Page 93 of Echoes of a Silent Song
“Home?But this is my bedroom.I’m already home.”
“Not this home.Your real one.With me.”
The light brightened, but strangely, it didn’t hurt my eyes.
“Wait ...home?Home?Like ...heaven, home?I’m only seventeen.”
That didn’t seem important anymore, though.In the light, Jesus was so warm and wonderful and inviting, and I felt so loved.So very perfectly loved.
This was the love I’d longed for my whole life.From my parents.From Victor.From my nonexistent friends.The love was here, in the person of Jesus.ItwasJesus, and how could I not have gone with him?I’d have followed him anywhere.
At the very edges of the light, in my peripheral vision, Flora hovered.
Flora?
What was our maid doing in my room?Why was she coming toward me with a pillow in her hands?
“Don’t worry about her.”Jesus’s voice was as gentle as ever.“Just come with me.”
So I did.I took his hand, and he helped me up.As heavy as my limbs were earlier, now they were featherlight, almost like I didn’t even have them anymore.I floated to him, and he caught me in his arms.
I heard music.Just the faintest strains of music, but they wrapped themselves around my heart anyway.Voices and strings and instruments I’d never heard before, never even imagined, music so gorgeous it brought tears to my eyes.
“There’s so much music at home, Iris.”That deep, rich voice rumbledagainst my cheek.“And you’ll help create it.You’re going to write beautiful music here.You and I.Together.Forever.We’ve got all the time in the world.”
He carried me toward the light.The music built with every step.
And in his arms, in this light, surrounded by this music, was where I’d always wanted to be.
Chapter Thirty-Four
FORCALLUM, the rest of the day couldn’t pass fast enough.After the bomb of Marilee Nelson bringing in the lost spiral notebook containing the complete works of Iris Wallingford, the bell had rung, and he’d had to flip the switch back into teacher mode.Part of him wanted to check out for the day and make the kids watchWickedand write bland, predictable observations about it.The rest of him, the responsible conductor part of him, knew there weren’t enough rehearsal days before the December concert as it was and he’d better make the most of the ones he did have.
But that notebook, now sitting on Blair’s desk, called to him.The siren song of potential answers to questions that had burned in his heart since the day they’d found that worn sheet music in the library.
Finally,finally, the bell rang and the students trickled out.As soon as the last of them had left, Blair made a beeline for the office.But instead of starting her usual cinnamon-candle-and-peanut-butter-cup ritual, she grabbed Iris’s notebook and met Callum’s gaze.Her eyes held the same combination of excitement and trepidation that filled his own heart.
“Do you think she knew?”Callum asked.
“Who?”Blair made her way toward the piano.“Marilee?”
“Yeah.How much did she know and when did she know it?”
“I have no idea.But the important thing is she brought us the notebook now.”Blair set Iris’s notebook on the piano’s music rack and turned toward him.“And she’s afraid enough of him that she flew to Florida to stay with her sister.”
Callum nodded.He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t at least a little bit afraid of Vic Nelson now too.He definitely wasn’t the person Callum had believed him to be for all these years.Who was he really?And what was he capable of?Fear of the unknown chilled him and made him cross the room and dead bolt the door to the choir room.
“Vic doesn’t still have a key to this place, does he?”Callum jiggled the door handle to double-check.
“No, thankfully.They put new locks on everything two or three years ago.”
“That’s probably for the best.”One more jiggle—still locked—and then he sat down on the piano bench next to Blair.
She turned toward him, her fingertips on the upper-right corner of the spiral notebook.“Shall we?”
He nodded, and she opened the front cover.
Everything was ivory with age, and some of the pencil markings were blurred.Iris had scrawled her name in ballpoint pen inside the front cover, and the handwriting looked every inch like that of a teenage girl.No inkling of her musical genius.
