Redemption (14 page)

It was true. I had no idea who they were. But a sense of dread overcame me.

“So you were suddenly invited out of nowhere to perform with a very famous band? Isn’t it a little suspicious?”

She looked as if she had been struck.

“We’re good, Guillaume.” Her voice was unusually high-pitched. “You may think you know me with all this following me around business, but you have no idea. Lucid Pill is my life. Nothing is more important. Do you understand? Nothing. It’s not a mystical conspiracy or whatever you think it is; it is real. It is something I have dedicated years of my life working toward and it’s finally happening.”

I recalled my conversation with Garnier and decided he was correct; I needed to tell her everything I knew. She was intelligent enough to be able to handle it.

I placed my hand on her arm in what I hoped was a comforting gesture. “Aude, I think you need to understand everything I know. We need to talk about this.”

Our students walked into the room. She looked at them and then leaned toward me. “I’m not interested in your craziness. My lifelong dream is about to come true, and I don’t have time for anything else. Lucid Pill has to be perfect when we open for Fetid Crimson.”

“Whoa.
You’re
opening for Fetid Crimson?” One of the students—a teen girl lugging her guitar—cried out.

“My band, Lucid Pill, is.”

“Omigod that’s so cool.” Her voice raised by several octaves. “So you guys must be, like, really good. I can’t believe you’re my teacher. Omigod, I tried to start a band once, but we never really got anywhere and do you think that maybe you could introduce me to Ramtin? Did you know that’s, like, his real name, he was actually born Ramtin Zardooz—which is, like, way hard to say compared to just Ramtin. Did you know that he’s Persian? He’s also, like, only nineteen … or is that twenty … anyways he’s young and omigod so, so hot. I know, like, everything about them. Like, they had to leave Iran because their music was, like, illegal and stuff.”

I blinked a few times to clear the jumble of useless information that came from her mouth. It was obvious that Aude had a hard time dealing with her as well and this made me like her even more. Not in the way Garnier believed, of course. I thought she was an interesting person to get to know.

“I’m Linda, though you can call me Luna,” she extended her hand out to Aude.

Aude shook her hand, smiled, and directed her to one of the chairs she had arranged in a semicircle to face ours. Five other students followed her lead and soon all the chairs in front of us had been filled. I let Aude take the lead and helped demonstrate or place the student’s fingers in the proper position when she asked me to. This side of Aude was all business and one I had never seen until now. Music really was important to her.

By the time we said goodbye to our second and last group of students, I was a little in awe. She was talented, though having centuries of practice, I was probably better. But it was the passion I saw in her eye, and the way she could relate to others on that level, that really got me. She seemed to be able to read her students’ minds and figure out exactly how to teach them what she had in mind.

“You really are good.” I hoped it would help to restore our friendship a little.

She sighed. “Do you really think there could be some conspiracy surrounding the gig?”

“I don’t know. I just would like the chance to look into it.”

She nodded and started to leave. Her shoulders dropped and she twirled on the spot.

“Listen Guillaume, reason tells me I shouldn’t trust you. When I put the facts together, you seem devious, deranged, dangerous, or, I don’t know, something else starting with a
d
.”

“How about a dumbass?” I ask, using the term that seemed to be our students’ favorite insult for each other.

She laughed. “Maybe that’s what it is.”

“You should trust me,” I say.

“That’s what I feel too, but I don’t know why. This is the most honest you’ve been with me since we met.”

“I want to tell you everything.” I said it automatically, but as the words sunk in, I realized how true it was. I needed to tell her everything.

“I meant what I said earlier though; I can’t get involved in this right now. This chance is so big. I can’t screw it up.”

I could force her to face the truth, or I could do things on her terms. I stared at her and her eyes softened.

“So concentrate on the band stuff, and I will concentrate on the other stuff … and on keeping you safe. Can you still come see the shaman with me?”

I didn’t like how needy my words sounded. I realized there was no reason why I couldn’t see the old man on my own, but I didn’t want to. Anyway, it was easier to keep her safe if I could keep her close.

She nodded. “I have some more ideas involving Native instruments. I’m sure he could help with it.”

When I entered the penthouse, Antoine read a book while Vincent was furiously typing away on the laptop.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Emailing,” he said.

“Who?”

I had learned enough about email while watching to understand its basic purpose, but couldn’t figure out who he could possibly email.

“I’m trying a couple of different sources I found. There are a lot of websites dedicated to magical arts and witchcraft, and though most seem to be completely groundless and crazy, I’m reaching out to the owners of the ones that make more sense.”

“Doesn’t sound like a bad idea. Could you also do me a favor and try to find whatever you can about a band called Fetid Crimson and a Ramtin Zardooz? I think he is from Persia.”

Garnier, who had been walking into the room with a pile of books, stopped in his tracks.

“Who?” he asked.

I explained about Lucid Pill’s opportunity to open for a popular music group and how it had given me a bad feeling.

“I knew a Ramtin once, but I doubt there are any relations. I’ve known people by many names.”

“Well I’ll look into it,” Vincent said.

Garnier dropped the pile of books next to Antoine and picked one up seemingly at random.

“Making progress?”

“Normal humans have been writing a lot of books about getting in touch with their inner selves. The good books are actually explaining how to reach their essence,” Antoine explained.

“So these are written by essentialists?”

“I don’t think so, but we are sorting these books by likelihood of them actually knowing what they are talking about and we’ll then see about contacting those authors.”

