Chapter 10 The Singing Tree
I hadn’t dreamt much since my father died. But by the end of my first week at Foresyth, and after countless hours in the library, my restless mind began to conjure them again. It was as if some remnant of my father lingered in the House, coaxing me back into visions each night.
I heard his voice before I saw him. Deep and smooth, like velvet. Even though my resting body tingled with the sensation of falling, his voice anchored me to my bed.
“What did I tell you about following in my footsteps? You ought to be with your mother,” he said.
My eyes were open now, but I couldn’t move. Not my arms, not my legs. Father stood over me, brushing a hand through my hair. I relaxed, despite my paralysis.
“I’m lying down, not following anyone’s footsteps,” I teased, though my lips didn’t move. He sighed, offering a small, sad smile, as if he understood.
“Death changes all of us. Sometimes for the better,” he said.
I tried to shake my head—your death didn’t change me—but my body refused to respond.
His deep blue eyes—mirroring the shade of mine—traced my face, pausing like he noticed something for the first time.
He froze, then looked up, startled by an unseen presence in the room.
I tried to follow his gaze but only found the darkened corner of my room.
“The House. It knows I’m here,” he whispered, his voice losing any hint of calm.
I struggled to move, but to no avail. My throat tightened when my father’s features began to shift.
His mouth and nose split and pushed out into a feline snout, his eyes stretching, pupils turning to narrow slits.
Scales erupted across his skin as his body twisted and elongated into a serpent.
The creature with a lion’s face slithered under my bed, disappearing into the shadows. And then I began to fall.
*
I awoke on the ground next to my bed, the smell of rotting wood entering my nostrils.
I pressed my palms to the damp ground, adjusting my weight, when one of the floorboards gave way, and my hand fell a few inches through.
I rushed up to a seated position, putting distance between myself and the underside of my bed.
After I collected my bearings, I crouched down and flipped the dust slip, sending a plume of grey into the air.
I coughed as some of the dust entered my lungs, then.
I peered underneath my bed but saw nothing, aside from my father’s leather briefcase and dead dust moths.
A dream, of course.
Despite being stiff from sleeping on the ground, I gingerly donned my usual uniform of black slacks and a grey sweater, looking forward to getting back into the lab and putting distance between me and my bed.
I stuffed a letter to my mother and Gabriel into my breast pocket, intending to leave them with Richard to post, as I made my way out of my dormitory.
After a quick meeting with the Meister, where I ran through the outline of my proposal, I then spent the whole day with Nina in the lab, deconstructing and reconstructing the light analyzer.
It would prove useful in evaluating physical evidence, and it also helped to keep my mind off my unsettling dreams.
It took several hours, but I finally got the machine to work. Nina called it magick. I called it mechanics.
“Don’t tell me you’re becoming a lab rat like Nina,” Aspen said, sitting as far across from me as possible at the dinner table. “You reek.”
I sniffed myself and winced. I had to remember to take a shower after the lab. “I lost track of time.”
Nina followed in soon after. “Dahlia fixed a light machine downstairs.”
“Light analyzer. It uses polychromatic light to analyze chemical signatures,” I corrected.
“Could it be used for artifact dating?” Leone asked, piqued.
“I think mass spectrometry would be better suited for that, but we could try if we get a suspension. It would be destructive, though,” I said.
Leone considered. “I don’t want to destroy the cartographs.”
“We’d only need a very small sample. Just a scratch of the surface.”
“Maybe that could work. You’d have to show me how.” Leone nodded.
Aspen said nothing, but I could sense his discontent as he plated greens onto his dish.
“Is there anything you’d like dated, Aspen?” I offered.
“The only kind of dating I do is the kind where copulation is involved.” He smiled. “Otherwise, I prefer to do the chronology of my work using scholarly means.”
“Very well,” I scoffed.
Nina and I continued chatting about the light analyzer and its potential uses in assessing the legitimacy of a species she’d received from Spain, while Aspen made conversation with Leone about a new sculpture he was working on.
