by Sarah Beard
Praise for Porcelain Keys
“Emotionally gripping, this beautifully crafted young adult romance will pull at your heartstrings from tragic beginning to happy ending. A must-read for fans of contemporary romance, both young and seasoned.”—Julie N. Ford, author of Count Down to Love
“Porcelain Keys is a fresh, heart-wrenching take on boy-meets-girl. Using fantastic and musical imagery to tell the poignant love story of Aria and Thomas, Beard leads the reader to a swelling crescendo as if we’re part of the song—and what a beautiful song it is.”—Cindy C Bennett, author of Rapunzel Untangled and Geek Girl
“With a fresh new voice and theme, Sarah Beard opens the musical world of her characters and tells a unique and profound story that will keep readers on the edge of their seats until the very end. I loved this story and highly recommend it!”—Lynn Gardner, author of the Gems and Espionage series
“Porcelain Keys is a well-crafted story that is guaranteed to make you cry, smile, cheer, and cry some more. The author uses not only words to tell her heart-warming story, but she also taps into the powerful language of music, making this a unique and fulfilling read. Aria is a heroine worth rooting for, and the plot is an emotional melody that weaves a spell so potent, it can only be broken by reaching the end. And even then, I couldn’t stop thinking about Aria and her story.”—Heather Frost, author of the Seers trilogy
“Emotionally rich, elegant description, beloved characters—Porcelain Keys is a masterpiece with more heart than most love stories. A boy and a girl rise above the storms of tragedy to find hope and forgiveness. Sarah Beard delivers a fresh, new novel that will go on my list of classics.” —Stephanie Fowers, author of Meet Your Match and The Twisted Tales trilogy
“A lyrical love story that will leave your heart singing, Porcelain Keys is a masterpiece with emotional depth, young love, and family angst. Beard takes us on a journey of self-discovery, second chances, and ultimately, sweet resolution.”—Heather Ostler, author of The Shapeshifter’s Secret series
© 2014 Sarah Beard
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form whatsoever, whether by graphic, visual, electronic, film, microfilm, tape recording, or any other means, without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief passages embodied in critical reviews and articles.
This is a work of fiction. The characters, names, incidents, places, and dialogue are products of the author’s imagination, and are not to be construed as real. The opinions and views expressed herein belong solely to the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions or views of Cedar Fort, Inc. Permission for the use of sources, graphics, and photos is also solely the responsibility of the author.
ISBN 13: 978-1-4621-0833-6
Published by Sweetwater Books, an imprint of Cedar Fort, Inc.
2373 W. 700 S., Springville, UT 84663
Distributed by Cedar Fort, Inc., www.cedarfort.com
Cover design by Kristen Reeves
Cover design © 2014 by Lyle Mortimer
Edited and typeset by Melissa J. Caldwell
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Keith,
who gave me wings and a reason to fly.
one
I fled barefoot through the backyard, my spine tingling with the fear of pursuit. The grass was cold and wet, and the sound of my name echoed in the chilled mountain air.
“Aria!” Dad’s abrasive shout fractured the night again and again, like the bark of an agitated dog. I pushed my legs harder, unable to differentiate between the thud of footsteps behind me and my own quick heartbeats. I could see the vague outline of the barn ahead like a beacon in the darkness, and I blazed toward it, blind to everything else. My only chance of losing Dad was to reach the trees behind it.
“Get back here!” His growl was right behind me. The anticipation of his hand hooking my arm threatened to paralyze me, but I pushed the expectation aside and forced my feet forward. I flew past the barn and into a dense cluster of pines, their branches whipping my face as I raced through them. It was darker in the trees, and I held my hands out like feelers to navigate the way. But it was my knee that found the fence at the edge of our yard, and I stifled a cry as it slammed into the rough wooden post.
I clambered over it into Mr. Euler’s orchard. My legs trembled beneath me as I ducked under the apple-heavy branches. The orchard had been neglected for years, and the smell of rotten fruit squishing beneath my feet reminded me how Dad had smelled when he’d dragged me out from under the piano just minutes earlier. At the thought of him still out there in the yard searching for me, I lengthened my stride and tried to stay on the balls of my feet.
