By Sunday evening, most of the scientists and other conference attendees had departed, filtering away through the airport or the train station, or returning to nearby colleges and universities. Most of them received a moment of personal appreciation from Brother Carl. With a gleam in his eyes, he shook their hands, knowing he would be granted few, if any, opportunities to see them again.
The conference had allowed Lyceum to add many interesting disks to its library collection, and Liberty had already started to review some of them, dragging Ashley with her on those infrequent occasions when she wasn’t busy doing gymnastics or spending time with Jenny.
While many people at Lyceum had been focusing their attention on the properties of mysterious energy paths wending their way through the solar system, most of the world had been closely observing the unfolding events in Central America. An ominous incident had taken place Sunday afternoon, word of which had bounced around the world via the orbiting telecommunications platforms, but the reception of that information by the public had not occurred until air time for the Evening News.
Ashley was at her kitchen shift, but about a hundred Lyceum members, including Shawn and Liberty, were gathered around a large broadcast monitor in the Residential Lobby.
“...it began as a peaceful day, and most local residents had attended Mass
like on any other Sunday. Both the government leaders and the dissidents seemed to be in a mood of reconciliation, even though they had not yet agreed on a meeting location for the talks they had both subscribed to, in principle, last week after the United Nations observers arrived. Then disaster struck. At 4:13 p.m. Eastern Standard Time a bullet came from nowhere and killed one of the international observers. It was not known then or now which side fired that shot. A camera crew on a nearby hill quickly responded, capturing the aftermath of the event, and here we can see the fallen observer, with town’s people rushing quickly but cautiously to her aid...”
Everyone could see the light blue of Lyceum’s field clothing. Everyone could see that the fallen observer had long, blond hair. Both colors contrasted sharply with the earth tones of the surrounding buildings, the rich greens of the lush tropical foliage, and the dark hair of the local people. Feelings of terror started welling up inside Liberty. Her throat closed itself tightly, and her entire body was covered with sweat within seconds.
“...the bullet that struck the observer is now confirmed to have been a twelve millimeter low-velocity round that killed her instantly. That caliber of ammunition is readily available in Central America. A medic was quickly on the scene, as we can see here, but nothing could be done...”
The viewers could see the police and soldiers coming out of a nearby government building and rushing toward the scene of the sniper attack.
Liberty could feel her entire mind and body rebelling at what she was seeing, and she could feel herself teetering on the edge of a black abyss. She stood up while she still could and dashed for the door. Shawn saw her go, but his attention was caught by the newscaster’s next statement.
“...then a very interesting thing happened. As you may know, it is standard policy in international aid organizations to cease operations any time an area becomes dangerous for any reason. That generally means that as soon as the first shot is fired, they pack up and leave. The organization providing the blue-suited observers you have been seeing on our news reports for the past week and a half appears to have a different policy. Not only did all of the other observers who were on-duty throughout the city remain at their posts, as soon as the fallen aid worker was carried away, another observer took her place within ten minutes. As you can see on your screens, the
replacement was also female, and appears to be quite young...”
Then Shawn realized that the fallen observer could only be Sister Nancy, and that Nancy was Liberty’s mentor, and that Liberty was probably feeling pretty terrible at that moment and might need a friend. He made his way to the same door and went out.
At first he could not see anyone, but he could faintly hear something. A muffled sobbing, choking sound was coming from the darkness of the trees and bushes not far down the path that led toward Aurora Borealis Hall. He followed the sound, wishing Ashley or someone else was there to help, but also feeling that this was not something that could be put off. He left the walkway and groped his way closer in the darkness.
It wasn’t long before he found Liberty, crumpled into a huddled mass of shaking grief, just a little way down a trail through the wet huckleberry bushes, sitting on the soggy ground under the dripping fir trees. He knelt close beside her and wrapped his arms around her, and she responded by clutching onto him tightly and redoubling the anguish and grief she was pouring out.
There the two friends stayed for many minutes. Liberty was far from any coherent words, still needing to just shake and cry. Many other members had soon realized what had happened and who it would effect most deeply, and had located Liberty on a computer screen or by chance while walking by from their residence hall. As soon as they saw that Shawn was with her, several of them stayed on the path nearby in case they were needed, but they did not intervene.
In the Main Office, Lyceum’s team in Central America had finally gotten through on a SatLink channel, and a secondary support group was being assembled to fly down on the next available airliner to assist the observers already there, replacing any who wanted to return to Lyceum.
While Liberty still grieved in the forest, Ashley and Jason were located, and they soon joined Shawn in comforting their stricken friend. She was still incoherent, feeling a blackness surrounding her, with all her dreams destroyed of having a real mother and a real family for the first time in her life.
When all four of them were starting to shiver from the cold and wet,
Liberty finally began to verbalize the loss she had just sustained. But her words were still mixed with many sobs and screams of despair. A little while later a member crept near with a message.
“Liberty, your father’s on the SatLink. He needs you...”
The grieving girl fell silent. “Oh, my God! My dad must be feeling so terrible!”
With help from her friends, she stumbled into the Main Lobby and found a telecommunications both. Ashley dashed to the office and had the channel transferred.
“Honey, I’m so sorry...” the tear-stained face of the senator said.
