Strange Sweet Song (7 page)

No. 2, Aria & Chorus.

M. Boncoeur, who loves farming more than anyone else, tells about the light of his life—his beautiful daughter, Angelique. The villagers agree that Angelique is kind, innocent, and good.

No. 3, Recitative & Aria.

Enter Angelique, carrying a pail of milk and greeting everyone. She tells of the virtues of hard work.

No. 4, Recitative & Chorus.

Silvain, a shepherd, enters and tells the villagers he has seen the track of the Felix—a fearsome, great beast. The villagers become alarmed and wonder what to do.

No. 5, Trio.

M. Boncoeur says they should go to Prince Elbert for help, but Silvain says he will go and kill the beast himself as soon as he grabs his hunting knife. Angelique begs Silvain not to go.

No. 6, Aria.

Silvain tells Angelique he would die to protect her and runs off into the woods to hunt down the Felix.

No. 7, Finale.

Angelique, M. Boncoeur, and the villagers hope Prince Elbert will be able to help them.

ACT II.

The deep woods.

No. 8, Chorus.

A hunting party has killed a great stag and is bringing it home for a feast. Their leader, Count Bavarde, enjoys hunting quite a lot and everyone agrees he’s very good at it.

No. 9, Recitative & Duet.

Silvain enters and is accosted by Count Bavarde. These are Prince Elbert’s woods, and poachers are to be hanged. Silvain insists he’s hunting the dreaded Felix, but Bavarde and his men don’t believe him. Count Bavarde insists Silvain is a poacher and should be hanged. Silvain bemoans his fate.

No. 10, Chorus & Trio.

A bevy of Tree Maidens appears, scolding Count Bavarde. They bring with them Angelique, whom they have found lost in the woods. Angelique says she has come in search of Silvain and now pleads for his life. Count Bavarde comments on how pretty she is. Silvain says the woods are dangerous and that Angelique should go home.

No. 11, Recitative & Aria.

Angelique asks Count Bavarde to let her speak to Prince Elbert. Surely he will understand. Angelique thinks Prince Elbert must be very handsome and noble.

No. 12, Recitative & Aria.

The Queen of the Tree Maidens arrives and chastises Count Bavarde, demanding he release Silvain and reveal his true identity.

No. 13, Finale.

The Count agrees and tells everyone he is really Prince Elbert, enjoying a hunt with his friends without the pressures of his royal title. Everyone thinks it was a clever disguise.

ACT III.

The village—night.

No. 14, Recitative & Aria.

Prince Elbert has come alone to find Angelique. He realizes he has everything he wants in the world except her.

No. 15, Recitative & Duet.

Angelique hears his lament and agrees to marry him if he rids her village of the Felix, which she has just seen prowling near the sheep. Prince Elbert agrees.

No. 16, Chorus.

The villagers hear the cries of the sheep—the Felix is approaching.

No. 17, Duet & Chorus.

Angelique and Prince Elbert bid each other a tearful good-bye. The villagers are heartbroken that Angelique is heartbroken.

No. 18, Aria.

Angelique worries for her love, Prince Elbert.

No. 19, Recitative & Chorus.

A villager returns with news that Prince Elbert has been badly wounded by the Felix and will surely die. Angelique despairs as the villagers grieve for her.

No. 20, Aria, Interlude, & Recitative.

Silvain vows to kill the beast that has caused Angelique sorrow. He and the Felix battle. The Felix defeats Silvain but has looked into his eyes and seen his despair. The beast spares his life and grants him one wish. Silvain chooses to wish Prince Elbert healed for the sake of Angelique.

No. 21, Trio.

The Felix disappears for good, and Prince Elbert miraculously recovers. Angelique thanks Silvain but realizes he is mortally wounded—he has chosen her happiness over his own life. Silvain dies.

No. 22, Finale.

Everyone briefly feels bad about Silvain and then cheers for the happy couple, Angelique and her prince.

Fourteen

“T
OUT EST À MOI SAUF VOUS!
”
Ryan sings. “I have everything but you!” Angelique hears his lament and agrees to marry him if he rids her village of the Felix. Prince Elbert, handsome in his navy-blue uniform with gold piping and white buttons, takes Lori’s hand. She is dazzling in a white shepherdess costume, complete with a graceful crook adorned with a pink bow. Prince Ryan and Lori hope they will be together in some bright future.

