RoseBlood(13)

4



DEVIL’S TONGUES AND SKELETON KEYS


“Men hate the things they fear, and they fear those things they do not understand.”

Susan Kay, Phantom

I hold my eyes closed as I’m carried downstairs. The guy’s muscles strain with each step of our descent. His warm skin radiates a familiar spice: cinnamon and sage infused with male pheromones and body heat. My stomach contracts, an abnormal reaction that makes me nauseous. I fight the sensation along with the terrifying memory of the last time I let a guy get too close.

“Mer?i, Monsieur Reynolds,” Aunt Charlotte mumbles to him. “Take her to chambre de cinq.” She moves somewhere behind us. “You told me of her stage fright. But this? Is extrême, no?” There’s a worried edge to her voice.

“She always goes weak in the knees, but she’s never passed out before.” Mom rubs my shin, comforting. “I think she was just too worked up over everything. She’s been researching the place . . . heard that it was tied to The Phantom of the Opera book. Then she thought she saw some masked guy outside. She doesn’t just have Leo’s hair, she has his superstitious nature. You know what it’s like to try to reason with someone in that state of mind.” Her voice is accusatory, and I wince inwardly. Not just because of the reference to Grandma’s crazed fingerprint on our lives, but because I hear a lot of footsteps behind us on the stairs. All I need is for the other students to know about my recent literary obsession.

But Mom’s not thinking about that. She’s at her wit’s end with my “superstitions.” She made financial sacrifices the past two years, pouring every spare dime into voice lessons for me. Even though she sought out teachers who played the violin, none of their instruments spoke to me like Dad’s. I couldn’t perform without becoming ill. Instead of helping, the weekly sessions of operatic techniques and daily three-hour practices seemed to have the adverse effect—pushing my urge to sing to a compulsion.

Mom squeezes my hand, asking me to wake up. Guilt butts against my conscience at the concern in her voice, but the guy’s tantalizing heartbeat next to my ear keeps me cocooned in my fake unconsciousness, for his good as much as my own.

I stay limp as I’m laid in a bed. In time, the guy’s dangerous warmth and spiced scent fades, replaced by a whiff of chicken soup that ignites a normal hunger.

There’s a scatter of movement all around: bags rustling, footsteps shuffling, concerned whispers too soft to decipher. Only when the sounds fade do I dare peek through the strands of hair curtaining my eyes.

A lavender glow illuminates the windowless room. The ceiling stretches high, with dark wooden beams meeting at the epicenter. There’s a small closet in the corner, diagonal from where my bed is tucked inside an arched antechamber. On the outer wall overhead, wrought-iron drapery hooks wait to hold the beaded, ginger-colored curtains we bought earlier, to offer added privacy when I sleep. I wish they were already in place so I could hide.

Across the room are a full-length cheval mirror and another antechamber. A dark wooden staircase winds above to a platform with a matching rail, forming a mini-loft. There, a vanity desk and chair are arranged for homework or for making up my face and hair. Beneath the loft, in the snug space where the wall and platform meet, a baroque chaise lounge with a walnut frame and velvet upholstery curves to a sitting area. I shove my hair aside and try to make out the blurred silhouette reclining there.

“Mom?” I ask, my vocal cords stretched and tired.

“She went to the kitchen to fetch you some chamomile tea. Said it helps when you’re feeling poorly.”

I sit up under my covers, caught off guard by the thick Southern accent. “Who are you?”

“I’m Sunflower Summers. But you can call me Sunny. I was assigned as your peer advisor. To help get you oriented.”

“So, you’re a student?”

She makes a puffing sound. “Let me guess. You’re wondering why a hick like me is in a classy place like this.”

I stare at her shadowy form, searching for a way to assure her that wasn’t what I meant at all, but my tongue lies as stiff, dry, and hot in my mouth as the devil sunbathing in the desert.

“Look, I may be a country girl,” she continues, “but I can play a cello like I was born in the orchestra pit of the London Symphony. Ma says I have the mind of a progeny, and the tongue of a heck-o-billy. My uncle’s a oil tycoon. He made sure I was taught proper grammar before he’d pay for my tuition, but I sometimes slip off the wagon a smidge.”

Great. I’ve offended her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything . . .”

“Don’t give it no nevermind. I’m still your number one fan.”

“Huh?”

She pushes off the lounge and steps outside of the antechamber. Her hair is red, but the weird lighting shimmers violet along the shoulder-length ends.

“I never heard anyone sing like that,” she says, leaning against the stair rail. “It’s like you were trained by Christine Daaé herself.”

I try to manage a sarcastic snort, but it comes out as more of a sob. For her to mention the heroine from Gaston Leroux’s book, she must have been one of the students following us on the stairway.

“I’m betting Kat’s never heard anything like it, neither,” Sunny continues before I can come up with an excuse for my mom’s claim of a phantom sighting.