Page 1 of Symphony of Salvation

Chapter one

Niles

It started with a ubiquitous high F. Its unwavering, resonant tone commanded the attention of over two thousand theater patrons, who hushed in their seats and shifted their attention forward.

The show had begun.

The single, stunning note hung suspended long past its culmination, leaving an auditory imprint behind. Such wonderous moments often surfaced poignant images in my imagination, transporting me to faraway vistas. On that cool early December evening, I landed pleasantly in a forest of fragrant evergreens. Spring flowers in full bloom. A bee rested on a delicate petal, sucking sweet nectar from its middle. A babbling brook. The air warm against my cheeks. Lovers lying in a muddle of blankets, flushed from exertion, their picnic forgotten.

I closed my eyes and let the waves of beauty, drawn from a particular tone on a French horn, unfold.

Music had the power to flay me, leaving me raw and emotional. Exposed. Unprotected. I was at its mercy. Always.Since the day I heard my first concerto at the tender age of ten, in a long-ago doctor’s office, as I nervously awaited a booster shot and my mother paged through a weathered copy ofChatelaine, my life acquired meaning. Any choice of a future had been taken away. Call it fate. Call it destiny. Call it a vocation. I knew then music would be a crucial part of my life.

Although fleeting, the moment with the French horn felt as though it extended for eons. One note and I was unmoored, drifting on a timeless journey. At peace. Lost, yet in no rush to be found. Then, out of the deepest, darkest depths of the forest came the steady heartbeat drum of the timpani. It spoke with a resounding pulse, marking the rebirth of the world, calling to every animal, every insect, and every reptile to emerge from slumber and rejoice.

I opened my eyes and let the resplendent eruption of symphonic wonder encapsulate me.

The grand theater vanished, dimming in my periphery. The musicians, swathed in brilliant white light and uniformly dressed in their penguin attire, performed spectacularly. Hypnotically.

Visiting Roy Thompson Hall and seeing the Toronto Symphony Orchestra was a treat, but it brought both boundless joy and tremendous pain. Envy wrapped her fingers around my heart, tugging with enough force to remind me of what I’d failed to achieve.

Ambition hadn’t been enough. Infinite desire turned out to be irrelevant.

Life was malleable to a point, but commanding fate or destiny or providence wasn’t possible, and if I believed in such intervention, god didn’t see me fit for the stage.

Sometimes, our biggest dreams weren’t to be realized.

The stage and players blurred as I swallowed a lump of familiar shame and blinked heavily a few times to clear the sting of regret. This should have been my life. Why had I given up?

Flutes, flittering and trilling birds, took a turn while the oboes snuck up behind them, bounding grasshoppers disturbing the brush. Before long, they too were chased off by a chorus of trumpets, leaping playful foxes, chasing each other along the embankment by the stream. The violins danced and swooped, butterflies catching the air current. The trombones stretched and pinged, bullfrogs lazing in the long grass. The forest was alive. Riotous. Stupendous.

My mind conjured spring despite the flurries that had been falling before our arrival. It was a time of year I enjoyed, so it made sense I should land there in reverie.

With the approaching holiday, the evening’s performance was titledA Christmas Fusion, with highlights from Bach’sChristmas Oratorio, Handel’sMessiah, Vivaldi’s “Winter,” Tchaikovsky’sThe Nutcracker, and several more iconic masterpieces to adequately mark the season.

A crescendo.

Tension.

Anticipation.

I held my breath as the aria’s sheer perfection held me cradled in her arms like a lover.

Climbing. Building. Growing. Swelling.

It abruptly stopped. The soundless pause was its own music, perfectly orchestrated to becharm an audience. Not a single person present would dare to disturb it.

The imprint, the echoes of the chase and rebirth, remained, suspending the moment as though time had ceased.

The lights on the orchestra dimmed as a single, radiant spotlight bloomed at the corner of the stage, revealing a young woman who was barely a woman at all. A girl, really. Fine-boned and sylphlike, she wore her flaxen hair down. It spilled in rippling waves to the middle of her back, glossy and angelic. Spine straight, her fingers moved over the ivories of a sleek grand piano. Fairies dancing. Elves scavenging. First one, then many, until the forest was riddled with mystical creatures.

In a shimmering black dress that exposed her pale arms and accentuated her lack of womanly curves, the girl could have been mistaken for a child of twelve. She was petite, as delicate as the notes filling the auditorium. A wonder in and of herself.

But fourteen-year-old Constantina Castellanos was not a child, and if her biography in the playbill was to be believed, she had not been a child for a long time. She’d spent a lifetime on stage, studying, performing, and dedicating her entire existence to music. With two professional musicians as parents, it was hardly surprising.

Koa bumped my arm and leaned against my side; his mouth close enough that his breath tickled my ear lobe. “There she is.”

Yes. There she was. My new student. Unfathomable but true. What could I possibly have to offer a girl like Constantina? A fresh wave of nerves scrambled my belly.

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