Strange Sweet Song (34 page)

A great, dark pressure seems to seep out of her chest and dissipate into the busyness of the lounge. “I will be, someday,” she says.

Sixty-four

T
HE BRIGHT ADVERTISEMENT FOR
the Autumn Festival seems more incongruous on this weathered old beast of a door than anywhere else on campus. Maybe this is why Sing has come to St. Augustine’s. It feels as separated from the loud, vibrant Woolly Theater as she does.

She puts a hand to the edge of the advertisement. These posters have been staring at her for so long, it seems incredible they will be gone after today. True, they will only be replaced by the next big thing, but at least it won’t include a hundred
Angelique
s dotting the campus like painful subliminal messages.

Because it
is
painful, she thinks, nudging open the heavy door, which gives a labored creak. The chill follows her into the dim, gaping hallway, but she pushes the door shut and the air quietens. She will not sing Angelique today, and maybe not ever. She will not be given the New Artist position at Fire Lake. This is as it should be, but—

But.

But she had thought, for a little while, that both of these things would happen. Had she not been given that hope, it wouldn’t matter. But to love something for a lifetime—even a small lifetime—to wish for something so passionately and then to have
hope
of it, only to have that hope taken away again—that is the worst part.

To wish for something.
Her mind’s eye flickers to life, just for a pinprick of a moment.

She shuffles down the empty hall. The president’s office door is ajar, but she knows he is at the performance with everyone else. Strangely, the sight of the door comforts her. Despite Dunhammond Conservatory’s formal air and spattering of draconian regulations, she has always found its doors unlocked. She runs a finger along the backs of the long wooden benches that line the wall. Afternoon sun diffuses through the stained glass, dappling the hall like a summer forest.

The next door she passes is closed, and she realizes with a shiver that it leads to the late Maestro Keppler’s office, a guest space set up to accommodate him during his residency this semester.
The last time I was in there, the Maestro was alive,
she thinks.
Now, he—

She pauses. It was a strange thing to think. Although she imagines a shadowy room, silver-framed pictures, ornaments, she knows she has never been in the Maestro’s office.

Her plans in coming to St. Augustine’s this afternoon were vague, a simple attempt to be somewhere everyone else wasn’t. But she starts down the hallway again with the idea of playing the beautiful grand piano in the concert hall. It is not forbidden for students to play it, but she has never dared. Her rudimentary skills would seem inadequate, even offensive, on such a fine instrument. Today, though, with the hall empty and echoing, maybe her playing will be good enough. Maybe her modest efforts will be better than silence.

She has never really appreciated the beauty of the concert hall before. Sturdy stone columns flare into arches like the lotus pillars in
Osiris and Seth.
Winter light peeks with bright eyes through the tall, narrow windows at ground level and floats lazily near the small stained-glass panels just below the ceiling. The floor shines, warm orange wood.

Her spirits rise as she takes in the room, and for a moment, she feels more at home than she ever has. But when she removes the dustcover and sits at the piano, sadness overtakes her. It is nothing she can explain, separate from the dull disappointment that has settled over her body since she left
Angelique.
Sharper, more urgent. Staring at the black and white keys, she feels as if she has just awoken from a vivid dream—the details are so close to the surface, but somehow utterly lost at the same time. Her reflection in the music rack offers no clues.

She plays a little. A minuet, which she manages to butcher despite its simplicity. The notes echo off the high walls. After a while, she starts humming along.
It really is amazing what a few months can do,
she thinks, not of her clumsy fingers, but of the effortlessness with which she now calls forth her own voice. Professor Needleman is a good teacher, despite her stern exterior, and Sing knows Mr. Bernard’s acting classes were part of the reason dress rehearsal went well this week. Even Mrs. Bigelow and the crows have helped her become a deeper musician. And—

She stops playing.
And?

Again, as when she thought of the forest earlier today, there seems to be a vagueness in her mind. She closes her eyes, willing the amorphous clouds of her memory to solidify into something real. Snatches of images. Where do they come from?
Long hands. A gray T-shirt.
And sounds—the Brahms intermezzo she has loved so much lately.

