Page 22 of Our Strange Duet

There was a hiss of air, as if he’d sighed or perhaps winced.

“I would like that very much, Christine. If ever it’s ready…” He paused. “When it’s ready. When it’s ready, my music will set the world on fire. Critics will be knocked on their ears. My music…my music will change everything.”

I believed him far too much to dwell on the logistics.

It didn’t matter that he was an immortal being without form or shape, popping in and out of the world as it suited him. The archangel Gabriel did the same all throughout the Bible, and I’d never heard a single priest question the complexities of it. If my Angel said it was to be, it would be.

“Yours will be the voice to bring my music to the world,” he went on, caught in the fervor of his vision. His words came out rapidly, and it was too dazzling, too bright.

My own vision seemed to shift, and the edges of objects around the room took on a haloed glow, as if ringed in heaven’s light. I closed my eyes, blinded against such brilliance and felt as if I were falling, swooning. I dropped the rose to grab hold of the mirror’s frame, suddenly struggling to stand.

“Christine!” the Angel cried out, and it seemed as if he was right beside me, just beyond the pane of glass.

I made my way to the piano and sank onto its bench, shivery and cold. “I’m all right. I only…Your words overwhelmed me. I pictured everything you said. I imagined singing onstage, singing your music, and I…” I shook my head, feeling foolish. “Forgive me.”

“There’s nothing to forgive. You should retire for the evening. Rest. You’ve overtaxed yourself, and we are so very close. You’ll need to be at your best when the moment comes. I need you to be…” His voice cracked mid-sentence. He tried again. “I need you…”

The thought of going home to my empty studio made me want to cry. I didn’t want to be alone. I wanted to be here, with him.

“Come with me?” I offered. “We could have our lesson at my apartment. There’s not a piano, but—”

“No, Christine.”

“But we—”

“I said no.” The room seemed to tremble under the force of his words.

I remained at the bench, wanting to do as he’d bid me, but I found it too difficult. His voice had such a curious hold. Sometimes I felt like a marionette being puppeted about by strings I hadn’t even been aware bound me. Strings that only my Angel could pull.

“I wish I could see you,” I said in a rush, quick to get the confession out before reason might stop me. “I sometimes wish…Sometimes I picture us together, what it would be like.”

“Together?” he echoed.

I blushed furiously. “Doing things outside the opera. Just normal, everyday things. When I’m at the market, I play games in my head, wondering which berries you would like best, or pretending that I’ll buy that chicken and roast it for you. When I stop at a café, I wonder how you drink your coffee. I wonder all sorts of things about you, as if you were a mortal man. It’s silly, I know.”

There was an unbearably long silence, and I wanted to rip back my foolish words—what must he think of me now? But then—

“I take it black,” he admitted, his voice hitched and too high.

I frowned at the incongruous sentence. And all the ones which had come before but which I’d ignored.

The Angel of Music drinking coffee…

The Angel of Music writing operas…

The Angel of Music leaving me a rose…

“I must go,” he said hastily. “Look over the Hannibal score tonight, but do get some rest. Rehearsals begin tomorrow.”

“Can we look it over together? Here? Just for an hour or so? I swear to you that—”

“You need to go. Now.” It was more than an instruction. It was an order that was not meant to be disobeyed.

“Please!” I dared to say, certain that when I left this room our time together would be over. He’d disappear, and I would never hear him again. I’d admitted my inner thoughts too freely, confiding secrets that should never have been allowed to see the light of day, and now he was sending me away, telling me to go.

When he finally spoke, it was nothing but a whisper. “Please what?”

I fell to my knees before the mirror, kneeling as reverently and earnestly as the penitents who lined the altar of Notre-Dame. “Don’t send me away.”