“Me too, Daddy. I know how much she meant to you. I knew something was wrong when she left, but I didn’t know what it was. Please, Daddy, I need to be with you right now. Can I please come home?...”
Six hours later, at about three in the morning, Michael Buchanan arrived at Lyceum. Liberty had been willing to go to Philadelphia, but the senator had needed to get away from the intense pressures he had recently been under, and he reminded his daughter that Lyceum was a much better place to deal with such a grievous loss than was a large, east coast city. He didn’t say so, but he judged that his daughter was not in any shape for a trans-continental airline trip.
So Liberty had reluctantly agreed to await his arrival, and per his request, arranged for him the most secluded accommodations possible. Luckily at that time of year only about half of Lyceum’s hermitage cabins were in use. One was immediately reserved for the senator for as long as he might need it, and appropriate security measures were implemented.
Father and daughter held each other for a long time just outside gate D-14
at Portland International Airport, both grateful for the other, but both aware that something they each needed, which had been so close to coming true, had just been torn away from them forever. All they had left, as far as a family was concerned, was each other. They walked slowly, silently to the waiting Lyceum van.
It was comforting to the senator to be in the place that had been Nancy’s home, and which was still his daughter’s home. They sat by one of the
fireplaces in the Main Lobby for many hours, sometimes talking about little things, sometimes just gazing at the flames. The sun came up somewhere above the winter clouds, and still they sat together as if in a timeless trance.
By that time, plans had already been made to cover Liberty’s responsibilities for the rest of the week.
It was mid-morning on the day after Nancy had been killed before they wandered to the Dining Hall, picked at their breakfasts, and then ambled toward the senator’s cabin, where his luggage had already been delivered.
He looked at the simple log building, with its shingled roof and little windows, and noticed that it was completely surrounded by dripping trees and bushes. Nothing else man-made could be seen, nor could the cabin be seen from anywhere else. “This is nice. And somehow it’s proper that it’s raining — the trees are as sad as we are.”
He went inside, and found a small bed and other simple furniture, a wood stove and plenty of firewood, and a little kitchenette with an assortment of things in the cupboards. “This is what I need for awhile.” He pulled a short stool up to the wood stove and busied himself building a fire.
Liberty sat cross-legged on a piece of rug on the floor nearby, breaking kindling for him. “I know you need some time alone, Dad. I guess I do too.
But I’d like to spend some time with you every day. Would you like to have breakfast with me tomorrow?”
The sad father smiled at his very perceptive and very intelligent daughter.
“As long as you come get me. I have no intention of looking at a clock for at least a week.”
She hugged him tightly and then prepared to return to the buildings of Lyceum that were her home. She looked back when she was only a little ways from the hermitage cabin, and saw the wisp of smoke rising from the chimney. She was glad her father would be near for awhile. She needed him right now more than she could ever remember needing him before.
Father and daughter met for one meal each day, and spent some time before or after, usually in some quiet part of Lyceum where they could talk freely. The senator then went alone to the Recreation Center or the Museum or the Hall of Shrines to deal with his own memories of Nancy before
wandering back to his cabin.
On his third day at Lyceum, he and Liberty began reviewing all of the news coverage of the Central American crisis. Liberty saw again the footage that was taken from the nearby hill just moments after Nancy had been shot. It made her cry, but she wiped her eyes when sixteen-year-old Sister Joan had bravely taken Nancy’s place at the targeted observation post.
They were both fascinated when they learned that Nancy’s body had been taken to the Parish Church, and that just about everyone for miles around, including both the government police and the dissidents, had left their weapons behind and come to pay their respects. By Monday, a meeting place for talks had been agreed to, and those talks had begun on Tuesday and showed promise of bearing fruit very quickly and leading to a compromise that both sides could live with. Both father and daughter were heartened that Nancy’s death seemed to have had a purpose.
The Evening News that day confirmed that both sides of the conflict had been very touched by Nancy’s death, impressed by the fact that the other observers had stayed at their posts, and moved by the sight of Sister Joan stepping into a position of known danger. Those events had established the credibility of the United Nation’s efforts to help reach a diplomatic settlement, and had convinced both sides that the world was serious about the crisis not escalating into an armed conflict.
On Friday of that week, Senator Buchanan began to turn his attention to his work. He knew that Nancy would not have wanted him to abandon the Nuclear Disarmament Treaty or the other important issues before Congress.
He began to make phone calls to see how various political processes were shaping up.
Liberty returned to her classes, although she still cherished the time she had with her father. They spent much of Saturday together, both knowing that the end of their shared time was nearing, both knowing that they had lives to continue, even though Nancy could no longer be any part of those lives, as mentor or fiancée, save in memory.
On Sunday morning, Senator Buchanan appeared in the Main Lobby with his suitcases in hand. But he soon learned something that would keep him
there until late that night.
Sister Nancy’s body had been watched over by the parish priest for a day before the Lyceum team had arranged for a vehicle and two members to transport it to the capital city. Once there, it could be properly preserved, but bureaucratic regulations had required photographs, samples, a partial autopsy, the payment of three taxes, and the notarized execution of seven forms. The U.N. office had helped all they could, but the process had still taken five days. Finally, on Saturday, the body was cleared for transport to the airport, where airline regulations consumed another day. At long last, on Sunday morning, at about the time Senator Buchanan entered the Main Lobby with his luggage, Nancy was finally on her way home, and Lyceum was alerted. Transfer from the airport was arranged, and a memorial service scheduled for that evening, as there were many people who needed to say good-bye and begin to heal from their loss.
