Sing Sweet Nightingale (9 page)

Six

Mariella

Thursday, August 28 – 12:22 PM

This aria is getting on my nerves. I’ve been listening to it on repeat for hours, but for some reason, the cabaletta is giving me trouble. No matter how many times I listen to it, I can’t make the notes stick in my head. Giving up, I start reading a new book, letting the aria continue to loop and hoping the song will sink into my brain on its own.

The front door opens and closes, but I don’t look up. My mother has students all day.

“Dana?”

The voice pulls me away from the story. I slide a bookmark into place and pull one of my earbuds out. My father is home? He’s
never
home this early unless something is wrong.

I reach the doorway as he passes. He’s nearly skipping.
Skipping
.

My mother comes out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a dishtowel. The concern in her expression doesn’t last long. She doesn’t have a chance to say hello before he wraps his arms around her waist and spins her in a circle. Squealing and laughing, she holds onto his shoulders until he puts her down and kisses her.

“You. Are. A. Genius,” he says, punctuating each word with a kiss.

“Yes, I know.” She laughs, her cheeks flushing. “What did I do this time, though?”

“I took your advice. Went over to introduce myself to Lawson.”

“How’d it go?”

“Amazing,” he says, grinning wide. “They’re coming for dinner tomorrow.”

“They?” My mother’s head tilts a little. “Who else is with him?”

My father blinks. “Oh. Um, his name is Hudson. He’s young, maybe a little older than you, Mari. I think he’s Lawson’s grandson.”

He glances at me, so I shrug. Hudson will probably see me the same way the kids at school do—the freakish mute girl.

Lines appear around my father’s eyes, and his smile dims a little. Maybe he’s realizing he’ll have to explain me to the man he’s trying to impress? It passes, and his smile brightens again.

“We might be in luck,” he says to my mother and me. “Apparently, he bought the house out from under his son at the last second. If I can come up with a proposal, I might have a shot.”

My mother gasps and claps her hands. “Frank, that’s fantastic!”

“Can you imagine what this could do for the company? My designs might actually be seen by the people who could put them to use!”

While my father’s firm handles all kinds of projects, his personal specialty is restoration and “green” construction. He has a concept for low-cost, energy-efficient smart houses that he’s been trying to get out into the world for years. If this Lawson guy really has the pull my father thinks he does, I’m starting to get why he’s so excited about meeting him.

“Tomorrow?” My mother twirls the dishtowel, her lips pursed. “What to make, what to make…”

They start planning their dinner party, so I head back to my book. Before I get far, my father calls to me.

“Mari?” I glance over my shoulder, but he’s standing there opening and closing his mouth like a fish. His gaze flicks to my mother before he takes a breath and lets the words rush out. “Well, do you think tomorrow you could—”

“Frank!” my mother hisses, slapping him with the dishtowel. “Don’t. Just don’t.”

His face flushes. “I wasn’t going to—”

“
Frank
!” Her eyes blaze, and my father backs down fast.

“Uh, never mind, Mari,” he mumbles, swallowing hard. “Sorry.”

My mother’s glare sharpens, and she spins, her ponytail almost whipping my father in the face before she stalks back into the kitchen.

For a second, we both stand there staring after her, but then my father glances at me and away, his face flushing darker red.

“I
am
sorry, Mariella,” he says, his voice quiet and his eyes downcast.

I wait until he looks up, then shrug before walking back to my books. It can’t be an easy thing to explain to strangers why your only child refuses to say hello when she otherwise appears perfectly normal.

Settling back onto the window seat and opening my book, I make myself a promise. I will act as normal as possible for my father as long as he doesn’t expect me to speak. Helping my parents out is one thing, but a famous architect and his grandson aren’t worth breaking my promise to Orane.

Summer is usually one of my favorite seasons. Not because of the warm breezes or the flowers, but because I like how the days seem to melt away. It makes the time between visits to Orane’s world feel shorter.

Today, I take back everything I ever said about summer days passing quickly.

Today is
dragging
.

Orane warned me not to get my hopes up, but I can’t help it. I can’t help the question burning through my brain—is tonight the night?

“How about it, Mari?” My mother smiles at me as we clear away the dinner dishes.

I stare at her, waiting for an explanation. I completely tuned out during the meal, so if this is a follow-up to something she said earlier, I missed it.

Her smile fades a little, but she shakes herself out of it quickly. “Scrabble, honey. It’s been a little while since we played. Do you have the energy for a game tonight?”

Oh. I nod, and her smile regains its glow.

Every family has their traditions. Scrabble is one of ours. We played so often, we wore out boards and rubbed the letters off tiles. We got so good the tiles ran out too fast and the board was too small, so my father built us a custom set. Three hundred handcrafted tiles and a double-size board on a spinning base. It’s dark wood and bronze accents, and it’s one of my favorite things in this house. Third to my nightingale and my mother’s upright piano.

The game progresses as it always does. My parents argue over spelling and meaning, constantly thumbing through a well-worn Scrabble dictionary to settle the more intense disagreements. I like listening to them, but for me, the game isn’t exclusively about winning. It’s about making sure some of my words have meaning. At least once every game, I play words that can serve as messages to my parents.

A few minutes into the game, I spot an opening and play my first message.

Propitiate: To appease.

