Page 38 of Mistaken

But he’d asked, and even though she hated to dredge up all those past wounds, in a way, she knew she’d feel better once she got it all out, just like sometimes it was better to vomit all up and get it over with rather than trying to live with the nausea and stomach ache.

“Right before…?” he said. His tone was gentle, and she wondered if her story about losing her mother so young had moved him just a bit. Djinn could sometimes show compassion in odd little ways, so maybe he was feeling some sympathy for her despite everything.

“I got my big break,” she said. “A revival ofThe Phantom of the Opera— a musical,” she added hastily, since she had no idea how much Abdul knew about musical theater or popular culture in general. “It wasn’t the lead, because I was just starting out, but I was in the chorus, and I was an understudy for the lead role and would get to play Christine sometimes in the weekend matinees. It was a very big deal for a girl from Albuquerque who’d only performed in local theater. And then….”

Abdul shifted where he sat on the granite boulder. “And then the Heat was unleashed on the world.”

Sarah thought that was an odd way to phrase it, since everyone knew it was the djinn who’d let loose the deadly fever, but she wasn’t going to argue semantics now. “Yes. After that, it was all about survival. I didn’t talk about music, or what I’d been hoping and dreaming for, because it didn’t seem all that important compared to just making it from one day to the next. And I stopped singing.”

The djinn’s hands tightened on his knees, which were covered in the same heavy black linen that made up his cloak.

Did he switch to wool in the winter? Maybe not; she’d heard that djinn weren’t affected by heat and cold the way humans were.

“You sang the other day,” he pointed out, and she shrugged.

“I thought I was alone.” He didn’t respond to her comment, signaling that he’d like her to elaborate. “I began singing again a few years back after I started getting work assignments to go through the empty houses in Española. It seemed okay then because there wasn’t anyone around to hear me. I suppose I felt the same way about coming here to Ghost Ranch. The surroundings were so beautiful, and I knew I was alone, so I figured it was safe.”

Sarah paused there, wanting to shake her head at her ignorance. All right, there hadn’t been any real sign that there was another living soul around for miles and miles when she walked down that dirt road the first time, but she’d definitely been proven wrong there.

“So, that’s why you heard me singing,” she concluded. “I wouldn’t have done that if I’d known you were here.”

Abdul regarded her for a moment, still silent. Then he said, “Would you have come at all?”

Good question. Yes, she’d gone to Ghost Ranch understanding that she was expected to scout the area and let Miles and Lindsay and the rest of the town council know whether it would be a good location to expand into, but Sarah knew that if she’d gotten even the slightest hint that the place was inhabited by a djinn, she would have gone straight back to the rendezvous point and let Lindsay know they needed to look elsewhere.

“No,” she replied. “I know better than to intrude on a djinn’s home.”

His hooded head lifted, and she got the feeling he was looking past the hills that sheltered them now, gazing westward to the sprawling adobe house he had made his own.

“Well,” he said at length. “I am very glad that you did not know I was there.”

Sarah’s story moved him more than he had expected. Perhaps in the grand sweep of the cosmos, her individual losses were no great thing, but losing a parent at such a young age would be difficult for anyone, and then to be facing one of the greatest triumphs of her life, only to have it snatched away before she could truly experience it?

That was an entirely different kind of loss, one that would leave its own scars.

And a while later, she revealed that her father had passed from an extremely virulent form of cancer only days before the Heat swept across the world. Abdul experienced a strange sense of relief at hearing that, for now he knew that she hadn’t lost either of her parents in the Dying. Perhaps the grandmother she’d mentioned earlier was also gone by then, and therefore she had no close relatives who’d succumbed to the fever that had changed the world forever.

Wishful thinking, most likely, for she must have had cousins and aunts and uncles, and of course friends and acquaintances. Sarah would have experienced her own set of losses, even if they were not quite the same as having immediate family members die of the Heat.

He could not wish that away, no matter how much he might have liked to.

Once they were on their horses and headed back to the house, he asked, “How did you practice?”

“Practice?” Sarah repeated, as if not quite sure what he was driving at.

To be fair, Abdul wasn’t entirely certain, either, although an idea had come to him when she spoke of singing alone in the empty houses of Española, of using that marvelous instrument of hers so it wouldn’t completely wither away.

“When you began to sing again,” he said. “Did you only sing songs that appealed to you, or did you do some kind of vocal exercises?”

“Oh, I started with the exercises.” Although she was behind him as they made their way down the narrow, rocky trail, he could just glimpse the rueful quirk of her mouth as she spoke. “And I sounded awful. But I ran through every warm-up and limbering exercise I could think of, and then after that, it felt like I was ready to start singing a real song again. Still, it was always kind of haphazard, since I never knew when I’d get a chance to be alone instead of being stuck doing waitress duty at Pajarito’s or working at the co-op.”

He could see why regular vocal exercise would be necessary to keep her voice in tip-top shape. She had sounded lovely when he heard her two days earlier, but of course, that was after what appeared to have been several years of gradually working back into it.

“And before?” he went on. “Did you practice at home, or did you go to some kind of studio?”

If she thought it strange for him to be following this line of questioning, she hid it well, for she sounded natural enough as she said, “Both. We still had the piano I played as a kid, so I used that to help me get through the exercises. It’s always better to have someone else playing, though, so when I worked with my vocal coach, he had an accompanist there.”

Better and better. “I see. And how often did you do that?”

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