When I emerged from the orchard, I started running again, past the cluster of cottonwoods sprawled like cobwebs over Mr. Euler’s vacant house, and across a stream that cut through his land. Frigid water splashed onto my skin and rocks jabbed into my already-sore feet. A sharp one stabbed my heel, and I lunged for the dry bank and stumbled to my knees. I sprang up and kept going, bringing a thick layer of dirt on the soles of my feet.
In all the years I’d had to flee from Dad, he’d never found my hiding place. But if I slowed down, he might follow me and discover it, and I would have nowhere to go in the future when his volatility forced me out of the house. I started through a field of long yellow grass that stretched uphill toward the mountain. My lungs felt like they might burst, but I didn’t slow down.
Dew from the long grass clung to the fray on my shorts, and chirping insects saturated the summer night with their music. I drew in my arms, hoping no spiders or crickets were hitchhiking on my back. I’d taken this path countless times in my seventeen years, but the Colorado mountains were always more eerie at night. A chill ran down my spine as I saw a dark movement in the shadow of the trees, and I reminded myself that the only real monster was far behind me.
“Be brave,” I whispered to myself through labored breaths.
It wasn’t until I entered a grove of aspens skirting the base of the mountain that I felt safe enough to ease my pace. I weaved through a labyrinth of white trunks until I reached a clearing, then stopped and exhaled a sigh of relief.
A massive ash tree stood in the center of the clearing, ancient and otherworldly in the silvery moonlight. Five enormous limbs spread out from the squat trunk like an open hand, and nestled in the hollow of the palm was a tree house.
Using blocks of weathered wood nailed to the trunk, I climbed up to a narrow porch and stepped through an open doorway. Moonlight seeped through water-stained windows onto the wooden floor, making it a dusty gray. Cabinets and shelves lined one wall, and the open rafters provided a perfect place for spiders to spin their webs.
I shivered and rubbed my bare arms, wishing I’d worn something more substantial than a tank top and cut-off shorts. Not that I could have anticipated spending the night outdoors, or had time to change. One minute, I was asleep under Mom’s piano, and the next, Dad was yanking my arm and demanding to know why I’d broken his rules again. I chided myself for being so careless and getting caught, for crawling under the piano to lie down instead of being satisfied with the four hours of Chopin and Beethoven I’d been able to sneak in while Dad was out falling off the wagon again.
I yanked a flashlight and sleeping bag from a shelf, then unrolled the sleeping bag and inspected it for spiders before sliding in and curling into a ball to warm up.
Trying to relax, I drew in a few deep breaths. My heart was still racing, my hands still shaky. I clutched a handful of down-filled nylon and shut my eyes. I’m not going to cry, I told myself. I felt the burn in my throat and the moisture gathering on my lashes, but I forced them back. Tears
never did any good. They didn’t provide comfort or explanations, and never helped me make sense of my situation.
Instead, I sat up and wiped the itchy wetness from my lashes. I opened a narrow cabinet and removed a thick wire-bound notebook. Propping the flashlight against the wall, I slid a pencil from the coiled wire and opened the notebook. Musical staves lined each page, some filled with fragments of music Mom had written, others with my attempts at adding to hers. Other than the piano that remained locked in the parlor, Mom’s notebook was my most cherished possession and one of the few things I’d been able to snag before Dad squirreled away all her things after her death.
I ran my hand down the page and picked out a short snippet of Mom’s, then copied it onto a blank page. Humming the exquisite melody, I tapped my pencil to the rhythm. Then I pressed the lead tip to the page to add to it. I echoed her first passage, then carried her bass line for two measures and added a trill before a descending run. Measure after measure, passage after passage, I intertwined my music with hers until my pulse slowed and my nerves settled.
