Strange Sweet Song by Adi Rule

last two years, through lessons and repertoire and soirees that were all just a little too difficult for her to do well. The hope that someday, she would sing this role; that she would be Angelique. Queen of that perfect world.
    If her father knew the conservatory had chosen to stage it this semester, she wouldn’t be here. He would have pulled her out of high school next semester instead. But through some whim of fate, she is here.
    Voices float in from outside her yellow pine door. Students are heading to the lobby to wait for the lists to be posted by the midnight deadline. Sing closes the score. Maybe she should wait downstairs with the others. Maybe Jenny and Marta will be there.
    “Back later, Woolly,” she says to the battered gray lamb whose button eyes stare at her from the bed. She puts on her slippers, ties her red silk bathrobe, and tucks the score under one arm.
    Downstairs, the moon-faced lobby clock says nine thirty and already the ugly maroon couch and most of the chairs are occupied.
    Three girls Sing saw at the Welcome Gathering stop talking as she enters, then begin whispering after she has passed them. She hears, “Sing!” and then stifled giggles. She turns, but as she expected, none of the girls are looking at her. They appear deeply entrenched in their own conversation. “I like to sing, ” one of them says. The other two laugh and snort.
    I shouldn’t have turned around. They wanted to see if I’d react to the word.
    She finds one of the last available stuffed chairs and tries to read. But she hears her name over and over, murmured, whispered, thought. Does everyone here know who she is? Are they all talking about her? That could have been a furtive glance from the stocky boy in the corner, huddled with his friend. That could have been her name coming from a group of heavily made-up girls over by a potted plant. Or it could have been her imagination.
    Every few minutes, she looks for a figure crossing the quad from Hector Hall. But all is dark except for light pooling in front of windows.
    In front of her, the windows look out onto the moonlit lawn behind the dormitory. She gazes past the silhouette of an impressive maple tree and into the forest, separated from the conservatory by a tall wooden fence. When he finds himself in the dark forest … Sing wants to throw open the window, dive through, rush headlong into the cold arms of those shivering black trees.
    What about this forest unnerves her father? And what, inexplicably, draws her to it? The spiky pines and jutting cliffs that drift away up the mountainside divulge nothing. But perhaps, she thinks, the woods and mountains north of Dunhammond don’t need to flaunt their secrets. Perhaps they—and the conservatory—are so steeped in wild magic that trying to see it out a window is like using a dowsing rod at the bottom of a lake.

 
    Thirteen
     
    Angelique
    An Opera in Three Acts
    Libretto by Jean-Paul Quinault
    Music by François Durand
     
    CHARACTERS
Angelique, a milkmaid
Soprano
M. Boncoeur, her father
Baritone
Silvain, a shepherd
Baritone
Count Bavarde/Prince Elbert
Tenor
Queen of the Tree Maidens
Soprano
A villager
Tenor
The Felix, a great beast
Mute
    Villagers, Huntsmen, Tree Maidens
    Overture.
    ACT I.
    A village.
    No. 1, Chorus.
    The quaint inhabitants of a quaint village describe how much they love farming.
    No. 2, Aria & Chorus.
    M. Boncoeur, who loves farming more than anyone else, tells about the light of his life—his beautiful daughter, Angelique. The villagers agree that Angelique is kind, innocent, and good.
    No. 3, Recitative & Aria.
    Enter Angelique, carrying a pail of milk and greeting everyone. She tells of the virtues of hard work.
    No. 4, Recitative & Chorus.
    Silvain, a shepherd, enters and tells the villagers he has seen the track of the Felix—a fearsome, great beast. The villagers become alarmed and wonder what to do.
    No. 5, Trio.
    M. Boncoeur says they should go to Prince Elbert for help, but Silvain