That is one piece she will never have a hope of learning. But, giving up on the minuet, she starts to pick out Brahms’s melody. Three notes, six notes. The first four phrases. She tries to construct a spare bass line, which stumbles as it goes. Slowly, her bare-bones version begins to resemble the music in her mind.

Nathan.

She pulls her hands off the keyboard as though it has burned them.

The vague cloud is
Nathan.
It is as if an explosion has torn through her mind—no, not as scattered as an explosion. A flower of memory, closed tightly, has burst open. She can picture him clearly now, his black hair and blacker eyes, his straight nose and sharp features, his hands. The way it felt when he kissed her.

How could she have forgotten him? What happened? He was here last night; they hid from Maestro Keppler in the stairwell—was that a dream?

Her hand finds the teardrop pearl around her neck. It is wrong; this is the necklace her mother sent for her tenth birthday, from Austria. But this pearl should have been put away, flung to the back of the little drawer in her bedside table. There should be a real tear in its place. Nathan’s wish.

It comes back to her now, the roof, the cold, the gun, the black feathers swirling upward and away from her outstretched hands. All the lives extinguished last night—Tamino, the Maestro, Nathan. Did they ever exist? Or did she dream it all?

She pushes back the piano bench and runs to the door, shoes squeaking. She
has
been in the Maestro’s office, and there was a photograph of Nathan in there. She saw it the day the Maestro summoned her. Would it still be there?

The door is not locked. Unable to find a light switch, she stumbles to the little window and pulls open the curtains. The large desk is covered with papers, scores, and pictures. She snatches one silver frame after another, holding them to the light.

Here.
The photograph she remembers. She picks it up, and a jolt of disbelief snaps through her. The Maestro is there as before, looking reasonably happy, and next to him is the pianist Gloria Stewart. But Nathan isn’t there.

She peers at the faded picture. Could his image have been erased? It’s possible. She puts a hand to her forehead.
Could I have invented him?

The cantankerous scrape of the outside door startles her. She replaces the photograph and hurries to the hallway. It’s probably not a good idea to be found snooping around a dead man’s office.

President Martin is just coming in from the cold and leans against the door with a grimace. As it creaks shut, he looks up at Sing, who stands guiltily at the other end of the hallway.

“Miss da Navelli?” His voice is strong and deep. “Are you all right?”

“I was just playing the piano in the concert hall,” she says, answering the question she expected him to ask.

He stamps the snow off his shoes. “Come into my office. Come on, hurry up. You’re not in trouble.”

She follows him into the spacious office. Her instinct is to stand on the carpet in the embrace of the mahogany baby grand, but she joins him at his desk instead.

He rummages around in the top drawer and pulls out a small plastic case and bottle. “Contact lenses are bothering me,” he says, popping out the lenses one at a time and shaking them off his fingers into the case. “Sit down.” He seats himself in the puffy leather chair behind the desk. Sing sits. He said she wasn’t in trouble, but she wonders.

The president puts on large, gold-rimmed glasses. “I’ve only got a few minutes,” he says. “It’s intermission.”

She doesn’t know what to say. He’s looking at her expectantly, but it was
he
who told
her
to come in here.

The president taps his fingers. “I was expecting to see you onstage today, Miss da Navelli.”

So that’s it.
She finds her voice. “I’m sorry, sir. I … wasn’t.”

“I see.” He raises his eyebrows. “Is everything all right?”

She sees the concern in his lined face.
No,
she wants to say.
Everything is not all right.

She should tell him about her father’s conversation with Maestro Keppler, about how she stole Lori Pinkerton’s role and gave it back again. And how that doesn’t make her a better person. But instead, she finds herself saying, “Can I ask you something, sir?” On the wall opposite, a small clock with a pretty frosted glass cabinet chimes a tiny proclamation.

“Certainly,” the president says.

Still unsure whether this is a good idea, she asks, “Who lives in the tower? At Archer?”