Liberty could tell that her father was glad for an excuse to stay a little longer. Quietly they spent part of the day together, and part of it separately, working on what they wanted to say at the service that evening. Many times sentences were crossed out and rewritten. Many times eyes were dried that had become too wet to see their notebooks.
More than four hundred Lyceum members were there, and another fifty or so people who came from United Nations offices and from Nancy’s home town. Her parents came, as well as a sister and a brother.
Liberty had never before felt so clumsy with words as when she attempted to speak at that memorial service. But her love for her mentor showed through clearly. Her father had thought of few words he could say, but he said them fearlessly, and assured everyone present that he would continue to work on all those issues that he knew were important to Nancy.
Liberty cried like a baby when she finally saw the lady’s face in the casket, the lady who was supposed to be her mother someday, a better mother than she had ever had before. Her father’s face was also wet when he gazed at his beloved, remembering the last time he had seen Nancy alive, her face smiling and laughing with Christmas cheer.
Michael Buchanan finally headed for the airport, promising to return for Nancy’s funeral, which would be held as soon as the thirty members in
Central America could return. Several U.N. diplomats who had been at the service were on his flight, so he was able to catch up on recent international events, including the fact that both sides were close to an agreement in the Central American crisis.
Nancy’s funeral a week later helped Liberty to say good-bye to her mentor, and she enjoyed seeing her father again. But by then she had something else to think about, something that made her want to sink her teeth into one of the few things that all members of Lyceum did that Liberty had not yet begun.
Ashley was out walking one morning, wrestling with the fact that she had been invited to compete in the National Gymnastics Championships in May, but had absolutely no intention of letting her training cut into her time with Jenny. She was strolling thoughtfully along a pathway behind the playground when she came upon an unexpected sight. There, on the side of the path, on a patch of ground that had never before contained a garden of any kind but only weeds that were kept in check by the grounds crew, sat Liberty, poking at the ground with a little shovel. Some hardy plants in small pots peeked out of a cardboard box near her.
“Hi, Lib! What’s up?” she said, sitting down on the edge of the walkway.
“I figured it was about time I started my garden. After, you know, Nancy getting killed and everything, I sort of felt the need for something in my life that was growing instead of...” With a shrug she left her sentence for Ashley’s imagination to complete.
“I’ve got to start one too, I guess, but I didn’t think February was a good time to start a garden. There isn’t much that’s frost-hardy enough to grow yet, is there?”
Liberty looked thoughtful, and had a sad little smile on her face. “You’re right. This isn’t a good time to grow very many things. A few things, but not everything.”
Liberty had recently discovered that she wasn’t pregnant. And she had also learned why. The pills she had been taking to lick the one Group B virus she harbored had caused temporary sterility. She had been informed of that side effect, but had started the medication series before she and Jason had become lovers, and so hadn’t paid much attention. Now she just looked at the
ground between her knees and let her tears fall on the already wet soil.
Ashley moved closer and put her hand on her friend’s leg. “What is it, Lib?”
Liberty looked into Ashley’s gentle eyes. “It was so special, the first time with Jason. I just wish... I just wish it could have happened on the first time...” Liberty’s words disintegrated into sobs.
Ashley waited until she thought her friend was ready before speaking. “Do you still love him?”
“Uh
huh.”
“Does he still love you?”
“Yep!” Liberty said, a sparkle coming to her eyes.
“Then time stands still for you, and every time you make love is just like the first time!”
“You really think so?”
“I know so,” Ashley said with complete confidence. “You can’t imagine how hard it was to take that pill while Tim was here at Christmas.”
“So you’ve felt that craving too?”
“Uh
huh.”
The two friends embraced each other, there in the mud, beside a little-used walkway, on an early February morning. A light, cold drizzle began to fall on them, but they hardly noticed.
Chapter 4: Farewell to a Shining Star
Ashley was in a particularly jovial mood as she pranced toward the Dining Hall for lunch the following Saturday. She had wrestled with her schedule all week, and with Sister Heather’s help, had finally struck just the right balance between her training for the National Championships, her time with Jenny, and her regular work responsibilities and classes, including her new Flight Attendant class, which she was adamant about continuing.
She had also just learned that very morning at the hospital that Karen would be able to walk again. It was going to take months, maybe years of therapy, but the doctors were in agreement that it would someday be possible.
She had not seen Karen in a happier mood since before the accident.
As soon as Ashley arrived in the members’ section of the cafeteria, she began her usual Saturday chore, which consisted of grabbing carts full of serving dishes from the kitchen, just as the cooks completed them, and rolling them out to the tables, distributing them evenly before the arrival of more than five hundred members made the movement of carts impossible.
Ashley was just finishing when the first wave of members arrived. She was heading back to the kitchen with a cart when Brother Kenneth caught up with her.
“Can you sit with us, Ashley?” he said, nodding toward Brother Chad who was holding three seats.