Sing wakes as the score tips forward onto her face. It is just past eleven. Students doze on the couch, chairs, and floor. Someone has turned on the gas flames in the fake fireplace, and a boy and girl play checkers in its glow.

Marta and Jenny, perched on a coffee table, flip through a magazine whose cover is all hot pink, sun yellow, and bold block lettering.

“Oh, you’re awake,” Jenny says casually. “I was going to poke you in a minute to stop you snoring.”

Sing opens her mouth, but Marta pats her shoulder and laughs. “Don’t listen to her.”

Jenny makes loud snoring noises, ignoring the annoyed glances, and Sing laughs.

The door opens, letting in cold air. Eyes open, spines straighten, checkers and books and magazines are forgotten. A gray robe and faint, piney scent swish past Sing’s chair as an apprentice crosses the lobby—Daysmoor. He posts sheets of paper to the bulletin board, long fingers delicately pressing the thumbtacks.

“The lists!” Jenny shakes Sing’s leg. Everyone in the lobby hurries to the board. Scowling, the apprentice pushes his way out of the crowd and heads back to the door.

Sing hesitates, but then, inhaling deeply, she rises. It’s difficult to see the tiny names beyond everyone’s bobbing heads, but she hears Jenny say, “Oh! I got Orchestra Two!”

“See anything?” Sing asks Marta, whose height gives her an advantage.

“Um—looks like I got Concert Choir—and you, too.”

“Great.” Sing tries to sound enthusiastic.
Everyone makes Concert Choir.
“What about, um, Opera Workshop? See anything there?”

“Let’s see.” Marta cranes her neck. “Wow! Oh, my God!”

“What? What?” Sing’s heart jumps.

Marta turns around. “I got the Queen of the Tree Maidens!”

“Oh!” Sing tries to smile. “Great!”

“You know, that’s so weird, because I was just reading about tree maidens—there’s different ones, but dryads are the most famous—in
Mythical Beings You Should Know
. It should help me prepare for the role, you think?”

“Um, sure.”

Sing notices Daysmoor, arms crossed, leaning against the wall by the door. His face is turned away, and for a moment she studies his dark, angular form. There is something strange about him, something lonely—maybe deeper than loneliness, as though he is a creature from another world. She doesn’t realize she is staring until Marta’s voice cuts through the chatter.

“Sing, you’re Angelique!”

Her heart stops, then kicks on again at twice its normal rate. “Really?” she says quietly. Did everyone hear? What do they think?

The dispersing students don’t glance her way. Only Daysmoor has turned his unreadable face in her direction. Can he hear her heart beating all the way over there? He pushes himself off the wall with his shoulders and leaves without a word.

“Oh, wait,” Marta goes on, unaware of Sing’s heart. “It says ‘us’ beside it—I think that means ‘understudy.’”

“Oh.” Sing steps back. The crowd is thin now, and she can see it, too.
S. da Navelli: Angelique, soprano (us).
And just above it,
L. Pinkerton: Angelique, soprano.
“Oh. Well, that’s cool.”

Only it isn’t cool. It would be better to be in some other group than to have to learn and rehearse the role of her dreams and never get to perform it.

It would be better to just leave.

Fifteen

T
HE FELIX, WHEN SHE REMEMBERED
space at all, remembered it as unforgiving. Everything about space was relentless—the emptiness, the brightness, the coldness, the silence. But the mountain was different. It could be treacherous one moment and a sanctuary the next.

That rainy summer, the forest was slick and muddy. The Felix spent most of her time in a shallow cave near the summit, staring out at the gray days. Her thoughts, when they came, were simple—noticing the color of a mushroom, smelling new leaves, wondering if the rustle in the bushes below was something big enough to eat. The concepts of
brother, mother,
and
home
were all but lost to her now, but her despair remained, chaining her to the earth.

A pack of wolves adopted most of the mountain as their territory, and the Felix anticipated their infrequent passing with interest. It was a large pack, even after she had eaten two or three of them, and the way they hunted together fascinated her.

