Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I own nothing. No infringement intended.

Miley followed Cantari down the hallway to a stairwell at the far end. She looked around, no longer seeking an opening for immediate escape, but doing her best to memorize her surroundings. A time would come for escape, but now Miley was concerned that Lilly had been captured as well, and she had no intention of fleeing without her best friend. For now, she would observe and wait.

Cantari led Miley down one floor and into a fully equipped music studio. Miley examined the studio with amazement. In the depths of this seemingly primitive structure of concrete and metal and wrought iron prison cells was an enormously expensive and up-to-date recording studio.

Miley's attention was drawn by a strange ringing sound, which was the sound of Cantari clearing his throat. She turned to Cantari, giving him her full attention.

"Go into the sound booth," Cantari ordered, extending his wing in the direction of the soundproof room.

Miley did as she was told. Inside the sound booth, a microphone hung from the ceiling in the center of the room. Likewise depending from the ceiling was a pair of headphones. Underneath the microphone was a music stand which held several pages of sheet music. Movement outside the booth caught Miley's eye, and she looked up from the sheet music to see the colorful, man-sized starling sitting down in front of a grand piano. Miley wondered briefly whether Cantari intended to play the piano with his beak. Then, to Miley's surprised, Cantari stretched out his wings, and hands emerged from beneath them. The fingers stretched and flexed, and then Cantari dropped his hands to the piano keys. Miley placed the nearby headphones over her ears and heard a beautiful melody arising from the piano.

"You will begin on the eighth measure," Cantari intoned in harmony with the melody he played. Miley nodded her understanding and looked back to the sheet music.

There were no lyrics to this music; Miley was to sing a wordless melody. Breathing in deeply, she counted the last three beats before her entrance, then began to sing, delivering the changing tones with differing vowels. As the music continued, she made some mistakes, having never seen the music before, but Cantari didn't seem disturbed by her minor flubs.

Halfway through the music, the key changed, keening sharps replacing sonorous naturals. The serene melody became sad, longing, and Miley fought to keep her voice as the melody threatened to overwhelm her emotions. The melody conjured up all kinds of images and emotions. Miley saw images of her mother, whom she still missed in a way that time could never diminish. Then she saw her first days in California, friendless, alone save for her Dad and brother. The music swelled, and Miley saw Lilly, saw her getting up from a table where she had been sitting with Oliver and some other girls, saw her walking over to the table where Miley sat alone, saw her sit down across from her and ask, "Do you really eat possum?" Miley saw the day a week after that when she and Lilly had been listening to the radio, and a song had come on that reminded Miley of her mother. She had burst into tears with no explanation, and Lilly had wrapped her arms around her and held her until she had finished crying. The sweet, sad melody was now imbued with longing as Miley's voice translated how desperately she needed Lilly with her now. Her voice cracked slightly on a very high note, but besides that she kept her composure.

At last, the music progressed to the final measure, and Miley stepped back from the microphone. Outside the booth, Cantari disengaged his fingers from the piano and turned to look at Miley. He pushed a button on a nearby console and spoke.

"They told me you could sing," Cantari said, "but I wasn't expecting anything like that on a first run-through. Rest for half an hour, then we'll run through it again. Then you should rest your voice for the remainder of the day, so that we can get the most out of rehearsal tomorrow."

Miley stepped back up to the microphone. "Uh, thanks," she said. "Can I please ask a question and get an answer?"

Cantari glared at Miley through the glass. "I'll do the best I can," he said.

"Wasn't there another girl here, in the studio?" Miley asked. "You said she couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. Where is she?"

"She was here," Cantari answered. "Chancellor Krokylus undoubtedly delivered her to Choroline as scheduled."

"Can I see her?" Miley asked.

"Absolutely not," Cantari said. His tone was not one of forbidding, but one of someone stating a simple fact.

"Why not?"

"Because it is forbidden," Cantari replied.

"Why?" Miley pressed.

"You're not resting your voice," Cantari complained. "Now hush before I have to tape your mouth shut."

Without realizing he had done so, in making that complaint, Cantari had given Miley the upper hand in the conversation. Miley was sure now that the term "audition" had been a formality, that she was the only star performer her captors had. Now she had leverage.

"If I don't rest my voice, you're going to tape my mouth shut?" Miley asked.

"If I have to," Cantari warned.

"You know what the funny thing about tape is?" Miley said into the microphone. Cantari cocked his head to one side, glaring curiously at Miley. "It stops the sounds of the voice from getting out the mouth. It won't stop me from using my voice. If you don't let me see the other girl, I'll growl my throat into ribbons, tape or not." To demonstrate, Miley produced a low, gravelly rumble from her throat. "I'll keep doing that until my voice is ruined," Miley warned, a mischievous smirk on her face.

"I can't," Cantari said, his voice becoming strained. "It's forbidden. It's not up to me." Now Cantari's voice became fearful and pleading. "Please don't ruin your voice," he begged. "You don't know what will happen to me."

The smirk dropped from Miley's face. The fear in Cantari's voice told Miley that he wasn't entirely free himself. Miley couldn't be sure that he was a captive just like she was a captive, but she was sure that Cantari wasn't entirely free, either.

"It's a deal under one condition," Miley said sternly. Cantari nodded gravely. Miley continued.

"If you know a way or find a way," Miley said, "help the other girl and me escape. You can come with us, and we'll all be free."

"That, dear girl," said Cantari, "is a promise I can easily make, because I know I will never have to live up to it. There is no escape from here. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you can learn to be happy."

"Happy?" Miley shouted indignantly. "I'm being held prisoner by a giant crocodile-man and being forced to perform at some masquerade ball. How am I supposed to be happy?"

"Isn't dancing and singing your whole life?" Cantari asked.

Miley put her anger aside, sighing forlornly. "If it were just that, maybe I could learn to be happy here. Singing and dancing is almost my whole life. But there's one big piece missing that nothing here can ever replace."

Cantari cocked his head to the other side. "The other girl," he said.

"I think it's her," Miley said.

"She is blonde, athletic, with brilliant blue eyes and a singing voice that could curdle milk," Cantari said.

Miley nodded. "That's her," she whispered. "I've got dancing and singing, and then she's the rest of my world."