Knight Music

by Darlene Franklin

  Why didn’t he know the time? Hadn’t he gone there before with Joe? She pointed to a bulletin insert stuck to the fridge with a God Loves You magnet. “Sunday school starts at nine.”

  “Sunday school?” He mumbled something under his breath. “You really take this whole church thing seriously, I can tell.”

  Three

  You mean you don’t? Ty could almost hear the words, although Sonia didn’t make a sound. He wanted to slap himself up the side of his head. Why did he think faith and church would be any less important than it was for his cousins? Because she was an artist? He thought about the painting of the angel hanging in the living room. I should have known better.

  Sonia stood and peered in the oven. “Meeting with other Christians helps me to regroup. I even go on Wednesdays, to get my midweek fix.” Grabbing an oven mitt, she opened the door and removed the aluminum foil from the edges of the pies.

  Ty pursed his lips. “You don’t need to go with Michelle. I’ll be by at eight forty-five to pick you up.” Maybe Joe would stop nagging him about church if he went one time—and he couldn’t think of better company.

  She rejoined him at the table. “It’s really not necessary.”

  “No, I want to.” He wondered what to expect. The last time he had gone to Sunday school, little white-haired Mrs. Brown had insisted he memorize the books of the Bible, and he did, right up until he got to the prophets. Those names got the better of him every time. “Do I need to take anything special?”

  She looked at him, laughter in her eyes. “I haven’t been to this church before, remember? Me and my Bible, that’s all I plan on taking with me. Oh, and an apple pie.” She stood and removed the pies from the oven. “Perfect.”

  He breathed in the aroma from the pies. They looked as pretty as they smelled. Probably tasted even better. He wanted to stick a finger in the middle like Little Jack Horner, certain he’d find a treasure. “I have dibs on the first piece.”

  She flashed a mischievous grin at him. “You’ll have to ask Nel.”

  Ty glanced at the clock and stuck his hands in his pockets. “I’d best hie back to the castle before she sends the constabulary looking for me.”

  She stared at the side of his face, head tilted to one side, like a camera recording every feature.

  He couldn’t stand it. “What is it?”

  “You have strong bones. I’d like to sketch you sometime, if you’re willing.”

  When he didn’t respond, she shook her head. “I shouldn’t have asked. I might not be able to do anything worthwhile, even if you agreed. Forget I asked.”

  He smiled but didn’t answer her question. “See you in the morning then.”

  “I’m looking forward to it.”

  After he returned to the castle, Ty climbed the steps to his room in the front tower. He passed a painting Joe had laughingly introduced as his ancestor, Sir Innis. The strength of character and reckless courage he saw in the knight’s face remained stamped in the faces of Brian and Joe today.

  If Ty had grown up with that for a role model, instead of a father who valued appearance more than character, would he have become a different kind of man? Shaking his head, he continued up the stairs. He doubted it. Even if he and his cousins shared the Knight name, all that chivalry came from Aunt Nel’s side of the family.

  At the door to his room, Ty reached for the light switch before he entered. The armored soldier in the corner gave him the creeps. Ty fantasized that the sword would fall and claim his head when he least expected it.

  He prepared for bed before he remembered he meant to grab a Bible from the study. What was a study called in medieval times? he mused as he pulled his jeans back on and headed down the stairs. Did they even have such a room back then? Perhaps those so inclined had a resident priest who copied the biblical text with those fancy illuminations in the margins. Sonia’s face flashed through his mind. But she would never have made a monk, for more reasons than her gender. He couldn’t imagine someone that beautiful, that alive, cloistering herself away from others.

  The study in this modern-day castle sat at the bottom of the staircase to his tower bedroom. Built-in bookshelves lined three of the four walls, complete with a rolling ladder to reach titles up high. The collection encompassed a wide variety of time periods and subjects, from something that looked like it could have been a first edition of Charles Dickens to the latest bestsellers. If memory served him correctly, religious titles were located next to the armchair by the window. He found a row full of Bibles.

