The Overture of Fear & Passion (The Daemonica Symphony Series Book 1)

by Eloisa Clark

  He worshipped your mother, showered her with love and affection. He made the decision that she would be raised human. He was so angry you see; his Demon family had turned their backs on him, so he wanted to protect her from ever knowing that kind of pain or rejection.

  We got away with our little plan for quite a while, but we knew it wouldn’t last of course. As her twenty-first birthday approached, we assumed she would reach maturity and we devised a plan to tell her the truth. But we made a terrible mistake; we spent so much time worrying about when and how to tell her that we forgot to consider that there were other ways that she could find out.” She looked at Juliet, her eyes narrowing and her lips twitching as if she were trying to decide whether or not she should go on, whether or not she could bare to tell her the rest.

  “What happened, Geneviève?” Juliet asked, prompting her to continue. She looked down at her hands and Juliet took them back into hers.

  “Grandmother, what happened?” She asked more firmly.

  Juliet needed to know everything; she had already lost so much to get to this point.

  “Your mother was attacked.” She said, her breath shuddering as she spoke.

  “One month before her birthday she was out at a feast and...” She paused for a moment, clutching Juliet’s hands as they rested above the book that remained closed in her lap.

  “One of them tricked her, made her think he was kind and just wanted to talk to her outside. Instead, he dragged her away from the house, away from where anyone would hear her and into the stables where his friends were waiting. They were mature Spirit Demons. A pack of them; hunting like wolves. She screamed but her voice only made them desire her more. Her call wasn’t strong enough to reach anyone nearby who might help. She was left for dead in a stable, on a dirty floor in a pool of blood.”

  Juliet looked down at their joined hands, wincing at the sting of Geneviève’s nails biting into her flesh. Geneviève must have realised as well, and she relaxed her told. Tiny red crescent moons blossomed, and Juliet watched as she tried to rub them away with her thumb like a mother would smear away a smudge on the chin of a child. Juliet could see what happened in her mind, she could see the faceless men who she never knew but felt pure hatred towards.

  “What happened after that Grandmother? Please? I need to know.”

  She took one deep breath and then another. What felt likes hours passed before she continued.

  “Eventually a groundsman found her, he raised the alarm, and she was brought to a healer who was at the party. He brought her home to me, physically mended but mentally…” She shook her head.

  “I knew right away what had happened. I could see the terror still there in her eyes. She didn’t cry. I thought that was strange at the time but told myself it must be the shock. In the morning she demanded to be told what she was. She told us the men had called her a half-breed slut and that the person who had healed her had done so using magic. He’d explained to her she wouldn’t fall pregnant because she hadn’t yet reached maturity. All of it had made her think she was mad.

  So, I told her everything. Just as I told you now. She was furious. Your grandfather begged for her forgiveness. Begged her not to blame me and told her it was all his idea to hide the truth. He was so worried that she would blame me. He explained what his family were, and I think she was horrified. She couldn’t see the difference between men like your grandfather and the men that had attacked her. The shock clouding her mind.” Geneviève clutched the book in her lap again.

  Tears escaping from her cheeks and dropping onto the leather cover.

  “She was gone the next morning. She didn’t pack a bag or leave a note, but all of her manuscripts were gone, and I knew she wouldn’t come back. We searched for years. And the years turned into decades, and the decades into Centuries.

  We had given up hope that we would ever see her again. You can imagine our relief when we finally found her. She was singing at the Opera in Florence. I cried more during that one song than I ever had in my entire life. We approached her afterwards, but she wasn’t ready to forgive us. Her Demons still haunted her. She told me that her life was finally good again and she didn’t want us in it. She threatened us to stay away. Told us that if we ever made contact with her again, she would stop singing and disappear. Vivienne was so clever. I don’t know how she found out, but she had learned all on her own how to take care of herself. We don’t have to feed the way Spirit Demons do. Just like my Siren grandmother, we need to sing to live. Although in your case I believe there has been a shift in that rule.”

  Geneviève looked down at her album and flipped it open, it appeared to be a scrapbook of sorts with the first item appearing to be an Opera Program. So old that the letters were barely legible.

  “We left Italy the next day. We didn’t want to tempt her to disappear even though we had agreed to stay away. We decided that it would be better to keep an eye on her from a distance. And so, we did. For decades we watched her career catapult her into notoriety, she would retire mysteriously years later and then pop back up again in a different city with a new name, sometimes pretending to be her own daughter. This went on for decades until the turn of the century. She knew that the invention of photography would make it impossible to continue her charade. She kept a low profile for nearly seventy years, but it seemed as though fame was unwilling to let her go.”

