Five
The next morning nobody mentioned anything. Norton downed his breakfast, but still wasn’t talking. “Mother Agatha wants us to try out Brother Norton with the choir.” Abbot de Brinkeley attempted nonchalance.
Brother William looked up from his fruit bowl, startled, he was our resident composer and choir master. “Brother Norton can’t sing.” There was a general snicker carried amongst the brethren. Brother William was Norton’s friend, but everybody knew that he couldn’t carry a tune if his life depended on it. He was one of the few brothers left out of choir practice. He couldn’t even hum.
The abbot cleared his throat. “Just try. Maybe start with a chant.”
William shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. Nobody argued with the abbot. His word was law. Nobody questioned him as he was as fair and wise as Solomon himself.
The choir gathered in the loft. The morning light spilled in from the stained glass window and cast a green glow upon our faces. Tommy was allowed to sing with us as he was our only soprano, seated to the far left. He would probably become one of us in time. He sang quite well, although his voice would certainly change with age. I was a tenor and sat directly behind him. Norton looked uncomfortable and out of place. He usually swept the nave and scrubbed the mosaic floor while we practiced. Brother William composed original pieces, but we also sang Gregorian chants. I presumed that was on the agenda for this morning, but William passed out a new piece for us, a polyphony, and not in Latin, but English. This was all very strange and whispers began around before Brother William hushed us by tapping his baton on his podium and raising his hands. The basses, Brothers Benedict and Bruno, began, sounding like thunder in the woods. My heart quickened in time with them when Alphonsus, Sebastian, and I joined them with, “Lord of light, lead us through the darkness. Lead us through the woods…” That was when it got very weird. Tommy was supposed to come in just now with a sweet solo, like a whistling of a bird. Just like in the forest with the wild girl, the hair raised on the back of my neck. We all stopped, stunned. Brothers’ mouths were agape, some dropped their music.
Brother Norton came in with an amazing falsetto like none of us had ever heard. His voice chimed like a bell and rang around the chancel in a tinkling echo, eerie, and sublime. If I was a cat, I think my ears would have laid back. I closed my eyes, picturing his song running round my head in a pool of color. “Oh, Father! Light up thy way! Lead me through your forest this glorious day!” Then he just stood there with an idiot smile stretched across his face rivalling Tommy’s.
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