Page 94 of Echoes of a Silent Song
That came on the second page.The first page of written music.A choral piece, four-part, a cappella.“Song in the Night” was the title, though there was no text beneath the notes.Some bars were scratched out, a few arrows indicated possible revisions ...but there was the music.The music of Iris Wallingford.Right there.Before his very eyes.
What he wouldn’t give to have known her.To have her here, alive, now, in his class.To be her teacher.
Oh, who was he kidding?He probably wouldn’t be able to teach this girl anything.But he could sure learn from her.Talk with her.Listen to her.Be a safe place and person for her.So just in case the thought ever crossed her mind to take her own life, he could speak to those lies and shower down truth over her.
He couldn’t have saved Rayne.But he’d like to believe that maybe, just maybe, he could’ve helped Iris.
He glanced toward Blair.“Do you mind if I play this one?”
“Not at all.”She gave his upper arm a quick squeeze.“I know how much this means to you.”
He put his hands to the keyboard and was surprised to find them shaking.Not so much that he couldn’t play, though.And while his piano chops weren’t the caliber of Blair’s, he could find his way around a choral score well enough to bring Iris’s music to life.
It was beautiful.
And haunting.His heart ached.What this girl could have been had she lived.What music she could have written.
And wait ...just like the song text the police had assumed was her suicide note, this melody seemed very familiar.
To his right, Blair frowned.“Does that sound like Vic’s ‘Voice in the Wilderness’ to you?”
Crap.“Unfortunately, yes.”
Blair rose from the bench and disappeared into the choir office.A moment later she returned with a file box in her arms, which she set on the lid of the piano.The red-lettered cover of one of Vic’s earlier pieces came into view, and Blair set the sheet music next to Iris’s notebook.
Callum’s heart sank to the basement storage area beneath the choir room.The similarities were uncanny.Eerie.
“It’s not an exact replication.”Blair sounded like she was grasping at the last few molecules of hope.
“No, but it’s close enough.”He stopped playing.“Vic stole this idea.”
“What’s the copyright?”Blair flipped back a page.“It’s 1980.Ten years after Iris died.”
“And long enough for everyone to forget about her.”Feeling sick, Callum returned to Iris’s notebook, turned the page, and resumed playing.Another piece.Another beautiful melody.More richly developed harmonies.
“I can’t believe this.”Blair put a hand to her forehead.“That motive is in ‘My Love Is Like a Red, Red Rose.’”
“Iris has a different text to this,” he said over the music.“So the rhythm isn’t the same.But that’s her tune.”
Once more he trailed off, his hands still on the keys, and met Blair’s eyes.
“I’m almost afraid to look,” she said.“But I have to know how much of his other music is copied from Iris’s.”
“Me too.”
He rose from the bench and followed Blair into the storage room, where the two of them pulled down all the file boxes of Vic’s music.Then they went into the choir room and sat on the floor in front of the piano, taking one piece from each folder and spreading them in a circle.Blair reached up, grabbed Iris’s notebook off the music rack, and put it between herself and Callum, and the two launched into a sordid game of Musical Match.Which piece of Victor’s corresponded with which page from Iris’s notebook?Ever the detail person, Blair wrote down each instance on a sheet of paper she’d snagged from the recycle bin.
Not all of Victor’s works were plagiarized—at least, not from pieces they’d found in Iris’s notebook.And not everything Iris had written had found its way into Vic’s music.
But enough of her pieces were copied that the last remaining illusions Callum held about Vic Nelson as a person, as an artist, as a mentor, shattered in a storm of shimmering shards.
“I can’t believe this.”Callum glanced through Blair’s lengthy list.“I struggled to come up with ideas for ...for years, Blair.Literal years.And I never would’ve stolen an idea from someone else.It never even occurred to me.It’s just ...it’s despicable.It undermines the very creative process we seek to honor.”
“I know.I’m as disgusted as you are.”She took the list back and set it next to the notebook with a weary sigh.“Vic was my teacher.My coworker.He’s my ...wasmy friend.Iris should have had so much more life.She should’ve had the opportunity to accomplish what Vic did.To surpass Vic.She deserved to have her name on that music, not his.”
Blair’s voice broke, and she put a hand to her face.“I’m sorry, Callum, I just ...this is a lot.”
“Of course it’s a lot.”He pulled her close.“You have nothing to apologize for.Vic betrayed you.He betrayed Iris.He betrayed all of us.”
