Strange Sweet Song (4 page)

This really is his place,
Sing thinks. The trees beyond the campus fence beckon her with thousands of leafy hands.
Durand was not afraid of this forest. Why should I be?

The short girl reaches the bench, a little winded. Her lungs must be no bigger than two large butterfly wings hung side by side. Sing folds her arms and pretends to study the statue’s stone base.

“Hi!” The girl sits. “Mind if I interview you?”

Sing raises her eyebrows. “I’m sorry?”

The girl places a black clarinet case on the grass. “Jenny Eisley,” she says, rummaging through her backpack. “I’ve got a notebook in here somewhere. You’re Sing da Navelli, right?”

“Yeah. You’re pretty direct.” Sing isn’t sure why she’s not walking swiftly away from Jenny Eisley right now. After her mother died, she became very good at ignoring people who wanted something from her.

“I saw you get called for placements,” Jenny says. “Was keeping an eye out. I knew you were going to be here—people were like
Ohmygod, famous offspring coming!
Although, frankly, I was kind of hoping you’d be a guy. And hot.”

“Sorry to disappoint on both counts,” Sing says. “Genetics, I guess.”

Jenny laughs. “Oh, I don’t know. You’re pretty. Like one of those big-eyed, small-nosed cartoons.”

“Uh, thanks?”

“Anyway, I couldn’t really tell much by your name,” Jenny says. “It’s kind of a weird name for an Italian kid, to be quite honest. No offense.”

“Half Italian.” Sing blinks. There is something likable about Jenny, the way she scrunches her nose and moves a little too quickly. The way she thinks “no offense” erases anything that came before it.

Jenny flips open her notebook. “So can I write an article about you?”

“Wait, an article? For what?”

“
The Trumpeter
! DC’s student newspaper. I really want to get on their writing staff. This is my audition. I figured, hey! We’ve got a famous person in our class! I should totally talk to him!”

“Her,” Sing says.

“I know that
now
. So how about it? Right here, right now? Basking at the foot of our creator?”

“Look, I’m really not supposed to do interviews without—”

“Oh, give me a
break
.” Jenny pops her pen cap.

Sing doesn’t know why, but she says, “Okay, I guess.”

The questions are innocuous.
Favorite color? Sports team? Blog?

Composer?

“… Durand.”

Jenny looks up. “Well, that’s lucky! Are you totally excited that we’re doing
Angelique
?”

Why is this question so difficult? “Um, sure,” Sing croaks.

There is a hesitation in the pen scratching. Another crow alights on the statue, settling itself on top of the composer’s bronze head. Students cross the grass, alone or in small groups, saying things Sing can’t make out over the distance and the breeze.

“You okay?” Jenny asks. “You seem a little freaked out.”

“Oh,” Sing says. “Well, it’s just that it’s my favorite opera and … it kind of ramps up the pressure, you know?” As if her father’s expectations aren’t enough stress— Her father! “My father will never approve of this!” she says, and finds herself surprised to have shared this with an almost-stranger. Who is taking notes.

“Of
Angelique
?” Jenny furrows her eyebrows.

“It’s—it’s a long story,” Sing says. Which is a lie. It’s a very short story:
My mother died during a performance of
Angelique.

Jenny just shrugs and says, “What’s he going to do? Pull you out of the conservatory?”

Sing blinks. “No,” she says. “No, he’d never do that.”

“Then forget it,” Jenny says. “Who cares what he thinks?”

Sing can think of a lot of people who care about what her father thinks.

But maybe she doesn’t have to be one of them right now. She can feel her heart beating a little faster as the realization sinks in.

“How do you like the dorm?” Jenny asks. This feels like simple curiosity, not an interview question.

“It’s nice,” Sing says. “How do you like it?”

Jenny purses her lips. “Oh, it’ll be fine. All the comforts of prison.”

Sing laughs. “I don’t think they’ve renovated in a while.”

“At least we don’t have to sleep in St. Augustine’s.” Jenny eyes the old church. “I mean,
gargoyles
? I didn’t know we even
had
gargoyles in North America.”

