Strange Sweet Song (18 page)

A sudden pressure, weightlessness, falling …
Images begin sparking in her mind.
Teeth. Eyes … black eyes tinged with purple … inhuman eyes …

A door to the right opens. A stout woman dressed in printed cotton steps through and frowns.

“You don’t know where you are?” Sing’s father sounds ruffled. “You are in the infirmary, my dear. Is someone there with you? Call for a nurse.”

“Oh, yeah,” Sing says. “I think the nurse just came in.”

“Hm,” the nurse says, putting a hand to Sing’s forehead.

“Are you all right?” Sing’s father asks. “They said I do not need to come. But I can postpone—”

“No, Papà. I’m fine.”

Is she fine? The nurse looks into her eyes and is apparently satisfied with whatever she has found there. She turns to the French doors and opens the curtains. Sing shifts the phone to her other ear. “Papà, I should go. I’m okay, all right?”

“Good, good. Listen, my dear, I want you to know—Harland will be at your Autumn Festival.”

Harland Griss, managing director of Fire Lake Opera. Why is he telling her this? “Oh. It will be nice to see him.”

Her father laughs. “So polite. This you get from me, eh? He will be there on business. I want you to know. Don’t let it get out, all right?”

“All right.” Business? What business? “I’ll see you later, Papà. At the Autumn Festival.”

“Okay,
carina
. I may see you before then, eh? And Sing—we will talk later about your censure.”

They told her
father
? Sing’s chest judders. What is he going to do?

Wait a minute—
she was in the woods again!
Wasn’t she? Her mind is fuzzy, but she is fairly certain. Will she get another censure for being in the woods? And how did she get there?

How did she get
here
?

“Call me if you have need of anything,” he says.
“Ti amo.”

“Ti amo, Papà. Ciao.”

The nurse takes the phone from her and replaces it.

“Your dad? He’s been worried. I’m glad he got through to you. I’m Mrs. Foster.” The woman’s voice is comfortable, and her face, though serious, is pleasant. She smells like plastic. “How are we feeling?”

“Okay.”

Mrs. Foster takes Sing’s wrist and presses. “Any pain?”

“Not much. A bit of a headache, I guess.” She almost doesn’t ask but can’t help it. “What happened?”

The nurse puts on a bland smile. “You don’t remember anything?”

Again, Sing pictures those black-violet eyes. But for some reason, she says, “No.” She
doesn’t
remember what happened, she assures herself. Not really. She doesn’t want to acknowledge the idea floating and buzzing at the back of her mind.
Something dangerous in the forest … Durand’s great beast …

No. The Felix is a myth, that’s all. Sure, Marta believes, but she probably also thinks rainbows are made of flying unicorns.

Mrs. Foster sighs. “You fainted out on the quad last night. Someone saw you and brought you in. Good thing, too, with the cold.”

Sing blinks. “I—fainted? On the quad?”

“Probably exhaustion. Or stress. You needed the sleep, my dear. Goodness knows how they run you kids into the ground. It’s a wonder you’re not all dropping like flies.” Mrs. Foster clicks her tongue in disapproval.

Exhaustion. Was it exhaustion? Could those eyes have been just a hallucination? Yes. Yes, she was on the footpath. She had just left Ryan—

Ryan.

The nurse has turned to the door, but Sing says, “Mrs. Foster, have I gotten any visitors?”

“No,” she says. Sing’s face falls a little, and Mrs. Foster adds, “I’m sure your friends are very worried about you. But they wouldn’t have been allowed in while you were still resting. You’ve been awfully groggy and difficult to rouse for the last twenty hours.” And she leaves, moving with the purpose of someone who has somewhere else to be.

Sing lets her head slump to the side. After all that sleep, she feels like getting up. Especially since she knows if she closes her eyes, that terrible, snarling face will be there. Or maybe Ryan’s face will appear. Would that be worse?

Maybe he will come soon. Maybe he will assure her of what she can’t believe right now, that he really did kiss her. He really does like her. Her, not Lori.

She sits up, and though her head complains a little, the rest of her feels decent. The light coming from the French doors draws her. She finds a thick bathrobe draped across a chair and pulls it on.

