Strange Sweet Song (3 page)

George knew the conservatory was haunted by both ghosts and stories. The sight of the arm brought some of the grislier rumors to the surface of his consciousness. No one had been killed in the forest for a long time, but legends take longer to die than people. It was said Durand himself had seen the Cat. And a
cat
—well, George didn’t know about mythology or anything like that, but even a
regular
cat as big as this one supposedly had been would have no trouble helping itself to whatever bits of people it happened to find appetizing.

As he moved closer, long, slender fingers came into focus, and something else—the arm was entwined with what looked like black ivy. It started at the wrist and curled around nearly all the way up to the shoulder. When George reached the end of the building and could see clearly, he realized it wasn’t real ivy at all, but a tattoo.

George peered up at the arm. There was something
wrong
about it. It didn’t
look
strange, exactly, except for the tattoo. In fact, it was quite beautiful, as far as arms went, especially the graceful fingers—fingers any pianist would have killed for. But he couldn’t quite make himself head back into the hall and climb the rickety stairs to the trapdoor to investigate further; neither could he break away from the vision of it to go alert the president or the police.

So, for a time, George just stared at the arm.

Then one of the pale fingers began to move.

Six

T
HE AUDITION IS FORMAL.
Sing walks slowly to the center of the president’s office and stands, shoulders back and feet apart, on a red section of the faded, multicolored carpet. The jowly apprentice who showed her in shuts the door behind him as he leaves.

The president, a tall black man whose neat hair is streaked with gray, is at his desk writing something. Next to him sits the head of the Voice Department, Professor Needleman, a fleshy woman with ruddy cheeks and light hair pulled into a severe bun. Sing hasn’t seen them since she auditioned for the conservatory last spring. They were skeptical then—she could see it in their faces even though they tried to hide it. But her father knew she was ready, in a way she hadn’t been the year before, and she had proven herself.
Now I just need to do it again,
she thinks.

Maestro Keppler sits next to Professor Needleman, his long hair disgustingly oiled, his bushy gray eyebrows drawn together. He appears unfriendly, or possibly in some kind of gastrointestinal distress, and the lines on his face are so deep and set, Sing wonders if he is even capable of any other expression. This is the man who taught her father conducting during his time at DC? Sing tries to do some quick math in her head—her father is sixty-six, isn’t he? How old must the Maestro be, then? Looking at him, she would swear he is the younger man.

A few other faculty members dot the spacious room, each with a clipboard. All eyes are on Sing. All eyes, she notices, except for two—those belonging to an apprentice seated, or rather sprawled, next to the Maestro.

His head lolls to one side, his eyes are closed, and his jaw hangs limply off his face as though it hasn’t been attached correctly. His coal-black hair looks like it hasn’t been combed, cut, or washed in some time. Sing wonders briefly if he is dead.

“Miss da Navelli, it’s delightful to see you again,” the president says. As Sing was expecting, many of the gazes on her suddenly sharpen at the mention of her last name. Even the dead apprentice comes around and peers at her with dull eyes as black as his hair. There is an ugliness about him—not in his features, but in his lackluster gaze. She feels his eyes on her too strongly and wishes he would close them again.

“It’s nice to see you, too, President Martin,” she says, straightening her spine into an almost military position and raising her chin.

The president goes on, “Did you enjoy your summer? Your father tells me you had quite an education.”

Sure,
Sing thinks.
Each week a different city and a different opera, with him pointing out everything the sopranos were doing better than me.

But she says, “Yes, sir. Kapteina’s
Butterfly
was particularly inspiring, even though she told us she was recovering from a cold.” She can hear her mother’s voice:
Never miss an opportunity to name-drop—tactfully, of course, and without effort.
It can’t hurt for President Martin to have the impression she is on speaking terms with Ingrid Kapteina, even if it’s really her father who knows the famous singer.

“Wonderful. Yes, I heard it was excellent. Now, what are you going to sing for us?”

She can tell he is trying to be friendly, but it is always the same with her principals and conductors and teachers. They know her father is in the background.