“They’re fake gargoyles,” Sing says. “Well, not
fake,
but, you know, it’s not like this place is eight hundred years old. It was built during the Gothic revival, early nineteenth century, by some rich guy. That was before Durand got ahold of it. There was a stone church here before, the real St. Augustine’s, which dates back pretty far, though. And some kind of tower that went with it, for protection.”

Silence hangs briefly before Jenny says, “Are you, like, an encyclopedia?”

Sing clears her throat. She forgets not everyone has been so thoroughly trained to remember dates and contexts and backstories. “Sorry,” she says, “what I meant to say was, ‘Gargoyles? Aren’t those
old
? Can we please talk about how great that guy’s butt looks in those polyester uniform pants instead?’”

Jenny raises her eyebrows, then bursts out laughing. Sing looks to the square dormitory. “Nothing too sinister about Hud, I imagine.”

“Nope.” Jenny shakes her head as though she is a bit disappointed. “Although that pastel hall carpeting from the eighties is a bit terrifying.”

A voice detaches itself from the intermittent rustle of conversation on the edges of the quad. “Hey! Sing!”

Sing and Jenny look up. Two girls and a guy are approaching. The girl in front—long hair, gold hoop earrings—is waving. Sing doesn’t recognize her but waves back. As they approach, Sing is startled to see that the guy is Ryan Larkin.

“What’s up?” The hoop earring girl arrives at the benches but doesn’t sit down. “Hey, guys, look who it is!”

The other girl eyes Sing, while Ryan flashes a brilliant smile that makes Sing tingle. They do not look at Jenny.

“We meet again, Miss da Navelli,” Ryan says. “Small campus.”

“You remember me, right?” the girl says. “Or was I not important enough to notice?”

Now Sing feels her smile freezing. “I’m sorry,” she says, searching her memory.

The girl turns to her friends, theatrically placing a hand to her heart. “I’m sure it’s hard to remember the names of
all
the people you screw over.”

The breeze is cold on Sing’s shoulders. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Jenny raise pencil to paper, then put it down again without writing.

“Well, Sing,” Ryan says, grinning, “it seems you’ve ruffled some plumage already.”

The girl looks at Ryan, then back to Sing.
“Osiris and Seth,”
she says. “As in, the
only
time I haven’t made the opera in the
five years
I’ve done Stone Hill. Because guess what?” The girl crosses her arms. “There was someone new there this year who took my spot. Someone with famous parents.”

Now Sing remembers the voice. Hayley somebody. Straight tone, shrill. Convinced that being able to squeak the highest would make up for the problems with the rest of her range. In fact, the only time they’ve ever spoken before now was the first day at Stone Hill. Hayley worked a brag about her high D into the conversation in under thirty seconds.

Not competition,
Barbara da Navelli would say.
Don’t worry about her.

Sing resents the memory of her mother for putting the thought into her head, even if it’s true. She swallows. “Well, I’ll see you around,” she says to Hayley, who blinks, apparently having expected some kind of retaliation. Denied a scene, she and the other girl swagger back across the grass.

“Well played, Miss da Navelli,” Ryan says. “Don’t let these girls get to you.” Then he leans in close and whispers, “You’re special.”

His words warming her ear, Sing watches Ryan head back across the quad.

“Sheesh,” Jenny says. “That girl Hayley used to be tolerable. My sister hung out with her sometimes. And what’s-his-name, Ryan. Kinda scummy.”

Sing shrugs. “He seemed okay.” She can still smell his cologne.

“Hmph,” Jenny says. “You don’t know boys very well, do you?”

Sing knows boys very well, just not so much in real life. Mostly from opera libretti. Her father doesn’t approve of dating when there is so much singing to do. But she pictures Ryan’s green eyes and smiles—maybe now that she’s here, it doesn’t matter what her father would think of
him,
either.

“Seriously,” Jenny says, “didn’t she bother you?”

Sing shrugs. “I can ignore it.”
I’ve learned to ignore it.

“Good. Because you haven’t even
met
Lori Pinkerton yet.” Before Sing can respond, Jenny goes on, “So, how do you like DC so far? You know, other than random girls harassing you about operas.”

