by Skye Warren
She manages a wan smile. “Are you taking my virginity?”
The question is meant as a joke. It still sends a wildfire through my blood. I remember how tight she was the first time, the way she squirmed for relief. The way I stretched her untried muscles until she had no choice but to surrender. “Something short and simple. Something to ease you into it.”
“I told you I don’t want to play.”
“Then you should have taken Alexander up on his offer. He would no doubt let you lead him wherever you wanted. Instead you came outside the balcony.” I’ll remember that night until my last breath. My gratitude over her sweet submission isn’t going to make me stop, though.
Anger flashes across her face. Fear. Guilt. “You’re being strict for no reason. It’s late at night. I don’t want to play right now. Why can’t you accept that?”
“Play me a chord, Samantha.”
“No.”
“Play me a chord and I’ll leave you alone.” That’s not how I want this night to end, but if it’s necessary I’ll go back to my room alone and keep my fist company.
“Stop it.”
The gunshot at Carnegie Hall did this to her.
She was playing when it went off. I almost died, and somehow, somehow, that matters to her. Her psyche drew a straight line between her playing and my death. I’ve seen it a thousand times with soldiers well trained for the physical and mental strains of warfare. She could no sooner pick up the bow and press it to the strings than she could pick up a gun and shoot me.
“Nothing bad will happen,” I say gently. “I swear to you.”
Her eyes flash with panic. “You don’t know that. You don’t know anything. I don’t want to play the violin anymore, did you think of that? I’m not afraid. I just don’t like it.”
I open the case. “You can play a song you don’t like.”
She flinches back from the open case. It’s a beautiful violin. I know that mostly because I’ve seen her expression when she gazes at it, her expression of ecstasy when she plays. “Stop.”
It feels like it weighs nothing when I pick it up. Insane to think it can fill an entire theater with its sound. Only in the hands of the right person, however. Like her. “You’re a violinist.”
“I’m not. That’s just what you want me to be.”
I run my thumb along the strings. “Is it? That’s an interesting thought. Would I have fallen in love with you if you had never played a note? Would I have taken your virginity?”
“No.” She clasps the idea close. “You wouldn’t have. That’s all you want. You don’t care about me. So go find someone else to play your violin.”
“Now it’s my violin? I don’t think so. It’s yours.” I hold it out for her. Her talent doesn’t define her, but I won’t let her fear define her either. “That bedpost is solid wood. Go ahead and smash it. There won’t be anything to play then.”
Her eyes narrow with suspicion.
She might wonder if I’d snatch it back from her if it seemed like she was going to break it. Maybe I will. There isn’t a parenting guide for what to do when your child prodigy decides to stop playing out of mortal fear. If she had lost interest, I would have let it go. But I won’t let the men who terrorized her take it away from her. I won’t let her father do this from the grave.
“The violin is stronger than it looks,” I offer. “You’ll have to pull it back like a baseball bat. Really put your shoulder into it if you want it to shatter. It should at least be satisfying.”
“It cost like two million dollars,” she says, her fingers trembling as she reaches for the neck. I’m not sure whether she’s thinking about breaking it or thinking about saving it from my violent words.
It actually cost more than that. “It doesn’t matter, does it?”
“This is crazy. I don’t have to smash it. I just have to not play.”
I pretend to consider that. “No, I think you have to smash it. Otherwise I’ll never leave it alone. I’ll just be here insisting that you play me a song, a chord, a single note.”
“Fine.” She grasps the violin in her fist and stands beside the bed. A baseball bat. She’s clearly never held one, but she gives it her best shot, aiming toward the thick post that frames the bed. “You want me to ruin this? You want me to destroy a precious violin? I’ll do it.”
How much is it worth? More than millions of dollars. It’s worth her talent. Her heart. Watching her destroy it may destroy me—but I can’t force her to play. “If you want to.”
“I do. I do.” She pulls the violin high behind her shoulder. Emotion rises in the air around us like a fog. I can barely see her for the pain that surrounds her. She bares her teeth in an imitation of ferocity. It looks more like grief. “I really, really do.”
She stands there vibrating with her fear and her desire. Her hurt. She’s like a string on that violin she holds, playing a long, heartrending note. It seems inevitable that she’ll smash it against the bed. And probably regret it afterward.
Play the violin, I think. Let yourself have this.
The violin begins its downward arc. She lets it go at the last minute, and it flies through the air, landing harmlessly on the plush bed. A discordant sound erupts and then becomes muffled.
Samantha crumples on the rug, her face buried in her hands. Her shoulders shake with the violence of what she almost did—even though she still hasn’t played. I lose the heart to force her to play. You’re being strict for no reason. There is a reason, the most important one. For her happiness. I gather her in my arms for a different reason. My love for her.
We’re done for the day.
Samantha
The next morning my eyes feel swollen and gritty, but in the mirror I look pretty normal. My throat feels sore as if I screamed for hours instead of cried. I throw on a plain black tank top and jeans. Downstairs in the breakfast room I find a long buffet and a mostly empty table. Only one person sits there with coffee. Liam glances at me with alert green eyes. “Are you feeling okay this morning?”
