Page 94 of A Boy Called Lovesong

This wastheletter.

There in my trembling hands wastheoriginal letter that Joel had died for.

I had assumed it had never gotten to Lovesong. I had assumed it had been lost on the streets after the accident. Hannah, Joel’s colleague at Juilliard, had told me they had never received a reply from Lovesong. And Lovesong himself said he had tried to leave once but it was never meant to be.

But somehow the letter had gotten here.

Someone must have found it on the street…

Picked it up…

Slipped it into a mailbox…

Yet it had clearly never reached the person for whom it was intended.

Quickly I turned it over in my hand.

I saw that the envelope had been opened.

I pulled out the letter inside, the paper jittering and hard to read. And there it was, short and to the point, written with Joel’s careful hand. He always hated sending letters printed from a computer. He preferred the personal touch of handwritten ink on paper, even with the mistakes. He always told me how much he loved the imperfection of a handwritten letter.

Dear Mr. Valentin,

Thank you for sending us your somewhat unorthodox and old-fashioned application to attend The Juilliard School. It is clear, you have a gift. I would very much like to invite you to New York to perform an entry audition. If you do not have the funds to make the trip, we have grants available for students who display such an aptitude for music as yourself.

Mr. Valentin, from what I’ve heard on your cassette tape, your talent for music must be given a chance to flourish and grow. Yours is a gift destined to be shared with the world.

I eagerly await your reply.

Yours sincerely,

Joel Matheson

Professor of Musical Arts

“He never got it,” I breathed, my head spinning as I palmed a tear away. “Joel died for nothing. Lovesong never got the letter. The bastard hid it from him, and he never got it.”

All the grief and hate and sheer rage began to boil inside me all over again, but this time it wasn’t aimed at Lovesong. My blood was roasting over Reverend Jim.

“You bastard. You fucking—”

I stopped mid-curse.

For at that moment, there was something else in the chest that caught my eye.

I reached into the box and pulled out a piece of paper, yellowed and crinkled with age. On it was written a note.

To whomever may be blessed enough to find this child,

The Lord has punished me with a blind baby boy, so I see no choice but to summon the Devil and trade my soul for the gift of music, for this child adores a lullaby like a…

The paper didn’t have any more space for words.

I turned it over and saw—

… Lovesong

This was the note that had been left with Lovesong in the basket, when his mother Harper supposedly sold her soul to the Devil.

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