The Composer: Chapter 4

In the morning, I nudge Einar until he’s awake. He groans and looks up at me in surprise. “Hello, Ben. What is it?”

“Who practices after you?” I ask. 

He blinks a few times. “With the musicians?” he asks, and I nod. “Roy.”

He must see the hint of satisfaction on my face because he raises one brow, but he doesn’t say anything. “Anything else? I think you did not wake me just for this…”

“Can you cover for me?” I ask. “Tell them I’m sick and won’t be at practice today.”

Einar nods, and I silently thank him for not prying. “I will tell them. But Ben, I hope you will not fall behind.”

There is no note of sarcasm in his voice, and the bridge of his nose wrinkles with concern. I nod respectfully and head out without delay. 

I go straight to the sound booths without breakfast, praying that they are vacant. Instead of taking the usual route, I hang around the back of the dorm building and cross over to the rear of the sound booth building. I circle it until I’m on the opposite side and rush through the door. Inside, I hear nothing but silence and immediately break it with a long exhale. 

I lock myself into the second booth and pick up the empty sheet music with a slight smirk. I get to work. 

Exactly four hours later, I head straight from the sound booths to the main Conservatory. I reach the door just as Einar is leaving. 

He smiles at me. “Feeling better?” 

“A lot better,” I reply. 

“Well, that is a relief,” he says. “I am rooting for you, my friend.”

I purse my lips, unsure what he’s talking about, but his smile only deepens. With a wave of his hand, he leaves me at the door. I wipe the vacuous look off my face and enter the Conservatory. 

When I stride into the practice room, the musicians look up in confusion. Some glare while others look utterly bewildered. “Sorry I’m late,” I confess, ignoring someone’s comment about me being four hours late. “I’ll be taking Royal’s place today.”

“But the Headmaster said you weren’t feeling well,” a violinist confirmed. 

“It was my nerves,” I lie, trying to elicit an ounce of sympathy. “I didn’t feel prepared, and frankly, it made me panic.” 

Some of their faces soften, others see through me. 

“But after I pulled myself together,” I continue, “I wrote something that I would like us to perform if that’s alright with you.” 

They nod, some more reluctantly than others. I smile at them and pass out the sheet music. They ready their instruments without comment as I raise my wand. We begin.

Crisp notes conquer the room, and I feel a sudden giddiness in my stomach that is mirrored in the faces of the musicians. Their eyes widen as they look to me for direction and begin to play more favorably than the day before. It is so forceful that I imagine the walls shake around us until the door is ripped from its hinges. 

In reality, it only swings open, followed by a very red-faced Roy. 

I close my fist, silencing the music as she stomps across the room. She stops right in front of me and asks through clenched teeth, “What the hell are you doing?” 

I put my hands up innocently, and when she continues to glare, I confess, “I heard this composition in the hall when I first got here. Since then, I haven’t been able to get it out of my head. But… I didn’t write it.”

Roy shakes her head. “I did.” 

“I know,” I admit. No use lying.

Her eyes widen. “How?” 

“I guessed,” I explain. “Everyone else was at orientation already.

“I didn’t mean to steal your song. But it’s the only profound thing I’ve written down since I got here,” I reveal. 

Roy scoffs and turns. Seeing that the musicians are still there, she rudely dismisses them. Then, she stalks across the room, fingers pulling through her dark hair. “That song convinced my grandfather to send me to this school. After that, he said I was his ticket to gaining complete control of it. I was a safe bet.

She turns to me. “The song I wrote for the competition will be the same. It’s mine until he hears it. Then, it will be another weapon in his arsenal. In fact, when I win, it will deliver the killing blow. The Conservatory will be his at last.”

She sighs as I walk toward her, but I don’t know if it’s meant for her grandfather or me.

“Is that what you want?” I ask. 

She pauses. “Yes… at least partially.”

I wait for her to finish her thought, staying far enough to give her space but close enough to be present. 