One wet morning, she was watching them lying in the shelter of branches below the cave. Large rocks and vegetation hid her bluff, but through the leaves, she could see the long gray bodies among the stones. They had chosen to rest in this rocky depression, comfort outweighing the difficulty their slender legs must have had scrambling down. A cub was playing, climbing over and around the rocks at the bottom of the bluff, snapping at insects. Every now and then, when he scrambled too far, one of the adults would bring him back with a sound or a tug.

At last the cub managed to scale a small boulder under the lip of the ledge where the Felix sat watching. He swatted some glistening grass blades poking up through a crack in the stone, tangling a clump in his paws and rolling onto his back with it. One of the wolves at the base of the cliff called to him,
Too high
. But the cub’s nose quivered in the air. He had caught the Felix’s scent and didn’t know what it was. Eyes bright, he began pawing the loose rock of the cliff, searching for a way up.
Too high,
came the call from below.
Too far. Come back.

The Felix did not know delight, so she couldn’t delight in the prospect of so easy a kill. She didn’t know fear or uncertainty, so she felt no relief that her next meal was presenting itself in her own lair. But she disliked padding around the forest when it was wet and gray, and she understood convenience. Her ears twitched and her muscles tensed in anticipation of the cub’s final leap onto the ledge.

The wolf cub continued to claw at the cliff face, dislodging stones and rubble. One of the adults began to clamber up the large boulder. The rain intensified, sending the occasional cascade of muddy water down the cliff. The cub pawed and scraped, scrabbling at last onto a high vantage point just below the ledge. With a final push from his short back legs, he propelled himself over the side and tumbled into a furry ball before the jaws of the Felix.

The ground shuddered.

This bought the cub a few more seconds of life as the Felix, puzzled, closed her mouth before her jaws could finish their deadly snap. The shuddering intensified, and she and the cub and the lip of the ledge slid down the face of the cliff in muddy confusion. The slippery, tumbling rocks knocked more of their brothers free; smaller stones easily influenced by shifting mud came loose from their perches, leaving larger stones unsupported and teetering. The Felix heard the cub’s frantic yelps as he fell.

They came to rest in a jumble of stone and dead plants and mud at the bottom of the cliff. Instinctively, the Felix leapt to higher ground, settling on the bank overlooking the depression. Here and there a tuft of gray fur poked from between rocks, or a long body splattered with mud and blood lay still.

Then, to her surprise, she saw the cub pulling himself out of the muck. She hesitated, wondering if such a small meal was worth all that filthy fur. With the mud and debris, the depression was now almost level with the ground above it, and the cub began running across it and back again, edge to edge. He stopped at each patch of gray fur and nosed it, twice, three times. But all the wolves were dead.

Finally the cub stopped running and sat down in the middle of the clearing. He raised his nose and started to howl.

The Felix hopped down and loped over to him. A bigger wolf would have been better. But the cub didn’t even try to run. He just stopped howling and looked at her.

And in his eyes, she saw whole galaxies, just as she saw in the soul of every creature. But the eyes of this wolf cub were different.
My fault,
the eyes of this tiny creature said. And the rest of that vast inner universe was wordless, soul-rending grief. An entire cosmos of despair looked back at her.

The Cat part of her shrank at this. It shouldn’t have been given this insight. It didn’t know how to react. But at that moment, the part of the Felix that still clung to a memory of the sky expanded within her earth-body as though she were breathing in lungfuls of it. That part of her felt this cub’s despair as acutely as it felt her own. That part of her understood.

Before it curled up and was silent again, the part of her that was Sky wept a single tear for this wolf cub. And the sky noticed. The tear hung suspended in the air, solid and shining, until the wolf cub caught it on his tongue like a snowflake.

That evening, the Felix watched the wolf pack move on, long legs picking their ways over the rocky terrain, gray coats still shedding sparks of sky-magic. The cub stayed close to the adults.

And so the first tear the Felix shed was for the wolf cub.

The last would be for Sing da Navelli.

Sixteen

S
ING IS MUTE IN HER DREAMS.
She breathes, opens her mouth, pushes air through, and nothing happens.