Christine could count the number of times her Papa had ever raised his voice on her hands, so rare was that sort of behavior from him; the first time was shortly after her mother had died, when Christine had quietly inquired whether or not she was coming home to tuck her into bed. The second time had been shortly after they had abandoned their tiny cottage outside of Uppsala and made for the road. It was the first time she had ever slept outside, and the cold earth chilled her through her petticoats and blanket. When she could not quit complaining of the wind's bite, Papa had reproached her ingratitude for the Lord's abundance so severely that she spent the rest of the night shivering quietly.

The one she thought about the most, however, had been a few years before Papa's soul had finally left this earth; she was twelve years old and had been spending a mild summer afternoon calling on friends with Mama Valerius, a delicious breeze weaving through the stone cottages that dotted the shoreline along Perros-Guirec. Mama was hardly glamorous company herself, but the notion of showing off her new linen dress and carefully-practiced French to her neighbors made Christine shiver with excitement.

La petite suédoise, they called her, showering her with candies and fruit, enchanted by something which Christine was too young to quite understand. She was sitting on Madame Robiquet's sofa with a glass of lemonade, basking in her own success, when Mama Valerius had asked her to run home to fetch a new piece of music the Professor had recently purchased.

"Give us some music, little bird," Mama said, and the two older women beamed at Christine so sweetly that she was more than happy to oblige them, practically skipping down the winding streets to the Valeriuses charmingly dilapidated house on the outskirts of town. The windows were thrown open to let the sunshine in, and Christine was about to cheekily stick her head in and call out for her Papa-that was, until she heard two voices jabbing away in Swedish.

If she was a good girl, Christine would have turned around and marched straight back to Mama. But unfortunately, the indolent peace of summers in Perros-Guirec made a fight all the more interesting; holding her breath, the girl instead crouched inelegantly beneath the sill,.

"Vidar-it's your soul and Christine's that I'm concerned about," the Professor sighed. "Neither of us are long for this world, and to think-"

"To think what ?" Papa answered, his voice like an ax. "Our souls belong to no one but God himself, and I will die before I see what remains of my family consign themselves to papal nonsense." He continued tuning his violin, and while Christine couldn't see his face, she could hear the anger in the way he drew his bow over its strings. Professor Valerius was quiet, and Christine supposed he was polishing his spectacles on his waistcoat, as was his habit when he was vexed.

Christine's heart seemed to ache, it was beating so quickly-what did the Professor mean by "not long for this world"? By their souls? Papa was older, she knew, but surely not so old as the Professor, nor so old that he was close to death.

"If not yourself, Vidar, think of your daughter," he continued at length. "She's old enough to learn the Catechism and decide for herself. Don't you want her to have a plan when you're gone? A guiding hand to help her navigate the evils in this world?"

A noise tore out from Papa's violin, so loud and violent that Christine nearly topped over into the dirt in surprise. As she landed on her hands, she heard what sounded like a large piece of furniture crash on the floor.

"You know nothing of my daughter or her soul. Christine is a good girl, goodness itself even; it's a shame your fancy books and churches can't tell you something as obvious and plain as the nose on your face."

And with that, Christine heard her father's heavy footsteps leave the study in a hurry, the door slamming behind him. It was all she could do stand up and brush the soil off of her skirt in enough time to run behind the small garden shed on the side of the house, sparing mere seconds before Papa flew out the front door and down the path that led to the cliffs. His eyes were dark and wild, his hair and beard unkempt. Even Christine knew better than to follow him when he was like this.

By the time she had managed to collect herself, Papa had long since disappeared. With clammy palms, she loped to the front of the house; the door still open and swaying gently in the wind. With as much care as she could summon, she entered and closed it behind her, terrified of facing the Professor and being unable to hide the emotion on her face.

It was for naught, for Christine immediately found him in the study, sitting at his desk and twirling his pitch pipe between his hands. A sad, watery smile crossed his lips before he looked out into the garden.

"Christine," he greeted gently, more to the window and less to the girl in front of him.

"Good afternoon, Professor," she answered. "Mama sent me to get some sheet music. The new Offenbach."

"Mm," he replied, continuing to spin his pitch pipe and gaze elsewhere. Normally any request to borrow sheet music from Professor Valerius's collection came with a generous helping of excitement and advice-how to attack the dynamics, where the resonance for certain notes should be placed in the body-but today he said nothing.

"Madame Robiquet requested it," Christine pressed on. "Monsieur bought her a lovely new piano and she asked me to accompany her while she-"

"Christine," the Professor interrupted. He had not turned back to face her. "You are a good girl."

"I think so, Professor," she replied.

"You love your music," he continued. "Your father. That little friend of yours who always comes begging for music like a little rapscallion." At this last item, Christine felt herself blush, too embarrassed to answer. Professor Valerius said none of this with any tinge of malice or condemnation, as if he were stating mathematical sums or cold, scientific facts, but the mention of the Vicomte made her feel strange and guilty.

"I do, Professor."

"Very well. And do you love God? Do you love Jesus? His poor mother Mary who suffered with her son so that He could set us free of sin?"

