6. Shemaiah
SHEMAIAH
Curiosity is a deep well. Lean too close, and you’ll fall in and drown. Dip a bucket gradually, and you’ll quench your thirst. I’ve always been thirsty. Never able to stay away when something captures my attention. Like right now.
Drawn by the notes of piano keys, I detour from my path to the library.
The music is haunting, ringing down the hall like a ghost from happier times, when the Roan Estate was still a home, before the island was a place of death and excess.
My mother was the last person to play that piano, the one who taught me.
The music room door is open for the first time in years, and rather than enter, I stop a few steps away to listen.
Without knowing who’s playing, it’s like I’ve stepped back into the past. My eyes drift closed.
I see my mother sitting next to me at the instrument.
Her smile is as gentle as her voice. “That’s it, Shemaiah.
” The soft light of the sun cuts through the room, lighting up our fingers, dust motes dancing in the rays like little fairies.
My hearts threatening to clog my throat, I open my eyes and focus on the present. The player isn’t skilled. The notes are uneven, the pianist sometimes missing a beat to begin the line again. The keys are slightly out of tune from disuse, though not as much so as I would have guessed.
The song crescendos as the player finds the rhythm of the piece passion pouring into the music. Every cell in my body vibrates as the last note echoes around me.
Unsure who I’ll find, I enter the room.
Pippa sits at the pianoforte with her back to me, flipping through the music book to find another song.
She’s wearing one of the three dresses she brought with her: one blue, one yellow, and one green.
In a steely act of self-reliance, she refuses to wear any of the gowns we’ve provided and continues to wear her own.
There’s something both ridiculous and admirable about that.
There’s a system to her attire that I also find fascinating, since none of the dresses vary much.
The blue and green dresses are for everyday use, and the yellow dress is her dressing-up attire.
She reminds me of a summer day when she wears the yellow one, with a scent to match, aside from the underlying bitterness of her illness.
The blue dress she’s wearing today is a serviceable fabric dotted with white flowers.
It’s worn, though less so than the green one she’s patched.
Most surprising is her hair. It’s down, as if she couldn’t be bothered to put it up.
In the colonies, a woman with unkempt hair would cause a scandal, but it’s been a long time since anything has been scandalous at Roan Island.
And scandalous is far from how I’d describe Pippa’s golden locks.
She’s the sun in the middle of a rainbow cast by the stained glass window.
My breath catches. Silent as the piano once was, I walk toward her as the music starts up again.
The tips of her curls brush the floor behind the bench, swaying as she moves.
Having only seen it up, I didn’t know her hair would be so long, though I shouldn’t be surprised since long hair is in style in the colonies right now.
My fingers twitch, wanting to see if it’s as soft as it looks. She bends her head over the piano, and some of the shorter tresses at the front fall into her face. She rolls her shoulder to push the hair back without stopping the song.
“Allow me,” I say, bending forward.
She jumps, the notes faltering, a discordant combination clanging out. “Oh. You startled me.”
“Don’t stop.” I brush her hair back from her shoulder.
Never particularly skittish, she gives one quick dip of her chin, then goes back to the notes.
When I gather her hair in my hands, my knuckles brush her neck, and her pulse jumps. She misses a note. Gooseflesh pebbles her skin. Her locks are thick and heavy in my palm, soft and tempting. A slight tug, and her neck would be bared. My grip tightens. Her hands stall on the keys.
“Keep playing,” I whisper.
She obeys.
The movements come easily, the soft strands slipping through my fingers like silk as I braid them together. When I reach the end, I pull the leather tie from my hair and wrap it around hers. “There.”
“Thank you,” she says, sustaining the last chord of the song. She pulls the braid over her shoulder and draws the ends of the leather tie through her fingers. “My arms were aching this morning, and I couldn’t…”
“You don’t need to explain.” I sit and turn on the bench so we’re both facing the piano, then flip through the book until I find a duet. “Shall we?”
“I’m not very good.” She scoots an inch away from me. “I never had any formal teaching. I just stole little moments when I could. It’s not like a housemaid—” Her teeth sink into her bottom lip.
Apart from what little she’s told me about her son, I still don’t know much about Pippa’s life. Not as much as I’d like. I want to ask everything all at once, but the way she stopped abruptly makes me think her past isn’t something she’s ready to share.
