Sound Carries

23.

It seemed surprising to me, somehow, that the semester would start as normal, even though nothing about it was normal. The days between Christmas and New Years were messy, a little blurred in such an unusual fashion that I am still surprised that there isn't more story to tell.

Colin and Gabriel forgave each other, in that odd way that boys can do even after they have been tussling on the floor. Colin had broken Gabriel's nose, we found out, but one more trip into town straightened it out. Colin, despite his protests otherwise, wore the tensor bandage faithfully, and though his split lip healed, there was something about him after that that was different. I told Oliver that I thought as much, and after a few days of observation, he agreed, though neither of us could seem to find any specific reason to think so. It wasn't that the fight had broken his spirit, actually, it seemed just the opposite. Something about his stance betrayed a brightness in him, a confidence that differed from his usual show, something genuine.

Hannah did not reappear.

The first day of classes arrived, and we went to them, the six of us in a clump. There was nothing else to do besides sit around and wonder.

We could all feel Hannah's absence like a phantom limb. As we all filed into the basement for the first session of master classes, Dr. Davis looked at us a little helplessly.

"I don't want to start without her more than any of you do." She said. "But I guess that's what we have to do."

I thought she looked more tired than usual. I hadn't seen her since it had become clear that Hannah really was missing, and she now carried with her a shaken kind of aura. The usual pep was missing from her step as she slowly began handing out large stacks of music.

As she handed them out, she sent quick, cursory glances towards the door, and once she had handed out the scores to all of us, she clutched the last one in her hands. Her knuckles were white.

"Well." She cleaned her throat. "we're going to proceed as planned, for now. We'll just have to hope that Hannah decides to come back on the soon side."

There was a ripple of movement in the group, quiet noises expressing distaste for the statement. The faculty was still really playing it like she had simply up and left on purpose?

I glanced at Cecily.

"Have you – er." She began. "Have you heard something from her?

A shadow passed over Dr. Davis' face. "No. No, we haven't."

It seemed silly, singing now, without her. I found myself staring at the title page of my own song, the words blurred and refusing to register as anything that made sense.

They had not put out a chair for Hannah. With only the six of us, the room felt too big somehow. The space was cavernous as it was, and without her laughter filling it, it was empty. Maybe it was just that we were all so quiet, but I felt the lack of her profoundly.

Oliver put a hand my knee. His voice was especially quiet. "You okay?"

I shot him a disbelieving look. ''Are any of us?"

Audra especially seemed deeply affected by Hannah's absence, practically beside herself. She kept looking through the door as though expecting her to burst through it at any second, grasping the side of the chair with both hands, her knuckles white.

"So." Dr. Davis stood in front of us, looking like she would rather be anywhere else. "Casting is the same, for now. I expect all of you to learn your parts. We can't let every setback stall us, as performers." She said the words with a confidence that her face did not convey. "I encourage all of you to make use of the counseling services we offer. It's important not to bottle this up. A loss is especially difficult to wrangle with and I do not expect any of you to behave as though nothing has happened."

She paused, as though struck with a sudden thought. "It can be a valuable asset though, grief. Use it in your music."

I stared at her in disbelief. Was she really encouraging us to exploit Hannah's disappearance for our own professional benefit?

The rest of our classes began like nothing had happened. Professors began to lecture. They skipped her name on the attendance sheet. I had thought that given the circumstances they would go easy on us third years, but I found myself surrounded by assignments, due dates already swimming in front of my eyes.

And the opera. I hadn't given it a single thought in weeks, but the faculty was determined to proceed as though at any moment their prized lead would waltz back through the front doors, apologizing for giving us a fright.

La Sonnambula, it was called. The Sleepwalker.

Once again, I had been given a relatively small part, and I prepared myself for another semester similar to the last.

It was an Italian opera semiseria, which I found meant that it fit neither the comic nor the tragic operatic genre, falling somewhere in the middle. It was set in a Swiss village, and told the story of a girl who was a chronic sleepwalker, and the various wrenches her habit threw in the plans for her upcoming wedding.

It didn't seem interesting, not anymore. Nothing about school could hold my attention at all. I received back my first marked essay with a bold D+ in red ink, and I didn't feel the dismay that I would have had I received that grade the previous semester. I looked at it with a mild detachment, unseeing. It could have been in an entirely different language, for all it meant to me.

This same cloud seemed to follow my peers, afflicting some of them worse than the others.

Audra, especially, seemed touchy, unable to focus long, and irritable when interrupted during her rare moments of study.

I could see grief in Colin, Cecily, and Oliver, anger in Gabriel. That was how it manifested for us, because the truth was becoming real in a new way that was unbearably heavy.

Hannah was never coming back.