Solitude Creek (Kathryn Dance 4)

"Sorry," she whispered.

He kissed her hair.

At the microphone, she looked over the audience. "I'm Maggie and I'm going to sing 'Let It Go,' from Frozen, which is a super movie, in my opinion better than The Lego Movie and most of the Barbie ones. And if anybody here hasn't seen it I think you should. Like, right away. I mean, right away."

A glance at Mom, acknowledging the slip of lazy preposition.

Dance smiled and nodded.

Then Maggie grew quiet and lowered her head. She remembered: "Oh, and I want to thank Mrs. Gallard for accompanying me."

The girl nodded formally to the music teacher.

The resonant piano notes began, the haunting minor-key intro to the beautiful song. Then the instrument went quiet, a pause...and right on the beat, Maggie filled the silence with the first words of the lyrics. She sang slow and soft at first, just as in the movie, then growing in volume, her timbre firm, singing from her chest. Dance snuck a peek. Most of the audience was smiling and nodding. And nearly every child was mouthing, if not singing, along.

When it came to the bridge, bordering on operatic recitative, Maggie nailed it perfectly. Then back to the final verse and the brilliant offhand dismissal about the cold never bothering her anyway.

The applause began, loud and genuine. Dance knew the audience was considering a standing ovation but since there'd been none earlier, there could be none now. Not that it mattered, Dance could see that the girl was ecstatic. She beamed and curtseyed, a maneuver she'd practiced almost as much as the song.

Dance blew her daughter a kiss. She set her head against Boling as he hugged her.

Wes said, "Wow. Jackie Evancho."

Not quite. But Dance decided to definitely add voice to the violin lessons this year.

She exhaled a laugh.

"What?" Edie Dance asked her daughter, upon hearing the sound.

"Just, she did a good job."

"She did."

Dance didn't tell her mother that the laugh wasn't from the girl's performance but from the discussion in the green room a half hour earlier.

"Honey?"

"Oh, Mommy! It's terrible."

When the tears had stopped, Dance had told Maggie, "I know what's going on, Mags. About the club."

"Club?"

Dance had explained she knew about the Secrets Club and their extortion.

Maggie had looked at her as if her mother had just said that Monterey Bay was filled with chocolate milk. "Mom, like no. Bethany's neat, no, she wouldn't do anything like that. I mean, sometimes she's all, I'm the leader, blah, blah, and everything. But that's okay. We voted her president."

"What did she say when she called this morning? You were upset."

She'd hesitated.

"Tell me, Mags."

"I'd told her you said I didn't have to sing but she said she'd talked to everybody in the club and they really, really wanted me to. I mean, everybody."

"Sing 'Let It Go'?"

"Yeah."