I nodded, lost in my own thoughts.

“I know, I know. We’re grasping at straws, but we’ve already wasted a week. We’re all hoping your girl will come through for us, but we need to have some backup plans.”

“There are a lot of people who believe that the end of the world is near,” Garnier said.

“What do you think?” I thought of the Prophecy of the Seventh Generation.

“I think the world is gearing up for a major change and it worries me. So many people are not prepared to live a life other than the one they have been accustomed to.”

“You speak as if their plight concerns us. We must take care of ourselves first.” My words sounded hollow even to my ears.

Vincent looked up from his homework and sighed, but no one said anything.

The purple guitar leaning against the wall caught my attention. I wondered again at the impulse to purchase this object she had coveted so. I let out a sigh. Antoine’s dark-brown eyes searched mine for a while and then he spoke.

“So do you think you’ll grace us with some music sometime soon? Every day you take a seat there, at the piano, and yet you don’t play. Have you forgotten how?”

“What?” I asked.

“Well why else will you not play
la maudite affaire
?”

He had unwittingly hit the matter on the head. The piano was so strongly attached to Marguerite in my mind that it had become damned for me. I took another breath. I needed to release these associations. The piano had meant a lot to me in my previous life, my life before Marguerite, before even Vincent and Antoine. Back in thirteenth-century France when I was merely a young human with a great future in front of me.

I sat at the church organ where my parents had me practice for hours each day, when Garnier barged in, like he did every day. My parents would have tried to prevent it from happening if it impeded my progress, but at sixteen years old, I was already the greatest organ player they had heard.

“I found myself some work,” Garnier announced to me.

I took a break from practicing my scales. “That’s wonderful news. What is it?”

“I am to become a personal guard for a very prominent family,” he explained.

Garnier had always been a bit of a ruffian and it pleased me tremendously to learn his news. This was the chance at a better life he always spoke about.

“Which family?”

“The de Rouen family.”

“But there is talk of witchcraft surrounding them,” I exclaimed.

“Surely, you cannot believe these claims. They are wonderful people. They know of you and your organ playing, did you know? The younger daughter, Odette de Rouen, expressed she has heard you play and wished she had a similar talent. Perhaps you could teach her.”

I smiled. It was a nice idea, but I could imagine my parents’ reaction. A personal instructor to a prominent family may sound accomplished to some, but my parents had bigger goals for me. I said goodbye to Garnier and resumed my practice.

After that day, I saw less and less of Garnier until the day I decided to join him in what he had become.

I walked to the piano as I had every day since it had been delivered and closed my eyes. My hands froze. I had a promise that I had made to myself, I would play it for them. A ball formed inside of my throat. I forced myself to swallow through it. I would consciously choose to play it. I owed it to them.

I let one finger drop on the ivory keys followed by another and another until my hands were moving of their own accord. No longer choking on my own fear, I opened my eyes. My family had all stopped what they were doing; Antoine and Garnier’s books had been closed, and Vincent turned away from the laptop. Instead, all three of my oldest friends, my family, really, sat entranced.

They immediately knew the composition for what it was, the piece of myself I had kept locked up for so long. Three pairs of eyes pierced mine. They seemed to understand why I would share it now, after all of these centuries.

This time the emotions didn’t overwhelm me as I played. They were no longer my dirty secret locked up and enjoyed only by myself. I had a family I should have shared with all along.

The lost part of myself that only surfaced with the music didn’t feel as different from what I now was as it had in the past. Was I changing? I didn’t know how that was even possible after having spent centuries as stone, either figuratively or literally. I almost could remember the love that had inspired this song before I was changed into who I am now. I tried to hold on to the fleeting feelings that touched me only to flitter away like butterflies, and compare them to what I had felt when, centuries later, I had played this composition for Marguerite. It wasn’t the same. It had never been real with Marguerite. I had wanted to love her, wanted to so badly that I had been willing to hurt my brother over it, but in the end, it cost her life.

When I finished the piece, I sat at the piano, staring at my fingers, still poised over the keys after the last notes had long been played. I felt something inside myself tremble, but I locked it back in. In a slow, steady movement, I raised my head to look at the others, who were as quiet as I. They all watched me, concern etched into their faces.

Garnier was the first to stand. In one fluid motion, he was up from his spot on the couch and sitting next to me on the piano bench. He placed his arm around my shoulders and pulled me close to him. The physical contact prickled my skin, and went against what I had tried to avoid for so long. The simple gesture of camaraderie and friendship was almost too much. The shaking threatened to return but I couldn’t let it, so I stood up, away from Garnier. I resisted the urge to leave the room completely and instead sat on the couch next to Vincent.

The others remained quiet, waiting on me to say something, anything, but I couldn’t. Guilt threatened to consume me, I had meant to share this as a gift to my family, but it became about me again. Why was I always so selfish? I sighed deeply and picked up a book that sat on the side table next to the couch. My movements eased the tension around the room somewhat, and in my peripheral vision, I could see the rest of them picking up what they had discarded to watch me play. They remained silent, though, and it had me on edge. I wanted to scream, scream at them to get it over with and ask me the questions they were all keeping within themselves.

When someone did speak, it was the last person I expected. Vincent had his own demons, though he battled them much more gracefully than I did. He didn’t go meddling into my life. Not usually.

“I never understood why she chose you over him. He was always so ready to love her and you were always so … ”