“I’d like to see some of your work, Aspen,” I said, interjecting into the conversation when mine was at a lull. Really, it was more of a monologue about the brilliance of his counter-Renaissance work. But I needed to find a way to investigate him without calling too much attention.
“A true artist never reveals their work until it’s finished.” Aspen smiled squarely, his eyes darting to Nina’s for a split second. “You’ll see it at the Symposium.”
The Symposium—a once-a-semester public display of each of our works.
The next one was on the Spring Equinox, less than three months away.
I had to begin working on mine, even if I managed to get out of here before then.
It would be suspicious if I didn’t dedicate time to my project, like the others.
There was so much to be done.
I was on my way to my room when I heard the music.
It was light and ethereal, as if it didn’t belong to this world.
It was strange hearing music in this old House, which at times felt like a deteriorating museum, or rather yet a mausoleum.
But the music’s bouncy echo down the hall gave the House a breath of life, and I was compelled to follow it like a siren’s call.
The music got louder and lovelier as I crept down the hallway toward it.
It led to a dormitory room like my own, cracked just an inch. Through the gap, I recognized the mass of golden curls as Sequoia’s. I took a step backward, as if the curse had momentarily subsided, but the boards creaked loudly under my feet, and the singing stopped. A pair of brown eyes found mine.
“Dahlia,” her voice floated.
“I’m sorry—I just heard—” I stammered. My cheeks flushed.
“No, it’s okay. Please, come in,” Sequoia said, widening her door. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”
I weighed my options carefully. Entering her room would grant me access to her space—an opportunity to search for evidence—but I couldn’t ignore the gnawing question of trust. What if this was another manipulation, another trap, like Aspen’s?
I studied her face with forensic focus, searching for any trace of malice. But her lips were slightly parted, her eyes bright—not with calculation, but with something gentler. Curiosity, perhaps. Kindness, even. And that, in its own way, unsettled me more.
“It’s okay, I promise.” She smiled, and a blanket of golden warmth seemed to envelop me. I walked into her room.
“What were you singing?”
“Oh, just a composition I’ve been working on. It’s in Old Gaelic.”
I considered her, noting the undertones of red in her hair and the slight peppering of freckles on her nose.
“You’re Irish.”
“Kiss me,” she said, her smile widening.
A deep blush crept up my neck. What would Gabriel think of this charming stranger? I think he’d hardly be able to put a sentence together in front of her.
At my silence, she elaborated. “Relax, it’s just a saying. It comes from the Blarney Castle Stone—it’s a poem.”
“The interest in Druids,” I said, making the connection. “It’s your lineage.”
“My mother was Irish, perhaps a modern Druid even. I want to bring some light into their practices. Irish history is rich and layered, but we’ve been persecuted so long.”
“I see. That’s noble of you, bringing light to your family history like that.”
“I don’t see it as noble.” Her features shifted.
“All scholarship comes from some form of self-obsession, don’t you think?
We look onto the world to see ourselves.
Maybe it’s the only thing we can do to make ourselves feel less lonely.
” Sequoia smiled softly, brushing a rosy curl out of her face.
I couldn’t help but think of my father and wonder why his form of scholarship seemed to be murder and mayhem.
“I wanted to apologize for the other night at Circle. You had every right to voice your opinion. I didn’t mean to bring you into whatever is going on with me and Aspen.”
“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize the personal significance of your work.
You should continue studying the Druids, even if the evidence is sparse,” I said, hoping the last part wasn’t too harsh.
“You could become a leading scholar in the field,” I added, and I meant it.
There was merit in studying an underdeveloped field, of becoming the voice through the darkness.
“I wish Aspen believed in me as much as you do,” she tore her eyes away from mine, and I immediately felt their absence. Everything about her drew me closer, like there was an invisible rope tethering me to her.
“What do you mean?”
“Aspen thinks little of my scholarship. He says I got here through lineage—as if it weren’t the same case for him.
His father paying off the Council is practically the same thing.
” She puffed hot air from her cheeks and collapsed onto her bed.
I tried not to notice her legs stretching across the mattress.
“He relishes feeling superior to everyone. That’s why he didn’t like Julian. Julian couldn’t have cared less about the prestige.”