Melody Llwellyn's Arc

Chapter 7 of 14

The cheers were still fading when the last competitor took the stage. Melody stood in the wings with her friends and listened. The voice was huge. It filled the whole cay, loud enough to shake the boards under her feet. When it stopped, the crowd roared. Melody looked at her one song, the one she had already sung two ways, and felt her stomach sink. She had nothing left that could go bigger than that. "They want an ending," Melody whispered. "Something to leave last. I only know how to make them quiet. That won't beat a voice like that." The parrot hopped onto a crate. His jewel feathers caught the stage light. "Then don't beat it," he said. "Do the opposite. He filled the air. You empty it." Melody shook her head. "I already did quiet. Twice." The starfish scrambled up beside the parrot, all five arms working. "Not like this," the starfish said. "Not a whole song. One breath. One held note, so soft they have to stop breathing to catch it. Then you stop. And you don't finish it." "Don't finish it?" Melody asked. "Leave the last note hanging," the starfish said. "They'll lean so far in they fall. That's the loudest thing you can do to a crowd. Make them want the note you never give." Melody stared. It scared her. Every part of her wanted to land the ending clean and safe. The salamander crawled forward and dropped a bit of green sea glass into her claw. He tapped his throat, then closed his orange eyes, and went still as a stone. He was showing her the ending. Sing. Then nothing. Just hold the room in the silence. "If I stop and no one cheers," Melody said, "I lose in front of everyone." "Then make the stop so strong they can't help it," the parrot said. His sparkle was gone now. He meant it. The organizer called her name. Melody walked onto the exposed stage for the last time. The huge-voiced winner still stood at the edge, arms crossed, sure of himself. The crowd waited. Melody sang her song one final way. She started plain and small. She pulled them down into the hush she knew best. Then she rose to one long, high note, thin as a thread, and stretched it out. The crowd went silent. She held it. Held it. And then she cut it off in the middle and closed her mouth. Nothing. A whole beat of empty air. The crowd leaned in, waiting for the note that never came. Then they broke. The cheers crashed over her, louder than the huge voice, louder than anything all night. They wanted more because she had given them less. Melody stood shaking on the stage. She had found her ending. But the judges bent close over their table, whispering, and did not yet raise a single score.