More Than Words

by Mia Sheridan

  I nodded, loving how the French title flowed so effortlessly from her mouth. It had been the piece that’d gained me notoriety, my first big break. Back then, his voice had been a whisper, but now it was a shout. It was as if the more my fame grew, the more success I attained, the louder his words became, drowning out the music. Why? Why can’t he leave me alone? But right now Jessie’s sleepy voice was a calm murmur and it was only her words that filled my mind.

  “When I was a little girl, I had this swing in the backyard. That’s where I would go before I met you, before I was old enough to play outside my own yard. The swing had been hung by the previous owners in this huge peach tree right at the edge of our property. When I swung high, I could almost touch the branches, and I could see the rosebushes over the fence in Mrs. Webber’s garden.

  “When I first heard the song you’d written, it made me feel the same way I had swinging under that peach tree. It was like I’d gone so high I felt the leaves brush against my cheek, and my heart soared so quickly that my body didn’t have time to catch up. The breeze rushed over and through me, and I swore I could smell the faint scents of peaches and summer roses. It was like every good and beautiful thing in the world came together all at once, and you’d found a way to express it in one single song.”

  There was a pinching feeling in my chest that was making it hard to breathe, and I felt full and empty all at once. Full with the knowledge that Jessie believed in me, at least in my ability to write music. And empty because I was scared, so scared. I feared that if I had done what she’d described—once—it was only because it was an accident, or some strange bout of luck I’d never be able to re-create.

  She smiled, cupping my cheek and running her thumb over my cheekbone. She looked so adorable sleepy. “Maybe you could try to think of something beautiful you’ve experienced—something that engaged all your senses—and put it to music. I know you can.” In her eyes I saw belief. In me. Her eyes fluttered and closed, her long dark lashes making crescents on her cheeks, her lips parting as she fell asleep.

  Jessie.

  I know you can.

  I think you’re the most wonderful person I ever met.

  Yes, Jessie believed in me—at least in my potential. She always had. Because she doesn’t know everything about you, a voice inside mocked. Maybe…but she believed in me right now, and tonight she was here, asleep in my bed. Warm and sweet and good. The far-off music I thought I’d heard at the edge of the church ruins overlooking the Loire River with Jessie the day before seemed to draw closer. I grasped a note, two, something coming together in my mind. Just a vague idea…not even a full melody, but…something. I pictured that little girl soaring high into the air and then falling quickly as the breeze rushed over her and she laughed with joy.

  I know you can.

  I waited for a while, watching Jessie sleep, watching the slow rise and fall of her chest, and then slipped out of bed, careful not to wake her. I shut off the light, plunging the bedroom into complete darkness, and tiptoed into the sitting room, closing the bedroom door behind me.

  I think you’re the most wonderful person I ever met.

  The music drew even closer, rising inside me, the melody taking form, the feeling of it washing over me. Jessie was right about what she’d said earlier—what else was music but emotion put to sound? And the emotions inside me right now felt pure and happy.

  I grabbed for a sheet of ledger paper, my hands trembling with doubt, expecting the melody to fall apart at any moment, for the music to stop. But it didn’t. I glanced at the door to the bedroom, wanting to get something written down—anything, please anything—but also wanting to crawl back into bed with Jessie, to feel her warmth against me, to breathe in her scent, and to know her in the dark.

  My hand captured the music that swelled inside my mind, maybe even my heart, though I’d never been able to tell the two apart. I wrote, crumpling up pages, but keeping others, and before I knew it, the light of the rising sun was creeping through a gap in the curtain, casting the room in pale shades of gold, growing brighter than the lamp I’d been using on the desk.

  My hand felt cramped and my back sore as I blinked and looked around. My God, I’d written all night. My heart beating quickly, I riffled through the pages in front of me and saw that I had the entire beginnings of a composition. I scanned through the pages, humming the notes as they danced between the staves. And I thought it was…decent. I swallowed. It was getting there. Maybe. My heart beat faster with fear and with elation and with the desire to keep writing and writing and writing. I almost laughed out loud, or maybe I really did, because a moment later the door opened and Jessie was standing there, looking disoriented and disheveled and completely gorgeous. “What are you doing?” she asked, her voice throaty with sleep.