He feels guilty for last night. Normally his guilt frustrates me. Today, I’ll accept it. I’m still a little upset at him for forcing the issue. And perversely upset that he didn’t force it all the way—so that I would have played. The violin sits in its case in my room. Not played. Not broken. A stalemate.
“Yes,” I say, pulling a croissant onto a plate. “I was wondering if we could see the Eiffel Tower. And whatever else there is to see in Paris. I’ve been here before but—”
“Not sightseeing.”
He knows the way my father traveled. In places that cost more than we could afford, while I was carted around like baggage that required food and water. There were no museums or tourist places. “When I performed at the Palais Garnier that was the only place I went.”
Which is dangerously close to what this visit might be like.
I know the reasons are completely different. My father didn’t care about me enough to take me places. Liam cares too much to let me go out unguarded. The irony is that the result is the same. I’m trapped in this beautiful place I didn’t choose.
Liam takes a sip of coffee. He’s silent while I eat my croissant. He’ll make some excuse. He’ll say he has no choice. He’ll say—“The Eiffel Tower. Okay. Where else? I’ll take you.”
My heart stops. “You will?”
“Unless you’d rather go with someone else. We could ask Bethany or—”
“No.” I circle the table in my excitement and press a kiss on his cheek. He couldn’t look more surprised if I had slapped him. In fact, he did look less surprised when I did that. “I want to go with you.”
A black SUV appears in front of the chateau in an hour. One of the men I know from North Security drives. It leaves us at a long stretch of grass framed by tulips. The Eiffel Tower rises above lush green trees. I cast a sideways glance at Liam, wondering if he’s immune to the romance of the place. It floats in the air around us. God, the sky is so blue. He looks stern and uncompro
mising. The typical Liam face. When he looks at me, I see that he’s affected after all. Green eyes burn with a poignant knowledge. That we’re here in this city. That we don’t belong—but that there is no requirement to love. No barriers in this particular city. Society’s rules have no jurisdiction here.
“Let’s go up,” he says, pointing the way to the line. What an ordinary thing to do with the man you love. That’s what I want right now. What I need. An ordinary life. Even my heartbeat thump thump thumps in a black case in my room at the chateau.
He arranges a special tour of Notre-Dame even though it’s closed to visitors, undergoing repairs. I walk beside the elaborate, colorful stained glass windows. I walk beside the confessionals.
A low bench lined with red leather and padding provides a place to pray. I light a candle and kneel. It reminds me of the time I knelt in front of Liam on the balcony on a different type of red fabric. Blasphemy, considering what I did to his body that night. What he did to mine. The same. It’s the same anyway, the prayer that I make. For his safety. For mine.
That against the odds, we can both find it together.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The earliest form of musical notation can be found in a cuneiform tablet that was created in Babylonia, where Iraq is today, in 1400 BC.
Samantha
It’s when we’re leaving Notre Dame that I spy the words Shakespeare and Company. Something about the familiarity makes me pause. That’s when I realize. “The tote bag,” I say, feeling faint. My stomach turns over. That my mother was only inches away from me. That she touched me, wiping the hot tea from my body, when I had no idea who she was, makes me feel strange. It’s like someone walking on your grave—a sensation that you should never be aware of.
Liam squeezes my hand. “Let’s go. We can visit the Louvre.”
It’s tempting. You don’t spend a lifetime pursuing classical music without also acquiring a taste for classical art. The portrayals of instruments alone would be enthralling. “What is that place?”
“A bookstore.” He pauses. “We asked around. She wasn’t seen.”
Of course they would have pursued that lead before I even thought of it. That’s how Liam and Josh work, analyzing threats and subduing them. I suppose that means my mother is a threat. “I’d like to go inside.”
Another hesitation. Longer this time. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“You won’t stop me.” Part of growing up means making my own decisions. It means walking into a place that may only cause me emotional pain. Whether as my guardian or my lover, Liam can’t protect me from that.
He looks resigned. “A short visit.”
A woman recites poetry using very sexual and explicit words to describe female anatomy. She stands in front of an upturned straw hat, collecting euros, much the way a street musician would do. An antique-looking suitcase sits open by the entrance, containing books wrapped in brown paper with descriptions. No book covers or titles to sway the buyer.
I swerve toward a shop next door that contains rare books. The scent of dust and decay assails me, but there’s something distinguished about it. Old knowledge. Hope. I touch the spine of some of the books, wondering how many came before me. A case in the far corner catches my attention. Clouds obscure the glass. My heart soars when I recognize the signature. A letter written by Claude Debussy, the paper worn and brown, the script long and smudged. An autographed program from a concert in 1913.
A musical manuscript, undated, in Debussy’s own hand.
He was a prodigy like me. He made his concert debut at age 10 here in Paris. Violin Sonata No. 1, says a placard next to the yellowed paper, along with a very high price tag.
I find myself bouncing on my toes as I peer into the case. The notes and scribbles in the margin—written in his own hand! The creases from where he might have folded it for keeping in his pocket. I’m one foot away from something he touched, only the length of the case separating us.