“It’s been years since I’ve played.” I scoot closer, allowing our shoulders to touch. “I doubt I’ll be very good either.”
Especially not with her body pressed so close to mine. I should keep some distance between us on the bench. But I don’t.
Her narrowed eyes tell me she doesn’t believe me, but she puts her hands to the keys and waits for me to begin.
I keep the tempo slow and steady as the feel of the music comes back to me.
It goes well for the first few verses, with barely any notes missed, but when we reach the third verse with a key change, Pippa struggles.
We start again twice, but I can see her frustration growing.
She’s not one to give up, however, so we try a third time.
Her fingers stumble on the transitions.
“Like this.” I reposition her, placing my hands over hers and pressing just enough to depress the keys.
She gets the hang of it quickly, but I don’t move away.
The heat of her body radiates into my side, my arms, my hands.
Her fingers tremble ever so slightly beneath mine.
My fangs unsheathe when her scent blooms like lemon blossoms in springtime, rich and heady.
Her illness sours the sweet flavor, but I find I don’t care.
“A piano!” The shrill screech from the doorway is like a pin to a bubble. Pippa stands and smoothes her skirt.
Kay clasps her hands to her chest with a giddy gleam in her eyes. Anna is just behind Kay, her shrewd gaze bouncing between Pippa and me.
“I love the piano.” Kay skips towards us. “Can I play it? I was going to be a concert pianist, you know.” She sighs, lovingly caressing the pianoforte. “Samuel and I were going to travel the world playing beautiful music together. If we had only made it to the competition in Briarton.”
“What happened?” Pippa asks.
“We went to The Sanatorium to give blood for that blood drive they had, remember?” She looks at me and must see my confusion because she explains. “They offered a tidy sum per pint of blood. We were going to use it to pay our way.”
“I did that too,” Pippa whispers. “It was right after I moved to New Essik.”
Moved to New Essik? Where was she from? For every piece of information I learn about Pippa there’s more I don’t know. More I want to discover.
“It was good money.” Pippa shrugs. “I was pregnant at the time and needed a way to make ends meet. It’s how they discovered I have Vastatio.”
I hate that she had to give away pieces of herself to feed her child only to be met with such horrible news.
“Lots of people did it.” Anna waves a hand dismissively. “I did it, and I had a good salary at the time.”
Interesting. I wouldn’t have taken Anna for a working woman.
“That doesn’t explain why you didn’t go to Briarton,” Pippa says, redirecting the conversation back to Kay.
“Oh, well, that’s when they found out I had Vastatio, too.” Kay looks down at her hands. “I haven’t played a piano since. There wasn’t one at The Sanatorium.”
“And what of your man?” Anna asks. She’s so set on competing for Jafeth and my attention that I can’t help wondering if she’s bringing him up just to get Kay to return to a former love.
Kay stops touching the piano. “He came to visit me for a while, but then… the visits stopped.”
“He abandoned you?” I ask, noting Pippa’s pinched brow and tight lips. I still haven’t been able to get much out of her about her son’s father, but I’ve gathered that he left her high and dry in an hour of need just like Kay’s former flame. Love is fickle.
Kay shrugs. “I’m not sure I loved him as much as I thought. I think what I really loved was… this.” One hand lovingly caresses the piano keys, face alight and smile dreamy.
“Play us something.” I stand as Pippa steps away, making room for Kay, who gives an eager bounce, then sits.
Her hands land on the keys, expertly playing from memory.
We spend the next hour listening to the woman make magic with music.
It’s lovely, but I preferred the simple notes Pippa and I picked out together.
I wish I could turn back time to when it was just the two of us.
Only because it was simpler, less elaborate, softer.
I’ve never been a fan of showy compositions. That’s all.
Standing behind the chair Pippa took, I trace a finger gently over the braid that falls over the back of her seat, remembering how soft those locks felt in my hand. Anna catches the action and scowls, moving closer to us.
“Excuse me, ladies,” I bow briefly and hurry from the room. I won’t act the fool. I won’t let a touch of attraction rule my actions or cloud my judgement. Not for anyone. Not ever again.