  “Writing.”

  Her eyes moved to the desk and then back to me, and she smiled. “You artists,” she said teasingly, affection lacing her sleepy voice. “I have to go.”

  “Yeah, okay.” I walked to where she stood and took her face in mine, kissing her lips softly. “Thank you for staying.”

  She nodded and smiled her sweet smile. “Get some sleep, okay?”

  “I will.”

  Jessie pulled her khaki pants and blazer on over the T-shirt she’d borrowed and then made her way quickly to the door of my suite. “Text me later,” she called as she pulled the door closed behind her.

  I went into the bedroom, flopping down on the bed with a smile. Rolling to the side, I smelled the pillow Jessie had slept on. It smelled like her, and I gathered it to me, clutching it to my chest as I fell asleep.

  I dreamed, but not the dreams that haunted me—not the dreams of him. Not the dreams of his words and his fists. I dreamed of a dancing feather, just a wisp of downy white fluff, moving in the breeze in front of me, causing me to laugh out loud. I extended my arm, reaching for the feather as it swirled in the air, guiding my footsteps as I allowed it to lead the way. I was mesmerized—almost entranced—as it dipped and somersaulted, rose and spun, always just out of reach. Teasing, taunting. I hurried to catch up, my own movement increasing the push of air, causing it to fly forward, off the sidewalk, down a trail, over a slope, and along a set of train tracks, where it disappeared.

  Inside an abandoned boxcar.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Jessica

  In the year of our Lord 1429, on the twelfth day of June

  The moon is full tonight, so bright that one can see the blood still staining the grassy field where the battle was fought this morning. I found myself standing at the edge of that field staring out at it, a million questions running through my tired mind, when Captain “Horse’s Arse” Durand happened upon me on his way back to camp and inquired as to my lingering. I made a brief reference to the questions war naturally raises within one’s mind, and the impossible duff commented that only a girl would stand about philosophizing while men were injured and dying only a stone’s throw away.

  I gasped in a breath of shock and said, “A girl? I’m hardly a girl, sir.”

  He looked at me in that smug way of his with one eyebrow arched. “If God is designing boys who look like you, then our species is in trouble,” said the insolent scoundrel. Then he continued by saying, “Now, make yourself useful and go assist Jehanne rather than standing by uselessly contemplating the universe.” And with that he rode away.

  The arrogant fool! With his big muscles and superior countenance. The way he struts through camp as if he himself owns the world and makes all the rules. Well, he does not rule me! I had been waiting in our tent all day and had assisted Jehanne from her uniform, cleaned and repaired it, and had but taken a moment to step outside for some air.

  I stormed back to the tent, and though she was exhausted from the battle, Jehanne asked what was wrong, and I shared my brief run-in with the captain. She laughed, which served to smooth my ruffled feathers, and for a moment I was able to see the mirth in his ridiculousness.

  “It is ne
ar impossible for a man who’s seen so much dying to understand God’s role in any of it,” said she.

  “And you?” I asked softly, for my doubts are the same, much to my own shame. Why would God allow such suffering?

  “Yes, me too,” she whispered, her voice fading with sleep. “But I must put my questions aside and answer the call nonetheless. That is what faith is. Knowing that though I do not have all the answers, God does, and he stands only for good.”

  My heart aches to believe it, and yet how does one do so with the stench of death all around, with the blast of cannons ringing in your ears long after the fight has ended? I thought she’d fallen asleep, when a smile curved her lips and she said on a whisper, “And you, my friend, like that horse’s arse far more than you’re willing to admit just yet.”

  A smile curved my own lips. I sensed a love story buried in the papers in front of me and wondered if we’d find out what became of Captain Durand and the girl dressed as a boy, traveling with an army and a saint.

