“ Sing one of the songs you’ve been working on for Orion’s project. ”
My hand moves unconsciously to the loose papers scattered on my makeshift desk.
“They’re not ready. ”
Victria rolls her eyes. “Just sing. ”
And so I sing.
I start with a long note—a high E—and I hold it as long as I can, letting the strength of my voice lift the sound to the ceiling. I tilt my head back and shut my eyes, letting myself forget about Luthor and whatever it is about him that makes Victria nervous, forget about the way Bartie’s presence fills me with regret, forget everything but the sound.
I hold the note until my breath gives out, and I collapse a little on myself as I suck in more air, but I don’t open my eyes.
I know the notes I want, the words that will go with them.
I start softly, a contrast to the opening of the song.
I sing of being afraid, and of finding friendship. Of love and longing.
Very softly, Bartie picks up the tune, adding simple chords in key with my voice. His guitar sounds hesitant at first, but as my voice rises, the chords grow stronger. My voice falters a bit, a little sad at the way we can make such beautiful music together, despite the fact that Bartie will never love me the way I had wanted him to. Then I glance at Luthor, and my song surges in my throat.
I sing about the ocean I’ve never seen in real life. I sing about loneliness. I make the Siren into something sympathetic. She doesn’t mean to kill what she loves. She just can’t help it. Silence wraps around me, and I fill it with my voice. I sing of everything that’s wrong, and everything that’s right, of hope and death. I sing of infinite wonder, of how everything must end. When I open my eyes, my chest is heaving, my head thrown back, my arms cast behind me.
I’ve unconsciously formed myself into Luthor’s Pygmalion tribute. And even though I sang a love song, my eyes go not to Bartie, who stills his guitar string with one shaking hand, but to Luthor, who’s snatched up his notebook and is resketching me, trying to capture the moment of my singing onto paper so he can carve it out of clay.
“Thanks, ” Victria whispers.
“ Was that what you were looking for?” I ask. There’s a sheen of sweat on my brow.
“Yeah,” she says slowly.
“I ’m not finished. ” I’m suddenly self conscious, aware of the way my voice cracked in the second verse, the cluttered lyrics I rushed through in the third. “I mean, I’m stil
l working on the lyrics and the rhythm. ”
“It’s good. ”
“It’s really sad,” Bartie says.
I laugh. “It’s not sad! It’s a love song! ”
Bartie stands, slinging his guitar onto his back. “Love songs can still be sad. ”
“ Come on,” Victria says, putting one hand on Bartie’s elbow. “Let’s leave these two alone to work. ”
She nods to me as she leaves, and although she still sidesteps around Luthor and avoids his gaze, there must have been something in my song to make her know that he’s no threat and that our greatest focus now is on our art.
As if to prove it, Luthor picks up a long-bladed tool and starts to saw at the clay. “I’ve got the perfect idea,” he says without stopping. “I know exactly how to make this work. ” He glances up at me now. “But—would you mind singing while I sculpt? You could practice some more for your presentation. ”
I’d intended to present Orion with a series of songs, an entire opera, but I only had pieces of each song done here and there. I hated to start singing something incomplete; the love song was bad enough, but at least it was mostly done.
Still, there’s something in the way Luthor’s hands slide over the clay, in the silence of his work, that makes me want to fill the studio with music once more.
I open my mouth and sing.
Luthor works fast, not breaking for meals. The clay Orion ordered is chemically produced not to dry completely until Luthor applies a glaze to the outside, but the more he handles it, the more difficult it is to work with, becoming less pliable and more prone to crumbling.
I don’t even think about leaving. How could I? Still, my voice cracks and, despite drinking copious amounts of water, I slowly succumb to silence. I’ve done more work on my songs today than on any day of the previous two weeks, and I know that a large part of that is because Luthor’s infectious need to sculpt has influenced my need to sing.