~
I awoke to a creaking sound, like wood bending under the weight of a heavy foot. But when I opened my eyes, there was no one there. Only a blue jay perched on the threshold of the doorway, his plumage vibrant in the early morning light. He tilted his crested head and stared at me curiously with one eye, then ruffled his feathers before going still again. He appeared to be listening, waiting expectantly for something.
Wanting to sleep longer, I shut my eyes. Every joint in my body ached as if I’d hiked a mountain the day before. The blue jay called again, a musical whistle that sounded like a rusty old swing. I picked out the notes and the melodic interval. B-flat to G, I thought, a minor third. He repeated the call again and again, but soon another creak silenced him.
I sat up in my sleeping bag, my ears suddenly attuned to the sounds outside the tree house. Weak wood whining against the strain of pressure. The tread of a shoe gripping the edge of a step. Labored breathing.
Someone was climbing to the tree house.
The blue jay’s crest bristled outward in warning, and in one movement I shed the sleeping bag and shot to my feet. The bird beat its wings and let out a hawk-like scream before flying up into the rafters, trapping itself along with me.
My first thought was that Dad had finally found my hidden sanctuary. If he saw me here, I could never come back. As stealthily as I could manage, I scooped up my sleeping bag and receded into a shallow space behind a tall cabinet. My sleeping bag bulged around the corner, and I hooked my leg around it and drew it as close to my body as possible. The sounds of the blue jay’s escape attempts only added to my anxiety. A thump against a window, a clatter against the roof, an ear-piercing warning call. Every now and then I saw a flash of blue feathers in the rafters. My heart beat as wildly in my chest as the trapped bird’s wings.
A shadow stretched from the doorway across the floor, and I held my breath and stiffened my body, hoping Dad would take a quick glance, then go on his way. But instead I heard the creak of steps. They were slow and tentative, and were coming closer. My lungs burned for want of new air, and I eased the stale air out and silently drew in more.
Another step closer. Too close. I guessed he was right around the corner of the cabinet. If I moved a fraction of an inch, he would hear me. My muscles cramped up from being tense for so long, but I couldn’t release them without being discovered. I heard one more step, then my stomach contracted as someone stepped into my line of vision.
It wasn’t Dad.
It was a boy, tall with dark, tousled hair. His back was to me, but a moment later he turned to face me and his eyes locked with mine. The look of surprise I expected to see was strangely absent. Instead, his expression seemed to say, Oh, there you are.
I must have looked terrified because he raised his palms and said gently, “Don’t be scared. I won’t hurt you.”
I knew I should say something, explain myself, but all I could do was stare up at the blue jay, still thrashing its wings against the rafters. The boy followed my gaze, then turned away and stepped out of view. I peered around the corner to see what he was doing.
He went to a wall and tugged at a latch that secured the roof. It came loose; then he went to the opposite wall and unlatched another. Taking hold of a joist, he gave a few jerks until the roof opened like a sliding lid on a wooden box.
Mr. Euler had been an astronomer, and he’d used the tree house as his personal observatory. But it had been years since he’d slid open the roof to view the night sky, and the wheels made a crackling sound as they rolled over dirt and dried leaves along the track. The free corners of the roof moved over the deck on wheeled posts, and when it opened halfway, the blue jay dove toward the deck, then flew away. I turned back to the boy, wishing I could have flown away too.
The boy watched the bird disappear into the nearby aspens, then he turned to me. His lips parted as if to say something, but instead he pressed them back together and looked down, seeming as uncomfortable as I was. He scratched the sparse stubble on his jaw, then lifted his gaze to try again.
“I’m Thomas,” he said. “Frank Euler’s grandson.” When I gave no response, he tilted his head and raised a dark eyebrow. “And you are?”
Blood rushed up my neck and into my cheeks, bringing my voice with it. “I . . . I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I’m Aria. I live next door. I just come here sometimes to spend the night—for fun. Your grandpa knows, or knew, when he lived here.” It all came out in a nervous rush, and I bit down on my tongue, trying to keep more words from spilling out.
