Baby Saja's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

The purple-haired boy stood on the ice with his hands in his pockets. He had agreed to teach Baby Saja, but only if Baby Saja obeyed every word. Baby Saja waited, ready to sing. Instead the boy pointed at the empty seats. "Don't sing yet," the boy said. "Blow out the birds." Baby Saja blinked. High in the rafters, small birds in tiny sweaters shuffled along a beam. One flapped its wings. Baby Saja looked back at the boy. Blow out the birds made no sense. He almost asked what it meant. He caught himself. The boy watched his face. "You want to ask a question," he said. "Ask one and I walk off this ice." Baby Saja shut his mouth. His teacher meant it. He remembered the empty stage at dawn, the hours he had spent searching. He would not lose the boy over one strange order. But he did not understand. If he did the wrong thing, the boy might leave anyway. He stood still and thought. Blow out the birds. He could not reach them. He could not touch them. He could only push air, the way you push out a candle. Maybe that was the point. Maybe the boy wanted him to breathe hard enough to reach the roof. Baby Saja faced the rafters. He filled his chest from low down, the way the boy had shown him. He aimed his breath up at the little birds and blew, one long push, as if to snuff a flame across the whole cold hall. The birds startled. Wings snapped open. Three of them lifted off the beam and swirled down through the empty seats, then out a high gap in the wall. "They flew," Baby Saja said. He turned, grinning. "Did I do it right?" The boy did not smile, but he stepped closer. "You pushed air from your belly and aimed it high," he said. "That's projection. That's the whole trick. Your throat can't do it. Your chest can." Baby Saja stared up at the empty beam. He finally understood. The order had not been about birds at all. The boy had made him breathe the right way without letting him think about singing. "Now sing," the boy said. "Same push. Aim it at the back row." Baby Saja set his feet in the rough cloth. He drew the breath from low. He sang one note toward the far seats. It did not crack. It carried, thin but clear, further than his voice had ever gone in that frozen hall. The boy nodded once. "That's the start," he said. "You obeyed. So I'll stay." Baby Saja's chest still hummed from the note. He had passed the first test. But one note was not a whole song, and the glacier stage was wider than this hall. He had learned to push air. Now he had to hold it, note after note, all the way to the final round.