  She flicked through the album revealing more programs and some etchings of what Juliet assumed to be likenesses of her mother on stage. The pictures becoming more modern until eventually they arrived at black and white photographs. Another turn of the page and there she was, Juliet’s mother in technicolour. A small gasp escaped from Juliet’s lips, Geneviève smiled and looked at her.

  “You look so much like her.”

  It was true, Juliet thought to herself, there was no mistaking the family resemblance.

  “For ten years your mother embraced the spotlight for what I knew would be her last time. Human technology had advanced too far for her to continue her deception any longer.”

  Another flip of the page showed a newspaper article about Vivienne that Juliet had seen before.

  “You probably know as much of this as I do, maybe more. Your mother met your father in the symphony. Their romance was the most popular story in all musical circles. She and your father moved to New York and we dutifully followed at a distance of course.

  She turned the page and there was the New York Times Newspaper article announcing their marriage. Juliet had seen it before of course, her mother had kept her own copy in her ‘Album of Treasures’ as she’d called it. Juliet touched the page lovingly, wanting to touch not just the photo but the face of the woman herself.

  “That day was both the happiest and the saddest day of my life. I was so grateful that she was finally happy, but I was so heartbroken that she had not wanted me there to share that day with her. Your grandfather took it especially hard. He was already reaching his eight hundredth year and I think his heart simply couldn’t take it.

  He took a bad turn that summer. I don’t blame your mother at all, please don’t think that. It was his time. Even Demons grow old.”

  The next page was a smaller London Times article announcing the birth of their daughter. ‘Juliet Lyra Vassilios was born September sixth, 2004. Weighing six pounds and five ounces.’

  By this time Juliet knew that her mother had turned her back on the spotlight. She had begun teaching and only making small appearances for charity events. Her father’s conducting had paid the bills and Juliet thought her mother had given up singing to focus on being a mother. Their family had split their time between artist residencies, charity work and travel.

  Juliet now realised that her mother had reached her deadline and she could no longer get away with her deception. She was struggling to pass for a woman in her thirties when she barely looked a day over twenty-one. She must have known that she needed to leave the spotlight before her youthful appearance caused too many peopl
e to ask too many questions. She had to wonder how her father had never begun to suspect. How had he never noticed her inability to age, her resistance to common illnesses. For eighteen years she lived an unchanging life, no colds, no wrinkles, no injuries. Maybe Papa had begun to suspect? Maybe that’s what had prompted her decision to stop singing, knowing it would mean the end of her life.

  The next page contained a handwritten letter. Juliet recognised her mother's penmanship at once and greedily snatched the album from her grandmother's hands.

  ‘By now you have probably heard that I have had a daughter. I want you to know that I forgive you both for the lies you told and the secrets you kept. I am sorry that I spent so many years hating you for a choice that I know must have been hard for you to make.

  I too, am now forced to make the same decision. My husband knows nothing of the Otherworld as you call it and I plan to keep it that way.

  I am hoping that his human blood will wash away the taint of Demon that flows in mine and she will be free of the curse I carry.

  My wish is that one day, she will understand the reason behind my decisions, and she will not resent me for keeping her in the dark.

  This will be the last time that you ever hear from me; I cannot risk your presence in her life exposing her to the attention of those who would harm her.

  I will love you both forever and am sorry that we could not have had the normal human life that I always dreamed of.

  Your loving daughter,

  Vivienne.’

  Placed next to the letter was a photo of Juliet as a two-year-old, standing in the London apartment she’d called home until she turned four. She held a small violin and bow in her tiny hands.

  “Your grandfather couldn’t bring himself to read the letter. He took one look at that beautiful photograph and he knew he had to protect you by keeping away. It broke his heart to know that he would never get to see his granddaughter and he passed away that night.”

  At these words she wiped away fresh tears and looked up at Juliet.

  “He would have been so proud of you. How talented you are. How brave you have been. You remind me so much of him.”

  Juliet wanted to cry. She felt so angry that she didn’t get to know these people. That she never got to have a grandfather who loved her even though he never met her. She wanted to cry because she was so mad at her mother for making a decision for Juliet that wasn’t hers to make. She wanted to cry because she felt guilty for being mad at her mother when she was dead and damn her not being here so that she could tell her how mad she was.

