Strange Sweet Song (2 page)

Sing tilts her head. “That sounds almost superstitious of you, Papà.”

He smiles. “I am just being your father, my dear.”

If he wanted to, Sing’s father could conduct
Angelique
as well as anyone in the world. But Sing couldn’t imagine him doing something as impractical as wandering around the very forest that inspired it. Her mother, perhaps. But she didn’t attend Dunhammond Conservatory and would never see it now. Who knows if she would have answered the forest’s call—or if she would have even heard it.

She shrugs. “I’m not afraid of ghosts.”

Her father continues to smile, but his eyes are grave. “That is good to hear.”

Three

W
HEN THE CONCERT WAS OVER,
the crow remained, motionless, its black eyes fixed on the grand piano. It stared until the last rays of the sun were gone, the last light had been extinguished, and the hall had settled into a profound darkness. When it could no longer see the piano, the crow continued to stare through the broken window at the place where it knew the piano was.

And it might have gone on staring forever, if not for a tiny noise—the softest click of something hard and sharp on the tiled roof. Instinctively, the crow took to the air.

But its right leg was entangled in the dense ivy covering the windowsill. The crow fell back, flapping, but couldn’t free itself. Its wing became caught as well, as though the tendrils of ivy were reaching and grasping. Still aware of the strange presence on the roof behind it, the crow turned.

It didn’t see the long, dark body, precariously, impossibly perched. It didn’t see the lashing tail or the yellowing claws. It saw only the eyes, deep and black violet, hungry and pitiless.

The crow had never seen the Felix before, but it knew to be afraid.

Four

P
LACEMENT AUDITIONS.
Sing sits on a long maple bench, gazing at the translucent window across the hall. Despite its gloomy exterior, this part of St. Augustine’s is sunny. She squints at the stained glass—bright, blocky music notes and swirling staves.

“You’re Sing da Navelli.” The voice beside her is a vibrant disturbance in the hushed, gaping hallway.

Sing gives a start. Her mind has been drifting. Despite her father’s insistence, she did not get a good night’s sleep. She was unable to get Durand’s aria out of her head—the forest outside her window seemed to be singing it to her all night long.

The copper-haired boy next to her is one of the few teenagers here who isn’t clutching an instrument case. Like her, he carries only a black leather portfolio.

“Am I wrong?” the boy asks. “Your name tag says ‘Sing.’ Or is that just what you do?”

Sing raises an eyebrow. He is probably making fun of her. “Well, wouldn’t your name tag say ‘Sing,’ too, then?”

She flips open her portfolio and studies the introduction to her placement song.
Two measures of four, then one of three, come in on the eighth-note pickup.
She can’t mess up the beginning. This audition will establish her place in the soprano hierarchy—and there is room at the top for only one.

“It does.”

Sing looks up. “What?”

“Just kidding.” The boy points to his name tag: “Ryan,” blue to indicate he’s a senior. Even without the color code, Sing can tell who the seniors are. Unlike the first-years—panicky, confused—or the second-years—overconfident—the seniors are relaxed. They have done this audition several times already.

Ryan grins, and Sing accidentally grins back. She forgets the eighth-note pickup, and for the slightest of moments she thinks he is good-looking.

Then she notices his eyes searching her face for a response. His good-looking-ness is
calculated
.

Her chest deflates. He must know who she is. As if her parents’ shiny fame leaches out of her pores. She gives him a quick, close-lipped smile and goes back to her music.
Remember to breathe before the long phrase here.

“You’re not too friendly, are you?” he says, as though she’s a wild animal he’s thinking of capturing and putting in a box.

Sing mutters, “I’m friendly with my friends.”
Friends?
Could he tell that was a lie? That she doesn’t have any friends? She stares at her music but doesn’t really see the notes. And she can tell Ryan is still grinning.

“Well, I hope we’ll be friends,” he says. “I’ll take friendly over snippy any day.”

She looks up.

Snippy?

She opens her mouth but doesn’t say anything. He laughs as though he knows what she’s thinking—which can’t be true, because even she doesn’t know what she’s thinking—and says, “Hey, we’ll get a coffee later. In the village.”

