The Music of Souls, page 14
“I’ll do the washing up,” I told her. She looked at me for a second, confused, as if she couldn’t understand what I’d said. I grabbed the sponge and tried to smile. I wanted to be friendly. I felt bad for feeling so negative towards her.
She smiled back then and pushed a few loose strands of hair behind her ear. She really reminded me a lot of Maddy, and I have to say that didn’t sit well with me. It wasn’t her fault, obviously, but she reminded me of a part of my past that was haunting me more than enough already. Her bubbly personality and pretty appearance, too similar to Maddy’s, shoved the ghosts from my past directly into my face.
I turned to the sink and started to wash the plates. Laura kept walking back and forth to clear the rest of the things from the table, while the men were quietly talking to each other. I couldn’t understand a word they were saying.
What I did hear pretty clearly were their melodies melding together, creating that peaceful music I could listen to all day long. Even though there was something odd about it again, some disharmony, something that just didn’t seem to fit properly, and it caused me extreme stress for no reason whatsoever.
I tuned them out, focusing on Laura now. When I had first heard her melody, I hadn’t expected her to be the way she was. Her stormy melody didn’t really match her appearance at all. I would have expected her to have a melody similar to Maddy’s, since they looked so alike. But her life seemed a lot darker than what I’d expected.
She struck me as a perfect girl, from a perfect family. Something in her past or in her life right now must cause her to feel this stressed and confused.
There were some happy spikes in her music, but now that I focused on her for a longer time, it was clear to me that she was wrestling with something she wasn’t done with yet.
I didn’t want to be affected by that and end up judging her badly because of it. Recent events showed me that I couldn’t fully trust my hearing after all. I had always felt comfortable and at ease with Rose, like we were friends, but her reaction to the news hurt me a lot. I didn’t think she would react in such a way, not even giving me a chance to explain myself.
“We have to leave for work now,” Andrew said from behind me. I turned around, he was closer than I’d expected, startling me for second.
“Sorry, did I surprise you?” he asked.
“I was just lost in thought again,” I mumbled. He frowned and looked at me with concern before putting both of his hands on my shoulders, holding me in place like that. I looked up, confused.
“Ava, stop thinking that you are a bad person. We are going to work this out,” he said with confidence. Once again. It was beyond me how he could be this confident about things. Would he come to a point where he realised that I might just be a crazy person? A point where he did see me as a murderer? My heart started to beat faster with those thoughts. I was scared of losing him and the other two. I suddenly realised that. I didn’t know them, and they didn’t know me, but something inside of me was being so afraid of losing contact with them.
“Stop questioning things all the time and just accept it,” Andrew said softly with a smile on his face, almost as if he was able to read my thoughts. I nodded and he let go of my shoulders. I immediately sagged down into myself again and he frowned.
“Stop this!” he said, but his voice didn’t sound angry. He just wanted me to feel more optimistic, but I couldn’t, not right now, so I just smiled weakly.
“We will be back by dinner. Try to stay out of trouble,” he said, and I nodded.
“As long as trouble doesn’t find me,” I replied, and he laughed. He walked over to Laura and kissed her on the forehead, then signed something. She smiled at him and nodded.
“Feel free to explore the house. See you later,” Andrew said to me and left the kitchen. The other two were already gone. I heard the door close and continued to clean the dishes. A tap on my shoulder made me look up. Laura was smiling warmly at me again, pointing at the plate in my hand and holding a towel up afterwards.
I handed her the plate and she started drying it in silence. I wondered if I should get to know her or not, if I should invade this little family they had here. Who knows, maybe next week I am already behind bars.
I could imagine it must be hard for her to communicate with someone who couldn’t use sign language. I handed Laura the last plate and dried my hands. We were alone here now and that really made me uncomfortable. I fidgeted around and thought about things I could do right now, but I couldn't think of a single one. I was scared to watch TV, who knew what kind of news I might see about myself. Not that I was the centre of the universe, but my ex-company didn't play fair when it came to scandals. They always tried to move out of the spotlight as fast as possible and a good way to do that was to feed the media information about the artist that had started it. So who knows what they had found out about me. Not that I really cared a lot about what other people thought of me, but I still wanted to live my life without being afraid to walk outside. Except that I already had to be afraid to do that.
“I am going upstairs,” I heard Laura say in a loud voice. For a moment I had actually forgotten that she was still around. I looked at her and nodded. She looked back at me as if she wanted to say something else but wasn't sure whether she should.
I waited for her to say more but she just sighed and smiled again, before leaving the kitchen.
I stayed in the kitchen for a while until my thoughts caught up with me again. I had to do something to distract myself, otherwise my thoughts might eat me alive.
I left the kitchen and walked around the house. I didn't go to the other floors though, that would feel like I’d be invading their personal space. This part of the house alone was massive and wonderfully decorated, more than enough for me to look at. I wondered whether Laura did that for a living or whether she was doing interior design as a hobby.
I entered a room I hadn't been in before and I gasped, they had their own little cinema in their house. For God's sake, how much money had they made in Vegas? This was crazy.