Opening the doors reveals a ground-level private terrace and Hector Hall’s impressive back garden. The sky is gray but bright, and the air is warmer than Sing expects. She lowers herself slowly onto a curvy stone bench. The damp breeze feels good on her face as she gazes at the dying garden.

The pain in her head is dull and not overly terrible, but each throb seems to murmur another question.
What happened? Who brought me here?

The garden is a small, meandering landscape of stone fairies, gravel, dry grass, and wide beds of drooping brown flowers. Crows disagree with one another from the trees.

Suddenly, a sound comes from just over her shoulder, almost as soft as the breeze itself, but so close it makes her heart jump.

“Chrrrrp?”

She has the presence of mind to turn slowly, and when she does so, she is met by a pair of ice-blue eyes with big, black cat-pupils.

Tamino stands calmly on the other side of the stone railing, his large head level with Sing’s own. In the even, gray wash of the afternoon, he stands out like a sunset jewel. She looks around furtively. No one.

“Chrrrp?”
It is decidedly a question, but which question, Sing has no idea.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to be here,” she says. Tamino leaps easily onto the stone railing that separates the terrace from the garden and begins to purr.

“Big cats are unable to purr,” she says, but he continues anyway, pushing the top of his fuzzy head into her shoulder, which nearly knocks her off the bench. She scratches between his ears and he closes his eyes.

“Were you in the woods last night, little guy?” she asks. “I feel like you were—like we both were.” She realizes that if she was attacked—and she is more and more certain she was—this big kitten might be her attacker.

Ridiculous. She smiles to think of it. But her smile fades.
Of course, if there is a kitten, there must be a cat.

The owner of those death-violet eyes in her memory must be connected to this strange kitten, perhaps even its mother or father. How could she not have thought of it before? Or has she?

Tamino only closes his eyes in a cat-smile.

“Do you know about Prince Tamino, your namesake?” she asks. “He loves the princess Pamina. He fell in love with her picture before he even met her. But they have problems. The princess sings a sad song to Tamino about her tears.” She keeps scratching his head and sings,
“Sieh’, Tamino, diese Tränen fließen, Trauter, dir allein.”
It seems as if princesses and shepherdesses and servant girls in operas are always singing sad songs about their beloveds. Is love always sad? Is it always difficult? She thinks of Ryan’s relaxed smile. Is anything difficult for him?

“Miss da Navelli?” Mrs. Foster calls from behind the French doors. Tamino tenses and is gone.

“I’m out here on the terrace.”

The doors open as the nurse says, “You have a visitor.”

Sing’s heart tickles and she sits up straight. Could Ryan be here, now, just as she was thinking about him?

A stooping, dark form emerges from the doorway. It isn’t Ryan after all.

It definitely isn’t Ryan.

“Don’t stay outside too long,” Mrs. Foster tells her. “A little fresh air is fine, but don’t get cold.”

“Okay.”

Mrs. Foster is gone again. Sing’s eyes flit to Apprentice Daysmoor, who stands still in the doorway, perhaps a little awkwardly. He is the last person she wants to see right now. She doesn’t know what to say to him.

He clears his throat. “I’m sorry to have surprised you, Miss da Navelli. I can see you were hoping I’d be someone else.”

Did her disappointment show that clearly on her face? She feels a pang of embarrassment; she was rude.

“No, I was just …
expecting
someone else. That’s all.”

He nods but doesn’t approach. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” she says, and adds, “Thanks for coming.” A hint to leave.

But he crosses the terrace and puts his hands on the stone railing. “How are your spirits?”

His grave tone surprises her. “Fine,” she says lightly. “I’m a little rattled, I guess, but that’s probably normal. Well, you know, if there is a ‘normal’ for this type of thing.”

He looks at her now, and she thinks his dull black eyes are a little less dull. She feels the weight of her secrets, as though he is searching for something behind her own eyes.

“I overheard you just now,” he says. “You were singing a very sad song.”

“Oh,” she says. “That was just Pamina’s aria from
The Magic Flute
.”
Does he think I’m crazy?

“I know what it was.” The familiar, arrogant edge returns to his voice, and he turns his face to the garden.

“Well, thanks for your concern”—Sing hears an edge in her own voice now—“but I was just singing. I’m not lamenting my lost love out here or anything.”