She didn’t have any plans, Liberty was sitting with Jason, Jenny was eating in the Hospice Center with some of the residents, and Shawn was not on
campus. “Sure,” she said, realizing they must be wanting to talk about Jenny.
As soon as she joined them, they all filled their plates and then listened to the announcements. To everyone’s delight, there were new members to introduce.
“Brothers and Sisters, from Prince Edward Island, please welcome Sister Vanessa!”
A large, black-haired lady stood and everyone clapped and waved.
“And from Italy, please welcome Brother Dario!”
A young man with curly brown hair stood and smiled, and everyone clapped.
“And from Wyoming, please welcome Sister Charleen!”
A skinny girl of about Ashley’s age, wearing a cowboy shirt, stood up, looking quite embarrassed but happy, and everyone clapped. Ashley noticed Liberty waving at the new member from the table where she and Jason were sitting.
There were a few routine announcements, after which everyone attacked their plates.
“We wanted to confer with you about Jenny,” Brother Kenneth said.
Ashley
nodded.
“She has taken pains to hide it from you, but it is getting very hard for her to work on her music,” Chad said. “Her attention span is getting shorter and shorter. She gets very little done except when you are there, Ashley. I’m not suggesting you should be there more often. What I’m trying to say is that the effort she puts out during that time is about all she has.”
Ashley was afraid of something like this. She knew Jenny had terminal cancer, but as yet had shown no signs of dying. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew a turn for the worse had to come along eventually.
“She has told me a couple of times now that a haze or darkness is growing around her,” the doctor said. “And the last tests show that her tumors are enlarging rapidly.”
“Isn’t she close to finishing?” Ashley asked.
“Yes,” Chad said. “We have only about two and a half minutes of score left to synchronize, one place in Voice Six that needs looking at, and perhaps a little thought given to crescendos and decrescendos. Very little that Jenny
herself needs to do. We’ve already spent some time talking about instrumentation, and she said she only hears the voices in pure tones. So I had the computer play them on a variety of different instruments, and she indicated a few preferences.”
“What we’re wondering,” Kenneth began, “is whether it would be helpful to Jenny to set some kind of goal, in other words if she would benefit by a tiny bit of pressure...”
“Perhaps for the purpose of a public performance,” Chad said. “Do you think she would enjoy attending the first presentation of her symphony, with the Temple filled with a thousand people?”
“Wow. I bet she’d love it! How long would it take to put together?”
“It would have to be soon,” the doctor said. “I don’t think she’ll be with us more than... two or three weeks. Perhaps less.”
Ashley closed her eyes. What should we do, Father? Would Jenny be happiest finishing her music, or just working on it as long as she can? The answer came almost instantly, as it usually did when she prayed sincerely.
She opened her eyes and shared her intuitive knowledge with the doctor and the musician. “Jenny would only be happy if she finished, and heard it performed at least once. She’ll handle a little pressure. And I’ll be with her a lot.”
“So, when should we aim for, two weeks?” Chad asked.
“No. That’s too risky. One week,” Ashley said, not sure why she felt so confident about what she was saying, but knowing it was important.
Brother Kenneth nodded his agreement.
“It’ll be tough getting everything done in a week...” Chad said.
“I’ll be able to help,” Ashley said. “I’m dropping gymnastics, except for the class I coach, for as long as Jenny needs me.”
Both men looked at Ashley, and knew what a sacrifice she was making.
“I can get someone to help with the event arrangements,” Chad added.
“So... I guess we’re talking about next Saturday?”
“We still have to ask Jenny,” Ashley said. Then she realized who had to do it. “I’ll ask her.”
“Be sure to make it clear that it really shouldn’t be any later than next Saturday, not without great risk...” Brother Kenneth said.
“I
understand.”
As they turned their attention to eating, both men were silently amazed at the strength contained in the little gymnast beside them. And they were not, on this occasion, thinking of her physical athletic abilities.
As Ashley had predicted, Jenny was ecstatic about the idea of her music being performed publicly, in Lyceum’s huge Temple, with real musicians, printed programs, ushers, and lights that would move and dance to her music.
Ashley kept the situation simple: the following Saturday evening was the only time it could be done. Jenny seemed unfazed, and knew exactly how many bars she still needed to synchronize.
Brother Kenneth and Sister Marscha put their heads together, and with Jenny’s permission, added some medicines and herbs to her diet that would help her get the most out of the next week or two.
Jenny’s mother was contacted and invited to attend, with transportation paid for by Lyceum, as always, but she said she couldn’t possibly travel on such short notice, and didn’t really know anything about music anyway, except for what was playing on the local Country and Western station. The member who made that call logged the results in the computer, but decided it was not essential to convey that particular piece of information to Jenny.
Brother Chad and Jenny went to work. They agreed it would be best to break their work sessions into small segments, but to meet more often. Those sessions were scheduled so that Ashley, no longer in gymnastics during the afternoon, could attend them all. Brian, at Jenny’s insistence and his delight, would also be there at every session.
Chad also prepared a small portable computer so that they could work in Jenny’s apartment while she lay in bed if necessary. But Jenny was so excited about the prospect of a public performance of her song that it didn’t look like that contingency plan would be necessary.
