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Michaela Stirling, ever since she was a little girl, had always been possessed of a keen sense of time. Instinctively, she knew when her classmates were shorting their hide and seek countdowns at recess and when the bell for class was about to ring. The year she was in debate club, she always fit her arguments and rebuttals precisely into the time allotted, never rushing or leaving a second unused. She could usually guess the time without checking a watch or mobile, which was about as impressive as it sounded.
It was simply a fact of life. One that went largely overlooked, true, swept along in the mixed bag of details and facets that made up one girl: Michaela made friends as easily as breathing. Pizza Day in the cafeteria was her favorite. It usually took at least two tries to get her math homework right. She had an uncanny sense of time.
Until, that was, Michaela began to sing.
Well, until she began to sing with purpose, with a look to the future. Having attended church with her parents as a child and performed in primary school recitals and simply shouted along with the car radio, Michaela had always sung. It wasn’t until she entered high school and chosen choir for her arts elective that she had realized music could be a path forward. That natural talent—a good ear and open tone and that ever-ticking sense of time—could produce real opportunity.
All of which was to say that, though she was hunkered down outside the least used service entrance of the Mecklenburg-Strelitz Centre for Performing Arts, velvet skirt a rapidly wrinkling pouf around her, Michaela Stirling was perfectly aware of the time.
Which was why she was perfectly aware that this was not the time to be hunkered down outside the least used service entrance of the Mecklenburg-Strelitz Centre for Performing Arts.
For one, there never really was a good time to lurk outside this particular door. For sneaking extra time in the basement practice studios during off hours, it was easier to steal in through the east entrance, with its sticky latch. For grabbing fresh air during long, stuffy rehearsals, the stage door was more convenient, so long as the haze of vape fog and cigarette smoke from the drama and dance students didn’t waft over from the north. Michaela was fairly certain this particular door only existed to satisfy the fire code. She was practically the only person who used it.
For two, her senior recital was scheduled to begin in, oh, just about fifteen minutes.
The one performance she had spent the last three years preparing for. The singular culmination of all her effort and study and artistry. The sole threshold between the padded edges of school—lessons and critique and blunted consequences—and the stark realities of professionalism.
At least, it was supposed to be.
Considering Michaela had experienced the same two hours—from blinking into awareness in the dressing room, reserved by tradition if not policy for seniors before their final recital, to an applause-filled curtain call—on repeat, she figured it was safe to abandon that assumption. One, singular, and sole had been left in the rearview days (Weeks? Probably. Hopefully not months, let alone years.) ago.
Then again, she had seen Groundhog Day. (Not before this all started; 1990s Bill Murray vehicles weren’t exactly the Stirling family’s speed. But after enough time in the loop, she’d figured a little research couldn’t hurt. Since theoretical physics was even less in her wheelhouse, Michaela had blown off eight or ten of her recitals for the most existentially fraught movie marathon in history.) She might live through this again and again and again, but the only one that would count, jog the usually unrelenting march of time back into alignment, would be the last. No one else would remember the tens or hundreds of performances that had come before.
It was only this knowledge that reliably kept Michaela within the familiar halls of the Meck nowadays.
(Nowadays. At the beginning, a few days in—ten, twenty, thirty performances under her belt, one right after the other until she crashed and burned right on stage—Michaela had fully lost her mind and dedicated herself to doing pretty much anything and everything that wasn’t singing on stage for an audience or a grade. She’d defy anyone in her shoes to do differently. Her cinematic research had even proven that it was pretty much mandatory, if retroactively.)
When she could feel the paranoia and panic of living the same patch of time over and over again swelling to a sforzando, when her own eddying frustration and fury was set to go off as explosively as the finale of the 1812 Overture, that was when Michaela took a break.The universe and the magical lesson bullshit it so clearly wanted her to learn could wait until she wasn’t poised to snap like a piano string: explosively. Until then—or, more likely, once she could get it together once again—she was out, as far from the oppressively familiar halls of the Meck as she could get.
From Mayfair, with only two hours before she blinked right back to where she started, that wasn’tfar at all.
The only bit of luck Michaela had encountered so far was that it hardly mattered.