  I stretched my arms and legs and picked up my coffee cup, taking a sip and blanching at the cold, bitter taste. Ben had left an hour before, and I was alone in the conference room, with instructions for locking the papers up when I was done.

  My brain was starting to feel fuzzy, so I began gathering my things in preparation of calling it a day. The ring of my phone broke the silence in the room, and I started, digging it out. “Hello?”

  “Hey there.” My heart did a strange little flip at the sound of Callen’s smooth, rich voice.

  “Hey yourself.”

  “How was your day?”

  I stifled a yawn. “Good. Long. I’m hungry.”

  “Good. I’m planning on feeding you. I thought we could drive into town tonight and try a different restaurant. Nick has a website crisis, so it’ll just be you and me.”

  “I didn’t realize website maintenance was so full of mayhem. But dinner sounds good. We can bring something back for Nick.” Truthfully, I was glad to be getting out. As delicious as the food here was, I would like to try something new.

  “Meet me upstairs in ten?”

  I smiled. “Yeah. See you then.”

  As I gathered the documents I’d worked on that day and made my way to the office next door, I couldn’t help but recall my time with Callen last night. I’d eaten dinner with Callen and Nick and again slept in Callen’s room. We’d kissed, and my body wanted more, but I knew Callen was right when he pulled away, not allowing things to go much further than that. Wasn’t he? Yes. Yes, of course.

  Callen exercised such control when it came to how far we went physically. Part of me was disappointed that he so easily had sex with scores of other women and wouldn’t even really try with me. Then again, I didn’t want him to try, did I? No, because it would be far too easy to throw all caution to the wind and say yes to anything he asked of me. And then where would I be? Well, I guess I’d be in the exact same place I was going to be anyway: alone and mildly heartbroken. Only I’d also be devirginized, which possibly wasn’t such a bad thing. Maybe I’d made too much of it, waited too long, put far too much importance on something other girls did not. Then again, wouldn’t sharing something with Callen I’d never shared with anyone else just cause our parting to hurt all the more?

  I made a frustrated sound in my throat, annoyed at myself for my own waffling thoughts. I’d never been a waffler! I was always sure, steadfast. I pictured my goals and I went toward them diligently. Only…love wasn’t really like that, was it?

  Love?

  No, not love. Affection. Sexual attraction. Care. “Oh, good Lord.” I slammed the safe, spinning the lock before carefully clicking the picture hanging over it into place.

  * * *

  In the year of our Lord 1429, on the seventeenth day of June

  I’m writing this entry by the bare flicker of candlelight at the end of another day of battle. More fighting will commence tomorrow, and with each passing minute my fear grows for the lives that shall be lost, for the blood that will surely be spilled, and mostly for the agony of dread that lies within my heart as I watch the army depart for battle. A battle for which my only role is the waiting, a certain torture in itself. Alone in our tent at night, Jehanne speaks her fears to me as I do to her. And strangely, though I would deign it to be the opposite, I find it comforting that she is as afraid as I. Though her insides quiver in fright—for this she has told me—she does not hesitate to lead the men straight into the fray, where they claim victory again and again. So strong is her faith, so devout is her belief, that despite her terror, she continues to live fiercely. Is this the true definition of bravery: being afraid but acting anyway? Following the dictates of your faith and your heart straight into the battle for which you’ve been called? It seems to me to be so. For how is there bravery if there is no fear?

  I read the passage to Ben and he paused, looking at me thoughtfully. “It’s really profound, Jessica, because what we know of Joan of Arc tells of her extreme bravery on the battlefield, of her unfailing faith, but no one’s ever spoken of or known about her private thoughts and fears…until now.”

  “Exactly. She was a military leader who led an army of men, but she was also a teenage girl.” She believed her calling so strongly that she did what few would have done, yet how could a peasant girl who’d only known a safe, provincial life not be afraid to charge straight toward enemy swords? Not be afraid that she was wrong and leading men directly to their deaths? Deaths that might be for a faulty cause?