The corner of his mouth twitched as he leaned his shoulder against the wall and shrugged. “It’s okay. You’re not in trouble. I just wanted to know who you were.” He watched me, as though waiting for me to do or say something. When I didn’t move or speak, he rubbed the back of his neck and gave an encouraging smile. “You can come out of there . . . if you want.”
I coerced my shoulders to loosen a notch, then stepped tentatively out of the shadow into the light, still clutching my sleeping bag to my chest.
He squinted against the sunlight falling through the open roof and took a step toward me, his face gradually brightening in recognition. “I think I’ve seen you before.”
“When?” I asked, searching his face for familiarity but finding none.
“A couple years ago—when we helped my grandpa move to the nursing home. You came up the driveway and started talking to him.” He paused and studied the floor a moment, musing privately on the memory. “You hugged him, then left.”
As if sifting through a box of old photos, it took me a minute to retrieve the memory. But it was there. I’d been fifteen, crying, and all too aware of the cute dark-haired boy watching me from the window.
In the light of this memory, I appraised him again more attentively. He was still cute. In fact, he put cute to shame. His clothes were nothing spectacular—just a snug T-shirt and loose jeans—but the way the morning sun highlighted the lines of his face made him look like some Victorian masterpiece. I couldn’t help but contrast his appearance with mine. With my dirty bare feet, scuffed knees, and snarled hair, I probably looked more like something hanging from the rafters of Dad’s barn than in the borders of a gilded frame. “Yeah,” I finally said, twisting my hair over one shoulder in an attempt to tame it. “That was me.”
“My grandpa must have been a good friend to you.” From his gentle tone, I guessed that he was still picturing my tearful fifteen-year-old face in his mind.
I nodded. “Is he back from the nursing home, then?”
He diverted his eyes to the window and twisted his mouth like he was tasting something bitter. “He . . . passed away a few weeks ago.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling the all-too-familiar sting of loss in the pit of my stomach.
“Yeah. Me too.” He hooked his thumbs in his pockets and sighed. “It was unexpected, so I didn’t really get to say good-bye.” A long silence s
tretched between us, until he turned to look at me and offered a little smile. “Anyway, we’re just here until the spring to get his place ready to sell.”
I’d been searching for a way to make a dignified exit, and his words opened a gate. “Well, I guess I’d better get out of your hair, then.”
He started saying something about how I didn’t need to go, but as I went to the doorway and tossed my sleeping bag to the ground, he trailed off. I glanced up at him, and his pointed gaze was fixed on my arm. When I glanced down, I gasped at what I saw.
Three bruises banded my upper arm like a cuff. They were barred, the size and shape of a man’s fingers.
Instinctively, my hand came up to cover them. He turned away and absently opened a cabinet door, his face composing into a careful mask as he searched the empty shelves for absolutely nothing.
I tried to think of something to say, but no words came to mind. Only images from the night before.
Dad’s callused fingers clamped down on my arm, his thorny hangnail digging into my skin. His lips pulled tight over his teeth as he reprimanded me for doing the only thing that made me happy.
My vision wavered behind the pressure of unshed tears. But not wanting to cry in front of Thomas, I bit down hard on my lip, fortifying the dam keeping the tears at bay.
Thomas turned back to me and tried to smile. “I guess I’ll see you at school, then. It starts Monday, right?”
Whether his evasion was for his sake or mine, I didn’t know, but I was grateful I wouldn’t have to come up with an impromptu explanation. “Right—Monday,” I said vacantly.
Without another word, I descended from the tree house, snatched up my sleeping bag, and walked away, raw humiliation leaving me stunned. As soon as I was safely blanketed in aspens, I broke into a run. I didn’t see their white branches whip past me, or the tunnel that closed over me as I passed down a row of apple trees, or the wooden fence as I clambered over. In their place, I saw Dad’s eyes, bulging and wild. I saw the porch light cutting through the parlor window, making his red hair look like flames. I saw his hand on the piano key cover, slamming it shut. But worst of all, I saw Thomas’s eyes, wide with alarm and fixed on the glaring evidence of Dad’s abuse.