London was full of things to do and see, and Michaela had spent most of the last three years doing and seeing none of them. It was past time to put her Oyster card to good use.
So she rode the double-deckers with the tourists and strolled along the South Bank, enjoying a rare bit of spring sun. Had a few too many pints for the middle of the day and burned her tongue on freshly fried chips. Spent every last penny in her account on beautiful, frivolous things that wouldn’t see the inside of her flat and gave it all away just for the look of shock it earned her. Wandered the Tate Modern to scrutinize every piece that made her thinkand hired a deck chair in Hyde Park to sit in the sun and do her best not to.
(The only thing Michaela didn’t do, aside from sing, was look for romance. She’d chat with strangers and vaguely familiar faces—what she got for spending most of her university years holed up in practice rooms with instructors and ensembles and an accompanist—alike, but any sign of deeper interest had her playing cheerfully oblivious. However short-lived and consequence-free a bit of afternoon delight might be, she knew she’d find little satisfaction in it. There were pretty girls aplenty in London, and even if she could pull just about any she set her sights on—and she could; Michaela Stirling had never been unlucky with the ladies. Well, except the one.)
She took these days off sparingly, weighing the fleeting sense of peace they gained her against the worry she knew they caused everyone else. Though Michaela had learned early on to leave her phone at the Meck—fielding hours of frantic calls and messages from friends and family and professors when her disappearance was discovered quickly lost its charm—she was under no illusion that there wasn’t an uproar unfolding.
Mostly, however, Michaela got herself through her pre-show ritualsand out to the wings and onto the stage with little fuss.
She’d drink the warm chamomile tea, sweetened with too much honey, that was always in hand when she was zapped back to the dressing room when her time ran out. Any calming effect it had offered the first go around was negligible now, but she’d always drunk a too-sweet tea before a performance, ever since her first solo with the church choir when she was twelve.
Then, she’d start her warm ups, running through slides and scales to prepare her voice and stretches and staccatos to prepare her jaw and lips and tongue. It was still strange to go from the end of an hour-long concert, when her vocal cords were loose and easy, maybe wearing towards fatigue, to completely cold, dead asleep from the vocal rest Professor Danbury had prescribed two days ago.
From there, music once again awoken in her voice, it was now pure muscle memory that got her dressed, her curls arranged flatteringly, and her face made up brightly enough to stand out under the harsh glare of the stage lights.
After all, it was only the precursor. The behind-the-scenes work necessary to set up the climactic moment that would send her back into the regular flow of time.
That could only happen on stage.
So she assumed, at least.
What purpose could there be in dooming a vocal performance student to re-perform her final recital over and over if not to perfect it? Clearly, some aspect of it, heretofore unsuspected and unremarked upon by anyone who had sat in upon her rehearsals, was still in need of correction.
The only question was what. Unfortunately, the possibilities were numerous.
Michaela, admittedly, had been a less than diligent student in her time at university, coasting by mainly on natural talent, charm, and the exasperated affection of her faculty advisors. She was a born performer, with a beautiful tone and emotional delivery, but the finer aspects of technique could get left by the wayside.
(That she had expended more academic effort within the same two hours than she had put into most of her academic career was probably a fitting bit of irony in someone’s eye. Not hers, but someone’s.)
If ever there was a time to tighten up, why not now? She had all of it, time, in the world.
So, over and over and over again, Michaela strived for perfection.
From what she remembered, her first attempt had been perfectly suitable. Of course it was.Michaela might have skated by on the theoretical part of her studies, but the stage was where she thrived. She had practiced every song in her program for months, beating rhythm and breath and tone into every plane of her mouth, the expansion of her lungs. Of course she could sing each one creditably. But not perfectly.That first had been too tinged with nerves in her opening set, too much vibrato and not enough breathcontrol, but unobjectionable. The following dozen or so had been much the same, though the mounting sense of confusion and dread could not have helped.
Stubborn as she was, it wasn’t a challenge she could back down from. Michaela dredged her memory for every bit of critique she’d ever grinned her way through, layering years of advice and scolding on top of one another. Her shoulders and neck were loose, settled exactly atop a straight spine. Triplets remained even and unrushed, each syllable enunciated with shattering clarity. The roof of her mouth was soft, open and easy. She stayed with the accompaniment rather than lingering on particularly satisfying runs and resonances.