“I want to become a great composer. My grandfather will make that happen. But I want my success to be my own,” she clarifies. “I don’t want people to think I’m his puppet, or worse, a fraud.”

Clyde crosses my mind. I don’t think the Headmaster thinks her music is disingenuous. His motives are political, not personal. Either way, they are both rooting against her. Am I not? 

“Then, write your own composition–one that he will never hear,” I suggest. 

She frowns. “And if I performed it behind his back? Why would anyone believe it was mine?” 

“They won’t,” I admit. “But you’ll know.” 

Roy’s scowl fades, and she looks up at me as if she’s really seeing me for the first time. 

“And I’ll know,” I add. 

Her usual cynicism returns in a blink. “Why would you care? If I win, you lose. We’re competitors.”

“Because,” I say, moving in, “Your music is like nothing I’ve ever heard. I can’t stop thinking about it.” 

I’m inches from her. I can smell the floral perfume on her neck and hear her rapid breath. 

“What are you doing?” Roy asks, backing away. “Stay away from me.” 

My eyes widen, and I take a step back. I curse, recognizing my actions, and kick one of the music stands. Roy remains frozen in place. I turn to her but don’t dare meet her eyes. 

“I won’t take your song,” I assure her as I make for the door. 

Once I’m outside, I put my head in my hands. I’m no better than when I started. I thought that Roy could help me get over the song, or better yet, spark my own. Instead, I almost forced myself on her…

I don’t know what came over me, or why. I’d never thought about Roy that way, but at that moment, I couldn’t think of anything besides kissing her. 

I’m so sorry, Aubrey. 

Ashamed, I return to my dorm and bury my face in my pillow. Einar has the good sense not to ask how it went, and I hear him leave after a while. By the rumbling of my stomach, I’m guessing it’s dinner time. But I have no intention of getting up. I will wallow myself into oblivion. Not existing would solve all of my problems right now. 

When I finally recognize how unreasonably dramatic I’m being, I sit up. The blinds are drawn, but I can see a sliver of dark sky through them. Einar is already in bed, facing away from me. Unless he’s faking, and his snoring is pretty convincing, he’s dead asleep. 

I decide to take a walk and carefully cross the room. Outside, I head down the hallway, not daring to glance in the direction of Roy’s room. I look toward the elevator, and consider that it will make too much noise. Instead, I carry on to the stairwell. Moonlight streams through the tiny windows on the wall to my right as I descend to the first floor. I pause, hand perched on the doorknob. Out of the corner of my eye, I see light coming from further down. The door to the basement is wide open. 

I stare until my eyes are filled with stars. Goosebumps speckle my arms at the implications. My dreams… were they real? 

I shake my head at my naivete and march down the stairs. As soon as I cross the threshold, concrete smooths into marble beneath my feet, and the electric light I saw softens into ethereal moon beams. They reflect off the white stone, causing me to cover my eyes until they adjust to the brightness. I blink in the impossible scene before me. 

The walls concave around me, dank and rough like the inside of a cave. I can feel the moisture in the air and see dark spots that I can only guess are patches of lichens or other fungi. Conversely, the floor is a marble walkway that leads to a temple-like structure. White columns extend on all sides of the sanctuary, reminiscent of a giant prison cell. They support the rectangular perimeter of an open ceiling, through which the moon is clearly visible, despite the fact that it is in a basement. Unless this is not the basement at all. 

As the maddening thought arises that I’ve been transported to another place (and time) entirely, I can’t help but peer into the archaic structure. A large block of the same marble lies in the center of the Naos: an altar. But to whom?

I walk down the path, almost compelled to step into the white temple by a sacred force I haven’t felt since I was a kid. My mother used to tell me that God is always present, but going to Temple always made worship more tangible. Perhaps it was the religious iconography or other revered paraphilia decorating the place from floor to ceiling. The white temple is unadorned but equally intimidating. 

