The Violet Hour (25 page)

“Mr. LeFroy? Mr. LeFroy, do you have an appointment?” the guard prompts, hurrying out from behind the counter.

I
whirl on the stairs and he halts, taking a step back as he stares at my eyes. Which I know, glow with The Elementi.

“I. Am going to see Silas. I do not recommend you interfere, Charlie.”

Discretely, Allegra moves past me on the stairwell, out of his reach. She now hurries up the stairs and down the hallway without waiting.

I catch up and pass her to throw open Silas’s study door.

A woman screams and bolts into a neighboring bedroom.

Silas stands, a wicked smile twisting his lips as he rearranges his disheveled clothes.

His voice is tauntingly serene, “Mr. LeFroy. Miss Teagarden. Welcome home!” He spread his arms wide.

Allegra shivers beside me and I fight the urge to wrap my arms about her.

I will myself in place, trying to halt the disturbing images invading my brain.

I am very, very close to ripping Silas limb-from-limb.

The problem with this frequently over-used phrase is with The Elementi, this is an all-too possible reality.

“Silas. Where is Lucy?” My teeth chatter with the fettered rage.

His sickly smile widens. “My, she is a precious peach.” Lust colors his lips as he gives them a quick lick. “Just ready to be
plucked
,” His lips popping on the p sound.

I launch at him.

Allegra pelts her tiny body between us, her hand pressing against my straining chest like a butterfly’s wing. “That is what he wishes, Brighton. Do not give him a reason to hurt her.”

Silas’s eyebrows rise. “Perceptive, Miss Teagarden. Now shall we talk contracts?”

Silas hauls open a desk drawer to brandish a parchment, which he thrusts into my hand. “This document binds you and Miss Teagarden to Charleston’s Fancy for as long as I am inclined to have you in my employ.”

Silas places the pen into my hand and a squall erupts in my soul.

My digits twitch, and the pen shatters into a myriad of fragments, skidding across his hardwood floor.

His eyes tighten; not with fear, but with discernment.

Allegra steps forward, distracting him.

“Silas, be reasonable. Even if you have Lucy, which we have no evidence that you do, we could not possibly bind ourselves to you indefinitely.”

“Oh, my beautiful dear,” he tenderly croons, reaching up to stroke her cheek with the back of his hand. “I
do
have proof.”

Silas stalks back to the desk and opens the drawer once again. He thrusts his hand inside and for a moment I am perplexed…I tilt my head.

Gripped in his dark palm are two long, ebony braids. Lucy’s braids.

I see nothing. I see everything. My vision swims with the color of blood.

I register crashing and screaming and a detached, moaning pain. Madness has arrived and eaten my reason and soul.

“Bright. Bright, stop!” Somewhere Allegra is shrieking. “We will never find her! Stop!”

Allegra’s sobbing pulls me slowly back, back, back into my body.

Back into my right mind.

Shattered vases and crushed glass are spread everywhere, as if the hardwood floor has given way to a glittering ice rink.

Silas’s skull is in a headlock.
In my arms
. My teeth rattle with a violent shudder.

I have no memory of how I’ve managed to subdue him.

I release the cad, and shove him away from me—he sprawls on his expensive carpet, now crimson with his own blood.

Allegra is instantly pressed against my side and I lift my arm to embrace her, welcoming the calming coolness of her body.

Silas looks up, murderous. He rises, wipes the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, never dropping his gaze. “If you ever touch me again,
she
is dead.”

He walks slowly back and forth, evaluating us. I’d seen him examine horseflesh in much the same fashion. And that is what we were to him;
possessions.

“I don’t know how you’ve come to have the strength of ten men…but I shall find out. I assure you.”

I grasp Allegra’s hand and head for the doorway. “We will not sign. If you kill Lucy, you have nothing to hold us here. We shall return tomorrow, with something written. On the night of the performance, we deliver the arrangement, and you deliver my sister. Otherwise, your skull crushes as easily as that vase.”

I kick a shard and it sails across the room to land at his boot.

* * *

Brighton stares out my cottage window at the frenzied comings and goings of Charleston’s Fancy. We have vowed not to move, till the new orchestral arrangement is complete.

His blue eyes pin me to the chair. “You need to compose. We need the music as barter for Lucy.”

I nod and swallow, thinking of our first day alone. Of the inspiration his fireworks held for me, when first I saw them against the night sky.

“Draw for me.” He continues to stare out the window, statue-still, so I add, “Draw what you’re thinking. Make it into fire.”

His eyes whip to me and I hastily add, “What choice have you?”

His jaw tightens. “None.”

Brighton sits at the desk and sets to work, his hands sketching and angling and twisting so furiously, I expect the parchment to tear.

Anger. My music must match his anger. I bristle. I avoid anger whenever possible. I do something unthinkable. I open the memory gates which house my father. He stalks through them, through the mists of my mind; his black hat and great coat damp with English rain.

My fingers touch the cello’s neck and the dance begins.

My fingers gyrate and
hold
on the strings, my other arm sawing, sawing against the cello’s heart.

My father’s hand, striking my face. At two, at ten, and the final time—when I fled.

The pull and burn of
The Elementi
against my chest.

My nostrils flare and the sounds in my heightened hearing echo; magnifying, bouncing off every nook and cranny like a grand hall’s acoustics.

The wet blast of my father’s drink in my face, streaking down my cheeks, down into my décolletage and the laughter of his bawdy, drunken earls.

“Why, my dear, can you play so beautifully, but are so bloody dense?”

The rough tap of his finger at my temple. My inability to respond.

The whole-body shaking begins—fury, helplessness, desperation and futility funneled into the quivering of every muscle.