I wandered around the room until I’d figured out how to work the equipment. I decided to watch Forrest Gump. It had been a while since I’d last watched it.
Funnily enough the movie actually managed to calm my thoughts for a while, maybe even causing me to feel a bit more optimistic. Andrew could be right. I should accept things the way they were and stop questioning them. I should just take one step at a time, without looking back.
I watched the credits and sighed. That was easier said than done, I’d been in such a negative and depressive mindset for years now. Nothing that had happened caused me to feel optimistic about life.
Probably the only reason I hadn’t joined Maddy yet was that I was a coward. When the credits ended, I got up again and left the room. Everything was so silent, almost if I was alone. Only Laura’s melody floating through the house reminded me of her presence.
I continued to look at the other rooms in the house and at some point, ended up in the garden. Of course they had a massive pool in their backyard, surrounded by nature, no neighbours to be seen anywhere around.
If I wasn’t here myself, I would not believe that there were still places like this: a great big house in the heart of nature.
I lay down on the grass and let the soft sunlight warm me. If the reason I was here wasn’t weighing heavily on me like a rock, this might actually feel like a vacation. But this wasn’t a vacation, this was most likely the calm before the storm. Before I got punished for killing someone. Again.
I felt tears forming the corners of my eyes and I allowed myself to cry.
“What am I going to do now?” I whispered before sobs were shaking my entire body.
I don’t know how long I had been drowning myself in pity, but when I went back indoors the sun was already starting to set.
I still couldn’t hear any noise from the house. Laura must be a quiet person in general. I walked into the last of the rooms, the one I hadn’t been to yet, and gasped in surprise.
It was a wonderful big room with a massive windowfront. A fireplace in the centre made it really comfortable yet elegant.
I walked towards the windows and looked outside. A view of the open countryside; it looked wonderful. Something to my right caught my attention and my curiosity got the better of me again. A big white sheet covering a big piece of furniture. I grabbed the sheet and pulled it out of the way, revealing the most beautiful grand piano I had ever seen in real life. This could be on stage.
I dropped the sheet and touched the piano in awe. It was perfectly polished, like it was really well looked after. I opened the lid and admired the beautiful workmanship. I had always wanted a grand piano, but my parents didn’t even want to buy me a keyboard. Being opposed to my interest in music in general, having a grand piano in their house probably would have been pure torture for them.
Anticipation got hold of me. I had only played a grand piano during some of my rare competitions and for some reason it always felt so much more energising. As if I was truly connecting to the music with my soul, and none of them had been anywhere near as wonderful as this one.
I carefully pressed one of the keys and enjoyed how the sound vibrated through the room. Happiness I didn’t think I could ever feel again made me smile.
I sat on the piano bench and played a few melodies to warm up my fingers. For a moment I forgot the reason why I was here and what had happened, and I just played. And I loved it. I didn’t even realise that I was playing the special agents’ melodies until I got a nice fuzzy feeling in my chest. This sounded truly wonderful, even to my ears. They were meant to be heard like that.
I played peacefully until a loud scream cut through the music and seconds after someone was tackling me from the side, almost pushing me off the bench. Horrible sounds from the piano echoed through the room, while I tried to stop myself from falling to the floor.
I looked up and saw Laura. Her face was full of sorrow and pain. I was completely confused.
“Stop it!” she screamed at me.
“What?” I asked, dumbfounded. She started ripping my fingers off the keys, scratching me painfully in the process.
“What are you doing? You are hurting me!” I said even though I knew she couldn’t hear me, obviously. She wasn’t looking at my face, just staring at my fingers.
I moved away from her a bit and she looked at me directly for the first time. She looked furious, a storm raging in her eyes. Right now, her melody suited her perfectly.
I just wanted to say something when she charged at me again. I hadn’t expected it and fell off the bench, painfully hitting my head on the floor.
“What the fuck!” I screamed and touched my head.
“Why?” she was yelling now, over and over again. She must have lost her mind. I backed away until the wall stopped me. I was really afraid of her right now.
She moved towards me and grabbed my hair.
“Why?” she screamed into my face. I seized her hands and tried to remove her fingers from my hair, but she was stronger than I’d expected. How in the world had my life turned into this?
“Let go of me,” I shouted as loudly as I could, as if she could understand me if I screamed louder.
“What’s going on here?” I heard Connor say and looked up to see him standing in the doorway, then I saw Andrew pushing past him into the room, finally pulling his fiancée off me.
“Darling, please. Stop this,” he said, but she just continued screaming. I quickly got up and felt dizzy for a moment, before moving away from them as fast as I could. My head was hurting like crazy and I think I was bleeding a little.
Andrew was hugging Laura now. She had stopped screaming and was sobbing instead, holding on to him for dear life.
“Come on, let me check that,” Connor said and carefully touched my elbow. The touch startled me, and I took a step back.
“It’s okay, I won’t do anything to you. Just want to check your head,” he said and smiled. I nodded and followed him, feeling bad for reacting like that.