And yet, the cycle ever reset.
It was enough to make her want to scream.
(She’d done that, once. Spent an entire two hours just screaming into the cushions of her dressing room’s sad, tiny sofa. Her voice had been shredded by the end, and when she blinked back to awareness, upright with tea in hand, it had taken a while for her brain to believe her larynx was just fine, actually.)
Today, however, Michaela didn’t want to scream.
She didn’t want to sing, either. She didn’t want to dash off on another adventure in London, with or without company.
She didn’t particularly want to be hiding out at the least used entrance to the Meck, even, but it was what she had the will power for.
Hence her game of chicken with the unrelenting—except when it decided to loop perpetually around for the fun of it, apparently—march of time.
Fourteen minutes, now.
If she got up now, she could make it back to her dressing room with more than enough time to wrestle the stuck zipper at the back of her gown all the way up and proceed through the rest of her preparations. If she got up now, she could rewarm her voice and fix her hair and will a brilliant smile onto her face. If she got up now, she could turn that smile on her waiting audience and awe them with the repertoire that was now embedded in her very bones.
Michaela didn’t move for another minute, each second passing by marked precisely by a mind that couldn’t stop no matter how much it wanted to.
(Here was the thing: the zipper always stuck. No wonder for a dress that had only been worn, technically, a few times; once when she bought it over break in anticipation of this very day and maybe twice more for program photos and dress rehearsal. Metaphysically, of course, the dress had been worn far more often. Though that didn’t make its price any easier to justify, really. Michaela always struggled to get the zip up and across the waist seam, but it got there in the end, sheathing her in dark velvet. It had never triggered a shutdown like this before. Maybe it was time for another day off.)
Eyes closed and face raised to an unusually balmy ray of spring sun, Michaela continued not to move even as she heard that little-used entrance creak open and someone discovered her hiding spot.
The rustle of a floor length skirt would have given that someone away if the delicate scent of freesia hadn’t.
Francesca Bridgerton didn’t scold or exclaim or try to hustle Michaela back inside to fly through show prep. Instead, after seven long seconds, that stiff taffeta skirt crumpled as the woman wearing it sank into a crouch to match Michaela’s. A head boasting a rope of thick, auburn hair tipped back against sun-warm stone, close enough that their shoulders were pressed together, more familiar than any of the two hours Michaela had worn into the fabric of her existence.
The quiet stretched longer than it ever had in their long acquaintance.
Always, it was Michaela who broke the silence. Ever since she had burst into Francesca’s practice room the spring of their first year, frantic for someone, anyone, to accompany her, Michaela had been chattering enough for the both of them.
(She still remembered the stunned, confused look on Francesca’s face when she had invited herself in upon receiving confirmation that she actually did play the piano. Sitting at the piano, it should have been a foregone conclusion, but the three separate oboists had also been sitting at the pianos in their practice rooms, so Michaela had learned to check. Stunned and far too polite to insist that Michaela get out and leave her to her own rehearsal. That look had persisted for all of a moment, vanishing into concentration when the sheet music for the solo Michaela was meant to perform for her Vocal Technique midterm in three days, but it was still burned into Michaela’s memory. Over the years, she’d had plenty of opportunity to see it again, imposing herself on the shy, quiet pianist who seemed to live in Practice Room Six—having aced her midterm after only an hour of help, Michaela was not about to look a gift horse in the mouth—until they were friends more than singer and accompanist, even if most of their friendship revolved around music.)
For the first time, however, Francesca was the one to speak.
“I told you the quiet can be soothing.”
Michaela hummed an acknowledgement, an easy A-flat.
Given a preference, and Michaela knew it wasn’t often that Francesca’s preferences were given their due, Francesca could spend days in quiet contemplation. She never complained when Michaela came bursting in with gossip about the tenors and the orchestra’s concertmaster, but Francesca could drink and drink and drink from the well of solitude and never slake her thirst.
