"The ghosts … try to remember the sunlight. Light has died out of their skies."
Robinson Jeffers, "Apology for Bad Dreams"
He flung off his cape's hood as he glided underground, breathing in the scent of mildew and solitude. Dripping water echoed in the hollowed-out tunnel. The shadows embraced him—a welcoming comfort.
He'd walked as a ghost in the gloomy bowels of this opera house for so long, darkness had become his brother; which was fitting, since his father was the night, and sunlight their forgotten friend.
Jaw tightening, he secured the oars in their rowlocks and stretched his arms to reveal the skin between the cuffs of his sleeves and his leather gloves. The hot rush of vitality still pulsed red light through the veins in his wrists. He'd spent all afternoon in the graveyard. Being somewhere so devoid of life had drained him and prompted an unplanned visit to the garden.
He should never have risked roaming in such close proximity to the parking lot. Curse his weakness for the hybrid roses; there was no resisting their scent, their flavor, their ripeness.
Shrugging off his annoyance, he began to row once more, water slapping the sides of the cave. He hadn't expected anyone to be on the grounds this early. Not with what was taking place inside the academy. All the students and instructors were preoccupied. The garden should've been safe and isolated.
But there she was—appearing out of nowhere—several hours sooner than he'd expected. Damn his carelessness. Thankfully, he'd had the sense to wear his hooded cape; otherwise, she would've seen him unmasked.
Still, all wasn't lost. If he'd learned anything watching the years play out on a stage, it was improvisation. He used the unplanned sighting to his advantage, vanishing and leaving nothing but dead roses in his wake. Though he'd hated siphoning away their life essence, it was a necessary sacrifice. A calling card for her eyes only.
No doubt she was puzzling over the event this very minute.
The boat scraped to a halt on a muddy embankment. He stepped out, alerted by movement in the darkness. His cape swept his ankles as he pivoted sharply at the familiar musical sound—similar to a trumpet yet softer and lower pitched.
He cast one of his gloves into the boat's hull and flourished his bared hand, beckoning the life-force of a thousand larval fireflies along the cave's roof. In reaction, spindly strings coated with orbs lit up and illuminated the surroundings with a tender greenish haze—like strands of glowing pearls strung high overhead. This particular genus wasn't indigenous to this place but had been brought from a foreign land and kept alive over a century through an exchange of energy.
Reflections of rippling water flashed across the smooth stone walls and the curved pilasters supporting the opera house above him. A red swan waddled from the shadows, trumpeting another greeting. She lifted her long, slender neck and clacked her bill, wings spreading as she fluffed herself out, magnificent and fiery-rich—the same depth of the blossoms he'd murdered earlier.
"And hello to you, sweet Ange." He knelt and stroked her silken feathers, fingers leaving trails in the crimson plumes. "Holding vigil for our new arrival, are you?"
She nudged a strand of hair from his temple with her beak. He smiled at her affectionate fussing.
"You shouldn't be this close to the surface," he scolded. "Diable's on the prowl. We wouldn't want the devil to catch our little angel."
The swan nibbled his thumb, as his warning echoed in the cave. His voice magnified—bass and rumbling—an alien sound, as if pebbles filled his vocal cords and ground together with each word. The gruffness made him wince.
"Go on now," he whispered this time and stroked her shimmery neck before standing. "Make yourself scarce."
The red swan watched him with milky blue eyes too perceptive for any ordinary bird, especially one that was going blind. She waddled to the water and skimmed across the surface—afloat and waiting.
He studied her inquisitive pose. "I can't come yet," he answered softly. "You know your way through all the booby traps. Go on home. I'll follow soon enough."
Her head bent on an elegant curl, a nod actually, as if she were royalty and he a peasant who needed her permission to stay. She sailed toward the depths of the tunnel—growing smaller in the distance. He watched until she resembled a velvety rose petal drifting atop a midnight puddle. Plucking his glove from the boat, he slid his fingers back into their sheath of black.
He studied the strands of bioluminescent larvae he'd awakened overhead, lost in thoughts of the girl. He'd never expected her to be the one. To step out of the visions he'd had since his childhood into this place and this time. It was all wrong.
Maybe he was mistaken.
