Sing Me Your Scars (Apex Voices Book 3) Read Free

room, I can hear the music. The laughter. I
creep in the passageway with small, quiet steps, extinguish my lamp, and swing
open the spyhole. The year before, I was recovering and did not know about the
passageway; the year before that, I was not here.
    I twine a lock of Sophie’s hair around my finger and watch the
men and women spinning around on the dance floor, laughing with goblets of wine
in hand, talking in animated voices. He is there, resplendent in a dark suit,
but I don’t allow my eyes to linger on him for too long. This smiling man is as
much a construct as I am.
    “I had a gown like that blue one,” Grace says. “Oh, how I miss
satin and lace.”
    “Please,” Lillian says. “Let us go back. I can’t bear to see this.
The reminder hurts too much.”
    “Hush,” Molly says.
    “I wish we could join them,” Diana says.
    Sophie says, “Perhaps he will bring us some wine later. And look,
look at the food.”
    Therese makes a small sound. “Look at the way they dance. Clumsy,
so clumsy.”
    I sway back and forth, my feet tracing a pattern not from
Therese, but a dance from my childhood. I remember the harvest festival, the
bonfire, the musicians. My father placed my feet atop his to teach me the
steps, and then he spun me around and around until we were both too dizzy to
stand.
    Therese laughs, but there is no mockery in the sound. I close my
eyes, lost in the memory of my father’s arms around me, how safe and secure I
always felt. I would give anything to feel that way again.
    The music stops, and my eyes snap open. A young woman in a dark
blue gown approaches the piano, sits, and begins to play. The music is filled
with tiny notes that reach high in the air then swoop back down, touching on
melancholia. It’s the most beautiful thing I have ever heard. Everyone falls
silent, even Lillian.
    Then I see him watching the girl at the piano. His brow is
creased; his mouth soft. I hear a strange sound from Sophie. She recognizes the
intensity of his gaze. As a kindness, I let go of her hair. Does he covet this
girl’s arms? Her hair? Her face?
    Lillian begins to weep again, and it doesn’t take long for the
rest to join her. All except Sophie. She never cries.
    §
    “He will not,” I say.
    “He will do whatever he wants. You know that,” Sophie says.
    “She is not sick,” Grace says.
    “Neither was I,” Sophie hisses. “He saw me in the Hargrove
market. He gave me
that
look, then I woke up here.”
    “But you do not know for certain,” Therese says. “The influenza
took so many.”
    “I was not sick.” Sophie’s voice is flat. Then, she says nothing
more.
    Hargrove is even further away than my parents’ farm. I bend my
head forward, and Sophie’s hair spills down, all chestnut brown and thick
curls. My hair was straight and thin, best suited for tucking beneath roughspun
scarves, not hanging free, but still I cried when he replaced it.
    §
    He is drunk again. His voice is loud. Angry. I pull the
sheets up to my shoulders and hope he doesn’t come to visit. When he is drunk,
it takes longer.
    Sometimes I want to sneak into his study and take one of the
bottles and hide it in my room. On nights when I can still hear my mother
saying my name; when I can remember the illness that confined me to my bed and
eventually took my life; when I recall the confusion when I woke here and knew
something was wrong.
    But those nights happen less and less, and I’m afraid I will
forget my mother’s voice completely. Would she even recognize me with Sophie’s
hair in place of my own? Would she run screaming?
    §
    On Sunday morning, I creep through the passageway. Step outside.
The servants have the day off, and he has gone to mass. Even here, I can hear
voices in song. I remember these songs from my own church where I sang with the
choir. I have never known if he heard me somehow and chose me because of my
voice, but I remember seeing him on the farm in my fifteenth year when Peter
broke his arm, two