  He heard a light footfall behind him. Aunt Nel. “Are you looking for something in particular?”

  “A Bible. I didn’t expect you to have so many.”

  “Ah, yes. I think of that sometimes. What must God think about the abundance of versions of His word in the English language when some people still have none? But I can’t bear to part with them.” She took out a white leather-bound Bible with pages edged in gilt. “I carried this one at my wedding. And this blue New Testament—a gift when Brian was born.” She went through and told the story of each copy. At length she pulled out a worn Bible with cracked leather that had pages drifting out of the binding. “This was my husband’s Bible. I’d be honored if you use it.” She handed it to him. “If you are seeking answers, this is a good place to start.” She patted his hand and sat down before he could explain that he only wanted to borrow one for church in the morning.

  Aunt Nel slipped on a pair of reading glasses to read from the Bible she had described as her “grieving Bible.” Heading back to his room, he tried to imagine owning so many Bibles that he gave them nicknames and failed.

  After undressing for bed a second time, he climbed beneath the quilts. In spite of the day’s labor, he didn’t feel sleepy. Sonia’s face kept floating through his mind. You’re a fool, Ty Knight. He couldn’t let a woman come between him and his plan, especially not Sonia.

  What was it Aunt Nel had said? He would find answers in the Bible? Mom said the same thing. Picking up Uncle Brian’s Bible, a page fluttered out and he scooped it up. Strong block letters in blue ink were etched on the fragile paper. Integrity = security. He returned it to its place, Proverbs chapters 10 and 11. Arrows pointed to verses on facing pages. Ty read first one, then the other, to see what had impressed his uncle in the midst of the “greed is good” decade.

  “Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but whoever takes crooked paths will be found out.”

  “The integrity of the upright guides them, but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity.”

  His mouth went dry. He closed the Bible without reading any further. If he wanted a sermon on the value of integrity, he could turn around and go home and listen to his father. Would the church services tomorrow bring more of the same?

  He punched his pillow with his fist and lay on his back counting the beams in the ceiling. Tomorrow morning seemed a long time away. I should never have offered to go to church with Sonia.

  ❧

  Sonia was buttoning her pajama top when Michelle knocked and opened the door. “Can I help you unpack anything?”

  “I’m pretty well settled.” She remembered Michelle’s comments about late-night girl chats. “But I wouldn’t mind a cup of cocoa.” She wrapped a kimono-style robe around her body. “I even bought some at the store.”

  A few minutes later they entered the living room, hands wrapped around steaming mugs. Sonia stretched her neck and rolled her head around, loosening some of the kinks moving day had left in her spine. “This is the life.” She joined Michelle at a card table that held a puzzle in progress.

  Michelle picked up a piece but didn’t place it. “I bet you’re good at this kind of thing, being an artist and all that.”

  Sonia took the rejected piece and found its rightful place.

  “See, I told you.”

  “Beginner’s luck.” Sonia chuckled. “Not all that good. When I’m painting, I can see the finished picture in my mind. At least I used to.” Si
ghing, she brought the cup to her lips.

  “You will again. Joe and I, we’ve been praying for you.” Michelle strung together pieces of what looked like a large wooden door.

  “Thanks. I know God is faithful. That’s the only thing that keeps me going some days.”

  Michelle nodded in understanding. With a sideways grin, she handed Sonia the box top. “Here’s what the finished puzzle will look like.”

  Sonia looked at miniature figures capering about a castle, everything from a cat standing on its hind legs wearing a plumed hat to a trio of pigs dancing down a road. She half laughed, half coughed. “Don’t tell me. I bet Nel gave this to you.”

  “Joe did. As a joke. Said this was as close to a fairy tale as real life would ever get.” She fit in a piece of Puss ’n Boots’s tail.

  “And what did you say to him?” Sonia pushed a couple of emerald-green pieces together, trying to make sense of the vines crawling up the castle walls.

  “Why, I asked who needed a fairy tale when I was marrying my knight in shining armor.” Michelle glanced at her engagement ring and lifted it to where she could see it flash in the light.