His thumb pressed his left temple, rubbing the pounding throb there. But even if she was the one from his visions, it couldn't change things. She was haloed by an aura that fluctuated between white and gray … purity and melancholy. She was unsettled at being here. Lost, even. The perfect foil to that other narcissistic and ambitious young prima donna who'd been brought in over a year ago due to her bloodline.
There was depth beneath this new arrival's wounded veneer … the essence of light and life in its most raw form: the energy of rhapsody. Music pulsed inside her blood—uncultivated and untamed. He could sense that much.
His mouth watered, hungry to taste those melodies, mocking his struggle to rein in his cravings. He'd never seen the girl's face in their subconscious interactions. It was always covered by her wild, black hair, or submersed in murky water as she fought to break out of the wooden crate that entrapped her. But he'd glimpsed her eyes many times—a bright, electrified green with widened pupils when they were filled with song, reflections of her heart chakra.
He had to see her up close, to be sure; regardless that he didn't know her features, he knew her soul.
And if his suspicions were right …
What then?
Nothing.
His chest muscles tangled between despair and hope, anger and urgency. Whatever he discovered today, he couldn't forget the reason she was here. She was a means to an end. Payment for an outstanding debt. Nothing more.
He glanced up at the underbelly of the opera house where the tunnel met the foundation. A trapdoor waited there, an entrance to the hidden passages in the building: mirrored walls—the perfect vantage points for viewing the inside of the foyer and classrooms. For him, they were windows, unbeknownst to the academy's occupants. On their side, they simply saw spans of reflective glass.
Trepidation lumped in his throat at the thought of being so close to her. He could pretend the reaction was a byproduct of another time, another place; a dark and cruel past that cloaked and obscured any human interactions he had, like an octopus's ink cloud. But there was more—this newly born possibility he dared not entertain—which threatened all of his resolve.
He slammed a fist against his thigh, using the flash of pain to give him clarity.
There was no room for hesitation.
If she was the one, he would have to get even closer. He would have to prey on her … disrupt her daily routine, seduce her curiosity, lure her into the depths of his home. His hell.
His fingers twitched in his gloves. There were steps to follow that would ensure success. Calling cards to leave, strange novelties that would drive her to seek out the illumination only darkness could provide. She would find him of her own free will; and she would find herself and her purpose, whether she was prepared or not.
Until then, he'd take no other chances of being seen. Patience was key. He'd already been waiting for what felt like an eternity. What were a few more weeks?
A disturbing mix of anticipation and dread grated along his spine. Mud sucking at his boot soles, he scaled the embankment's slope toward the window.
Let the dance begin.
Mom and I climb the stone stairs to the entrance. A crow flutters by above us. I hesitate when I hear its cry—a strained mewl, like a kitten in distress. I shake my head. Now I'm not only seeing things, but hearing them, too? My nerves are all over the place.
The scent of wet soil mingles with the perfume of flowers and reels me back in, reminding me of my perennials at home. I won't be there to fight off the weeds so they can bloom. I've always honored Dad's memory by keeping his flower garden alive. Having already lost his violin, I don't want to lose yet another tie to him.
I stall halfway up the stairs and glance again at the overgrown garden where the cluster of dead roses sways in the wind. Is that what the guy was doing earlier? Fighting a battle against weeds? Considering what was left in his wake, it looks more like he's the weed himself, like the phantom in the stories—someone who contaminates his surroundings with death and violence.
An outcast like me …
I haven't always affected things around me adversely. I used to be the one Dad would come to when any of his plants were dying. Maybe that's why I'm here, to find that healing side again … to save this garden. Maybe that's why the gardener's glinting eyes appeared so familiar—it was my imagination, trying to revive those precious moments with Dad.
I'm totally losing it. I tap the end of my braid against my lips, nipping at the strands so they crinkle between my teeth.
"Rune, you're chewing your hair, hon." Mom pats my back.
"Did you see him?" I ask.
"Who?" She follows my gaze across to the garden.
"The guy by the roses earlier. He's gone now. I think he works here …"
"What did he look like?" she asks.
"I could only see half his face."
She rolls her eyes then looks over my head where the chauffer digs bags out of the limo's trunk. "You're not seriously asking me to believe you just saw the phantom in his half-mask, are you?"
"I didn't say that," I mumble around my wet hair. "Not exactly." But now that I think about it, the side that was hidden from view could've had a mask.
