Chapter 14 #2
He opened his eyes—that shock of blue. “The pain slips away when you reach for it, like untangling a knot. Embracing it makes it hurt less.”
“What happens when I run out of terrible things?”
The ghost moved behind her, close enough that she could feel the whisper of his breath on her shoulder. “There is always more pain, Selene. Even without memory, I find pain to draw from. It lingers in the body, in the soul.”
Selene hesitated. “There is so much I don’t understand about this magic.”
“Magic is a well that we draw from and shape to our will.”
“No,” Selene said sharply, unease building. “That’s not …”
He regarded her carefully. “How does your music work?”
“Is this another one of your questions?”
“You’ll know when it is,” the ghost said.
Selene pulled up her father’s watch. He’d explained it this way to her once.
“It’s like the mechanism of a clock. Each piece must fit together, just so, to make the magic work: the right notes, the right order, proper pitch, an openness to the magic, intent.
Put them together and the magic flows through you. ”
“Those are the mechanics. I need the soul of it.”
But … that was it. Music was rules and order and precision. It was calculations put to page and then made beautiful. And it moved her; music always did. She didn’t know how to give him what he asked.
“I’ve never been much of a teacher, not like my father.”
“So how did he teach you?”
“He filled a glass and held it up to the sun. Showed me the patterns that broke against the floor.” Selene closed her eyes, sinking into the memory.
She could almost hear his voice. “He said: ‘The light is everywhere, like magic is everywhere. We are the glass; the music is the water. They exist separately, but together, together they can hold the magic and make it stronger.’ ”
She remembered the way her father had made the light dance on the table.
She’d forgotten that, until now, as if the ghost had drawn out the memory with the right question.
In all her years of studying, she’d been so focused on the clockwork of magic, she’d buried the light.
She wished she could hear his voice, just one more time.
She wished she could tell him she loved him, that she was sorry.
That she was ready to follow in his path.
“He showed me how to hold the light.”
The ghost dropped his head down to his chest, his cold eyes burning up at her. “Who killed your father, Selene?”
She pulled away, as if he’d struck her. “You know who killed him.”
“You have to say it.”
Already the dark seemed to press in, hungry for her hesitation. Would it be like music, pouring through the center of her with magic like breath? Could she hold its power? Or would it spread like madness, consuming every part of her?
“I killed my father.”
“This I have asked and you have answered.” He brought his head up, looked at her with those cold, blue eyes. “Show me what you can do with music and pain.”
Selene sang for fire. It coiled around the ghost, all passion and fury.
He stood coolly in the center of the flame, hands in his pockets.
He took out his knife and let a drop of blood fall to the ground.
The fire turned black and slick as a snake.
It slithered around them, eyes catching and swallowing the light.
Selene pierced the soft part between her forefinger and thumb and watched the blood form like pearls. The snake bit down on its tail, shrinking the circle and forcing Selene and the ghost closer together. Drawn in, the threat of their near touch imminent. She wanted to see what he would do.
He moved so quickly, wanting and bleeding and singing two elements all at once.
The serpent burst into flowers that were caught up in a brief tornado before they fell around them like snow.
She was close enough to him that she could reach out and brush the flecks of dried blood from his face, make a constellation of his scars.
Flowers drifted down around them like forgotten dreams. He was so much taller than she was.
The linen shirt pulled up, revealing the bare skin of his hip.
His eyes never left hers.
She tilted her head up. “The glass cannot break. You cannot bleed yourself free. You cannot walk out that door. What am I missing? What is the key?”
“I would tell you, if I knew.”
“How can I save you?” she said, her voice soft as summer rain. “I’ve never seen anyone do what you can do.”
“Sing your tempest and bleed it true.”
Selene exhaled her frustration and focused on the music.
This time, the sea rose up around her darker and grander than before.
She didn’t waste time on its gentleness.
She funneled her frustration at the unanswered questions and twisted mysteries and endless secrets into the song.
And when it came time for the lightning, Selene didn’t think of her father.
She thought instead of the unfulfilled promises that had led her to this competition, that had trapped her in this opera house, that had made her the girl to follow a voice into the dark.
The lightning sundered the darkness, crackling down around Selene in a hideous halo of heat and light.
Selene looked at the ghost, heady with triumph.
His face was dark with consternation.
“What have you remembered?” Selene’s voice was whisper- soft like the midnight hush of waves against the shore.
“Something I wish to forget.”
“Tell me.”
He closed his eyes. “There is a reason I created magic from pain. I had an excess.”
An ache permeated Selene. “Someone hurt you.”
“And I was resourceful enough to use it.”
“How can I help?” Selene kept her hands in tight fists, sure that if she forgot, even for a moment, that she was not allowed to touch him, she would. The misery on his face could unravel the world.
“The dark will take it away.”
Selene opened her mouth to say something—anything.
“I know your problem, Selene.”
“Tell me.”
“You have to get out of your own way. You have to want it enough.” The ghost was back to himself, all of that sorrow tucked away.
“When is it enough?”
“Bring for me a heart that does not bleed. You cannot return until it is done.”
“Wait—”
The dark came swiftly.