After Václav left, Jane and David got to work. They holed up in their hotel room, madly scoring the composition. She played the piano, sang, then went over each phrase repeatedly, trying to hear all the instruments at once. Even with David also playing and singing, they couldn’t duplicate the piece. But she had it. She knew she had it. Very early the next morning, they declared it finished.
To celebrate, they walked out onto Charles Bridge. Their breath formed clouds in front of their faces. Mist shrouded the lamps. A crescent moon rose over the river, promising sunrise soon. The only sound was the gushing river washing her tension away. They walked back hand in hand, fell into bed and slept past noon.
Václav called around two o’clock to tell them he’d assembled a group of musicians. Jane was amazed when he told her who was coming and what instruments they played. “You’ve made me a veritable orchestra,” she said.
His earthy laugh was reassuring. “Meet us tonight at 10:00 p.m. at Smetana Concert Hall. After the orchestra’s rehearsal.”
Jane consulted their guide book. “Ever heard of the Municipal House?”
David’s eyes rounded. “Of course.”
“He’s got some members of their orchestra to help.”
“Václav sure has connections,” David said. “That’s the home of the Czech National Symphony Orchestra.”
“Oh, no,” Jane said.
“What do you mean ‘oh, no?’” David asked. “These musicians are top notch. They’ll be able to play this right off the page.”
“I know,” she said, her nerves tightening like the violin strings she’d be conducting tonight.
“What?” David turned his hands over in question.
“It’s my first piece. They’ll know how bad it is.”
“Oh, stop it.” David sat at the piano bench and patted the space beside him. “Besides, it’s a ritual piece. Meant to produce certain effects on consciousness.”
“It is?”
“I’ll bet every one of them is a trained mystic. This is Prague, after all. Now, let’s go through it again.”
David was a task master, and Jane’s nerves loosened as they worked. She forgot about the waiting musicians and became absorbed by the piece once again. They went through it several more times. At last, David was satisfied.
“One more time,” Jane urged. “I’m still not sure about this bridge.
David stood up. “We need to take a break. Forget it completely. Then you’ll hear it fresh tonight.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“Trust me. I’m an expert on performance anxiety.” He smiled at her. Those eyes melted her heart. She moved into his arms. “What did you have in mind?”
He held her tight for a moment, and she felt his body begin to respond, but then his stomach growled. “I need to get outside again. Get something to eat. Come on.”
They dropped the precious score with the front desk and ordered enough copies for their first run through. The concierge assured them that Mr. Knight was a frequent customer of the hotel’s business center and he was used to handling this sort of thing. Maybe not music scores, but fast copies.
They walked to Old Town Square and stood before Hus, then made their way through the crowds to the astronomical clock and waited in the cold. The crowd grew even thicker. Jane welcomed the warmth. Finally the display began.
A man admired himself in a mirror.
“That’s Vanity,” David said to her, his breath warm in her ear.
The figure beside him was unfortunate, a stereotypical depiction of a Jew holding money bags.
“Should be an oil sheik,” Jane mumbled.
On the other side of the clock face, skeletal death struck the hour, seeming to challenge a Turkish man beside him. “He’s supposed to represent pleasure,” David read from a brochure they’d picked up in the hotel lobby.
The doors toward the top of the clock opened and the apostles walked. Jane squinted up in the late afternoon light. Based on what she’d read, the figures had golden halos, but she couldn’t make them out. The doors closed again and the crowd applauded, then milled about, deciding on their next destination. She and David walked up the square just a few steps and found a table next to the window in one of the many restaurants.
She let David order. It would be sausages of some kind, she knew, and Czech beer. Would she ever drink any other kind again? If they were lucky, they’d see the clock display again. But they’d be fed and relaxed for her debut as a conductor—with some of the best musicians in the world. She pushed these thoughts away.
After a somniferous meal, they waited for the clock display once again, which they enjoyed in the warmth of the restaurant. Jane could barely make it out over the heads of the crowd that had gathered, even in the dark. When the show was over, David stood up and shrugged on his coat. “Ready, maestro?”
Jane’s stomach clinched. “What if the piece just doesn’t work?” she asked.
David reached his hand out. She took it and he hauled her to her feet. “Only one way to find out.”
The chill of winter woke them from the drowse of the beer and heated restaurant. They arrived in their suite with red noses, but wide awake.
“Good thing the concert hall is close by,” Jane said, stomping her feet. “It’s cold.” She looked down at her cords and sweater. This was a special event, the first time her piece would be performed, so she went to the closet and rummaged around. She decided on a long sleeve, black dress, almost warm. Then threw on the Moravian wool wrap she’d bought at the Christmas market just in case. Checked herself out in the mirror. Better.
They gathered the scores from the concierge’s desk and took their familiar route past Kafka’s house toward the Hus Memorial, then walked the few blocks toward National Square. David pointed out Powder Gate on the way. “One of the thirteen entrances to Prague. Modeled on the Bridge Tower.”
