Chapter 30 Magellan
Magellan
Magellan had found Fanny Mendelssohn. The woman was coming here. Rhys had helped make it happen. The reluctant earl who desperately wanted to believe she was off her rocker was still doing everything in his power to help her on her mission.
She still needed his help to read the rest of the diary, and time was running out—and even more pressing, she needed to figure out what in the world she was going to say to Fanny Mendelssohn when the woman came here.
Um, excuse me, Fanny, but you have a song trapped in your head that can save the world. Could I please have a listen?
What if Fanny Mendelssohn had no idea what she was talking about? Magellan only hoped she was one of the four female composers Gwynedd alluded to. She had to be.
In 1829 Fanny would be twenty-four, a lovely woman with raven-haired ringlets, if the historical portraits were anything to go by.
She would die young at the age of forty-one from a stroke.
By the time of her death, Fanny would have composed over four hundred and fifty pieces.
But all of her life she had stood in the shadow of her brother, Felix.
Her father had limited her, ruling that Felix could become a composer, but she could not. Her music was only “an ornament.”
Fanny would fall in love with the famous painter Wilhelm Hensel but only marry him on the condition she always be allowed to compose. He was besotted with her and agreed. She even composed her wedding song the night before their ceremony because her brother forgot to do it.
In her lifetime, women were not allowed to give public performances.
So instead, she would host salons at her home and perform there, sometimes with over a hundred people in attendance.
Near the end of her life, when she was forty, she pushed to start publishing her songs under her own name instead of her brother’s.
Sadly, only a year later, she died. To Magellan, she was a hero—a heroine—a shooting star whose light was extinguished too early. Soon she would meet her.
A quiet knock sounded at the door, and a young woman named Jane brought a dinner tray, a simple medley of fresh bread, sliced ham and cheese, and carrot soup.
Magellan ate every bite. When she was finished, she crawled back into bed and propped herself on a mountain of pillows.
She must have drifted off to sleep in exhaustion, for she only had the vague memory of Rhys visiting her in the middle of the night.
Hazily, she felt him applying ointment to her stitches with the gentlest touch.
The next time she woke it was late morning, and Jane helped her bathe and change into a soft house robe.
Magellan could think of nothing but Fanny’s arrival tomorrow, and what would happen if she did get the song from her.
Gwynedd had warned her she would need to leave the time she was in because staying would be dangerous.
Magellan didn’t know how to prepare for such a possibility.
And she wasn’t sure she could coax Rhys into translating the rest of the diary before Fanny came.
He didn’t even want to talk about the diary right now, much less give her more pages.
Yet tomorrow was looming along with the definite chance she would be leaving 1829.
If she got the song from Fanny, could she leave Rhys?
She didn’t know if she had the ability to say goodbye to him again.
In her heart, she knew they were supposed to be together.
The Ley Line had delivered her to him. He was the translator of Gwynedd’s diary, and he hadn’t finished it yet.
Surely that meant something. She couldn’t just leave Rhys and vanish on a Ley Line.
They were a team. Partners. Even if he didn’t know it yet.
With that realization, she began to think ahead. Fanny would be here soon, and she was a bundle of nerves. If she received the song from Fanny, she wouldn’t have much time to convince Rhys.
She started to hum to tamp down the anxiety that possibility brought and looked around the room.
Packing a bag seemed the most logical thing to do.
To start with, she needed food. The currant scones from her breakfast tray should stay fresh for a while.
She wrapped them in a cloth napkin and tucked them away in her satchel along with the diary.
Then she added tooth powder, soap, and a spare nightshift and stowed the satchel in the dresser drawer.
Next she needed to find a piano to play to help her mounting anxiety.
She ignored the picturesque view from her bedroom window of a park across the street and the horse-drawn carriages passing by the wrought iron gates.
Instead, she made her way down a sweeping staircase to the main floor, though she hadn’t gotten back her strength yet.
The house was enormous with a library and a ballroom, but she found the best room to be off the back hall, a cozy parlor where a charming upright piano was tucked against the wall.
Relieved by the find, Magellan sat down on the bench.
Gripped by the urge to play something from her time, she played U2’s “Where the Streets Have No Name” and afterward went through the band’s Best of.
She could feel the pent-up tension running away down her fingertips and being absorbed by the keys.
After U2, she turned to Sting, Coldplay, Imagine Dragons, and the Lumineers.
Then she hit the ladies. Katy Perry, Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Pink, and Lady Gaga.
It was her version of shuttling through the stations.
All modern. All from her time. She played song after song, lost in the fluidity, and thought of Rhys.
They had been tethered to each other from the moment she arrived at his labyrinth—they both felt it—and yet he didn’t believe her. Now tomorrow she might have to leave and didn’t know what to do.
As if she’d conjured him with her thoughts, she looked behind her to find him leaning against the doorway, listening to her play.