Master of the Opera, Act 4: Dark Interlude by Jeffe Kennedy

ladders leading to them. Hally surveyed several, then picked one and dropped the soft bag on the gritty soil. She pulled out a rope and a laminated sign.
    CLOSED FOR RENOVATION
    She slung the rope around the ladder and hung the sign at eye level.
    “Clever,” Christy commented.
    “Not my first time to the circus. Climb up. Mind your head, the ceilings are low.”
    Intrigued, Christy ascended the ladder into the ancient cliff dwelling. She’d never actually been inside one and it felt . . . different. As if she’d crawled inside someone else’s skin. Inside the domed room, a glimpse of blue came through the perfectly centered smoke hole, and she knew with visceral truth what it had been like to live here. The children running outside belonged to the tribe. This room sheltered them during the colder winters and from the summer monsoon rains. It was as if the walls themselves had absorbed the energy of all those lives lived here.
    Hally crawled through the low doorway, the natural hush of the place absorbing the sound of her movement. She pointed to the floor directly under the smoke hole and Christy sat, the smooth stone surprisingly warm and comfortable beneath her.
    “Give me the opal ring.” Hally held out her hand.
    “You can’t lose it.”
    “I’m not going to lose it, but you can’t have it inside the circle with you.”
    “What circle?”
    “The one I’m about to draw to protect you. Now hand it over.”
    Christy dug it out of her pocket and placed the glimmering ring in Hally’s hand. It looked odd in this simple place. Gaudy and wrong. “What about my necklace, or this stone?”
    “Do you associate those things with him ?” There was no mistaking which him she meant.
    “Yes.”
    “Then keep them—they’ll help. He’s tied to this place, and they’re related to it, too.”
    “How do you know he’s tied here?”
    Hally rolled her eyes. “He told you, remember?”
    I am king of all I survey here, yet I am a prisoner of it also. She didn’t remember telling Hally that part, but she must have.
    “I think he meant the opera house.”
    “Geologically speaking, we’re not that far from there.”
    “Says the nonscientist.”
    “Yes, I know. Now let me concentrate.”
    Starting on Christy’s left, Hally began drawing a circle around her, scratching a line in the stone, muttering under her breath. When she connected the circle, nothing changed. Christy hadn’t known what to expect, but not nothing. Then Hally set four stones around her, one of them directly in front of her, between her and the mouth of the cave.
    Hally took the bag and backed out, her feet on the ladder. “Now, keep your back straight—imagine your tailbone growing roots into the rock beneath you. Energy runs through you, through your skull, out the smoke hole, and into the sky.”
    “Then what?”
    The redhead smiled, but with a certain intensity. “Ask your question and wait for what comes to you. Be respectful and grateful. I’ll be out here, doing my part. Call me when you’re done.”
    “Wait—how do I know what question to ask?”
    Hally didn’t laugh at her. “Be honest with yourself. Ask what you really want to know. This isn’t a test. You’re not here to impress anyone. Ask what’s in your heart.”
    At one time Christy might have felt silly, but that same feel about the place settled like a mantle over her shoulders, warm and full of an ancient serenity.
    She sat with hands on knees, gazing out of the dwelling opening. Looking straight out across the valley, only trees, basking in the sunshine, met her eye. If nothing else, it was peaceful. Not unlike the peace the cathedral had offered, but of a different flavor. In this place, absolution felt possible.
    Relaxing into it, she let the world fall away. It reminded her of how she felt when she was with the Master—transported to another place, suspended in time. The familiar warmth flooded her, sexual and spiritual. Alert while asleep.
    In her mind, she