The Devil’s Diphthong

The life of an opera singer is characterized primarily by first-world problems: the scourge of dairy, the necessity of a scarf, and the like. Perhaps that’s why Millie Tartan couldn’t recognize a very primal, ancient problem when it was presented to her.

Millie was just a week away from opening The Magic Flute as Pamina, which is a great part if you don’t care about any of the interesting parts of the story. Truthfully, she saw herself as more of a Queen of the Night type — an undeniable and powerful talent — but she knew she had ten years of dues paying, polite society, and just enough but not too much aging before parts like that were hers.

Just a few more rehearsals, a historic opening night, and she’d be on her way.

As she exited the stage door after an evening of grueling vocal exercises, a shadowy man stepped toward her in the alley.

“I’m not carrying any cash,” she said as loud as she could, hoping one of the stagehands just inside could hear her. “No jewelry, either,” she called as she tried to take off her good ring and communicate it up her sleeve in a way nobody would notice in the dark.

“Miss Tartan,” the voice wheezed, “I am here to warn you.”

He took a step forward so the feeble light above the stage door that was supposed to prevent interactions exactly like this one could illuminate his face.

Millie was a little relieved to see how frail he looked. Lined skin hung from his face like peeling paint, and his jacket had more patches than any Girl Scout she’d ever met. His hair seemed in a disagreement over whether to flee entirely or double-down on the sides of his head.

“You are in grave danger,” he said with some wildness in his eyes.

“Buddy, if you don’t back off, it’s you who’s in danger,” Millie said, assuming what she imagined a judo stance looked like.

He recoiled in fear from her threats.

“Please, be very careful with your words. The sounds you make — you are on the edge of disaster. You invite the devil himself.”

Something about the way he criticized her sounds transported Millie back to the other kids mocking her in preschool, the four years of speech therapy. She felt the heat of embarrassment flush over her as she remembered the therapist teaching her to sing songs with blended vowels — which had led to both her verbal breakthrough and the discovery of her talent.

“How dare you, sir?” she asked with indignation. “How dare you listen at exterior walls with your grubby ears and assume you can judge the quality of a professional’s instrument in such a manner?”

“I assure you, Miss Tartan, I am — or was — a phoneticist of some regard.”

“Of course you were,” she replied, “and I used to be a cocker spaniel.”

He would not allow himself to be dismissed.

“Your tonal and phonetical qualities are quite unique. I detect you were non-verbal until a relatively advanced age.”

She burned again at such a shabby stranger making these accurate predictions.

“You don’t deny it, do you?” he asked. “Your palette, your throat — you have the capacity to make the Devil’s Diphthong.”

“Fantastic,” Millie said with a laugh. “You’re completely crazy. Please get out of my way, and if I ever see you hanging around the stage door again, I’ll be sure you’re removed by the police.”

With that, she gave the dusty stranger her best shove, knocking him into some nearby garbage cans. As she walked out of the alley and toward the sidewalk, she could hear him saying “Beware the Devil’s Diphthong!”

***

That night, Millie couldn’t sleep. She was haunted by memories of ridicule and speech therapy that her recent years of success had buried deep inside of her. Somehow, though, as she visualized her therapist’s office with the Clifford the Big Red Dog poster and her classroom with the persistent floor wax smell, he was there — the guy from the alley. In every cinematic, detail-perfect memory, he was suddenly right there, with fear in his eyes, mouthing the words “Devil’s Diphthong” over and over.

In hopes of getting him out of her head, she pulled her tablet into bed and Googled the Devil’s Diphthong. There weren’t many results — only about two pages, and when she put the words in quotation marks, there were just five links.

The top entry was a PDF from the Dartmouth College library titled “On the Consequences of Slips of the Tongue” by John Hart, dated 1553. The scan of the old printed manuscript was hard to read, and all she could really understand was that Hart believed by mispronunciation of vowel sounds was associated with poor character. In particular, he said there was a blend of the “ie” sound in “grieve” and the “a” sound in “grave” which was used as a sort of indicator or secret handshake between Satanic cultists.

The rest of the search results were an almost incomprehensible collection of ramblings by different authors (she wondered how many of them were the guy from the alley spending his spare time on the computer at the library), many of which claimed a specific sound could open the gates of Hell here on Earth.

It was colorful, impassioned stuff — but totally nuts, Millie concluded. With her mind at rest, she finally fell asleep.

***

Millie was so wrapped up in dress rehearsals that she hardly thought about the Devil’s Diphthong beyond telling the security guy to watch for crazies in the alley. She was, however, progressively becoming more aware of the way she sang vowel sounds. In Mozart’s German, she felt her A’s were more forceful — authoritative, even. When she sang pop songs in the shower, she paid greater attention than ever to the subtle differences between E and I sounds, observing she did pronounce “ie” words a little differently from all the other singers she knew.

The awareness of sounds kept bringing her back: to childhood when she’d willed herself to finally talk, and to college, where coaches had first begun to groom her for professional theatre. She lived in phonics-tinted memories for all of tech week.

Finally, when opening night arrived, Millie felt like her most powerful, most prepared, and most self-aware self. The repetition of rehearsals and her recent reflection upon the struggle that defined her early years had her feeling ready to take on the world, ready to nail this run, and ready to move up to bigger, better parts.

When Scene 2 arrived, she was ready to shine, unleashing her beautiful, unique voice for all the audience to hear. When she got to “Nur meine mutter dauert mich; / Sie stirbt vor gram ganz sicherlich,” something strange happened, though.

There was a flat note from the horn section and a few shocked gasps. Then the stage began to tremble below her feet. As she looked down into the orchestra pit, Millie could see a fissure opening in the floor and magma bubbling around the musician’s feet like someone had struck a spring of fire.

This story is part of 13 Ghost Stories in 13 Days. Each entry in the series was written and published in a single day during October of 2020. This idea was completely stolen from Mark Macyk.

Day 1: The Devil’s Diphthong

Day 2: The Podcasting Ghost

Day 3: The Portal Potties

Day 4: The Household Accident

Day 5: The Scarecrow Competition

Day 6: The Cursed Father

Day 7: When the Car Hits the Tree

Day 8: Thank Christ It’s Halloween

Day 9: The Greek Halloween Myth

Day 10: The Ghost & The Cockroach

Day 11: Pampered