how to describe a loss like this, where to begin.”