  But instead of crying, Juliet took three deep breaths and reminded herself that there was no point in crying, that tears wouldn’t undo her mother’s mistakes and they definitely couldn’t bring back the dead. Anger would only taint the memories she had of her mother, the memories that she would cherish for the rest of her life.

  She reached out mentally to her grandmother and felt the woman’s love engulf her like a warm hug. But Juliet could also feel that Geneviève was afraid. She was afraid that Juliet would reject her like Vivienne had. She knew that it was time for all of them to let go of the past. Juliet was ready to begin the next chapter of her life, and she was excited to discover everything there was no know about the amazing world that she had only just begun to uncover.

  She looked closely at her grandmother’s face, at the almost too perfect precision of her wrinkles and white hair. It was all so intentional, like a portrait of what an older version of her mother would look like.

  “This isn’t what you really look like, is it?” She asked.

  Geneviève smiled coyly, looking away as her hand reached of the strand of pearls around her throat. She pursed her lips and took a deep breath before she reached behind her neck and unfastened the clasp.

  As she pulled the necklace away, her appearance began to change as though a veil were being lifted. Her white tresses began to change to light honey. The skin on her face lost its wrinkled appearance and her back straightened, forcing her chest forward and her chin to lift. Her crystal-clear blue eyes looked into Juliet’s, she could feel the fear in her thoughts, a silent plea that Juliet would accept her.

  The face that looked at Juliet was exactly the same as the face in the photographs, it was the same face as her mother’s. As Juliet opened her arms and pulled Geneviève into an embrace, she was overwhelmed by the feeling of love that enveloped her. And in that moment, they both could see that although it was only a small gesture, it was one full of hope for the future. A shared hope that they would someday be a family.

  Epilogue

  Blurred lines and flashing lights rushed past with deliberate haste, disturbing the air, and sending newspapers and Juliet’s long hair fluttering. She closed her eyes to better focus on the acoustic melody that filled the subway tunnel with its gentle rhythm. The plucked strings harmonising with the hiss and grind of breaks as the steel compartments came to a stop.

  Juliet brought her hands together to applaud as the performance came to an end and she dropped a twenty dollar note into the guitar case at the girl’s feet, humming to herself as she hurried to board the waiting train.

  While disappointed to no longer have such a talented musician to listen to, she felt relieved to finally escape the stench of the overcrowded platform. The usual smells of metal, burnt coffee and the tang of stale urine were made worse by the influx of sweaty, summer tourists.

  Juliet watched as a man hurriedly approached the closing doors, sticking his arm in just as they closed. The other passengers stared at their own reflections as he began to fight for admission, using his other hand to try and force the doors apart while squeezing first his head and then both of his shoulders through the narrow gap. Juliet would have offered to help, but the space between them was blocked by tie-clad, tall-talking businessmen.

  She rechecked her watch, the two-fifty-nine was now five minutes late and win or lose, Juliet wanted the battle to be over with either way so her train could get moving, so she could be on her way to meet Niko at his apartment.

  Finally, the train was forced to admit defeat and the man forced his way into the carriage before the doors slammed shut behind him. The vibrations and whir of its movement resumed, and Juliet was able to close her eyes and let her mind wonder; to think about her future, her dreams, and her desires.

  She’d never taken much stock in destiny, having grown up with the misguided notion that she controlled hers. Now that she knew differently; that the universe had a say after all, she felt some sense of relief. Afterall, it had brought her and Niko together, what other surprises were in store?

  As she swayed with train’s steady tempo, she began to hum. And not realising she was humming out loud, heard the late arrival hum along too. When she self-consciously stopped, he continued. His humming grew louder before reaching the chorus which he chose to sing out loud; “And I’m crazy for loving you.”

  The End

  About the Author

  Eloisa Clark is a crazy/quirky/sometimes-grouchy/often-hilarious/very busy working mum.

  She lives in a quiet suburban oasis with her husband and son. She desperately loves to travel as well as reading a good book, when she's not slouched over a laptop writing her own that is.

  After studying Professional Writing, the demands of the real world sucked her into full time work. Later, she completed a Business degree, majoring in Marketing and Event Management and has since worked in Education and Corporate sectors.

  Her books are inspired by other well-loved authors as well as personal experience.

 

 

 
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