  Emotion clogged Sonia’s throat, and she found the spot for the vines on the wall. “So everything is going well between the two of you?”

  “Better than good. Fantastic.” Michelle connected the door to one of the castle turrets. “You and Ty spent a lot of time together today.”

  Sonia squirmed. Was Michelle going to become the latest in a long line of acquaintances to play matchmaker once they had found that special someone? “Well, you know, after you and Joe, Brian and Judy, that left Ty and me.” She laid down the piece she held in her hand. “Are there half a dozen eligible bachelors waiting to meet me at church tomorrow?”Michelle threw back her head and laughed. “There might be that many in the whole town. I’m not sure. But Ty is. Eligible, that is.”

  Sonia took the time for a long swallow of her cocoa. “Okay, roomie. Ground rules: no matchmaking.” She smiled to lighten the complaint.

  Michelle’s green eyes widened in mock surprise. “Of course not.”

  Michelle was a good sort, Sonia decided later as she went through her bedtime stretching routine that the doctor said might help her relax enough to sleep. Sleep had never been an issue until the day someone stole her most ambitious painting to date straight out of Joe’s art gallery. She mourned the loss as if her firstborn child had been killed. When she added the theft of the angel pictures, the theft of so much of her inventory created a void she struggled to refill. She opened the window a crack, letting in a thin stream of the cool September air, redolent with the smell of hay and the music of crickets chirping instead of exhaust and honking horns.

  She dug into her suitcase for her latest prayer journal, although few glancing through the pages would guess its purpose. As an artist, she thought less in words than in images, and that’s what filled the pages. When everything had fallen apart and she felt herself slipping into a dark void where God seemed absent, she challenged herself to examine each day for signs of God’s presence and record them.

  She leafed through the pages. Some things she recorded so frequently they had become a kind of personalized hieroglyphics: the sunrise and sunset, rain and rainbows. She thought today about her drive from Denver and reached for a dark yellow colored pencil, sketching a tree in the process of changing color. Next to that she drew an empty cross and open tomb—a reminder that life follows death for the believer.

  An orange-red pencil created a bundle of flowers in a small girl’s hands. The many hands that had carried boxes into the house today. Michelle’s carefully manicured hands. Brian’s slender fingers fit for a surgeon. The small pudgy fingers of a child.

  At least she could still sketch. If only she could do more than sketch. The ability to add piece to piece, image to image, to create a meaningful whole, had fled.

  The next hands had just the hint of ink smudged on the fingertips. Black hairs crisscrossed the back of the wrist, poking out around the edges of the watch with the simple leather strap. To the hand she added an arm. . .shoulder. . .profile.

  She started over again, this time in three-quarter profile. Eyebrows arched over lips barely parted in a smile, an aura of mystery behind his charming facade.

  Ty was charming all right. But was he hiding something? And what right did she have to pry? His family didn’t share her doubts. She added shadows beneath his eyes, suggesting someone with a weight on his shoulders—someone who hadn’t yet learned that Jesus’ yoke was easy and His burden was light.

  She drew another pair of hands, mimicking Dürer’s praying hands, asking God to open his eyes and his heart at the church service tomorrow. When she finished, she snapped a rubber band in place around the book and tucked it back into her suitcase. The pictures in that book were a private conversation between her and God, but it always surprised her how many people couldn’t resist the urge to look through an artist’s sketches. She zipped it in the compartment built into the bottom of her suitcase, as close to a hidden compartment as she had.

  ❧

  People mobbed Sonia and Ty before they could leave the pew. When they came in the sanctuary, he had grabbed the seat next to her. Now she hugged a few parishioners like old acquaintances—maybe they were, or maybe her natural self was peeking through. People welcomed him as a Knight cousin and thronged Sonia as the new artist-in-residence. No one with two eyes could have missed her entrance today, all shades of yellow swirling around her like molten gold, bringing out the sheen of her dark hair, a strand of beads sparkling against her chest. . . .