“I am sorry,” I apologised. I didn’t know what I had done wrong to make Laura react like that, but I felt like I had overstepped a boundary. Connor turned around and looked sad.
“You couldn’t know,” he said and led me to the bathroom. I was afraid to ask what was going on, because I felt like it would hurt me too.
“You hit your head quite a bit there. But I don’t think it’s severe. Do you feel sick or anything?” he asked. He took out a first-aid kit and rummaged about in it.
“Just a headache. It will be fine,” I said. I felt drained. I’d been so happy while playing and now I felt like I hit rock bottom with full force again. Connor treated my wound in silence.
“Thank you,” I said after he put the things away.
“You are welcome,” he replied and smiled weakly.
“Someone has to explain to me what just happened,” I said. I didn’t want to know, not really. But I thought it was something I had to know.
“Yes, but I think Andrew should tell you,” he said. I could still hear Laura sobbing from upstairs.
“He will come down as soon as she has calmed down and gone to sleep,” he said and left the bathroom, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
Chapter 13
I stayed behind for a bit longer before leaving the bathroom. I couldn't hear any sounds from upstairs anymore so I assumed Laura must have calmed down by now. What on earth had happened to her? She almost looked like she was ready to kill me. I’d never seen such fury in anyone's eyes before and I hadn't even done anything.
Not even Maddy had had such a look on her face during the last moments of her life when she was looking at me, waiting for the train to reach her. Quite the opposite even, and she’d had all the reasons to hate me from the bottom of her heart. I have always thought that it I didn't deserve that and that she should have been angry at me but imagining a look of such fury on Maddy’s face made me sick to my stomach. For the first time since Maddy’s suicide I was actually relieved that she left me with a smile.
I shook my head, trying to get Maddy out of my mind again. Thinking too much about it never turned out great. And Laura wasn't Maddy. Laura was Laura.
I walked into the kitchen and saw Conner making tea.
“Want some?” he asked, and I nodded. A hot tea might help calm me down a little.
“Does your head still hurt?” he asked as he handed me the cup of tea.
“Not much,” I answered. He nodded and leaned against the counter, looking at the cup of tea in his hands, frowning.
“Special Agent Conner?” I asked.
“Call me Sebastian, please. We are practically living together now, so feel free to drop the formalities,” he said, and for some reason that made me a bit more light-hearted.
“Right, and I am Ryan,” Brown said from behind me. I turned around in surprise. I hadn't even heard him entering the room.
“Might as well say it now,” he said and reached for a cup, too. I nodded and couldn't help but smile.
“So, what did you want to say?” Sebastian said, taking a sip of his tea.
“Do I have to move out now?” I almost whispered.
Both men looked at me in disbelief for a moment.
“Of course not,” Sebastian said. “What makes you even think that?”
I shrugged and stared at the floor in front of me. I could feel the heat crawling up my neck, up to the tips of my ears, all of a sudden ashamed of my question.
“Don't worry about Laura. It wasn't your fault. You couldn't have known about it,” Sebastian said.
“We figure things out here and we don't kick people in need out,” Ryan said. I looked up and stared at them. They didn't even know me, so why did they offer me shelter? Why would they keep me here if I was causing trouble already, just one day after moving in?
“Stop expecting the worst of us,” Sebastian said, and I was really surprised about his tone. It almost sounded like he was hurt.
I was about to apologise when Ryan cut me off.
“Don’t apologise. Honestly Avalynn, if you were a bad person, we wouldn’t want to have you around, we wouldn’t let you stay here in the first place. We are really very particular about who we spend time with. Don’t feel that you are causing us trouble.”
I frowned in confusion. Was he able to read my mind or something?
“I just don’t want to destroy what you have,” I finally said.
“And you won’t. We have been together like this for years now and we had worse battles to fight. This is just another step to bring us closer together,” Ryan said. I hadn’t imagined him being so open about all this.
“We already told you that we found each other and immediately thought that we were meant to be together like this. You can’t choose the family you were born into, but family is where your heart is. And this is our family,” Sebastian said.
I wondered if he was hinting that I could be part of that family too. I felt so welcome and happy for a moment. This was the first time since I’d been a teen that I felt this way. Maddy had given me a similar feeling. A feeling of belonging, but my family was still cold and toxic since my mother had found out about my talent.
Maybe this could become my sanctuary, surrounded by people who knew about my talent and accepted it. But I was scared of being rejected and pushed away, afraid to feel safe and happy. It could just be my stupid brain understanding things the wrong way.
“Just don’t worry so much and focus on your own problems for now. Laura will be fine, and no one is angry at you,” Ryan said and took another sip of his tea. Sebastian moved closer to him and wrapped an arm around his waist like it was second nature for him. Ryan visibly leaned into him and I couldn’t help but stare at them.
They looked like they were in perfect harmony, and they not only looked like it, they sounded like it too. Even without Andrew being nearby their melodies still fit together in a beautiful way. I closed my eyes for a moment and listened to them.