Actually, Jenny had no idea what sort of crowd Lyceum could draw by offering a few amenities along with the basic program. And the event planners used Lyceum’s considerable connections to make sure that a large number of musicians would be present, including several prominent composers and conductors.
The seven musicians who were selected to play parts of Jenny’s symphony began practicing on Monday. Other parts were so complex that Brother Chad decided they were better left to the computer on this occasion. Jenny seemed so happy that real musicians would be playing any part of her music that she was beside herself with happiness and embarrassment when she was introduced to them at their first practice. She enjoyed watching their jaws drop as they listened to the first section they needed to practice and realized its unexpected richness and sophistication. At first they had looked at her with respect. Now they looked at her with wonder.
By Tuesday Jenny had synchronized another minute of her music, and had gotten the rough place in Voice Six corrected. The musicians had tried all the sections they would be playing, and felt well challenged, but decided it was within their abilities. Lyceum’s ads announcing the concert hit the regional newspapers, and with tantalizing snatches of the symphony itself, were heard on several Seattle, Portland, and Eugene radio stations.
On Wednesday another half minute of score was put behind them, and notations added for the most important volume dynamics. Liberty was happy to learn that she would be the Control Technician, and began to study and annotate the control script. Reservations began to pour in for the banquet that was to be held before the concert. Several record companies also called, having heard the radio ads, but were informed that Lyceum did its own producing.
Thursday was not as productive. The last minute of the symphony was very complex and shifted musical modes several times. By the end of the day, they had only finished about a third of it. Brother Chad knew it was going to be close, but he kept smiling. They did, however, get a few more crescendos scored that they had missed the first time.
By Friday afternoon, Jenny was in tears, Ashley was aching to get back to the gym because she felt completely useless, and Brian, for perhaps the first time in his life, was running out of patience. Brother Chad had a major task keeping their spirits up. He said a silent prayer of thanks that the musicians didn’t have to learn the ending to Jenny’s song.
That evening, Ashley asked Sister Shannon to cover her gymnastics class, and she skipped French and Dance. She and Brian stayed with Jenny right up
until the moment she fell asleep, and learned one of the reasons Jenny was having so much trouble concentrating. She was beginning to hear music in her mind almost constantly. Needless to say, it was seldom the passage they were attempting to synchronize.
That night Jenny dreamed. To the strains of her symphony, she flew like a bird, floating through canyons and valleys, and amongst mountain peaks and clouds, higher and higher, until she could see the moon and the stars. Then she glided past all the planets and moons, and knew them all by name, but by different names than she had ever heard before. Finally she turned toward the stars, and wanted to go there so badly, but a voice stopped her.
Not yet, Jenny. Soon.
As she glided back through the moons and planets, through the clouds, mountains, and valleys, she heard the ending to her song. All seven voices at once. Properly synchronized.
When Saturday morning dawned, Jenny was as happy and nonchalant as any school girl looking forward to spending the weekend on fun and frivolous activities. She started the morning by warming sweet rolls and making hot chocolate for herself and Brian in her apartment. Brian knew that the best way to make the day happy for Jenny was to spend it doing whatever she wanted to do.
Ashley, however, was still feeling anxious about the unfinished music score and the rapidly approaching concert. She met Jenny and Brian as they were coming out of the Hospice Center, and Brian had to flash her several dirty looks before she got the message and learned to keep her anxieties to herself.
Jenny spent the morning doing all the silliest things she could think of, from walking in the rain and talking to the animals in the barns, to swimming in a hot tub with banana scented bubble bath added. Then the three of them went for lunch in the restaurant part of the Dining Hall, and Jenny ordered all of her favorite foods, including a bacon cheese burger, a taco, and a strawberry sundae.
Brian told the cashier to charge it all to him. She smiled, and then quietly passed the expense along to the Hospice Program.
After lunch, Jenny insisted on going to the Library, where she selected the most action-packed movie she could find. It turned out to be so action-packed that it verged on slapstick, and Jenny giggled for almost the entire hour and a half of battles with inept ninja in crowded Asian cities and high-speed car and helicopter chase scenes in which none of the good guys ever got hurt.
As the three of them stepped out of the viewing room, still laughing about the silliness of the movie, Jenny finally began to talk about her concert that evening, to Ashley’s relief.
“Do you think Sister Hillary would mind doing my hair again, like she did at Christmas?”
“I bet she’d love to do it!” Brian said.
“Do you know if Brother Chad is in the Audio Lab?” she asked, turning to Ashley.
“Shall we go find out?”
“Yeah. And I was wondering... will you guys help me tonight? I don’t want to use my wheelchair.”
“Sure!” they both said at once.
When they arrived at the Audio Production and Editing Lab, Chad was there, staring at a screen full of Jenny’s music score, wondering what he was going to do with the last thirty seconds of the song if Jenny wasn’t able to finish the synchronizing.
“Hi, Jenny! Come on in, Brian and Ashley! How are you all? I’m very glad to see you guys!”
“We’ve been having fun,” Jenny said. “Would it be okay with you if I finished my song now? It won’t take long.”
“Of course you can! It certainly is beyond me. There are at least three different modes dancing around each other, and I think they are all coming back together, but for the life of me I don’t see how.”
Jenny giggled. “They all do. Where were we?”
