Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls - Jane Lindskold [28]
This first visit, we go into a central gallery that smells of spice and dust. The exhibit is a Christmas tree decorated with angels in flight, their draperies fluttering with unfelt winds, their serene faces strangely passionate. Although they seem small against the spreading evergreen’s boughs, I realize that each is larger than Betwixt and Between.
Professor Isabella draws my gaze downward to the figures at the base of the tree. Animals and people, exotic and so ordinary that they seem to be people I have seen, all travel to visit an infant Jesus who beams beatifically from his manger, sheltered beneath the prayerful gaze of his parents.
“The museum will leave the crèche up until after the Feast of the Three Kings,” she notes. “Aren’t the little people wonderful? Look at the detail of Mary’s face.”
I nod agreement. The Holy Family is beautifully done, but I find myself drawn to the ordinary figures: the almost too-whimsical donkey, the dog who pauses to sniff a shrub, the group of men drinking by a ruined fountain.
If I try, I can hear the song they are singing, not a carol, something lustier.
My mouth moves, shaping the words, trying to sing with the infectious melody. One of the men is leaning to hand me his wineskin, his dark eyes glint with mirth and more. I reach…
A sharp sting breaks the sound of the singing. Bewildered, I find myself in the gallery beside the Christmas tree. Professor Isabella is shaking me, her face creased with worry; her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. A few of the other patrons are staring at me. A security guard has halted his step forward, seeing Professor Isabella has quieted me.
We walk outside. I am trembling with embarrassment and the lingering sensation that I have been torn from another world. Afraid to look at Professor Isabella, I shuffle along, my hands buried in my pockets, my eyes fixed on the grey pavement in front of my feet.
“Sarah?”
I do not answer.
“Sarah, are you all right?”
Daring to look, I see that her expression shows only concern. Biting my upper lip, I try for words. There are none—no eloquent apologies lurk in my memory waiting to be recycled by a sincere heart.
“How do you feel, Sarah?” Professor Isabella asks gently.
“I cannot sing the songs I sang long years ago,” I try. “For heart and voice would fail me, and foolish tears would flow.”
“Sad and foolish?” She smiles. “I’ve been there. It isn’t fatal, my dear. Feeling foolish is like having a head cold: you don’t die from it, you only wish you could.”
I smile and suddenly hug her, not caring who sees. Then I link my arm through hers and we go this way back home.
Abalone is awake and greets us with a warm smile.
“Where you been?” she says around a bite from a sandwich.
“Sarah wanted out and we walked over to the museum.”
“Flash. How’d it go? Did she like it?”
“I think so.” Professor Isabella hangs up her coat. “She had one of her spells while we were looking at the Christmas tree. Started singing in Italian.”
“Italian? Where’d she learn that? I thought that she didn’t speak anything at all until you started teaching her.”
“As far as I know, she didn’t,” Professor Isabella pauses, “but I think a common error we make with the mute is thinking that those who cannot talk also cannot hear.”
I grin. “More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchang’d to hoarse or mute, though fall’n on evil days.”
Professor Isabella groans and Abalone laughs, though I suspect more at my teacher’s expression than at my joke.
Several days later, when I indicate that I want to go to the museum again, Professor Isabella is clearly reluctant, but when she learns that Abalone is planning on incorporating me into another vehicle heist, she is swayed by this, rather than by my borrowed eloquence.
“We’ll go again,” she agrees, wagging her finger at me, “but for my reasons and those alone. I’d better do what I can to get you at ease in a crowd. You