Lament: The Faerie Queen's Deception Read Online Free Page A

eyes like the glow off a lake; I was dazzled in spite of myself. “No, you didn’t.”
    He adjusted the microphone and addressed the crowd, his eyes running over the people’s faces as if he expected to see someone he knew. “Excited to be here, folks?”
    There was some mild clapping and calling from some of the louder dads.
    “You don’t sound excited. This is the biggest musical event for students in a six-hundred-mile radius. We’re playing for great prizes. These are your children and the peers of your children, playing their hearts out, folks! Now, are you excited, or not?”
    The audience clapped and hooted, distinctly louder. Luke gave a wild smile. “Now, Dee and I will be playing an old Irish song called ‘The Faerie Girl’s Lament.’ I hope you like it. Let us know!”
    This was where I would normally either throw up or fall down, but I didn’t feel like doing either. I felt like grinning as big as Luke. I felt like kicking some music-geek ass. It was the best feeling I’d ever had. Where had the real me gone? Because I didn’t want her back.
    “Ready, Dee?” Luke asked softly.
    His smile was infectious and for the first time in my life, being on stage felt right . I smiled hugely at him and began to play. The strings were still buttery-soft from the heat outside, and the acoustics of the stage made the harp sound twenty feet tall. Luke chipped in and began to play, and the flute was low and breathy like his singing voice, full of expression and barely suppressed emotions. Together, we sounded like an orchestra, albeit it an ancient, untamed one, and when I began to sing, the auditorium became as still as a winter night.
    Did I really have the voice of an angel? The voice that filled the room didn’t sound like mine—it sounded grown-up, complex, as agonized as the Faerie Girl in the lyrics.
    The first verse ended and I felt the flute hesitate for the barest of moments, waiting. I began to play a counter-melody, something that had never been heard before. Only this time, I’d done it before and I knew I could wander from the melody without getting lost. This time I attacked the counter-melody with sweet savagery. It climbed up the scale, bitter and lovely, and Luke’s flute came back in, low notes that climbed with mine to an almost unbearable intensity.
    Then I began to sing the last verse, the one I had just learned from Luke. Any other day, I would’ve forgotten the lyrics, but not today, with the memory of his voice singing them. The words seemed to take on new meaning as I sang them; they were real.
    I was the Faerie Girl.
    Fro and to in my dreams to you
    To the haunting tune of the harp
    For the price I paid when you died that day
    I paid that day with my heart
    Fro and to in my dreams to you
    With the breaking of my heart
    Ne’er more again will I sing this song
    Ne’er more will I hear the harp.
    By the time we got to the last refrain, Luke was grinning so widely he almost couldn’t play. I let my voice fade softly, vanishing with the flute’s last note, returning to wherever that amazing counter-melody had come from.
    The room was completely silent.
    Luke smiled a small, private smile, and then the audience leapt to its feet, clapping and whistling. Even the judges in the front seats were on their feet. I bit my lip, color flushing into my glowing face, and exchanged a look with Luke.
    We let ourselves be directed offstage for the next performers and Luke seized my hand, his face shining as if from within. “Good girl!” He released my hand. “Good girl! I have to go—but I’ll be back for the reception tonight.”
    “You have to what?” I repeated, but he had already disappeared into the throng of people backstage. I felt strangely lost.

two
    D on’t wear something trashy,” Mom advised, shutting my bedroom door behind her.
    Thanks for the hot tip , I thought, staring at the pile of clothing she’d put on my bed. I didn’t know what I was going to wear to the reception,