“At about measure five eighty. Here it is...” He displayed the last section they had worked on.
“Would you play five fifty to five eighty?”
“Sure.”
They all listened to the forty seconds of music.
“Wow!” Brian said. “That part really builds up the tension. I bet the ending’s going to be great!”
“There’s a little problem at about five seventy-five... yes, there in Voice One, those eighth notes need to be staccato, all five of them, with a two-measure decrescendo starting there.”
“Yes, I see what you mean...” Chad said, adding the notations.
“Now, in five eighty two, change that half note to a quarter note in Voice Two, and double the length of the rest in Voice Four. Then in bar five eighty-five, line up Voices One through Four on that C sharp, adjusting the rests that come before. Yes... perfect.”
“Oh, yes! Now I can see how it’s coming together! These three voices are modulating from the minor back here to an augmented, while Voice Seven is anticipating the major with a sustained seventh. That is absolutely beautiful!
But how do we resolve Voice Five, which is still holding onto this B flat, creating a minor?”
“Watch! That half note in Voice Five should really be a dotted half, with the F sharp disappearing. It was a mistake. Then in bar five ninety, Voice Three crescendos while bridging down to a G natural...”
“Oh, I can see it! That resolves this minor, and the augmented is resolved up here, all except for Voice Two...”
“Yeah. Two is way wrong. Those quarter notes should actually just be a flourish of sixteenth notes, and then the D takes up the rest of the measure.”
“Okay! NOW I see what’s happening. This has got to be one of the most intricate endings ever written. But we’ve still got a mess here in five ninety-four.”
“It’s not as bad as it looks. Add an eighth rest in Voice Two, and dot the E
sharp in ninety-six. See how it’s all lining up now?”
“No. Wait a minute... Yes! My God, I’ve never seen a chord like that before. It’s contributing to at least three modes at once!”
Jenny smiled. “Four.”
“So
that’s how the modes are all going to come together. They’ll just all dink around for awhile, sometimes talking to each other, sometimes just doing their own thing, and then suddenly they’ll just all happen to be using
the same chord, and presto!, we forget all about what seemed like chaotic complexity for a moment, and suddenly we’re back in major brilliant!”
Ashley and Brian, who were both much less able to imagine what the music would sound like just by seeing the score on the computer screen, looked at each other and shrugged.
Jenny continued her work excitedly. “Everything looks good up to bar six hundred and two, then Voice Seven slips behind. It needs a quarter rest right after the C sharp, and Voice Two is getting ahead so that F shouldn’t be dotted...”
“Oh, yes. Oh, YES! The ending is on the screen! This is the home stretch, Jenny, and it’s going to be a beautiful finish!”
“I know. I’ve heard it,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone but with a smile on her face. “Let’s just line up all those wholes at the end, which are held and faded out...”
“Okay, so Voice One needs an eighth...”
“Yeah. It needs it at the D two notes before. Bridge, please. That way the G aligns with the other voices.”
“And Voice Four is a quarter too long...”
“Hmm. Right there at the F sharp.”
“Make that a dotted half?”
“Yeah. Perfect.”
“That’s it! The finishing notes are synchronized! Where should I play it from?”
“Umm... five seventy-five.”
They all listened as the ending tangled itself, and then suddenly resolved all of its musical themes in a completely satisfying major chord so broad it would have been impossible to play on any keyboard. But they had all heard a couple of things that didn’t sound right.
“Please display measure six twelve...” Jenny said.
“Right here?” Chad’s fingers danced on the computer’s keys, knowing they were very close to finishing.
Jenny giggled. “That A in Voice Three should be an A flat.”
“Okay...”
“And in six eighteen... um... it must be the bass note in Voice Seven.”
“It sounds dissonant. What does it need?”
“Let’s drop it a third.”
“Hmm,” Chad said, noticing the note change color on the screen.
“Computer says it just went below the range of human hearing.”
Jenny closed her eyes. Everyone waited anxiously. After a good half minute, she opened them. “That’s okay. It’s not just for human ears.”
Chad smiled at Ashley, Ashley grinned at Brian, and then they all surrounded Jenny with hugs and compliments for finishing the editing of her song. Then Chad had the computer play it beginning to end. Jenny changed one more note, and added a few staccato marks, but could think of nothing else she could do to improve it. And she looked very, very relieved.
They all looked at each other in silence. The three Lyceum members were becoming aware of the immensity of the task Jenny had just completed. The last five months of her life had been devoted to the creation of the musical work they had just heard, and Jenny had spent the two years before that playing parts of it on a plastic penny whistle out on the back porch of a nursing home. Now she was expected to live only a few days longer, maybe a few weeks at the very most. It was her life work. She would never earn college degrees, never have a career, never marry, and never have children.
This song was all she could leave behind. It was truly her one and only opus magnum.
Finally Ashley broke the silence.
“What do you want to call it?”
“Gosh... I don’t know! But isn’t it time for Sister Hillary to do my hair?”
They all laughed, and then Brian excitedly pushed Jenny out of the editing lab to keep her beauty appointment. Ashley headed toward her residence hall to shower and dress for the concert, and Chad turned his attention to developing the control script that would tell the computer when to play and when to defer to the musicians, when to control the laser projectors, and when to activate the shining stars that Liberty was busy hanging in the Ecumenical Temple at that very moment. He knew he had to work quickly.