Sing wants to say,
It’s hard enough to start at a new school, but when you’re a da Navelli and have to bring your
name
along—I’ll be lucky to find anyone who isn’t looking to either cut me down or get an autograph. Or both.

What she says is, “I like it fine.”

Nine

G
EORGE UNLOCKED THE DOOR
and began to ascend.

No one had questioned him, not really.
A new student? Fine, fine. Fill out the paperwork.
George had been stunned. He had expected,
Where did he go to school?
or,
Who did he study with?

Or at least,
What instrument does he play?

As he climbed the dusty stairs, George felt the slightest tickle of doubt about his own sanity. Had he invented this young man? But when he reached the room—chilly, sparsely furnished—and saw the breakfast tray he’d brought that morning sitting on the table, he knew it was all real. The bacon and eggs hadn’t been touched, but the toast was gone. And so were the clothes.

“Hello?” He crossed to the spiral staircase on the other side of the room. “I’m coming up, all right?”

His shoes clanged on the metal stairs. The small bedroom on the next floor was empty except for the iron bed and an old dresser that had belonged to a former president. George squinted into the dimness above him. “Hello?” he called to the uppermost room, one of its dark windows just visible beyond the top of the staircase.

A gust of fresh air from above was the only response.

The echoey top floor was cold and shadowed, its tall windows hung with dusty curtains. George frowned. The young man wasn’t there.

As George crossed the floor to shut the glass doors letting in the breeze, he heard a voice from the balcony.

And there he was. Perched on the ledge, dressed in a nightshirt, the young man had buried his face in his hands, his body shaking with—George watched for the briefest of moments, processing the scene—with sobs.

“Come down from there!” George rushed across the stone balcony, putting an arm around the broad, bony shoulders. “You’ll fall off!”

The young man allowed himself to be pulled gently from the ledge before sinking to the cold floor and curling up against the wall.

“What are you doing?” George said. “Why—why—why are you wearing a nightshirt in the middle of the afternoon?” It was a stupid question, but it was the one that escaped his mouth first.

The young man looked down at his attire. “I liked this best. This is wrong?”

George sat next to him. “No. No, it’s not
wrong,
it’s just … Who
are
you?”

The young man was silent for a long moment. Finally, he said, “I am no one.”

“You said that earlier. I find it hard to believe.”

“No. Before I said I had no name. Now—now I am no one.”

It seemed increasingly possible this young man was insane. George put a hand on his shoulder, desperate to make sense of him. “I don’t know what you mean. I’m here to help you. It doesn’t matter where you came from. I’ve arranged for you to stay here, if you want to. I’ve even given you a name. I—”

“If you want to help me,” the young man whispered, “help me die … I don’t know how humans die.”

George swallowed. “Here. If you won’t come in, at least wrap up.” He pulled off his wide woolen scarf and tucked it around the shivering body. “Humans can die of hypothermia, but I’m not going to let it happen right now.”

“I don’t care,” the young man said. “I don’t want to live.”

“Whatever happened, I will help you.” George wasn’t really certain why he was making these promises to a stranger. Or why he meant them. For all he knew, he could be dealing with an escaped lunatic. Or, at the very least, a runaway who should be returned to his parents or the government or whoever it was who wanted him.

But he had a strange feeling—a
certainty
—that the person huddled before him now wasn’t any of these things. The question was what exactly he
was.

“Thank you for your kindness,” the young man said, his voice hoarse. “But you can’t help me. I had only one dream, and it is impossible. So I would rather die.”

“Look, you have time for lots more dreams.” George smiled. “How old are you?”

“This is my second autumn.”

“Your second autumn in Dunhammond?” Silence. George cleared his throat. “Well, you look nineteen or twenty to me. Is that about right?” When there was no response, George rambled on. “I’m twenty-five myself. My dream is to be a famous conductor, but I’m just starting out as an assistant professor here at the conservatory. What is your dream?”

The young man tilted his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. He inhaled deeply.
“Music.”

George put a hand on his shoulder. “Music? But this is one of the best schools in the country! Where have you studied?”

“Studied? I was always surrounded by it. Always. Everywhere. But I could never produce it; it just wasn’t my nature. And that was torture enough, but when I came here … when I
heard
…”