Mom catches my braid and dries the end between her palms. "Sweetie, I understand you're nervous. But I really need you to try. Stop convincing yourself this is going to be a bad experience before you even give it a chance. Okay?"
She kisses my forehead when I nod. I don't dare tell her about the crow and its strange call. It would only validate what she left unsaid: that it's all in my imagination.
As we reach the top step, the double doors—adorned with tarnished brass cherubs—swing open on a foreboding creak. Warm air and the scents of lemon oil and stale candle wax waft over us.
"Bon après-midi, mon chéri Emma!" An older woman squeals my mom's name. The opening widens, revealing her height, taller than our average five-foot-six-inch stature by at least two inches.
Long, grayish-white braids dangle over both of her ears and skim her slim waist. A silk chiffon hanky wraps around her head to hold back stray strands. Round, gold-rimmed glasses soften the wrinkles at the edges of her eyes.
She's dressed in a blue button-down short-sleeve shirt and khaki capri pants. Ballet-style slippers hug her feet. Judging by the dingy apron at her hipbones and the dust rag in her pocket, I'm guessing she's with housekeeping.
Mom leaps into her open arms, shattering my hypothesis.
"Lottie," she murmurs into the other woman's swanlike neck. "It's been too long."
So this is Aunt Charlotte. I expected her to be draped in furs and jewels. What is it with the women in my family being housekeepers? Is it a curse they can't escape, even after a run of fame and success? Still, she looks good for sixty. Maybe Ponce de León should've collected feather dusters instead of searching all over Florida for the secret to agelessness.
Giving my mother one last squeeze, the older woman's eyes narrow to slivers beneath her lenses. "Rune?" she asks with a gritty voice, and they both turn to me. My aunt pushes the glasses atop the hanky covering her hair, jangling the chain that connects the earpieces. There's the resemblance: the turned-up nose and soft hazel irises shadowed by short lashes. She favors my grandmother, but I see Dad there, too. Longing snaps inside of me as I imprint his image onto her.
"Yes," Mom answers. "Grown a bit since her christening, hasn't she?"
"She is exquisite." The flavor of France spices my aunt's English but doesn't mask the tremor of emotion in her voice. "Looks so much like you at her age."
Mom and Dad became high school sweethearts when he came from France to America as a foreign exchange student in the twelfth grade. A bitter irony, now that I'm treading his homeland during my senior year and he's no longer in the world.
Aunt Charlotte steps closer, graceful and demure as any ballerina. The woman is oblivious to personal space. "You arrived sooner than expected. We did not anticipate you until later tonight."
"We're experienced shoppers." Mom winks at me.
I teeter on the edge of the threshold, half in and half out, unable to bring myself to cross over like she already has.
"And did you find the drive suitable?" Aunt Charlotte aims the question in my direction. Her breath smells like canned pears and caramel, reminding me of Dad and how we preserved fruit together the last August before he died—something his mom did with him as he was growing up.
"Um, yeah. It was … nice. Roomy." I can't even say thank you for all she's done before she whips off my cap, snatches the band out of my hair, and unwinds my braid. The ribbons flutter to the floor. Several droplets leftover from the rain drizzle from the door frame above, sinking cold into my scalp.
"She has his hair," Aunt Charlotte says, and I can't tell if she's sad or happy as she crimps my curls in her fingers. I tighten my grip on my tote.
"Yes, she does," Mom answers. "Thick and unruly, just like Leo's."
My teeth grind. You mean before he went bald. I've never understood why Charlotte stayed away when her only brother was dying. And I'm not sure I can forgive her, either.
My aunt wraps one of my curls around her thumb. I might as well be a doll seated deaf upon a shelf, with no personality or opinion. I snatch my cap back and tug it over my head, dragging my waves over my shoulder and away from her scrutiny.
"Ah-ha! She has your strie têtue, though." Aunt Charlotte grins at my mom.
She hasn't seen the half of my stubborn streak. Frowning, I pick up my ribbons and tuck them into my jacket pocket.
My aunt twirls my hairband on her finger and tosses back her head with a cackling laugh … a sound of pure madness. I bounce a gaze to Mom, who's smiling like a goon, then back to our lunatic relative. Her laughter reverberates on a musical note, echoing in the huge foyer. Upon its final beat, another song comes to life—a muffled surge of instruments—somewhere on the third floor.
I recognize the tune. It's the aria I heard in the elevator this morning.