When Jenny, with her elegantly curled hair almost touching her shoulders for the first time in years, stepped into the banquet room wearing a lacy white
dress, nearly two hundred people, all in formal attire, stood and clapped. She immediately turned red.
Standing at her side holding her hand, Brian wore a dark brown suit and tie. He was not embarrassed, but he was deeply touched. They were clapping for his Jenny, the girl whose life had become intertwined with his during the last several months. They were clapping for the girl he had grown to care about more than anyone or anything else. They were clapping, he suddenly realized, for the girl he loved.
Standing on her other side, holding her other hand, Ashley wore her light green pants suit. As she listened to the applause, she was feeling very happy that the risk she had taken by bringing Jenny to Lyceum had not been in vain.
Jenny had been able to finish her song, had heard it played all the way through by the computer, and would soon hear it performed for a live audience. Ashley knew that Jenny had other dreams, like having long and beautiful hair, but she felt powerless to help Jenny make those other dreams come true. She had done all she could. She hoped it would be enough...
Brother Chad, sporting a tuxedo, introduced all three of them, and then gave the guests a brief account of how Jenny was discovered and brought to Lyceum, and how her symphony was laboriously recorded and edited. He did not talk about Jenny’s impending death. The fact that she was terminally ill was already known to everyone present.
Jenny found herself seated across from Raymond Kaiser, the conductor of the Pacific Northwest Festival Orchestra, a quiet man of about fifty with somewhat untamed hair, who exuded a charismatic presence. Next to him sat Clarina Drake, a composer with scores of published songs to her credit, many of them well known. She looked at Jenny with searching but kind eyes. Both had been briefed by Lyceum, and had agreed to not pump Jenny with questions, but instead to talk about their own work and to make her feel a part of the larger community of professional musicians.
Everyone ate prime rib or scampi, sipped fine wine or sparkling grape juice, and savored raspberry cheese cake as the conductor and the composer took turns sharing amusing tales from their lives. Jenny began to realize that the joys and sorrows she had experienced getting her music ready were not at all unique. Her eyes and ears were open wide throughout the entire meal, and
when not sampling the tasty foods, she was smiling.
After dinner, everyone made their way to the Ecumenical Temple, and Jenny’s two friends again steadied her as she walked along slowly with the banquet guests. To Jenny’s delight, an usher handed her a program and showed them to their reserved seats. Once settled, the ten year old looked with happiness at the seven chairs and music stands arranged in a circle on the floor of the Temple below her. She was still, at that point, expecting the performance to consist of the Lyceum musicians just sitting down and playing her song. She had no idea what Chad and Liberty had concocted.
By the time seven o’clock arrived, the audience numbered over eleven hundred, and Jenny’s eyes got bigger and bigger as they kept pouring in.
Finally, when everyone was seated, the musicians filed in, bowed, and everyone clapped. They sat down, tuned their instruments, and turned to the first page of their scores. Everyone waited anxiously, silently.
A clarinet began, joined by a violin, countered by a flute, and echoed by a harp. The first theme was interesting but simple, and the musicians played just as Jenny had expected them to. It was her music. She knew every note, every rest, every chord. And she smiled, hearing them play.
But when the second theme began, the musicians teamed up on three of the voices, and the computer took up the other four in pure tones. The stars that Liberty had hung began to pulse to the music, a different group of stars for each voice, a different color for each tone. The wires that suspended them were so fine they couldn’t be seen, and Jenny gazed up at them in wonder, realizing that they too were playing her music.
The first bridge was so intricate that the musicians rested their instruments and the computer took over, but instead of pure tones, Jenny heard a variety of rich sounds that could not be made by any instruments she knew.
And then the next theme began, rhythmic, pulsing, dancing. The French horn and the clarinet took the prominent melody voice, and the computer synthesized the other voices in the background. The laser projectors began to trace pictures on the ceilings and floors of the Temple, pictures that appeared and disappeared even as Jenny tried to glimpse them, pictures that spoke of
prancing and dancing and leaping with joy, just as the music spoke of the same things in a different language. The ten-year-old’s mouth alternated from agape with wonder to grinning with delight.
Then the first major transition came. Jenny knew that transition well, but was almost startled by the way it was executed. The Temple went completely dark for the whole four-count rest that ran across the music score at that point, and then a single laser danced on the floor in the center of the circle of musicians as an unseen flute took up the next theme, slowly joined by instrument after instrument, laser after laser. Jenny quickly recovered from her start of a moment before and let out a giggle of delight.
The next bridge was majestic and triumphant, and the computer created the rich sounds of a complete orchestra as more than a hundred stars throbbed brilliantly to the music. But it did not resolve the tension it had created, and suddenly the French horn was seen in a single spotlight as the other lights faded out. In its clear voice it began the next theme, while the other musicians took up the quieter voices.
It was a relaxing theme that Jenny always enjoyed hearing. For the first time since the symphony started she turned her head and looked around.
Nearly fifteen hundred people were sitting with rapt attention listening to her music. Old people, grown-ups, kids like her, even young children. Everyone was listening. She suddenly felt overwhelmed with happiness. She had never, in her wildest dreams, imagined that more than a few of her friends at Lyceum would ever want to listen to her song.