As I step between the columns, I see movement just outside of the moon’s reach. “Euterpe?” I call. 

Her voice echoes with the force of a stampede in a canyon. “I have long awaited your arrival.”

“I didn’t think… I didn’t believe,” I begin.

“That I was real?” she finishes. “Not many mortals do in this age. Do you believe it now?”

I hesitate. It could be another dream, but if so, this is by far the most vivid.

“I can see by your face that you do not,” Euterpe infers. “Illusion or not, you sought me out. This means your mortal muse has failed to inspire you?” 

I nod solemnly. 

“Approach the altar,” she instructs, and I oblige. 

Atop the altar lies a single, purple flower bud. Beneath it, on the side of the stone, is a bronze plaque. The engraving spells: Melpomene, Muse of–

“You lied?” I ask as I put the pieces together.

“Yes,” she admits, walking in shadow. Only her peplos crosses over into the moonlight. It is a rich blue. “Does this vex you?”

I am silent, unsure of my emotions. 

“I apologize for my deceit. It is a habit,” she explains. “Only desperate men seek out the Muse of Tragedy—but you don’t strike me as desperate, merely ambitious. Otherwise, you would have come to me that first night.”

“Is that why you chose to show yourself to me and not the others. My restraint?”

Now it is her turn to be silent. 

“Fine, but aren’t ambition and desperation the same thing?” I ask, changing tack.

“Not quite,” she argues. “A desperate man will do anything, no matter the cost, while an ambitious man will only act so long as he is in control of his fate.” 

I shake my head. “How can I be in control? The competition is up to the judges. There’s nothing I can do to change that.” 

Melpomene laughs. “Then, why did you seek me out? If you truly had no hope, you would not ask a god to shift your destiny.”

She has a point, but I’m still not convinced–and it shows. 

Melpomene, still out of sight, reveals, “I can offer you divine inspiration, but it will come at a price. The cost must balance the reward. 

“Now that you know who I am, you have full autonomy in your decision. Will you accept tragedy and success?”

My head spins, and my shirt clings to me despite the coolness of the moonlit temple. I don’t know what I’m risking, but I do know the reward. I will win the competition and become the next great composer of the Conservatory–or maybe the world… Isn’t that my dream? 

I see Aubrey’s face in my mind, her perfect lips upturned in a sultry smile. She would want me to see this through–even if I have to betray her to get there. 

“Yes,” I answer softly. 

I hear her footsteps and turn around. Melpomene stands in all her splendor beneath the moonlight. Where before she seemed ethereal, she is now as real as I am. Her skin is smooth and pale, yet with an almost iridescent shimmer in the light. Perhaps it is the reflection of the silver trim of her deep blue peplos. The knife tucked into her belt shines as well as it catches the light. 

“Do not be afraid,” she says, and I am drawn to her face–or rather lack thereof.

Below her cypress crown, a white stone mask covers her face. It is the tragedy mask. The mouth is set in an eternally silent cry while the eyes are lined by deep wrinkles of agonizing grief. Yet, this is nothing compared to the eyes behind the mask. They pierce mine, prompting tears to well up in the pockets of my eyelids–but I do not cry. 

As she walks toward me, her wavy, brown hair begins to darken into a familiar, straight black. Is she trying to mess with me?

“You may remove my mask,” she instructs, and when I hesitate, she brings my hands to her stone face. 

I am still allowing her to guide my hands as they drag away the mask. I drop it when her face is revealed. 

“Is this some kind of joke?” I ask, stepping back.

“I wear the face of the one who inspires you. My guises do not lie,” she says, stepping forward. 

I stare into “Roy’s” eyes and hear the phantom notes of her composition. Without thinking, I reach out my hand and touch her face. She nestles her cheek into my palm, and my expression thaws. A seismic shiver travels through me as she smiles. The temple fades away behind her, and I move in. As we lock lips, the room around me spins, and she gently lays me down atop the large altar, kissing me all the while.

To be continued in the final chapter…