No. Not that one. Anything but that.
I yank my cap over my ears in hopes to shut it out. "That song … ," I whisper, wrestling the instinctual stretch in my vocal cords as they itch to release the suppressed melody.
Aunt Charlotte beams and pulls out her dust rag, waving it. "Ahh, oui. The school performs The Fiery Angel at year's end. It is our goal to tackle controversial projects. Ones you won't find performed in any high school in the States. The lesser roles have already been assigned to junior participants. Today a handful of senior hopefuls compete for Renata—the heroine. First-tier elimination tryouts always take place on the third floor, in the rehearsal halls. Final auditions will be in the theater the last Sunday of October, once we've reduced to a finite number of candidates for the main roles."
My body tenses as I stare up toward the torrential rain of notes.
Aunt Charlotte narrows her eyes, watching me with thinly veiled suspicion. "This is her confession piece, of her encounters with Madiel, her guardian angel. You are familiar with Prokofiev's opera?"
"Not so much." And I don't want to be. I'm dying to find some private place where I can exorcise my musical demons, but Aunt Charlotte has planted herself between me and the way in.
"Well, that shall change soon enough." She's still talking but I'm barely listening.
My gaze darts all around, seeking escape.
"You are to be schooled in vocal pedagogy," she says. "And the history of opera. You will learn. Not soon enough for first-tier competition. Next semester, perhaps. Some of the lesser roles will open up. There are always one or two students who forfeit their parts—be it for grades or nerves. But I expect, in your future, you will have all the lead roles on Broadway. You are your father's daughter … born for music."
She exchanges a strange glance with Mom—maybe sadness, maybe dread. Or it could be my own dread I'm sensing, because she's wrong.
I'm nothing like Dad. He was a savant, able to tease out lush, savory sounds that would melt the heart. Music was pleasure for him. He always said, of all the instruments, the violin most resembled the human voice for its ability to express depths of emotion. When played with passion, technique, and vision, the strings would weep words—a tonal persuasion so far-reaching, it could breach the heavens and bring a celestial choir to their knees.
He had already mastered the technique of "voicing" his pieces by the age of fourteen. When he met Mom at seventeen, he'd had his pick of symphonies anywhere in the world, but loving her became his magnum opus, and he chose to be a music professor at our little community college in Harmony, playing only for family and friends.
I shared his passion for music only long enough to know how desperately I miss it, now that singing brings pain and humiliation.
As if triggered by that thought, the aria's mood changes upstairs—a kaleidoscopic shift of strings and winds. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up in response, the melody becoming an electrical pulse under my skin. Prisms of color erupt in my mind's eye as a soloist joins the chaos. Her resonant, booming voice rages in indecipherable Russian against the instruments, teasing me to follow.
Spinning on my heel to retreat outside, I crash into the chauffeur's brick chest. I'd forgotten he was waiting behind us, along with shopping bags and suitcases full of bedding, lamps, uniforms, pajamas, underclothes, and assorted toiletries. His downward stare shakes my already frazzled nerves. I wrinkle my nose at the stench of spray starch and body odor.
"Rune!" Mom yelps. "Apologize."
I mumble, "Pardon, monsieur," turn around again, and wind my scarf's fringe between my fingers. My heart hammers my sternum. I'm trapped—a deer in a forest set to flame. Even the air feels thick, as if smoke surrounds me.
At last Aunt Charlotte moves aside with a fanciful turn of the dust rag, but the rest of her body language remains tense.
My boots pound the marble floor on my scramble past my mom. I stop in the middle of the room. My tote slides off my shoulder and I make no attempt to stop it as the enormity of the place steals my breath.
Three giant golden stairways intersect in the middle of a grand hall. The stairs split into columns, each winding like a snake's skeleton to the other six flights where brass balusters enclose circular balconies. Murals of angels and cherubs catch my eye, along with bronze statues set out along the floor. Intricately detailed windows coax in the outside light. Everything glistens, as if made of diamonds. Artwork hangs from the many walls, and the corridors are lined with elegant carved doorways. Uncountable doorways.
The top three flights are sealed off, but that still leaves hundreds of rooms for the school's use. Some are now the private suites that serve as dorms. Others are the lecture and rehearsal halls where I'll be spending the majority of my days for classes.