Do they know I play these games for
them
? To make them feel better? To offer them something in exchange for what I’ve taken away?

“Oh, good one,” my mother says as she tallies up the score. She doesn’t see it. It’s just a word on a game board to her. Frowning, I lean my chin against the coffee table.

Picking up her own tiles and placing them down on the board, she asks, “Frank, how about my curried chicken tomorrow?”

What? Why is she planning tomorrow’s dinner already?

“Hmm.” My father shakes his head. “Curry is tricky. What if he doesn’t like spice?”

Oh. Right. I almost forgot about the dinner party. They keep talking about dinner, speculating what Horace and Hudson might like. I keep my eyes on the board, watching the growing lines of letters until I see my chance.

Two turns later, I play my next message—cherish.

“I always liked that word,” my mother says as she adds up the score. “‘Love’ is nice, but there’s something special about ‘cherish.’”

“It’s used less often,” my father points out.

This starts a discussion about the value of rarity and whether overuse really does dilute meaning, or if one word is intrinsically more special than another. I listen, wondering how long it will take them to realize they’re arguing for the same side.

Near the end of the game, I play my last message—absolve.

Watching their faces, I hope they’ll see it this time.

Can they forgive me for leaving them behind? Will they
ever
be able to forgive me? If there was some way to bring them with me, I would, but it’s impossible. Years ago, I asked. Orane explained most humans aren’t capable of seeing his world. My parents aren’t. Even if he thought it might be safe to bring them with me, they wouldn’t see the doorway.

My mother sighs. “She’s beating us again.”

“How is that a surprise?” My father grins and runs a hand over my hair. “Mari’s always been too smart for her own good.”

Lot of help
that
is. I can’t make them understand what I’m trying to tell them when we play these games. Even in the beginning, when my words were far more obvious, they didn’t see it. Like “sorry.” How could they not have recognized that one?

“Oh, all right.” My mother laughs and tosses the score sheet on the table. “I can admit when I’m beat.”

As my father and I clear away the game, my mother leans forward.

“This is the last weekend before school starts, Mari,” she says. My father pauses, glancing at me but saying nothing.

Is it? Wow. How’d that happen so fast?

“Are you
sure
you don’t want to go shopping?” she asks.

I nod. What do the clothes I wear here matter when Orane can create everything I need in his world? Plus, it would be awful to make her spend money on something I might not be using for much longer.

She sighs and dumps the rest of her tiles into the black velvet bag. “Thought I’d ask.”

Her words register, but I don’t really hear her.

Soon
, Orane said. Soon might be a week from tonight or a year from now, but soon is so much better than never. Soon is hope, and I can live on hope this strong for a long time.

When I open my eyes in Paradise, I’m standing on the narrow cobblestone path running through the cherry orchard. I take a deep breath of the sweet cherry blossoms as the air around me ripples. My pajamas shrink and change color, transforming from black pants and a T-shirt to a Marilyn Monroe-style one-piece swimsuit in a gold cloth that shimmers in the twilight. I smile and run a hand over the soft, ruched fabric.

Apparently, we’re going swimming.

I run down the path, my arms spread wide and my hair trailing behind me like a streamer. My fingers catch the low-hanging tree limbs, and a shower of petals in white, pink, red, blue, and gold rain down in my wake.

Orane is waiting for me in the distance, on the edge of the lake under the willow tree. He smiles when his violet eyes meet mine.

“Mariella.”

His voice carries to me on the breeze, and I feel his lips press against my cheek despite the distance between us. Grinning, I pick up speed. Trees fly past in a blur as I cross the expanse in seconds. Time and distance mean nothing here. All that matters are dreams and whether or not you have the will to make them real.

When I’m close, I launch myself into his arms. Laughing, he catches me and spins me around.

Before my feet touch the ground, I look up into his eyes. “Is it time yet?”

Orane chuckles and kisses the tip of my nose. “Impatient little bird. I knew it was a mistake to tell you beforehand.”

“So is that a yes or a no?”

“Not tonight, Mariella.”

My heart drops into my stomach. Despite warning myself not to expect anything, I’d hoped. I lock my smile on my face. “I had to ask.”

His hand brushes along the side of my face, and I would shiver under his touch but his eyes are holding me too tight. My smile isn’t fooling him. I can tell.

“Do not despair, Nightingale,” he whispers. His eyes grow brighter until they’re practically glowing like bioluminescent gems. “The time grows closer every night. Soon, you will never leave this world again.”

“Promise?” I hate how breathless and lost my voice sounds, but I can’t help it. I can’t control it.

When he speaks, the words vibrate through my entire body, like the seal of his promise is a tangible thing. “I swear it.”

For a second—a minute? an hour? a year?—I’m locked in Orane’s gaze and can’t escape. I don’t want to. The world is warm and wonderful with him this close. All these years later, he’s a mystery. A challenge. Yet he’s also the one person I don’t mind losing to because, when I lose, I win.

His lips lock on mine, and I lose my breath. Tangling my hands in his hair, I pull him closer. It’s not close enough. Our tongues dance, and his hands run across my bare arms, down my body, and play with the hem at the bottom of my suit. My pulse stalls for a moment and then catapults into speeds that would probably burst my heart if I were awake. Shivers are a thing of the past. My body is shaking, trembling, and convulsing with heat more intense than anything I thought was possible.