“Thirteen again.”
“Right,” David said. “Looking through one of those history books, I was reminded that both August and November 13th are holy days for the Moravians.”
“I guess the clues have been around us all our lives.”
David squeezed her hand.
Municipal House was touted as the best Art Nouveau building in Prague, but it was too dark to really get a good look at it. A dome rose in the dark night sky above their heads. The building offered French and Czech restaurants, both packed full, even at this late hour.
“We could live here for years and never get to all the places within blocks of our hotel,” Jane said.
“Shall we move to Prague?” he joked, then pushed open the door to the concert hall.
The sight silenced them. Lights lined the frescos on ceilings and walls, lighting everything into a mellow gold from a distance. Above the hall, a round window featured milky panels, surrounded by rows of lights. Concert boxes lined the walls. Organ pipes filled the entire wall behind the stage. The orchestra was packing away instruments and chatting amongst themselves. She and David sank into seats halfway back until only a small cluster of musicians remained.
Václav arrived on stage, shaded his eyes and looked out into the audience. “Jane? David? Is that you?”
David stood and tugged her forward, something he’d been doing all day, she realized. Jane moved down the aisle, suddenly a school girl. She’d stood toe to toe with world leaders, Saudi princes and CEOs, gotten used to brokering deals in the billions, but having her precious composition judged by such top-notch musicians had turned her knees to jelly.
“Just one foot in front of the other. When the music starts, you’ll forget all this,” David whispered.
They climbed the stairs to the stage and Václav made the introductions, but Jane couldn’t hold them in her memory. The leaves of the score shook as she handed them over to Václav, who took them from her as carefully as a new born baby. As he distributed them, he told the story of how the music had started as a dream, then been given to her whole at St. Wenceslas Chapel. By the time he finished, Jane wished the stage would open up and she could disappear like some visiting demon in an opera.
One of the musicians noted her red face and said, “My name is Kornel. Please, madam, we are friends of Václav’s. We understand such things.”
Another spoke and the first musician translated. “He says we are honored to explore this with you.”
Her eyes disobeyed her and filled with tears. “I only hope it is worth your attention.”
The first musician translated, and the others shook their heads or made dismissive noises, brushing aside her self-consciousness. They spread the score on their platforms and began to read through the piece. Their noises turned to little grunts and speculative oohs, which soon gave way to several picking up their instruments and making tentative runs through more difficult passages. Within a space of five minutes, they all had their instruments ready and were looking up at her—their conductor—ready to begin.
Jane took a deep breath and raised her hands, holding the baton that she’d found at the station of one of the most eminent conductors in the world. She counted four to herself, then began. And the sound that rose from them stilled her heart. So beautiful. How could it be so beautiful? The quiet breath of the violins gave such promise, the promise of light and knowledge and something wonderful ready to unfold. Then the French horns repeated part of the phrase, grounding it, testing out the idea in a denser form. The piece built, then backed away and picked up a new theme. The themes twined around each other, like strands of DNA, until they rose in a column of radiance and crescendoed, burst like a fountain, or perhaps fireworks, then fell in silent embers to the earth.
Jane lowered her hands. Unseeing, she stood, her body beating in soft rhythm to the afterglow of successful creation. The musicians murmured to each other and Václav walked up behind Jane to translate.
“It is most magnificent,” a voice whispered.
“Truly a gift,” someone else said. “How lucky to receive such music.”
Jane’s gaze shifted to those who spoke. “No, it’s you. Your performance was—I can’t tell you how marvelous you all are. You have fulfilled a life dream for me.”
They handed the credit back to her, then began to talk amongst themselves with Václav and Kornel translating.
“Let’s try it again. I missed a cue,” the violinist said. “And here. This phrase. Perhaps it should be a little less Adagio. You have not marked it, you see.” He smiled almost apologetically.
“Yes, please. I welcome your comments.” Jane took out a pencil and began to take notes on her score.
They became a working group. David found a trombone and joined in next to the French horn. They played it again, each group making notes which she would add to the final score. After a third time through, the harpist sat back with a nod. “It is a fine piece of music. Very good for a first composition.”
A tall, thin wisp of a man stepped forward, his violin still tucked under his chin. “There is something very familiar about it, though. Something teases me.”
Another nodded. “I’ve been having the same feeling. The progression suggests something—almost architectural.”
“There is a pattern beneath the themes. Let’s break it down to the basics.” He took out blank paper and spread it on a piano bench. The conversation became too incomprehensible for Jane, even with Václav’s rapid-fire translation. They talked of dodecahedrons, pi, the golden mean, but as they drew, something quite familiar began to take shape on the page.
Jane moved closer, hovered over the man’s shoulder. “David, come look at this.”
He put down his horn and came to stand beside her. His sharp intake of breath confirmed it.
The man stopped drawing and looked up.
“No, please continue,” she said.
Kornel translated, then asked Jane, “You know this pattern?”