“Do you want it?” Liam says, his voice low beside me.
I jump and whirl, as if I’ve been caught touching something in a museum. “No.”
“You do.” He looks amused. “You can have it. You don’t need my permission. There’s money sitting in a bank account with your name on it, from the tour.”
“Really?” Of course I knew I got paid for doing the tour. Though any thoughts of practical considerations left my head since the shooting. “But I should pay you back for—”
Sternness. “No.”
“It’s only right since you—”
“Taking care of you wasn’t a loan. It was a privilege.”
It’s hard to breathe in this rare bookstore, the air crowded with dust and history and emotion. I throw my arms around Liam’s waist. It’s much like hugging a column made of marble. He doesn’t move the way someone might when being hugged. He doesn’t hug me back. That’s the way he is… it’s hard for him to accept affection. Hard for him to bear it. I make him anyway, because my joy can’t be contained.
And I think… maybe hugging him more will make him accept it easier.
Slowly his arms come around me. He holds me awkwardly. Sex, he can do. Hugs are still hard for him. He squeezes too soft and too hard. I’ll accept this broken hug, but then something happens, something changes, and it feels right. Like our bodies have worked it out. They’ve communicated in the way that only cells can do. It’s biology, this hug.
He looks down at me. His expression is still stern, but there’s something in his green eyes I’ve never seen before. It might be wonder. Maybe even relief.
I purchase the manuscript and arrange for its safe delivery to the chateau. I almost don’t need to go next door, but we’re already here and I don’t want this day to end.
Liam
The bookstore has a highbrow history in literature, having been visited by famous writers of literature: Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Anaïs Nin. There are cots upstairs where transient, upcoming writers have slept with only the promise that they write. A cursory investigation revealed no connection to Samantha, her father, or anything remotely political. It appears to be simply a bookstore with a colorful past.
Then again, sometimes appearances are deceiving.
The woman who may or may not be Samantha’s mother held a bag from here. Coincidence? I don’t know. Samantha’s brown eyes sparkle. She looks high on the excitement of the day. It’s the way she looks when she masters a new complex piece.
It isn’t in me to tell her no right now. Or maybe ever.
She does own me.
Poetry. Literature. History. We walk through various rooms. The narrow space and crowd keeps a few feet between us. She turns a corner. A moment passes before I turn it, too. There’s nothing else for it unless I want to shove people out of the way.
The farther she goes, the more I feel the pull.
Will it always be like this?
A string from the center of my chest to hers. Is this love?
We come full circle to the cash registers. She hasn’t collected any books in her arms. A glance back at me. In her eyes I see the tacit agreement to leave the crowded shop. Man and woman cross between us, their expressions almost drowsy with love. Honeymooners. “We have to go upstairs,” the woman says to the man. “We have to see the notes.”
A question forms in Samantha’s eyes. “What notes?” she mouths to me.
Josh submitted a report on the background of the bookstore after he visited. “Writers who’ve worked in residence upstairs leave a short autobiographical page about themselves. I assume that’s what she means.”
Before I finish speaking I know we’ll have to go upstairs.
We pass under painted words. Be not inhospitable to strangers lest they be angels in disguise. It’s a very Samantha-esque sentiment. I suppose if I had a bookstore it would say: be not trusting of strangers, lest they be devils in disguise.
Then again, the doors would probably be locked.
We find a h
undred lives transcribed onto blue paper, some of it written by hand, some of it done with the typewriters placed around the small second floor. They’re stacked on the desk and tacked to the wall. There doesn’t seem to be any order. How would they be found? I have to remind myself these aren’t reports filed in a security company. These are… what? Art? Stories? Diary entries? A few messages are interspersed between the notes on display, such as you might find etched into a tree. Or somewhere less savory.
The literary equivalent of a bathroom wall.
One such piece of blue paper has been folded in thirds. On the outside it’s written: Ms. S. Brooks in a neat looping script. We see it at the same time. I feel her freeze. If I had seen it first, then what? Would I have tried to keep it from her? Maybe. At least until I know what’s inside. She has it in her hands, ripped open, before I can stop her.
I take a walk in Tuileries on Friday afternoons.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
People isolated from sound sometimes experience false sensory inputs. In one study, participants were placed in a dark and silent room for 15 minutes. Some test subjects saw objects that were not there, five had hallucinations of faces, four reported a heightened sense of smell, and two felt there was an evil presence in the chamber with them.
Samantha
I’m in the sitting room. The violin is on the sofa opposite me. We’re engaged in a staring contest. I managed to take it out of the case this morning, so I think I’m winning.
The door opens behind me, but I don’t break my concentration. Even though it means someone else will now be witnessing my cowardice. Someone hitches on the back of the sofa I’m on. Too small to be Liam or Josh. They’d probably break the fragile antique if they tried that.
“What are we doing?” Isa says.
“Thinking.”
“Oh good,” she says. “I thought maybe you were in a staring contest with an inanimate object. That would be concerning.”
“First of all, a violin isn’t exactly inanimate. It’s very animated when I’m playing it.” I sigh at myself. “And second of all, I’m winning the staring contest.”