As They Slip Away

7.

From that point on, I don’t work in the studio. I go at night—with Bartie and Victria, both wearing looks of concern and worry—to get my notebooks and sheet music from the Hall. Luthor’s covered his sculpture up with a large cloth, and I don’t have the courage to look at the blank face again.

My music takes on a different tone as I write with Victria and Bartie, who’ve turned the garden behind the Hospital into their studio. It’s nice to be able to get help from a poet when I work on lyrics, or advice from a fellow musician when I’m struggling to find chords. I work quicker—but at the same time, it feels as if I’ve lost some of the emotion behind the music. I’d started out writing love songs, and ended up writing sad ones. Perhaps appropriate for the Sirens, but not for me.

And then, almost before I’ve really had a chance to put everything together the way I want, it’s time to present our work to Orion.

Kayleigh and Harley enlist all of our help to get their pieces from the pond behind the Hospital up to the Recorder Hall. Harley wanted to do the presentations by the pond, but Orion insisted they be done inside the Hall. Besides, the projects are supposed to be installed in the galleries on the upper floors once we’re done with our presentations. I assume that means Luthor had to clean up as well, that our studio is once more just the gallery, but I try not to think on it too much.

The gallery seems darker with three hulking new additions—Kayleigh’s metal sculpture, Harley’s fresco, and Luthor’s covered-up clay sculpture.

Orion asks us each to explain our work as part of our presentations. Kayleigh goes first, followed by Harley, but I barely hear them. I’m too busy staring at the bumpy cloth over Luthor’s sculpture. It doesn’t have that same familiar shape I’d come to know. It seems shorter.

Orion nods to Luthor, indicating that he should go next, but Luthor shakes his head. Instead, Victria begins reciting her poetry.

It’s not until Bartie goes that I am able to draw my attention away from Luthor’s too-short sculpture.

His music is hollow in the best possible way. It speaks of longing and sorrow, and I want to fill it with my voice, but I don’t. It’s better this way.

As his music fades, I step forward with my own. I close my eyes and forget about everything and just sing.

And for that short moment, everything is right.

But then the moment disappears.

I open my eyes, and I’m still here. And so is Luthor.

“Thank you, Selene,” Orion says. “Now, it’s your turn, Luthor.”

He doesn’t bother introducing his work. Instead, Luthor steps up to his sculpture and in one swift motion rips the cloth off.

I gasp—the only sound in the silent gallery.

The sculpture is no longer faceless—it’s headless. From the rough marks at the decimated remains of the neck, I can easily imagine him wrapping his fingers around the clay, carefully and precisely squeezing, squeezing, squeezing until the head simply popped right off.

From the neck down, the sculpture is beautiful—even more graceful and elegant than I’d remembered. There are cuticles etched in the fingernails, veins at the delicate wrists. Individual toes curl around the base, and the draping gown looks as if it is made of silk, not mud.

But from the neck up—nothing.

“Well.” Orion’s voice cuts through the ringing silence. “This is quite . . . illuminating, Luthor.”

Luthor lets the sheet that had been covering his sculpture drop to the floor as he turns and storms out of the gallery.

***