He’s so cocky. Sing looks at him, trying to come up with a snippy response. His mischievous gaze is still on her, eyes steady and challenging, smile relaxed … shiny hair … white teeth … He really
is
good-looking. Sing feels herself turn pink and lifts her portfolio to study it more closely, hiding her face.

“I just flew in this morning,” Ryan says, as if they are having a conversation. “Haven’t even unpacked—had to throw on this stylish uniform and come straight over for placements. What song are you doing?”

From behind her portfolio, Sing says, “I’m not doing a song. I’m doing a twelve-tone vocalise by Janice Bailey.”

Did that sound snippy?

“I love Janice Bailey!” Ryan says. “That crazy stuff from the seventies? Rustling paper and shattering glass?”

Sing lowers her portfolio. “I like her new stuff better. More lyrical, more tonal.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.” Ryan nods. “She’s got less to prove now that she’s famous. Maybe she’s just enjoying herself.”

Sing likes boys who can talk about music.

She scans the corridor, wondering if anyone else is deep in conversation about composers whose only fans are other musicians. But the hallway is subdued. A line of matching slate-blue wool skirts and sweater vests. Knees. Gray trousers and blue neckties. Heads bent over portfolios, mouths sucking on reeds, bows quietly being adjusted or rosined. The atmosphere is thick with musicians trying not to make any music.

“Well, Miss Twelve-Tone Vocalise”—Ryan leans back against the wall—“you must be disappointed we’re doing boring old
Angelique
this semester.”

Sing’s throat freezes.
Angelique?

Ryan frowns. “You okay?”

“Yes, I—I just didn’t … It’s my favorite opera.”

“Lucky you!” he says. “Maybe you’ll get a big part!”

An image Sing has tried so long to repress surfaces again—herself, imagined in the title role. Angelique. The role she has wanted to sing since she was five.

“I’d want to be Prince Elbert.” Ryan hums a bit of a melody.

Sing’s chest tightens. Prince Elbert, the one who marries Angelique at the end of Act III? The one with whom Angelique sings a passionate love duet?

Ryan strikes a princely pose and begins to sing.
“Tout ce que je vois, tout ce que je veux…”

“Sure.” Sing relaxes. She doesn’t know which is more awful—his singing or his French. There is no way he will be cast as Prince Elbert.

But he continues.
“Tout est à moi sauf vous!”
Sour, silent faces look at him from all along the resonant corridor. He doesn’t seem to mind, however, and pompously puffs out his chest, singing even more loudly.
“Sauf vous! Sauf voooooous!”

Sing laughs. She can’t help it. Everything is so serious here; music is serious. If the conservatory had a motto, that would be it: Be serious. But Ryan doesn’t seem to care. He has risen now and is humming the horn part as he marches in place. The scowls along the corridor turn to rodentlike looks of apprehension.

Sing watches Ryan as he sits again, stretching out his legs and putting his arms behind his head. He smells very faintly of cologne. Well, he is definitely
different
. Her pink starts to return. He catches her looking at him and smiles slyly, as though they have been playing a game and he has won.

And maybe he has.

“Well, maybe I’m not cut out for operatic leads,” he says. “Don’t worry, Sing Twelve-Tone Angelique. I’m sure there are plenty of handsome young men around here who will fight for the honor of singing opposite you. I’ll have to stick to being an ass.”

Sing laughs again. “I’m sure you have
some
other talents.”

“Well,” he says, leaning in so that his cologne drifts over her, “I could stand vigilant at your door and protect you from ghosts.”

“Are there ghosts at DC?”

Ryan’s eyes widen. “Every respectable campus has ghosts. We’ve got Apprentice Daysmoor, for one. I mean, he’s technically still alive, but no one can haunt like that guy.”

Sing doesn’t want Ryan to move away. “What’s he like?”

Ryan lowers his voice. “He’s this creepy apprentice who lives in the old tower that sticks out of Archer.”

Sing scrunches her eyebrows, intrigued. “Creepy? How? Underground lair? Secret musical genius? Seducer of maidens?”

“Wow, that’s where you go first off? Really?” Ryan grins. “That’s kind of awesome, actually.”

“Thanks,” Sing says. “So what’s Daysmoor’s instrument, then?”

