All of her parents’ clothes were hanging in the closet. She
hadn’t been able to get rid of them. Stacks of photo albums were piled around,
along with boxes of her parents’ possessions that had been too painful to keep
in the main part of the house, but she couldn’t bear to part with.
With a sigh, she allowed the memories to flow through her,
agonizing as they were, and headed over to the far end of the room where a box
full of her old sheet music was. She sat down cross-legged on the floor and
began to sift through it, looking for the lost pages of the concerto she had
been attempting to write.
She didn’t know how long she was in there. She lost track of
time. There was a memory attached to each piece of music, and after she’d gone
through that, she’d moved on to pictures, clothing, things. She revisited what
she had been avoiding for so long, laughed and cried, allowing her grief to
work through her in its entirety and accepting the loss instead of pretending
like it wasn’t there.
By the time she had finished, she’d located the few
poorly-written pages of her concerto and was beyond exhausted. She ate a meager
dinner, vowed to start on her music the next morning, and practically fell into
bed. She felt like she was on a runaway train of emotion that showed no signs
of stopping. She was drained and worn out, and felt the enormity of the task
she was about to undertake weighing on her shoulders.
She hadn’t composed anything in so long. What if she couldn’t
do it? What if she failed? If she wasn’t good enough, wasn’t talented enough to
create a masterpiece worthy of Liron, she would lose him. She couldn’t bear the
thought of losing him also. It would be too much. She would never recover.
The future she wanted so desperately and whether or not she
was able to attain it was all up to her. That should have been comforting, but
it wasn’t. It was overwhelming. Far worse than having to pass chemistry in
order to graduate high school. Far worse than her audition to get into Juilliard.
Far worse than graduating Juilliard, and even worse still than her audition for
a place in the orchestra.
This was a test beyond all tests. She was trying to bend the
laws of the universe. How could she even hope to accomplish something like
that? She was just one woman. Just an ordinary, human woman who played the
piano and who, at one time, had dabbled at composition. She was no one special
at all….
With her exhausted mind unable to continue freaking out,
Melody slowly dropped into sleep, and right before she conked out into the deep
sleep where dreams are not found, she heard Liron’s voice like a whispering
caress.
“You are special to me. Not only special, lovely. You are
everything.”
Chapter Eighteen
Two
Weeks Later
The knocking on her door sounded distant, and she ignored it
for a long while so that she could add the last few notes to the score she had
been poring over like a madwoman. She stared at it when it was finished. Pages
and pages of hand-written music—a symphony, a concerto, a masterpiece maybe. A
score for her life. It was raw and painful. She had cried through most of it.
She had never been more honest with herself.
It was her, and her parents, and Liron all in one.
Was it good enough? She didn’t know. All she knew was that
she had never put more of her own person into anything in her life.
The knocking continued to the point that she heaved a sigh,
stood from where everything was strewn on her living room floor, and went to
the door. If it was Rob, so help her, she was going to—
It wasn’t Rob. It was Nikki, looking extremely concerned, and
even more so now that Melody had opened the door.
She couldn’t blame her. She must look horrendous. She’d been
showering at least, but she’d been living in a tracksuit with her hair piled on
top of her head in a haphazard knot for who knew how long.
Nikki raised an eyebrow. “Mel?” she questioned. “Are you
okay?”
She sighed and stepped aside, opening the door to let her
friend in. “I’m okay. I’ve just been…kinda busy.”
Nikki frowned as she walked in and observed all the pages of
music flung every which direction. “It looks like Beethoven blew up in here,”
she muttered. She knelt and picked up a page, examined it, and her eyes
widened. She drew in a soft breath. “Mel…did you write this?”
Melody put her hands on her hips and shrugged.
Nikki stared at her with the oddest expression. “What made
you decide to do this? I didn’t even know when you got home from your
rendezvous with Mr. Hottie on the coast. How long have you been doing this?”
“Two weeks.” She ran her fingers through the loose strands of
hair that had escaped her ponytail. “He helped me decide to do it, actually.