(She’d blinked, those big blue eyes disappearing behind lashes that had never seen an extension in their life, and frowned when Michaela, in a fit of uncharacteristic self-consciousness, had asked if she wanted to be alone. “But we are alone,” Francesca had said, turning back to the piano to tease out the harmony line from Lakmé’s Flower Duet. Michaela had had to pretend her heart didn’t flutter along with the music.)
Francesca hummed back, a perfect fourth. The harmony hung in the air for a moment, a little tremulous. If Michaela’s sense of time was remarkable, Francesca’s ear was remarkable, though she rarely put the talent to use for her own voice. Finally, she asked, “Are we hiding from anything in particular?”
Michaela’s note dropped a third, considering.
To tell or not to tell? That was the question.
She had never had such a the opportunity to divulge the truth of her temporal disorder to Francesca before. Generally, they only met in the wings just before the curtain rose, and there was no chance to say anything before it fell again. Not unless she wanted to open that can of worms on stage, in front of a nearly full auditorium.
(Sometimes, not often enough, when Michaela was feeling electric and utterly daring with it, she’d march down to Practice Room Six and convince Francesca to come on an adventure with her. Whatever Francesca saw in her face—wild abandon or desperation or just another one of Michaela’s ill-advised antics—she had yet to turn her down.)
Finding she couldn’t stand the thought of Francesca’s worry, which was the likeliest outcome of telling the truth, Michaela opened her eyes.
Not to tell, then.
She snorted, head lolling to her shoulder so she could take in Francesca’s familiar, angular face. “Just all my life choices. Why did I decide on this program, again? If I sing ‘Der Hölle Rache’ one more time, I just might go full Queen of the Night.”
Reflexively, Francesca’s pale fingers began to sketch out the accompaniment on her taffeta-draped knees. Even as she marked through the music, she pointed out, “You don’t have to.”
“It’d be difficult without a usurping high priest to murder,” she mused, trying to grin and only maybe succeeding.
Francesca frowned.
Michaela melted. Leaning into Francesca’s warmth, she clarified, “Joke.”
Her friend nodded, but the frown didn’t melt away. Michaela would do just about anything to make it disappear.
Just about.
(If Michaela had spent more time in the loop thinking about what it would be like to kiss Francesca Bridgerton than she did out of it, it was only a matter percentages. She might not have taken a maths course since secondary school, but even Michaela knew that spending about half her time in Francesca’s presence, if only as performers, beat out the scattered rehearsals and study sessions she usually got. From experience beyond this ever-repeating cycle, Michaela also knew that to spend time with Francesca was generally to think about kissing her.)
Instead of the few things that fell outside that expansive realm, she considered Francesca’s suggestion.
It wouldn’t be the first time she’d gone off book. Though perfection in some form might be her goal now, she had spent a good chunk of middle ground entirely off the rails. Michaela had gone through a jag of singing anything that popped into her head for a while. Everything from Dolly Parton to Adele to Sondheim to a full slate of Christmas carols, just because she’d gotten to wondering how far away, internally at least, it was. With every song choice, Francesca had been there, game and still utterly baffled. Her accompaniment rarely sounded like the original, but they were all beautiful in their own way.
With only ten minutes to curtain, changing her entire set at this point would still be more warning than Francesca usually got. Still, Michaela drily observed, “I believe my chance at graduating this term would disagree.”
Francesca’s mouth made that utterly distracting twitch of a grin, and Michaela didn’t bother to tell herself to stop staring. If this was the time she was caught out, at least she would be the only one to suffer the lasting mortification.
With beautiful, oblivious Francesca to catch her, of course she wasn’t.
“There’s nothing to say you can’t change your program.”
“Except, of course, the programs.”
“Just call it a,” she paused, searching for an acceptable excuse, “misprint if anyone asks. Or claim you’d been struck by sudden inspiration and simply could not proceed as planned.”
Michaela laughed, just a puff of air really, at Francesca’s uncharacteristic theatrics. Her siblings had to rub off on her in some fashion, she supposed. “Now that’s entirely too dramatic.”
“For you?”