“No, I suppose not.”

He says it in a way that just
invites
her to snap,
And what does
that
mean?
But she doesn’t. She remembers his silhouette in the window just before she and Ryan said good-bye.
Jealous,
Ryan had said. Yes, he’s probably jealous of Ryan’s talent, his good looks, his charm. And he should be.

She sets her mouth, crosses her arms, and leans against the bench. They are silent for a few moments.

“Tamino’s not lost,” Daysmoor says.

Her head jerks in surprise. “What?” How much did he overhear just now, exactly? What does he know about Tamino?

“When Pamina sings that aria,” he says. “Tamino isn’t her ‘lost love,’ he’s undergoing the test of silence. When he won’t speak to her, she thinks he doesn’t care about her anymore.”

“I know
that,
” Sing says. Everybody knows the story of
The Magic Flute
. Daysmoor doesn’t know about the big kitten after all.

He seems to study something in the distance. “That’s such a tragic scene. Having no voice.”

Watching him, Sing is reminded of the night he found her beyond the fence. What does he know about this forest, and the creatures who live there?

She says, “Marta says the Felix really exists.”

Daysmoor doesn’t move, but Sing feels a decided stiffness pervade the atmosphere. She can swear his fingers, which had been lightly touching the railing, tense just for a moment into claws. The garden is quiet except for the rustling of dry leaves and the intermittent cawing of crows. Did she cross some kind of line?

“Does she?” he says without emotion. “And what do you think?”

Before she can think, the truthful answer escapes. “I don’t know.”

“Is that why you were running around in the woods that night?” he asks. “What did you find there, I wonder?”

“What did
you
find there?”

He shrugs. “It’s no secret that I go to the forest sometimes. Most people just don’t notice. And
I’m
not going to get a censure out of it.”

What does
that
mean? Her head aches. “Maybe you should,” she says without meaning to. “Since you love giving them to other people so much.”

Okay, that was rude. She almost claps a hand over her mouth but instead turns her head toward the dying garden, hoping he will evaporate.

“What?”

She lets her eyes flick to his face. For the first time, she can read his expression clearly. He is confused.

She doesn’t say anything. Her sockless feet, tucked up under her, are cold.

His confusion seems to resolve itself to amusement. “You think
I
turned you in after your little escapade in the forest?”

Does he seriously want to feign innocence here? “I don’t know,” she says. “I’m a little groggy.”

Cautiously, he moves a step closer to the bench. “Do you…” An uncertain pause. She frowns at him. He begins again. “Do you think it was the Felix who attacked you last night?”

She looks away, voice hard. “I wasn’t attacked by anything. I fainted out on the quad.”

He stiffens. “Of course. Why would I think that?”

“I don’t know. Why would you?”

Now he leans in uncomfortably close and lowers his voice. “Somehow, I got it into my head you were attacked by an animal in the middle of the woods, where you shouldn’t have been. Isn’t that strange? I got it into my head you collapsed in the dark, cold, wet middle of nowhere, and that someone had to haul your carcass back to campus and then lie about it in order to avoid your getting another censure.”

She opens her mouth, but no words come out.

He straightens up. “I know, it would have been so much more romantic if it had been your handsome boyfriend. Oh, well.”

“That’s not what I—” She brushes aside the image of Ryan using Excalibur to hack his way to her through nettly underbrush. “It’s just—
why
?”

“Why not leave an unconscious soprano to freeze to death in the woods?” He taps his fingers on the stone railing. “That’s actually a very good question. I have no idea.”

Sing almost laughs. “I mean, why would you care about my getting another censure? Why lie for me?”

He sighs theatrically. “Look, I know it may create an imbalance in the world you’re choosing to live in, but I am not, in fact, out to get you. And by the way, a student reported you going into the woods after the party that night, not me.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Really?”

All he does is blink.

It is a long shot, but she has to try. “Who?”

His eyes crinkle just slightly. “You know I can’t tell you that.”

“Okay.”

“But her initials are Lori Pinkerton.” Now Sing does laugh, and Daysmoor says, “Aha, has the egg finally cracked? Is that what you asked the Felix for—the ability to smile?”