  “And you must be Ty.” A woman with a head sprouting a thousand curls held back by a hair clip came around to the pew in front of them to shake his hand. “Joe has told us so much about you.” Her voice sounded unnaturally high, like a child’s, but more musical, like a high C on a violin. She beamed. “I’m Janice Perkins.”

  “The pastor’s wife.” He had seen the name on the bulletin.

  Her smile grew wider. “We’re delighted to have you here. Do you expect to be in Ulysses long?”

  Ty made some offhand remark while he strained to eavesdrop on Sonia’s conversation. Something about her classes and how everybody was looking forward to them. His mouth twisted. Perhaps he should sign up for a class. He grinned at the thought of Sonia guiding his hand through some elementary art lesson.

  “Good. We’ll look forward to seeing you there.”

  Ty blinked. What had he missed? Mrs. Perkins had taken his facial expression as assent. “And when is it?” And what and where? Although he didn’t voice those questions.

  “Why, I didn’t tell you, did I? The choir meets on Thursday nights. You won’t need to take your violin until the orchestra rehearsal. It’s starting up again next Sunday afternoon.”

  Choir? Rehearsal? Violin? What had he agreed to?

  Mrs. Perkins snagged Sonia before anyone else greeted her, and this time Ty listened as the pastor’s wife made her way through the welcome. “Ty here has just offered to play his violin in our orchestra. And he’s going to check out the choir as well. Wasn’t that sweet of him?”

  Sonia widened her eyes and looked at him. He shrugged. Might as well.

  “We’d love to have you come, too. To either choir or orchestra.”

  Sonia was already shaking her head. “I’m afraid I don’t sing.” As if sensing the next suggestion, she said, “I don’t play an instrument either.” She put a finger to her lips. “I have worked with audiovisual equipment before.”

  “Wonderful! The lady who ordinarily does that has just had a baby. I’ll have Josh call you, shall I? Did you fill out a visitor’s card today?”

  Joe came up behind Michelle. “Mrs. Perkins, I’m sorry to interrupt, but we’re expected elsewhere.”

  The sanctuary had emptied except for the four of them. She blinked. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you so long. I’ll look forward to seeing you both on Thursday night then.” Beaming, she
headed away from the entrance, perhaps in the direction of the church offices.

  Joe bustled them toward the exit. Once they were outside, he apologized. “She’s a great believer in getting people involved. But if you don’t want to go on Thursday night, she won’t be offended.”

  Ty thought about it. He had brought his violin with him, after all, and he loved to sing. “Oh, why not? I get to make music. It’ll be fun.”

  Only later did he make the connection that committing to choir also meant committing to regular attendance at church. What had he signed himself up for?

  Four

  Ty picked up the familiar weight of his violin case and stared at the church building. Janice said tonight was choir rehearsal, but he wanted to be prepared. A family—father, mother, two teenage girls—walked by, laughing, music clasped in their hands. Why was he nervous? He opened the car door and took a deep breath.

  He straightened his shoulders and allowed his mouth to fall into his most heart-warming smile. His Southern charm made him welcome in most groups, and this should be no different. He was only adding a wrinkle to his campaign to make a good impression on his family.

  The church door opened before Ty reached it. “There you are.” Joe held it for him. “I began to wonder if you had changed your mind. Right this way.” He glanced at the violin. “Choir rehearsal’s tonight. The orchestra practices some other time. Sunday afternoons, I think.”

  “I don’t know if this is such a good idea.” Ty hung back.

  “But as long as you’re here. . .another baritone is always needed.” Joe clapped him on his back and crossed the foyer to the sanctuary. So, the choir didn’t practice in a separate music room, not surprising in a church this size.

  Up in the sound booth, a familiar figure waved to Ty. He turned to Joe. “I’ll join you in a minute.” He climbed the stairs and knocked on the door. Sonia let him in. “How’s it going?”

  Sonia squinted at the console. “It’s a little different than what I’m used to. But Barb left excellent notes. I’ll get the hang of it.”