If he finds her question strange, he hides it. “That used to be the president’s quarters, until they renovated Hector in the twenties. No one lives there now. Sometimes we’ll have a gathering on the upper floor, but the rest is storage.” He shrugs. “It’s not off-limits, you know. You can have a look around if you’d like.”

I’m not crazy,
she thinks, willing it to be true.
There was a spiral staircase, a basket of laundry next to his bed, yellow light.
Her memories are so vivid. “Do we have an Apprentice Daysmoor?”

He leans back, frowning. “Daysmoor? No, we don’t. Daysmoor. There’s a Daysmoor School for Boys not far from here. Maestro Keppler is a graduate, I believe.
Was,
I should say.”

“He’s tall,” she says, her voice starting to fail her. “Apprentice Daysmoor is tall, with black hair and long fingers, and he’s the best piano player DC’s ever seen.”

“Miss da Navelli.” He rises, and she thinks he’s going to scold her, but he pats her shoulder. “It’s been a difficult start for you here, hasn’t it? I understand. We want our students to be excellent musicians, and we make you work for it. But you must take care of yourself.” He heads for the door. “Look, intermission is half over; I have to get back. But you can always come and talk to me, okay?”

She nods.

“Good,” he says. “Take your time. Play my piano if you want to.”

She means to say
thank you.
He nods a farewell, but Sing can’t figure out if he wears a look of friendliness or pity. She leans forward onto the president’s large desk and sits for a moment, her head on her arms.

Nathan smelled faintly of pine. You couldn’t tell the black of his pupils from the black around them. He played Liszt better than Ryan, probably better than Yvette Cordaro. Maybe better than Gloria Stewart.

With new energy, she springs from the chair and rushes into the hallway. In no time she is sprinting across the bright quad toward Archer. As the wintry air pushes at her, she realizes she forgot her coat. But she keeps running.

She doesn’t open the front doors. Instead, she veers right, crunching through the snow around to the back of the tower. The air is cold in the tower’s dark shadow, and the fire escape creaks as she runs up it.

The stone balcony is covered with untouched snow, pristine and silent. It is deep here, having drifted off the roof, and her steps are awkward as she crosses. She presses her forehead to the glass door, blocking the bright sun with her hands so her eyes can adjust to the gloom beyond.

The shape of a piano under a dustcover. Two chairs. No stacks of music.

She tries the door, which surprises her by swinging open. She steps into the dimness and pushes the door closed against the gleaming snow.

It’s a trick. President Martin lied to me. Nathan is here.

No sound or light comes from the corner of the room where the spiral staircase descends into the lower tower. Sing pulls the dustcover off the piano. In what she feels is her memory, the image of him sitting at this piano is so clear. She sits on the bench and flips up the fallboard.

The first and only key she depresses sends a tinny rattle into the shadows.

This piano hasn’t been played in years.

Sixty-five

A
VOICE OVER THE INTERCOM
says, “First call,” as Sing steps inside the Woolly Lounge onto the red-and-gold carpeting. The orchestra and cast begin to file past her, back down to the stage area.

The rest of Daysmoor’s tower was as bleak and lifeless as the topmost room, but her conviction that he existed only grew stronger with each echoing step. She needs to find someone who believes her.

“Carrie!” She pushes her way against the tide of irritated musicians. Carrie Stewart stands by the water cooler, paper cup in hand.

“Sing!” she says. “What’s up? Why aren’t you singing today? I have to go play, but catch me after, okay?”

“No, wait!” Sing puts a hand on her arm, and Carrie pauses. “I have to ask you something.”

Carrie crumples her cup. “Shoot.”

“Do you remember Apprentice Daysmoor? Please think.” Sing bites her lip.

“Apprentice who?”

“Daysmoor. He lives—lived—in the tower at Archer. You and your brother thought he’d been here longer than everyone said. You said nobody ever heard him play.” She stares into Carrie’s eyes as though by sheer force of will she can make her remember.

Carrie looks to the doorway. “Sorry, Sing. I don’t know any Apprentice Daysmoor. I wish I could help you out.” The intercom calls out final call, and Carrie smiles her good-bye—the same ambiguous smile the president wore.