“Perhaps.”
The second man finished his sketch and stood back. There on the piano bench lay an exact duplicate of the diagram they’d found on in the ritual room of the Star Family house.
“David.” Jane reached for his arm, trying to find an anchor, something firm that would hold her up. “How can this be?”
“Unbelievable,” he breathed.
“This piece of music uses the ancient mathematical formula that creates the holy star,” the violinist said, “and the finale lights the center, what has always been called the Eye of God.”
“You said something about lighting the Eye of God?”
“Yes,” Kornel answered for him. “This sequence is used in a ritual to light the lamp in the Eye of God.”
“It is sacred geometry,” the other said.
Jane shook her head, unable to speak. This matched the Latin phrase they’d found in the ritual room.
“You have studied the mysteries?”
“No,” Jane whispered.
“But how can this be?” He turned to Václav.
“She comes from the old family,” Václav said.
“What old family?” Kornel asked.
“The Star Family.”
Jane touched her star pendant.
Some nodded. Others shook their heads in amazement. “The patterns of the universe remain the same,” one commented. “Those who attune themselves find the same patterns.”
“This image,” she pointed “If you fold it up—”
“It is the Advent Star,” Kornel said.
She looked up sharply. “You know about that?”
His smile was shy. “But of course. We are all initiates here. And you. You have obviously studied in a past life. The knowledge is making itself known to you again. What were you told about the purpose of this music?”
Jane stared for a minute. Past lives? What she’d been learning did seem familiar, but she thought it was because of what the other man had said. The basic patterns of the universe were the same. We were made up of those patterns, so we recognize them at some deep level of our subconscious.
“Jane?” David captured her attention.
“I’m supposed to play it in an underground cave. There’s a spring there. He said to play it at the darkest moment.”
Instead of the derision she still expected, even after all this, thoughtful looks filled the faces of these miraculous musicians. “This must be Solstice Night,” the violinist said after a while.
“Most likely, unless he means some terrible event.”
“It felt more physical than political,” Jane said.
“Solstice, then,” Václav concluded.
“And this cave. Do you know it?” Kornel asked.
“I’ve only dreamed about it.”
“Tell us.”
She described the dream of walking down the long hall with the red carpet, of going down a ramp, then into a natural cave with the spring at the back. “I’ve never seen such a place.” Then it hit her. “Except the hallway. I did find a hallway with that color carpet and walls off the basement of the house I was living in.”
“Zizi’s Cave has a spring as well,” Kornel said. “The sacred cave beneath the cathedral. Perhaps we are meant to play this in St. Vitus on Solstice.”
“And who is this ‘he’ you keep referring to? Who told you these things?” another musician asked.
Jane blushed a furious red and studied her shoes.
“Come now,” Kornel urged. “This is no time to be shy. We all receive such visitations at some point in our soul’s history.”
She looked up into Václav’s kind eyes.
“It is for you to tell,” he said gently.
She cleared her throat. “Charles. Charles IV.”
“The architect of the city,” the violinist said. “Of course.”
“Yet you say this house is not in Prague?” Kornel asked.
“No, not in Prague” Jane said.
“Where is it?”
“Back home in North Carolina. A settlement the Moravians—uh, the Unitas Fratrum—they built a colony there.”
David spoke up. “The house she speaks of is in a cluster of buildings—the church in the center.”
Jane slapped her forehead. “With eight streets running off it.”
“Of course,” David said.
“Ah, more sacred geometry.”
“And this hallway is beneath one of these houses?” Václav asked.
“Yes.”
The group looked at each other for a moment, then Kornel said. “Perhaps we are to play this piece in both places.”
“Yes,” two people said at once.
He continued, “Here in Charles’s New Jerusalem, and in Jane’s home, the harmonic, the reflection, of Charles IV’s Prague. They have taken his seed and it has germinated in another land. We shall connect them.”
A shiver ran up Jane’s spine and goose bumps spread down her arms. A deep resonant ‘yes’ sounded in the depth of her heart. “That’s it.”
“I can arrange access to St Wenceslaus’s chapel,” Václav said.
They all sat back, satisfied.
“But,” Jane’s voice was tentative, hesitant. “How am I supposed to get so many instruments into a cave?”
Kornel laughed. “Do not worry. We will reduce the piece to its essential tones.”
“Or record parts of it. You can sing the rest.”
“I can carry in a trombone.”
“But I’m not even supposed to be in the house now. The door is locked,” Jane objected.
“God will make a way.” Václav said this with such conviction that Jane was certain it would be so. After all, she had found the music, discovered her part in this quest, against all odds it had been revealed to her.
She looked over at David. She’d been reunited with her true love, the man who matched her perfectly, against all odds, in spite of her resistance and striving to control her life as she saw fit, of her fear of following her dreams. But it had all led her back, back to her origins, back to the place she’d been born, back to his arms.
“We’d better hurry, though. Solstice is only three days away,” David said.