Her laugh now was brighter, buzzing away in her larynx, but some part of her that had felt distant and hazy settled back within her control. She turned her gaze up to the blue, blue sky rather than risk getting lost in Francesca’s blue, blue eyes. Her mouth was dry, and she had to lick her lips to allow a warm, “Point.”
(If Francesca wanted drama out of her, Michaela could happily give her drama. A spotlit kiss to the score of an adoring crowd might do the trick? If she could only pluck up the courage...)
She could feel Francesca staring, patient but confused but assured nonetheless. Like she knew Michaela’s decision before it had even been made.
Knees creaking, she heaved herself upright and held a hand out to her incredible friend.
(A friend, a friend. Just a friend. Don’t get cocky now, Stirling. How awful would it be to try for something more only to be shot down? Michaela shuddered to think of the effort involved in breaking in a new accompanist. It was easier than examining the well of dread that yawned when imagining losing Francesca in any and every other way.)
Francesca’s fingers were warm and strong against Michaela’s palm, an easy fit as always.
Ever since their first official performance together, they had clasped hands backstage, warding off jitters and nerves. In the dark of the wings, it was easy to get caught up in worry and the conviction that every note was in danger of falling out of her head. One grounding touch from Francesca though, and calm could take over until it was time to enter the spotlight, when everything but the music tended to fade away.
Francesca barely half a step behind, Michaela flew through the service door and into the Meck’s least-used hallway—she’d never once seen a pair of randy drama students going at it back here, so it must be well and truly remote—mentally checking her inner clock.
“I’ll have to go on late,” she groaned. Then, even worse, she realized: “I’ll be lucky if my panel even stays to listen.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that.”
Michaela’s steps slowed, but Francesca was having none of it, taking the lead to tow her along. Where she had been all patience and understanding outside, now that it was decided that the show really would go on, she was clearly a woman on a mission. It wasn’t often Michaela saw her so determined. The furrow on her fair brow should not have been adorable, but Michaela found herself torn between reaching out to smooth it away and clasping Francesca’s face between her palms to see what other wrinkles and new expressions she could make.
(Michaela already knew so many of them—Francesca peaceful as etudes she could play backwards and sideways came from the piano, Francesca grinning as she improvised tunes around the random notes Michaela plunked out, Francesca frustrated and uncomfortable by rare mistakes. She wanted to know them all.)
“What is that supposed to mean?” she demanded instead, turning a last corner and bursting straight into her dressing room. Already shucking the Regent’s Music Conservatory sweatshirt she had thrown on after her breakdown over the zipper, Michaela went straight for the mirror. In it, she could see both that her hair was in need of rearranging and that Francesca’s cheeks were burned a deep, spreading pink.
For a moment, Michaela couldn’t fathom why. Not until Francesca’s hands gestured, somehow lending the awkwardly jerky movement grace. “Shall I—?”
Ah, right. Her dress was still only zipped to the waist. Michaela pushed down a purr of delight over the knowledge that such an innocent display of skin could fluster Francesca so and simply nodded. It took a moment for her to approach, and when she did, she kept her focus on the task at hand.
“When no one could find you, I tripped the breaker for the concert hall,” Francesca confessed, eyes trained on the zipper. Even through the thick velvet of her gown, Michaela could feel the warmth and strength of her hands. “It’ll be at least ten minutes until they find a custodian to reset it.”
Michaela let out a sharp peal of laughter, startled and gleeful. “Francesca!” she exclaimed, marveling and unafraid to show it. “You dark horse!”
Though she immediately launched into a series of trills and scales, warming up her voice as thoroughly as possible, Michaela watched Francesca’s reflection over her shoulder, felt her long fingers tugging the fiddly zipper up the length of her spine. Though her hands eventually fell away, she remained where she was, a warm and steady presence at Michaela’s back. Without prompting, Francesca began to arrange Michaela’s hair without prompting, tucking flyaway curls back into place. Once she was able to concentrate again, Michaela managed to touch up her makeup, though she found she’d maybe overdone it on the blush.
In all, moving in perfect sync, they managed to primp and polish Michaela into some semblance of stage readiness.
Just in time, too.
A harried stage manager buzzed over the intercom to call them to the stage.