At this, Christine found herself speechless. God and the Savior were like breathing air, like walking-things she knew were supposed to be important, yet still things she endeavored to think little of. Papa had told her growing up that the world was their church, the paths they walked meditations on the small miracles God bestowed upon man to separate him from animals, who did not know fellowship or love. But it always with a somber tone-with the heavy knowledge that all but said that God was also responsible for her dead mother, their poverty, for every time the tiny family had gone hungry or cold before they came into the Valeriuses good graces. Every night, Papa had bid her to pray to the Lord, and she obliged, but only because it was Papa who demanded it. And slowly, over the years, she had accepted what Papa told her of God as plain, boring reality.

The only thing Papa ever talked about that sparked her little heart's interest in subjects ecclesiastical was the Angel of Music. And even now, she was beginning to doubt that the Angel really existed at all-just another one of Papa's sweet songs.

"Of course you do," Professor Valerius answered when Christine failed to speak. He turned and began to move slowly towards her. "And your father does, as well. And you both know that God is the reason for all the music we create, that we enjoy; that He is the most gifted composer, the only one capable of creating true harmony."

"Professor?" She was now beginning to feel scared-this was how Papa started talking when he came home from his longer walks, talking in riddles with a kinetic desperation that belied and terrified her inexperience with the world.

"Christine," the Professor sighed, "Did you ever consider that, as far as the Lord's music is concerned, that there might be a wrong way to play it? That certain notations are there for guidance and understanding, and that ignoring them only creates… a discordance, so you say?"

"I-I don't understand," she whispered, his grey, cloudy eyes searching hers with a burning that shook her. "I'm sorry, sir." Without knowing exactly why, Christine felt hot tears start to trickle down her cheeks, and before she even knew it, Professor Valerius lead her to one of the squashy armchairs in the room.

"My dear girl," he murmured, plucking the handkerchief from his breast pocket and delicately placing it in her open palms. "I've upset you. Please forgive an old man for thinking out loud. There, there. Let me get you a biscuit, child." And saying thus, he pulled his keys out of his trouser pocket and unlocked one of the drawers at his desk. The Professor pulled out a batted square tin and pried off the lid, revealing a small cache of sablés. He walked back to Christine and extended out his arm.

"I never had a daughter," Professor Valerius said as she sniffled and plucked a biscuit from the tin. "It sounds silly of me, but you and your Papa are the closest thing to children that Edwige and I could ever hope to have, even if you never feel the same way about us. We care very much about the both of you. Do you know that?"

"I know," Christine replied, around a mouthful of the buttery cookie and remaining tears. "You've been so kind to us." She swallowed and found the courage to look the Professor in the eyes. "You were fighting with Papa about his soul. My soul. I don't understand why."

"Ah," he responded, picking up a sablé for himself and staring at it sheepishly. "You heard. Yes, I suppose all of Perros heard." He laughed, but it did not reach his eyes. "Christine, your father is a brilliant artist, but I worry about him. We don't see eye-to-eye on many things, and I accept this as simply a fact of humankind that no man agrees with everything his brother believes. However, as Edwige and I come to see you as our family, matters of the soul become more and more urgent. I am glad he has taught you of God's love, but I lament it is through the wrong avenues." Professor Valerius looked down at his hand and noticed he had crushed the biscuit into fine, powdery bits. His rumpled expression made Christine smile, and the return to his usual scatterbrained mien calmed her rising anxiety.

"I'm afraid I still don't understand, sir," she said. "The wrong avenues?"

"The Catholic Church, Christine," he said. "Your father has the faith, but refuses to have you and himself baptized into it. And without the one true church, I'm afraid, well-" he paused to brush some errant crumbs off of his sleeve, "Well-that one will never truly know the Lord or find respite in heaven with Him."

Christine was too young to have any answer for her mentor, nor could she understand the gravity of his words. She knew the Valeriuses left her and her father to their own devices on Sunday while they worshiped at St. Jacques, the old Catholic church in the center of town. But apart from her curiosity regarding the choir and organist, little was ever said about why she and Papa never joined them.

Moreover, no one had ever thought to mention her mother-cold and long dead in the ground. Was she lost, burning away in some dark hell because of her father's selfishness? Because of her lack of knowledge?

If she was visibly shaken by this revelation, Professor Valerius said nothing. Instead, he wandered over to the piano in the corner of the room and plucked a piece of music off of its stand. When he returned to Christine, he simply patted the top of her head, as if he had been talking to her about a tricky voice lesson or a bout of bad weather.

"You're a smart girl, Christine. I daresay as smart as you are talented. I ask you to consider what we've discussed this afternoon." She numbly stood and accepted the sheets of paper from him. "Perhaps it will sound sweeter to your father hearing you say it-from the mouth of babes, what. Now run along."

The walk back to the Robiquets was the longest of her short life-poor Christine found herself leaning against walls, trees, trying to find her breath, hoping her mother was still somewhere, wondering why the world was so difficult and cruel, how Papa could have let them starve and shiver and tell her to trust in God when none of it provided, when it would only mean she'd inevitably burn to ash, her soul lost forever to the void.

Her soul.

Her soul was a precious thing.

And, catching her breath as she looked out to the sea, vast and terrifying, she realized that it was up to her alone to safeguard it.

When she and Papa were anointed that next year, Christine slept easily again; whatever else happened to her family, she could trust that her soul would be shepherded with the utmost tenderness and love, by a love so indescribable it transcended any mundane connotations she knew of the word.

As she sat shivering in her bathroom, eight years later, five stories below the ground, Christine realized that this was her third mistake.