It’s just….” She heaved a sigh. “It’s hard to explain. But I had to do it. I’m
going to take it to the conductor of the orchestra I used to play in and see
what he thinks.” Over the last several conversations she had had with Liron, it
had come to her attention that creating something wasn’t enough. That art had
to be put into practice. It had to be displayed. She only hoped that her old
conductor would think the score worthy.
“Geez…have you been doing anything else?” Nikki arched an
eyebrow. “Eating? Sleeping?”
Melody laughed softly. “I’ve been eating when necessary, and
sleeping.” Sleep was the only time she got to speak with Liron, however minute
those meetings were. She missed him so much she ached inside.
Nikki looked over some of the pages again, then sighed and
looked up at Melody. She seemed to study her for a minute before asking, “Are
you sure you’re okay?”
Melody nodded. “I’m just kind of…spent. This was a little
more grueling than I had anticipated.”
“Why the rush?”
She couldn’t exactly explain that to Nikki, so she shrugged.
“Just felt like it had to get done, you know?”
Nikki smiled and caught Melody in a hug. “I’m proud of you,
Mel. Really. You’re finally finding yourself again. You’re getting back in
touch with your life and what you love.”
No so much
what
she loved, but
who
she loved.
She smiled. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”
The expression on her friend’s face made Melody uneasy. Nikki
almost looked as if she could sense something was a little askew. She frowned
slightly. “How did things go with your boy-toy?” She opted for a lighthearted
tone, but Melody knew Nikki better than that.
Her heart tumbled around in her chest like laundry in a
dryer. “Uh…it went well.” She pushed back a few bedraggled pieces of hair.
Nikki cocked an eyebrow. “That’s kind of vague.”
“Well, he had some stuff he had to attend to, you know, and
so did I. But he told me he would come to the performance if the Philharmonic
approves my piece.” The words rambled out of her mouth faster than anticipated.
To Nikki’s credit, she didn’t push the subject, but she
didn’t really look convinced either. “When are you going to take it to the
conductor?”
“Tomorrow. After I go over it to make sure it’s
satisfactory.” It had to be. She had practically poured her lifeblood into the
thing. It couldn’t be substandard. If she failed to find a way to have it
played, thus failing to bring Liron back to her, she didn’t know what she would
do. She felt lost without him, so lonely it was suffocating.
* * * *
Liron watched Siegfried as he hopped around on the sand,
pecking at bugs and tormenting the seagulls. He had come down here every
evening since Melody had left. He felt closest to her here, like she wasn’t
trapped a dimension away, alone and hurting. He knew she was hurting. He felt her
distress even now. It was less intense than it had been. Instead of a violent
storm of emotion, it was more of a dull, quiet, persistent ache. And
exhaustion. He felt that from her above everything else.
The sunset had streaked the sky with crimson and gold, and
the waves were calm and rhythmic. He sighed and glanced down at Siegfried as
the bird hopped over, made a screeching noise, and peered up at him with
intelligence in his golden eyes.
Liron smiled sadly. “I know, old friend. You haven’t seen me
this disheartened in awhile. I’m sorry. I just miss her.”
The bird tilted its head as if he had actually understood
what Liron said, then screeched again and took to the skies for a sunset
flight.
“He’s beautiful.”
Liron looked over his shoulder at the sound of the feminine
voice and was surprised to see Samantha standing there. She was dressed much
more subdued than before, in a calf-length, flowy black skirt and a red blouse
that hugged her elegant frame. Regardless, she still looked every bit the
aristocrat. Sophisticated and regal like royalty.
“Samantha, hello. What brings you out here?”
She sighed and came to sit next to him. The sunlight glinted
off of her shining ebony hair and highlighted the delicate planes of her lovely
face. He saw Elizabeth in her, all the dark beauty he had been so enamored
with. Strange how that all seemed like it had happened to another person. He
didn’t feel the same any more.