It was a short walk to the wings, just a dark, narrow passage straight to stage left. Michaela still felt each second tick by, just out of time with the throb of her pulse.
There was hardly any time to grasp Francesca’s hand in the dark, the curtain already rising, but Michaela was already late. One last delay wouldn’t make anything worse.
Francesca turned back, head tilting in question.
“What do you say to some Great Comet?”
After only a moment to catch up, she landed upon, “‘No One Else’?”
Michaela grinned, heart full to the brim. I saw your smile and the world opened wide indeed. “Like you can read my mind.”
“If only.” She was entirely too wistful for Michaela’s taste. Like deciphering her thoughts was some insurmountable challenge, after years practicing and honing and performing together.
“I’m an open score, Fran. Sight-reading’s never given you trouble before.”
Proving exactly how right she was, Francesca’s eyes dipped to Michaela’s lips, just for a moment.
Plenty of time for Michaela to read the descant thrumming through her.
Without thinking, Michaela used her grip to reel Francesca in, to pull her close enough that it was impossible not to kiss her. And once she began, it seemed impossible that she hadn’t started this years ago, when she had barged in on a shy, talented pianist and set them both on this path in the first place.
(If Michaela had expected this kiss to jolt her back into step with the rest of the world—and she wouldn’t have been wrong to expect something magic out of a kiss that rocked the very foundations of her world—she would have been disappointed. There was no supernatural awareness of her internal clock winding into alignment, no sense that she had once again joined the rest of the world. Even if she had expected literal magic, though, Michaela could not have found it in her to be disappointed in any measure by a kiss from Francesca.)
For once, Michaela’s impeccable timing failed her.
She should, in retrospect, have kissed Francesca somewhere without an exasperated stage manager to interrupt them. They should have stayed in the dressing room or run when they had the chance if it meant getting to keep on kissing her. The flush on Francesca’s cheeks as she swept out to the piano was a pale consolation prize. The way it darkened as Michaela followed her out was an improvement.
The crowd hushed, and the house lights fell dark, and it was only Michaela and Francesca, gazes locked on one another as they fell into the shared bubble of performance.
(Perhaps, in an hour or so, when the spotlight went dark and the curtain fell, Michaela would find herself back in her sweatshirt and leggings, vocal cords cold, and a recital awaiting her. She hoped not. More than any other time—and she had long ago lost count of all the times she’d been through—she felt like she had finally gotten a taste of her future.)
In the end, Michaela would never know for sure what metaphorical note she hit to resolve the infinite fermata of those two hours. It certainly wasn’t perfection; she flubbed some of her French during the Debussy set and got so distracted by the fall of Francesca’s hair across her forehead that she forgot to signal for the next song to start.
Nonetheless, Michaela had rarely felt more perfect on stage, felt each note and rest flowing out of her with ease and grace. Even without the Night Queen’s aria, impeccable and ferocious, as a triumphant finale, her last notes were strong and joyous, a ringing welcome for the future, whenever she might get there.
As she took her final bow, before the curtain could fall, Michaela closed her eyes. She might be more determined than ever to make it out of this time loop, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t cry a little if she found herself back in that fucking dressing room.
Only the applause went on, long after it usually cut out. And there was no warm tea in her hand. It was stifling velvet and not stretchy, worn-thin cotton covering her.
And there, delicate but steady on her elbow, was a hand.
Michaela opened her eyes.
There was Francesca, beaming proudly, lips already parting to share her customary praise.
Before she could, Michaela swept in to kiss her again and again and again. Not nearly enough to make a dent in the deficit they had accrued over their acquaintance, but perhaps enough to prove how diligently she would apply herself to leveling that debt.
By the time she was ready to pause, her hands cupped Francesca’s cheeks, and Francesca was holding onto her wrists for dear life. Flushed and starry-eyed and so pretty that Michaela could scream, she asked, “Whatever took you so long?”
“Better late than never,” she returned, a punchline to a joke only she fully appreciated. That was fine. It was the last time she would be alone in a long time if she had any say. Laughing and free, Michaela pressed another sweet, lingering kiss to Francesca’s mouth and finally tasted perfection.