  I wandered upstairs later, the picture of the dim interior of a tent in the middle of an army camp where two young girls lay whispering together running through my mind. Two girls who were about the same age and yet played vastly different roles in the course of history—one a peasant, one nobility, one canonized, and one forgotten. And yet both were brave in their own right. I wondered what had happened to Joan of Arc’s camp assistant and if the writings would enable us to identify her and provide a clue as to her fate.

  Fate.

  I trailed a finger over the rough plaster wall as I walked slowly down the hall, feeling the bumps and divots beneath the pad of my index finger. Was it fate that pulled the strings, that led us to our destiny? And what happened when we didn’t follow the path we were meant for? What if we were too blind to see it? What if we ran inside our house as Joan of Arc did that first day the voices came to her, but never went out again? What if we stayed locked up, safe, but avoided our calling? Did it only affect us, or did it end up altering the entire world?

  And if only all callings could be as clear as a voice ringing down from the clouds with a specific mission.

  “You look deep in thought.”

  I jerked my head up and laughed when I saw Callen leaning against the door to my room, his hands in his pockets, so casually handsome it caused my heart to leap.

  “Slumming it?”

  He chuckled. “Not even close. You of all people should know that, given you literally met me on the wrong side of the tracks.”

  I grinned over my shoulder, stepping inside my room. “Funny, I remember meeting you over a sparkling river in the mouth of a rocky cave deep in the Enchanted Linden Forest.”

  Callen laughed, closing the door behind him. “You’re right. My memory is so unreliable sometimes.”

  “That’s because of that—”

  He backed me up against the wall, my breath hitching as he put both hands on the wall next to my head and smiled down at me. “You were saying?”

  I cleared my throat, distracted by the solid press of his body, the scent of him right up close, and the beauty of his face looking at me as if I were the only person in his world. “That, um…spell the wicked—”

  His lips came down on mine, and I could feel his smile as he began kissing me. He dragged his lips down my throat as he pressed his pelvis into mine, shooting sparks between my thighs. “The spell the wicked…”

  “…Lord Blackshadow cast on you.” I moaned at the feel of his lips nippi
ng at the tender skin of my neck, bringing my arms up and wrapping them around his shoulders so I could pull him even closer. His muscles bunched under my hands, the hard feel of his male body such delicious wonder.

  I felt his lips tip into another smile against my skin. “The wicked Lord Blackshadow did cast a spell on me, and now I’m as wicked as him.” He brought his head up, looking right into my eyes. “And there’s no cure for me, Jessie.”

  For some reason his words sent a shiver of hurt through me, though I wasn’t sure why. We stared at each other for a moment, something thick in the space between us. A warning? A statement? Or maybe a question. Whatever it was, I wasn’t sure how to interpret it, much less form an answer.

  He broke the spell as he looked away and glanced around briefly, apparently taking in the tiny size of my stone-walled room for the first time since we’d stepped inside. “They really do have you in a dungeon, don’t they?”

  “Will you rescue me, Callen?”

  His expression sobered, and for just a moment we stared at each other yet again, but then Callen smiled and pulled away. “Come away with me this weekend.”

  I stood straight, smoothing my hair. “Come away? We are away.”

  “No, I mean from here. Let’s see a little more of the Loire Valley.”

  “You want to sightsee?”

  He shrugged. “Yeah. It’ll be our greatest adventure yet.” He smiled, a twinkle in his eye.

  I thought about it. There was really no reason I needed to stay here this weekend. No one else was working; in fact, Ben had told me he was going on a sightseeing tour himself and would be away from the château. He’d even asked to leave a little early on Friday, and Dr. Moreau said he’d be using the basement conference room for meetings during the afternoon and so that worked fine. And I needn’t be afraid of spending the night with Callen. We’d been sleeping in the same bed for almost a week now and evidently he had little trouble resisting me. I was…resistible in that sense, it seemed.