“I haven’t been to this area in a long while. I wasn’t sure
if I could remember where you lived.” She smiled and looked up at him. “Then I
remembered to look for the dark castle.”
He chuckled. “Some things never change.”
She gave a gentle laugh. “Thank goodness for that.”
He frowned thoughtfully. “You came looking for me?”
She nodded and stretched her legs out in front of her. “When
did you get a falcon?”
“Awhile ago.” He studied her out of the corner of his eye,
not trying to seem rude, but wondering why she was there at all. They were no
longer connected in a way that she would feel obligated to him. “He has been a
companion when I had few others. My parents live elsewhere now. I rarely see
them. We correspond, but….” He shrugged.
Samantha gave him a wry smile. “Your parents never really did
understand you, Liron. You were all music and beauty while they were all stoic
logic and argument.” She laughed again, a lovely, musical sound. “I have no
idea how a logic muse and a science muse birthed a music muse.”
He chuckled. “Must have been way back in the lineage
somewhere. I got that rogue gene from my great-great-great et cetera, et cetera
grand-whatever.”
“Were you able to find your wife?” she asked, sobering.
Liron heaved a sigh and looked down to study the patterns in
the sand. “I am able to speak with her when she dreams. She is working on a way
to get me to her, but I feel so helpless. I know she is exhausted, that the score
she is writing to bring me to her world is taking everything out of her.”
“It should make you feel loved to know she is going to such
great lengths to be with you.”
“It does, but I don’t like knowing she is suffering and I am
stuck here unable to do anything about it.”
She smiled and reached over to cover his hand with hers.
“Everything will work out in the end, Liron. Don’t have such a dismal look on
your face. You are too handsome to scowl so much.” He cocked an eyebrow at her
and she giggled. “You were always brilliant, but such a pessimist. Not that I
blame you after everything that happened. Have some faith in your Melody. From
what you told me, she must possess a rare kind of power to do what she did. I
know you worry about her, but she is stronger than you give her credit for.” A
teasing sparkle came to life in her eyes. “As are most women.”
At his smile, she squeezed his hand and withdrew. “I was
speaking to Raymond after you came to see me, and we’ve decided that once
everything is said and done and back to normal, we would like you and your wife
to come one night for dinner.”
Liron couldn’t pretend not to be shocked at the invitation.
It had been so long since he had even associated with Samantha or anyone in her
family. She was the sister of his ex-wife. It would have been an awkward
situation any way a person looked at it.
Samantha seemed to sense his bewilderment and she smiled.
“It’s been so long since everything that happened with Elizabeth. She is gone
in both this realm and the other. It is silly to hold onto the past in such a
way that prevents us from being friends. I always thought you were such a
brilliant and gentle man, and it makes me happy to know that you have finally
found your perfect mate. If it doesn’t make you uncomfortable, I would like it
if we could be in one another’s lives again. It has been far too long since
Raymond and I had dinner guests. We desperately desire some good food, some
laughter, and a little bit of music.”
Liron found himself smiling at the invitation, and
surprisingly, the idea didn’t make him uncomfortable at all. He found this
slightly strange considering, at any other time, it probably would have. He
wouldn’t have wanted to face the memories that being around Samantha would
resurrect. Now, the memories that had been the cause of so much of his lonely
sorrow over the years were only that—memories. Nothing more, nothing less. They
no longer hurt. They just…were.
Melody had healed him in every single way.
A pang shot through his heart at the knowledge. He wanted to
hold her, kiss her, make love to her all night long and then again in the
morning until there was no space in her mind or her heart left to wonder how
much he cherished her.
It disturbed him that that tiny spot of doubt still lingered
within him. Way in the back, where he tried not to let his mind go, he heard
the whispered,
What if this doesn’t work? What if you don’t mean as much to
her as she does to you? What if you never inspired her at all and are unable to
get to her? What if all of this was just a tormenting but temporary dream?
Samantha’s sigh brought him out of his wandering thoughts,
and he looked up to see her regarding him with a chastising expression. He
arched an eyebrow in question.