Then the section began that Brother Chad lovingly called The War of the Worlds. It was probably the must complex part of her song, and brought the bone-scraping tension to its peak. The computer provided everything from the shrillest whistles in Voice Two to the throbbing drumbeats in Voice Seven, while lasers of many shapes and colors dashed around the Temple, colliding, recoiling, tangling and untangling. Jenny had never been comfortable with that part of the song, but Brother Chad had reassured her that it was meant to make the listener uncomfortable, in order to emphasize the beauty of the themes that followed.
Fifteen minutes into her song, Jenny’s favorite parts began. Several of the musicians joined the computer in the part she called Water, with its flowing,
undulating melodies and cool, quiet harmonies. Different musicians executed the section she referred to as The Playground. Its frolicking tunes and laughing rhythms always made her remember the times, many years ago, when she had been able to actually play in the park in Rapid City. She hoped the children who were listening liked it.
She knew her music was nearing its end when the part she called Thunder started, booming and crashing, with tiny, delicate melodies appearing just in time to be purposefully drowned out. Then all of the themes from the entire piece returned, as if to say fare-well. The shining stars glimmered and the lasers danced, and everyone sat wide-eyed, remembering their favorite passages. Suddenly all of the voices came together in a fantastically beautiful, completely satisfying chord that made everyone feel like they were bursting out of the water and into the air, or out of a cave and into the daylight. All of the musicians were standing, adding their instruments to the computer’s tones to further enrich the ending. Finally the chord faded, the musicians bowed in a spotlight, the house lights brightened, and the audience roared with applause and whistles of appreciation.
Ashley and Brian stood along with everyone else and clapped. But Jenny was happy just to sit in her seat. She had just witnessed her beloved music performed. She had heard it all, right up to the ending chord, seen all of the dancing lasers and shining stars, watched the musicians play and then bow.
Now she was feeling very tired, very drowsy, and even though she knew the people around her were standing and clapping, the sound was becoming faint and the lights in the Temple seemed to be dimming out. She realized what was happening, and she knew she had to say good-bye quickly.
“Ashley?”
“What, Jenny? Do you want us to help you stand up?”
“No. I can’t hold back the darkness any longer, Ashley. Thank you. Thank you so much for being my friend. Please tell Brother Chad thank you.”
“I’m right here, Jenny,” the audio technician’s voice said and Jenny felt a hand on her knee.
“Please take good care of my music.”
“I promise, Jenny.”
“Brian?”
She felt her hand being squeezed.
“I’m right beside you,” his voice said.
“Brian, you’re so special. I don’t want to leave, but I can’t stay any longer.
I love you!”
Brian was completely unable to respond. His heart was pounding and his throat was clenched shut. But he squeezed Jenny’s hand again, and she felt it and knew everything he was unable to put into words.
“Ashley?” the seated girl said in a weak voice.
The thirteen-year-old gymnast wanted to run or scream or cry. But she managed to choke out an appropriate word. “Yes?”
“Back to the Stars.”
After whispering those words, Jenny closed her eyes, knowing they were no longer any use to her, and her body relaxed and settled against Brian.
Jenny never knew that Brother Kenneth arrived a moment later, gently took her vital signs without disturbing the vigil of her friends, and shook his head in impotence. She was beginning to be able to see again, but she knew it was not with her eyes, and she could hear music being played, her own and other pieces even more beautiful, but not with her ears. She saw the planets and the moons swish by, and from her Seraphim-enshrouded comfort, free of all fetters and weights, she called out the mysterious names of the passing spheres with a loud, happy voice. Then she looked and saw the stars awaiting her, and knew it was time to go there. She bade the Seraphim take her, and even though she never forgot her friends, she never looked back...
The applause faded, and Ashley knew it was the time in the program when Jenny would have been helped to the floor of the Temple to take her bows.
Instead, Brother Chad was gathering Jenny’s lifeless form in his arms. He carried her toward the nearest exit, with Brian at his side still holding her limp hand.
Ashley would have loved to just sit there and cry. But she had brought Jenny to Lyceum, and so now she had just one more thing she had to do for her departed friend. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut for a moment to clear them, and then walked down the steps to the floor of the Temple. Liberty focused a small spotlight and added the necessary amplification.
“I’m Sister Ashley. The creator of the beautiful music you just heard, Jenny Clark, had two dreams. One was to finish her music, and the other was to hear it performed. She lived just long enough for both of those dreams to come true. Thank you, all of you, for helping her with her second dream. The last words she spoke were, ‘Back to the stars.’ She hadn’t given her song a name yet, so I think that’s what she wanted it to be called.”
Ashley looked at the floor for a moment and took some deep breaths.
“You are all invited to a reception in Conference Center One. I’m sorry that Jenny can’t be there. Those of us who knew her will be there, and we will try to tell you what she was like, but it may not be easy for us. Thank you for understanding. Good night.”
Ashley didn’t realize that tears had been streaming down her cheeks during her entire closing speech until it was over and she was receiving hugs from Sister Heather, Shawn, and other friends. And she never did understand why the audience applauded her words.
Her friends knew why.