Ryan shrugs. “Piano, I guess, but he’s terrible. You know what people call him? ‘Plays-poor.’ Yeah, it’s not great, but it kind of works.”

“He’s terrible? Really?”

“Oh, yeah!” Ryan raises his eyebrows. “Only ever gave one performance and was booed off the stage. Everybody knows that. But the creepiest part … well, you know what they say?”

Sing shakes her head. She feels the chill of the high stone hallway.

Ryan whispers, “They say he’s a vampire who was living here when they converted the old church, and he’s never left.”

They look at each other for a long moment before they both laugh at the absurdity of it.

A jowly apprentice sticks his head out from behind the president’s heavy door. “Anita?”

A frizzy-haired girl shuffles over with her nose down, clutching her pristine flute case and portfolio to her chest. Her shiny shoes click and echo in the massive stone hall.

Ryan stands up. “Do they need me yet?”

“No.” The apprentice frowns and narrows his small eyes. “Wait your turn.”

“I’m Ryan Larkin.” Ryan points to his name tag again. Sing thinks he must be very proud of it. But she can’t help watching in confusion as the apprentice’s expression changes from one of annoyance to one of friendly understanding.

Friendly understanding? An
apprentice
?

“Oh. Right,” the apprentice says. “Sorry, man. In there.”

Ryan shoots Sing a last smug grin and follows the flute girl into the president’s office.

Sorry, man?
Sing frowns. Even though she has been on campus only one day, she has become used to being scowled at by apprentices. She definitely hasn’t seen one being pleasant to somebody.

Who
is
Ryan?

Five

G
EORGE WAS NOT A SUPERSTITIOUS
young man, but something about the quad late at night gave him the willies. The lanterns along the road had been snuffed out, and the moon silhouetted the untidy forest behind St. Augustine’s. Strange that only an hour before, the concert hall had been stuffed to the gills with musicians and audience members, all there to hear the famous Gloria Stewart.

Now they were gone, the hall quiet and dark. Not that he was
afraid,
he told himself, clutching his notebook to his chest. Back at the Daysmoor School for Boys, he had frequently accompanied his friends on their late-night mischief. And even as a student here at the conservatory, he had always been up for a midnight run to Dunhammond to see what the local boys were up to.

Maybe this strange feeling was the shiny new sense of responsibility that accompanied his shiny new title: Assistant Professor. He no longer felt a watchful presence looming over him; that was now
his
role. Protector, leader, guide.

St. Augustine’s heavy door had a habit of sticking, as if it were still a massive living tree outgrowing its stone doorjambs. In the dim light, George heaved it closed. But above the familiar scrape-groan, he thought he heard another type of groan—a human one.

Ears warming even in the chilly air, he froze, his hand still on the black iron ring. Silence.

He told himself to call out,
Hello?
To perform his duty as steward of this venerable school and its people. After all, it could have been the voice of an elderly concertgoer who had stumbled into a ditch. Or a drunken student who had fallen into the bushes. Or … or … or some other normal thing.

But he did not call out. He listened.

The rustling of trees, the odd snap or scrape from the forest.

The moon illuminated the walkway that ran the length of the building and ended abruptly at the grassy quadrangle, though George knew it in darkness just as well.

Must have been just another creak from the old door.

He moved along the path, trying to focus on the notes he had taken that evening. The Maestro’s four-four pattern had seemed to place the downbeat high in the arc—perhaps it allowed for greater intricacy of—

There it was again.

A low, rasping groan coming from the roof. Perhaps not human after all. George stopped and peered up at the imposing old hall, something he normally avoided doing when he was alone at night because of all the gargoyles looking back at him.

Had it been one of
them
?

It had certainly sounded like a stone throat, harsh and deep and grating. But the gargoyles were still, protecting the hall as they had always done.

As
he
should be doing.

George swallowed and called out, “Hello?” His voice was absorbed by the wall and the grass.

He took a step back to better examine the roof. Something white gleamed at the apex at the far end.

What was it?

He squinted hard, then recoiled.

It was a human arm.

It was possibly just thrust over the pitch of the roof, still attached to a person on the other side. Or possibly not.