Even though Aleksei was against me listening to recorded music, during my free week I started to listen to all of dad’s recordings. I felt like this was an acceptable exception. After all, there was absolutely no way I could hear my father perform in another way, so these albums were all precious mementos.

Slowly but surely, more and more memories of my dad and my old family life had started to flood in. It was like the dam that kept them back had completely disappeared and after a couple of days, the headaches seemed to have vanished completely and I had no trouble anymore recalling anything anymore.

When I told Inge, she looked really relieved since she had been really worried about a relapse. It seemed like my gamble had paid off.

Even before the accident, this music had always been my dad’s music and I never paid any real attention to the details since I lacked the skills to really do that. But that was no longer true today. I was now at a point where I could listen to it critically instead of just going with the flow of the music. I understood why people made such a big deal out of dad. I did not agree with all of his arrangements, but all of them had personalities and a uniqueness to them that others often failed to have.

Some feelings of pride came up in me, but at the same time, I realized the size of the obstacle that Nastya and I would have to overcome. Doing better wasn’t going to be easy.

I started to create my own arrangement of Sibelius’ violin concerto. Keeping the musicians that I had at my disposal in mind. I would need to bring the maximum potential out of everyone if we wanted to surpass our fathers. I really did not want people to refer to us as inferior copies of our ancestry. We needed to strike them with a version that would leave the crowd stupefied.

And so, my holiday was mostly spent working on the scores and discussing them with Nastya who visited a couple of times. Aunt Christina had been really surprised when the visiting friend wasn’t Sara for a change, but she had been really welcoming to Nastya too.

My work with Nastya had been intense. It was important that I was on one line with the soloist. A concerto was a duet between the conductor and the soloist, and since it was her father’s sign, it was also important that we made it a version from her to him. Nastya needed to connect to her father, and I would do anything to give her that chance.

 Luckily for me, Nastya and I seemed to have a similar vision of how this piece should sound, and working with her had gone really smoothly. Just like when we played together, I felt like we had really good chemistry.

All of our hard work had amounted to Frank praising me for my arrangement, and him handing over the baton of the school orchestra to me on the first day of school after the break.

I was now officially the conductor of the school orchestra, and Frank would only supervise me and give me advice when I needed it. It felt like I achieved something, and I realized I was not as reluctant to take up the role of the conductor as I had been before.

Standing in front of my orchestra, I wasn’t as nervous as in the first rehearsal with the ensemble this time. It had been a very good move of Frank to let me start out smaller to get used to it first.

After introducing myself once more, I picked up the baton, and instantly old images of my father conducting went through my mind; but this time they put a smile on my face. They were happy memories after all. It was my turn to be the magician now.

Magician. I chuckled and shook my head at that memory while I let the first violin tune the orchestra, before raising the baton. I felt the intense stares of everyone, but instead of being scared, I felt empowered. The orchestra was now my instrument, and it was time to master it.

The music started to sound, and I could not help but feel like a lot of the musicians were counting and following their scores instead of letting me be in control so I stopped everyone by forming a little circle with the baton before saying: “I can see that we need to practice what it means to be in an orchestra a little more. Let’s do a little exercise. I want you all to follow the baton. Every strike will be a beat, no matter how erratic, or if it isn’t like that on your score. You will follow the baton. The baton is your master, and you have no choice but to obey it.”

For a moment it felt like I wasn’t the one saying those words, and I could see my dad say the exact words to his orchestra but when I looked around, I could clearly see my orchestra. My look intensified before we started playing one of Strauss’ waltzes, we had been practicing since the start of the year in a very strange rhythm creating a very exotic sound. I could hear giggles pop up from here and there, but now that we were playing a little game everyone seemed to be completely focused on the baton that I was holding. Everyone followed every movement of my baton, my magic wand. If I moved faster, they sped up. If my movements became broader, they played louder. Just like that time my father let me hold his baton when I was 5 years old. This was how I wanted them to follow me, so slowly I started to evolve into conducting seriously, and now everyone was following me.

“I hope you learned what I wanted to teach you.”

Laughter rose from the orchestra, but I could see that they realized what was expected of them.

“Thank you, Dad,” I whispered to myself. The only lesson about conducting that he ever gave, had been even more useful than I thought since I could see that a fun exercise like that had also broken the ice between me and the orchestra.

After the rehearsal, I noticed that Nastya was sitting next to Frank. She had been watching the rehearsal and they were clearly talking about it. For a second that made me feel self-conscious. I greeted her with a kiss on the cheek and could feel a little blush on my cheeks. Why did she have to witness me doing that ridiculous exercise, instead of when I was working them seriously?

“Now that I have the two of you together, let us discuss the trajectory until the New Year’s concert. We need to get that concerto ready after all…” Frank said after I approached.

For some reason, I had forgotten all about Christmas and I realized I needed to get some extra rehearsals in somehow. I did not want to lose precious rehearsal time one week before the concert, and Frank promised me that he would arrange a couple of extra evening rehearsals during that last week before the concert in exchange.

When I saw the schedule, it seemed everything was going to get really busy. Packed as the schedule was, there was not much room for anything going wrong either since there would be no time to catch up.

Next up was the rehearsal with the ensemble. When the last ones to arrive walked in, the whole hall became silent in an instant. Sara had walked in, hand in hand with Axelle. Sara was blushing like crazy.

“Hey, this was your idea. Now it’s too late to get cold feet.” I heard Axelle whisper.

“The two of us are going out now.” Sara proclaimed loudly for the entire Saint Cecilia dorm.

For a second it remained silent, and everyone was looking at them a bit bewildered. Well, I could understand them. This was hardly the time and place. They could have waited until lunch break instead at the start of a class with a teacher present. But once everyone got over their initial shock, soon everyone started congratulating and asking questions to find out more about the confession. Like who confessed first and all of that.

I could see the steam coming from Sara’s ears as the embarrassment overload occurred. “Hey, you are the one that wanted to do it this way,” Axelle said while pulling Sara close by her shoulder, making sure she could not run.

“I just wanted to do this one time. I did not feel like doing it again and again. I don’t think I could take that. Once is more than enough.”

“Ahum!” Frank let out a loud cough and everyone looked at him now. “Although I am happy for the two of you, please do not forget why we are here. Fleure please start the practice.”

Everyone went to their seats, and I could hear the murmur of gossip. I hated the fact that Frank had needed to intervene. I got completely swept up in Sara and Axelle’s rhythm there. I needed to do better in the future. I should be the leader here. I should be more attentive to things like that.

I ticked my baton on the music stand in front of me a couple of times until everyone was silent and focusing on me before starting our practice.

And so, everything seemed to be going as planned. We were all working hard toward the new year’s concert and the days and weeks passed while everything seemed to go smoothly while we were making steady progress. As a matter of fact, it went all so smoothly that we were caught completely off guard when the wraith struck once more.