All fades to black.

My space and time and reason is the vibrating conduit between my legs; as if the instrument burrows an avenue to my soul, spilling every vile memory where it is reborn as notes and tones and dissonance.

Staccato beats of strings
. The sounds. So many sounds. Since The Elementi entered my body, my hearing is tenfold.

Amidst my music, I discern birdsong, the ebb and flow of the tide, hushed whispers down the hall…and…I cock my head.

The piece reaches the crescendo…I blink repeatedly. It’s as if my father’s drink has time-traveled, materialized on my face, somehow?

Strong, rough fingers stroke my cheeks. My eyes flick to his, but the music has captured me, and I must finish in my spellbound state. It will not release me till the final note is played.

Brighton grasps me under my chin, whispering, and “My darling. You are safe. You are here with me.”

His thick finger strokes my eyebrow, tracing one to the other, sliding across my temples to trace behind my ear, down to my collarbone. His touch is firm, but controlled. I know it to be difficult for him to manage.

Father’s voice again. The hot strike and sear of a conductor’s stick against my back.

“Expressivo!”

Play expressively. He means play expressively.

I am the family’s everything: our past, our future. Our coin, our livelihood, all riding on the back of a tiny seven-year-old and the notes she squeezes from her tortured mind.

A choked sob and a fresh reprise of tears, each drop an encore of pain and memory.

“Shh. Shh.” Brighton kneels before me, his hands about the cello’s neck, trying to extricate it from my frenzied fingers. “Shh. Allegra, come back to me. Leave that black place in your mind.”

He tugs roughly; I release the cello and the music ceases with a jangled halting of strings. The silence in the room is deafening.

He eases himself into the cello’s place between my legs and gently kisses my cheeks. Soothing murmurs escape his lips, each word bathing and tending my wounds. “Never go there again. Please.”

I sob and nod and allow myself to be folded into his warm embrace. His hand slides up to cup the back of my neck. After a long moment, he eases me back out of his arms to stare into my eyes. I whisper, “The Elementi heals physical pain…but not the soul.”

Brighton’s voice is gruff, but determined. “The piece is…breathtaking. And heartbreaking. Are you able to remember it?”

I roll my eyes and he laughs loudly. The first laugh I have seen in weeks.

He grasps my hand and leads me to the writing desk. “Transcribe it for the rest of us. But please…do so without bringing back the source of inspiration.”

I begin the blackening of notes between the lines and grind my teeth.

I whisper, “This is the last bit of my soul that beast shall get from me. For Lucy.”

Brighton nods grimly. “For Lucy.”

Chapter Twenty

“Do you hear that?”

Brighton eyebrows pull together in vexation at my question.

“Of course you don’t.” I cock my head and stride to the window, inclining my ear.

A trickle of sound, playing and calling through the wind.

My newly-forged ears discern discrete tones; individual voices recur, bouncing through my mind like a musical refrain.

I whirl to stare at him, my breath matching my beating heart. “Lucy. I can
hear
her.”

Brighton’s face drains of blood and he reaches for the wingback to steady himself. “You
hear
her? What is she doing? Where is she? We must go to her.”

His grip tightens, pushing down on the chair and I hear a
snaap
.

“Brighton. Your hands.”

He stares at his hands as if they belong to another—but quickly shakes his head and releases it. His eyes remain unfocused so I continue.

“It isn’t like that. I cannot discern words. Just the…tone of her voice. It’s the timbre.” I bite my lip, fearing another tirade. “I believe she was…crying.”

Brighton shakes his head angrily; I watch, enthralled as the hopeful openness of his expression hardens into his usual mask.

His hands firmly grip my shoulders, and he steers me back toward the open window.

His deep voice is at my ear, “Listen, my darling. Find her.”

I close my eyes, trying to keep the cacophony of sound at bay.

Intonations abound.
Birdsong
—variant and vibrant, hundreds of unique songs issued from individually-formed beaks. I push them aside.

The sea.
The roar and whisper of the tides. I submerge them.

Insects
—the buzz of bees about the white garlands surrounding the guest house. Smothered.

If I allow the din of sound free reign, I will most assuredly go mad.
My heartbeats wildly
. Each and every breath, sigh and laugh would become a continuous pressing drone, paralyzing me.

My world is now an auditory fabric, each individual a weave in the constantly undulating tumult of sound.

Brighton senses my hesitation. “All is well. You are well.
You
master
it.
Find her, Allegra.”

I shake my head and plant a picture of Lucy firmly in my thoughts. Her ebony curls and long dark lashes, hiding those round chocolate eyes. Her throaty laugh.

I swallow and press down the cacophony till it is a low roar.

Her voice arrives, arising and undulating as a silver sparkling thread, standing out and shining above the drone below.

I bear down and I feel the vibration of the silver thread, weaving through the air—an auditory trail of breadcrumbs. I smile and feel Brighton’s grip tighten.

“Ouch.”

“I am sorry.” He releases my shoulders.

“I can find her. I…have a trail.”

His mouth turns up in awe and relief colors his features. “Show me.”

* * *

“This night, all needs to be perfect. Do you understand me, Mr. Jones?”

Silas stalks before us and Sarah quivers beside me.

“I wish to see Allegra. I refuse to help you anymore until you take us to them. How do we know they are even here? Or alive?” Sarah’s bottom lip quivers.

We have not seen Allegra nor Brighton since they disappeared the other night.

“Mrs. Jones. I assure you, your friend is quite safe and quite well.” Silas walks back and forth in our bungalow, swinging that blasted white cane. I imagine pinning him to the ground, pressing it against his windpipe.