The Blessed - By Tonya Hurley Page 0,49

offered, ignoring her own distress.

“I’m okay,” she snapped. “I just need to be by myself for a minute.”

CeCe got up and walked toward the back of the church and into the vestibule and paused, looking back at Agnes.

Sorry, she mouthed to Agnes. Thank you.

Sebastian, Lucy, and Agnes watched and waited for her to approach the front doors of the church, but she disappeared from their sight before she did. They did hear a door open, however, and the scrape of Cecilia’s boot soles along a staircase. She reappeared above them, in the balcony in front of a massive pipe organ, like some waifish phantom of the rock opera. She looked down at them as if scanning an audience from the stage, then turned her back and sat on the bench before the keyboard.

She swayed as she touched the keys, which produced a faint sound muted by dust and age, but loud enough for each in the tiny audience below to hear her music. Cecilia broke out into song and a cold sweat. She seemed overtaken, dazed. It was a minor-chord plainsong, mournful and bittersweet. A chant, almost, with a lilting, ethereal melody.

It was easy for Cecilia to lose herself, but never more than in this place. Empty and in partial disrepair, it resembled nothing so much as a theater set in the process of being built, or maybe taken down—she couldn’t be sure which—but there was so much more embedded in it.

Lean out your window, golden hair

I heard you singing in the midnight air

My book is closed, I read no more

Watching the fire dance, on the floor

It was a musical arrangement of a James Joyce poem that she loved. It was like nothing she’d ever played in public before or for anyone but herself. Her own music was aggressive, confrontational, but these were the sounds of acquiescence, of resignation.

Full of grace.

“Auditions for choir are next week,” Lucy groused.

The tinge of jealousy in Lucy’s tone was obvious, as she eyed Sebastian and Agnes enthralled with Cecilia’s performance.

“Let’s just listen, okay?” Agnes shot back, irritated by Lucy’s pettiness.

I’ve left my book, I’ve left my room

For I heard you singing through the gloom

Singing and singing, a merry air

Lean out the window, golden hair

Her voice echoed through the chamber, reverberating through the wooden and metal fixtures placed, stacked, and hung throughout the church.

When she finished, Cecilia stood quietly and made her way back downstairs to the others.

“That was beautiful,” Sebastian said. “Spiritual.”

“Thanks,” she said shyly.

“Syd Barrett,” he said.

“Yeah,” Cecilia acknowledged. “A real hero of mine. How did you know?”

All the strongest connections she’d ever made were through music. Who you listened to, what moved you, told her everything about who you were. It was like a secret language. One she felt she now shared with him.

“A legend in his own time,” Sebastian added. “And a troubled soul.”

CeCe nodded.

“I don’t know where that came from,” Cecilia said, examining her hands in wonder. “I’ve never played anything like that before.”

“Maybe you’re just . . . inspired,” he said, smiling, grabbing her arms tight.

Cecilia’s faced flushed and she looked away. She wasn’t easily embarrassed or moved by a guy’s touch, but this felt different. Especially now. Her dream had frightened her, but it also thrilled her in a way she had never been. She only barely knew him, but she felt herself falling for Sebastian.

Cecilia looked up at him and smiled a little, crossed her arms, which were bare and had turned to gooseflesh from him and the damp interior. She walked over to Lucy and Agnes, where she was greeted with a gentle hug from Agnes and grudging compliments from Lucy.

They were all moved, whether they wanted to admit it or not. They each felt like she was singing directly to them and about them. For them.

“Nice, but it didn’t sound like a hit to me,” Lucy said defensively.

“What is your obsession with being the biggest and the best?” Agnes asked.

“I wasn’t completely serious, but think about it, why bother pursuing anything unless you shoot for the top?” Lucy spat.

“What about really moving just a few people?” Cecilia said, joining the fray in her own defense. “I’d rather just reach a few people who really get it.”

“How arrogant,” Lucy chided. “People who get it? It’s your job to make them get it.”

“A little sensitive about the whole selling-out thing, aren’t we?” CeCe pushed back. “Art is not a job, or shouldn’t be.”

“Please,” Lucy countered. “If you wanted to be musician, you can do that in your