The chauffer props our bags and suitcases against a marble wall. Aunt Charlotte gives him a tip and he leaves. The double doors slam shut and an echo carries from one end of the foyer to the other, channeling through my ribs and pushing the aria into my throat.
"What do you think, Rune? Isn't it incredible?" Mom's voice is reverent, as if we're standing inside of a church or mausoleum. That last one could be right, considering I might die if I don't purge the song soon. Mom and my aunt discuss the trip here. Chewing on the ends of my hair again, I hum under my breath … quiet enough that they won't hear. But the urge to sing aloud escalates until my mouth waters.
On the far right, shimmery mirrors line the entire wall. Thankfully, the only reflections looking back are the three of us. If not for the opera taking place upstairs, I would guess the academy was abandoned.
Hope flutters in my chest. Everyone must be at the audition. If I lose control, the other performance will camouflage my voice.
"Are all of the instructors and students upstairs?" I manage to ask.
"Oui. Let us put away the baggage and unpack before the tryouts are fini. Would you like to see your accommodations?"
Standing by the wall of mirrors, I ignore the question. Close enough that my nose almost touches the glass, I study my reflection.
It's happening … bright, gleaming flecks of green, my pupils dilating with each passing second. The color in my cheeks deepens, too, as if I've been slapped. I always wondered if Grandma was like Dad and could see all of the changes in me—the physical manifestation of music bubbling up inside. That would explain why she thought I was evil. It's eerie, even to me. Almost as weird as the gardener's glowing amber eyes.
The sensation of being watched skitters through my body, then there's movement on the other side of the glass … a silhouette.
I blink and it's gone.
Shuddering, I cup my palms over my cheeks to hide the color creeping over them. It's just the music making me crazy.
"Rune," my mom calls out from across the foyer. I watch my aunt's reflection as she digs through the things the chauffer left. "Didn't you hear your Aunt Charlotte? Take some of these bags. I don't want to be up all night helping you unpack. My flight leaves early in the morning."
Mom's spending the night to help me get settled. But I don't see how anything about this place could be settling. I don't belong here. Being constantly around this music is going to kill any sanity I have left.
I jitter, itching all over to sing.
"Rune," Mom's voice again, this time with an edge to it. She knows. "Is it—"
"I just need a bathroom," I interrupt, trying to ignore the musical inflection woven into the final word, or how I end it on the same operatic note as the voice upstairs.
"Bien s?r," my aunt answers while struggling with the large pink bag that holds my uniforms. "There's a salle de bains underneath the center stairwell. On the other side of the theater, just there."
It doesn't matter that she said under the stairwell; my feet don't listen. The instruments have taken over—a bridge to the soloist's climax. I don't stand a chance against music that powerful.
In spite of Mom and Aunt Charlotte's efforts to call me back, I'm at the top of the second flight of stairs and on the third floor before I even remember taking the first step. I drag my jacket off and drop it behind me.
The music crescendos and the soloist's voice booms over it, not just in my ears, but in my own throat. My song escalates to match the other singer's volume. I'm drawn to a room at the end of the curved balcony as if some entity has attached a ghostly cord to the notes in my throat, tugging each one out like rainbow-colored fish on a line—yet never releasing—pulling my spirit ever closer to the music that possesses me.
The door, slightly ajar, beckons. I shove it open at the climax, sustaining the melody—round and smooth through my stretching larynx. Tall windows line the circular room, alternating with mirrors. A burst of sunset filters through the clouds outside, bouncing apricot light from one reflection to the next. An audience of students and teachers is seated in wooden folding chairs in front of a small stage, nothing more than shadows in the sudden blur of brilliance.
The soloist goes silent. Even the instrumentalists stop. My legs stiffen and my spine is rigid. Every nerve in my body throbs. I'm pinned in place by lyrical thorns, just like the little girl in my poster at home, grasping for those wings so far out of reach, embracing the pain to find the release.
I'm all that's left to carry the tune now, and I do … to the very end when the final note, high and full, bursts unrestrained from my throat. The chord reverberates over the silence like a ghostly wail—beautiful and tragic.
Red swirls in my periphery, and my legs give out. A guy leaps from his chair in the front row to catch me. Mortification creeps like poison through my blood as the trance falls away.
I slam my lashes shut, doing the only thing I can to save face. Slumped against my rescuer, I pretend to faint.