“Um, a vocalise—Number Seventeen by Janice Bailey.” She opens her portfolio.

“‘Um, a vocalise’?” It is the Maestro who speaks now, and his voice is harsh. He twines his fingers together stiffly. “Are you aware that the
placement
auditions are held so that we can
place
you in appropriate groups and roles?”

“Yes, Maestro.” Sing feels her face reddening. Is she in trouble?

“And that this is our only chance to consider you for the opera?”

“Yes, Maestro.”

The Maestro sighs. “May I ask, then, why you have selected ‘um, a vocalise’? Did it occur to you that we might prefer something with
words
? Perhaps
French
words, as we’re doing
Angelique
?”

Sing’s hands start to shake. She doesn’t say,
I can’t sing Angelique for real. Not yet.
Admitting that would be sure to squash any chance she has of getting the lead. No, she has to stick with what is safe, for now, and worry about the role of her dreams when she has secured it. There’s no need for anyone here to know her secret—that despite her blood and her training, there is still something … wrong … with her voice.

Instead, she summons her courage and says, “I’ve studied French at home, sir, and German, and I’m fluent in Italian.”

“I can read your form, thank you,” the Maestro says.

President Martin smiles. “I’m sure her French is excellent.”

The Maestro raises his voice just a little and looks at the president. “You know, my mother was a nurse. Would you come to me if you broke your arm? I mean, what are we trying to do here? I’m sorry the public misses Barbara da Navelli, but it’s not our job to bring her back!”

The words take Sing by surprise, and she is silent. Professor Needleman looks uncomfortable. Some of the faculty fidget or clear their throats, glad to be outside the Maestro’s notice. Only President Martin shoots Sing a reassuring glance, a little smirk that says,
Oh, well. He will insist on being that way, won’t he?

No one says,
That’s her mother you’re talking about
. No one says that.

She unintentionally looks again to the black-haired apprentice, whose hard face is unreadable, his eyes fixed on hers in a dark, burning gaze. For the briefest moment, she is frozen. But then he closes his eyes again, graciously severing the connection.

“Never mind, George, never mind,” the president says, patting the desk. “We didn’t set any requirements. Goodness, we only officially named the opera this morning; we can’t expect all the voice kids to have French arias. She can sing whatever she wants.”

“Yes, of course she can, can’t she?” The Maestro crosses his arms. “Well, go ahead.”

Sing inhales deeply, blinking back the hotness that is beginning behind her eyes, and turns to hand her music to the accompanist. But she stops when she sees a smiling face looking up at her from behind the president’s mahogany baby grand piano.

“Don’t sweat it,” whispers Ryan, taking the music. Sing is too surprised to do anything but give him the nod to begin.

Two measures of four, then one of three …
She breathes in through her nose and feels her ribs expand, though they are still tight. She wants to roll her shoulders and loosen them but can’t seem to find the muscles that are supposed to do it.
Do not fear them! They are lucky to hear you sing!
her father says in her head.
They will soon be lining the streets to hear you sing!

The first note is flat, but she corrects. She has chosen
Ah,
but regrets it now—
Oo
would have been better. Maybe she will change vowels after the first few phrases.
Breathe.
She shouldn’t have had to breathe there. Get a bigger breath next time.

The black-haired apprentice watches her through slitted eyes. She doesn’t know why, but she feels him judging her. Was that pointed inhalation a comment on her last high F, not spinning as smoothly as it should?

She forces herself to look away. What does she care what an
apprentice
thinks, anyway?

Most of the faculty look as if they’ve seen too many auditions today. The president appears to be doing paperwork, and the Maestro is frowning, eyes boring into her. Professor Needleman wears an artificial smile, but at least she’s trying.

Smile.
Sing has forgotten to smile. Will it look strange if she starts now, halfway through? She does anyway, and her sound brightens. Angelique would have a bright, cheerful sound. She must show them she can do it.
Here’s the money note,
as her father likes to say. She sucks in a big breath and dives into the phrase; the note is
good
—very good—but she has wasted too much air on the rising melody and the climax is rushed because she’s not sure she can make it through. Then she backs off, worried that if she pushes too hard, the sound will become wobbly or, worse, break altogether. She can’t move her jaw. She tries to decrescendo on the last note, but the bottom just drops out and she’s left with a weak little whine.

It’s an audition, so there is no applause, just silence as the professors make some notes. Sing doesn’t look back at Ryan. The president raises his eyes briefly and says, “Thank you,” in a final sort of way.

Sing leaves. She doesn’t notice the apprentice, eyes fully open, frowning slightly.

Seven

T
HE FELIX WAS BORN A BALL
of light, a soft, twittering, warm thing who saw her own joy reflected in the eyes of her mother. They tumbled and skidded about the sky, and for the briefest of times, all was perfect.

She wasn’t to know that her happiness set the universe listing, and something had to be done to put it right again.

So came her brother, mangy and slick, with a film of blood over his eyes. Lashing and snapping, he ripped his way into the universe, took his first fortifying gasp, and set upon their mother like a demon.

The Felix, older and stronger, lashed back as her mother’s eyes grew dull and empty. The cubs fought and tore and leapt, their cries audible even at the bottom of the oceans.

Soon the Felix was alone, and might have been happy again even in mourning, with the memories of her mother and the beauty of the stars. But in taking the life of her nameless brother, she had broken her own heart. She was now darkness.

That day, the Felix came to earth, and she has been wandering ever since. Little remains of her now except hunger and ferocity.

Eight

A
NGELIQUE
WAS THE FIRST OPERA SING
ever saw. She remembers it perfectly—how she could have sworn the tall baritone was singing delicately into her ear instead of strutting around on a stage far below. How the chorus was one voice and many voices at the same time, the sound a school of glittering fish who flashed and darted and drifted perfectly together. And how it felt to see her—
her
—take those first graceful steps onto the set.

She doesn’t know the soprano’s name, and it doesn’t matter. She
was
Angelique, her ruffly white dress billowing, golden hair cascading down her back in bouncy ringlets. Sing can still hear her sweet, light voice fluttering over the high notes and gently alighting on the low.

It was one thing to sit in front of the record player and imagine, quite another to experience the tingle from chest to temples as the great singer filled the room with harmonics. Magic.

Afterward, she dug out her father’s records and learned Angelique’s most famous aria, approximating the sounds of the mysterious foreign words. In response to her debut performance at the dinner table, her parents began to fight—her father saying,
I said all along she was a singer,
and her mother saying,
We discussed this—it’s got to be the piano because she has no ear
. Five-year-old Sing put her hands to her head in confusion and found both ears where they belonged.

The piano turned out not to be Sing’s instrument after all; her fingers were short and clumsy, and her bad posture—which her mother pointed out with sharp little prods to her lower back—made her wrists and shoulders hurt. When her parents were gone, the nannies couldn’t make her practice. Instead, they let her listen to records. The operas were her favorites.

She never sang
Angelique
for her parents again. But she knows the words now. The real words, and the notes and the rhythms, the characters and the story, the emotions and the beauty. She knows them all by heart.

Movement in her peripheral vision brings her back to the present. Her first full day at Dunhammond Conservatory. Her first moments alone on the sunny quad. Is someone already intruding?

She looks back. Yep, that short girl is definitely coming over.

Great, she made eye contact. Now the girl is waving and hurrying across the grass toward the iron bench on which Sing is sitting. Sing checks her watch—forty-five minutes until the official DC Welcome Gathering.

She just wanted a moment alone with her favorite composer. Apparently that was too much to ask. She looks up at the bronze statue, gleaming in the slanted sunlight. Two sizable crows, each perched on a square shoulder, lend an air of menace to the imposing figure. But the subject himself seems benign enough, his left arm cradling a type of small, impractical harp he probably never set eyes on in life, his right hand holding a quill pen. His expression is wistful, eyes heavenward, one foot on an overturned milk pail.
FRANÇOIS DURAND, 1811–1877,
the plaque reads.
FOUNDER, COMPOSER, TEACHER. SURVIVOR OF THE MASSACRE OF DUNHAMMOND, 1862.