by Ron C. Nieto
I shuffled the papers, mostly dog-eared and scrabbled, and tried to remember where I'd been before leaving Saturday. I was working through the hardest part—the darkest one, the part that was completely irrational and held way too much pain for any song to contain. I wanted the transcription to stay true, to reflect what had been, but at the same time, I couldn't bring myself to play it the way it was conceived. It no longer fit—too chaotic, too abrupt. What had once caught my attention now grated on my nerves, and I kept adding small nuances here and there to make it better, improving the harmony, creating a rhythm where there had been none, slowing down shredders into soulful licks.
It was still painful and dark, but it wasn't wild. The rawness didn't reach out to destroy the performer and it manifested in smoother music, much closer to what a real minuet might be.
Phrase by phrase, I played, modified, jotted down, played again. Focused in my task, but not captured by it.
At some point, though, Sparrow sat on top of the papers. Meow.
The statement brooked no argument and I realized that it was well past dinnertime.
“Shit!”
I placed the guitar on its stand and rushed out, almost colliding with my father in the small hallway.
“I thought I heard you stop,” he said with a tired smile. “Do you want to come eat in the living room or do you prefer to stay in the kitchen?”
That meant that he'd already eaten. I hid a wince. I hadn't meant to let him to cook and eat alone without even a greeting.
“You should've let me know when you got home,” I mumbled while heating up my plate in the microwave.
“I heard you playing and didn't want to interrupt. It sounded... original.”
“It's not really mine, just some piece I heard and tried to understand a little better. Still, I wanted to eat together.”
“It's okay. You can come watch the evening movie and fill me in meanwhile about your day.”
“A kid lost control of his car today at school,” I told him when we settled down.
“What? Was it serious?”
“No one got hurt.”
His gaze sharpened then and he scrutinized me. I imagine that's the look he casts on his Excel spreadsheets when he needs to find the bothersome cent that's throwing off his monthly balance.
“Are you sure?” he asked. That errant cent never escapes him it seems.
“The car didn't touch me.” It was the closest I could get to telling him that the driver may have been trying to kill me.
His eyes lingered a bit longer, a smidgen of worry swimming behind the mostly relieved expression, but he let it drop and I kept eating in silence to the background noise of some random flick about to start on TV.
My father was not a pusher. We had an easy relationship. He trusted what I said and, more importantly, what I didn't say. I'm sure he'd have let me off without more fussing, but just in case he didn't, I was grateful when my cell went off.
“Alice,” I told him after swallowing the last bite. I motioned toward my room and he just rolled his eyes. It wasn't his blessing, but it could reasonably be misconstrued as such, so I fled.
“Hey,” I said with the door comfortably closed against my back.
“So, I've talked to this girl,” Alice said. “She's a friend of Wyatt's, and you're not going to believe this, but they aren't releasing him from the hospital.”
“I always appreciate a warm greeting from my girlfriend,” I said dryly. “I didn't know he was committed to the hospital in the first place.”
“They took him there for testing—you know, drug and alcohol use, the usual. But it seems he had a breakdown of sorts, so they gave him a sedative and waited for it to pass. This girl says it's not passing, though.”
“Did you get any more details about what kind of breakdown it was?” Lightness flew out the window. I knew what kind of attacks one could get after being nearly drained by a hostile, spiteful ghost, and I could only hope that we were talking about something entirely different.
“She's gone, Keith,” she said, her voice not as convinced as her words made it to be. “We won.”
“We won,” I agreed. I was alive and that was proof enough. “She won't touch us again. It'll be fine. But”—I forced myself to face it and to vocalize it—”but she could still be around. She stuck for over a century. Who's to say she's getting a peaceful afterlife now?”
“No one else ever finished her song, you know that. You played the last bars. You gave her an ending. Story's over, Beatrice stays dead, and we stay alive and healthy.”
I had done more than finish her song. I had written it, note by note, breaking the madness in pieces and rescuing the mournful melody it should've always been. It was closure, but the Beatrice I remembered from my feverish episodes didn't seek a peaceful rest. If there was a way for her to stick around, she would've—and since I had no idea what made her stay behind in the first place, other than sheer evil intent, I didn't know if that same stubbornness couldn't have saved her again.
“Let's look into it at least, Alice. I don't want it to be true anymore than you do, but this stuff is happening around us and I'll never let her get us unprepared.”
“I thought you'd say that.” I could hear the smile in her voice. “So I told this girl, Rachel, that we'd talk to her tomorrow at school.”
“What's our excuse?”
“Her crush nearly crushed us. We have a right to be nosy here.” A dramatic pause. A sigh. “And I might have gleaned the information that she's mad at him and might have leaked that I'm a sympathetic soul to rant to.”
I burst out laughing. “It's going to be priceless.”
“Not really, no. There's a price.” She cleared her throat and I heard her move around. Probably sitting up in bed. She always did that when she talked about serious stuff. “I want you to come home after school.”
She delivered it like it was capital punishment. “You don't have to blackmail me into that.”
“I'll have to when you find out I plan to deliver you to my mother's clutches. The visit's her idea.”
“Does it make you happy?”
She barely stopped to think. “Yeah. It might be important.”
“There you go. No need to blackmail.”
I heard her sigh. “One day I'll figure out how you always say the perfect words.”
I could tell her the answer. I could say that it was just because I loved her, because she was it for me, and that was my only magic.
“Good luck with that,” I whispered instead.
One day she'd figure it out. She wouldn't just know I loved her, but she'd also understand it. I could wait.
“Good night.” She sounded tired once the gossiping was over.
“Night.”
Chapter 7
The next morning, the school attempted a semblance of normalcy. No one talked about Wyatt, but everyone whispered about him. It almost disgusted me to become part of the curious crew during our lunch period, but it was our chance to find out if there was reason to worry.
After a quick bite, I followed Alice toward the arts classroom. It was used very scarcely and the only students with regular access were those in extracurricular activities, so the area was pretty much deserted and inside there was only the one girl, tall, with light brown hair pulled back in an elastic band, and too many jingling jewelry pieces for anyone but a gipsy.
“Who's that?” the girl said by way of greeting.
“Rachel, this is Keith,” Alice said smoothly.
“You never said you'd bring anyone,” Rachel frowned. She was a right friendly girl, this one.
“He's my boyfriend. He saved me yesterday from the car and he's interested in psychology. I thought he could help.”
I kept a straight face. I was getting better at lying, but the best way to pull it off was to keep my mouth shut—especially since I had no clue about craziness.
“Okay.” Rachel shrugged after a
long glance at me. “So what? He's going to tell me what's wrong with Wyatt or something?”
“Perhaps. If you tell us about anything weird, then...”
“If I tell you what's wrong, then what fucking help are you?” The girl sneered.
“The name,” I said. She looked at me, almost offended, as if she hadn't given me permission to speak. I tilted my chin up in my best attempt to be condescending to someone who towered over me and smirked. “You tell us the stuff. I can perhaps tell you the name. You know, so you can look it up in Wikipedia? Because I have this feeling that ‘went nutsy' is not a good research term.”
“He didn't go nutsy,” she snapped.
“It looked that way from where I was standing.” She took a step back and I tried to control the acidic bite of my words too late. This whole situation was making me jumpy, and my default defense mechanism involved unfiltered, sharp words. I hated to be cornered, and words just spilled forth.
“I don't know what happened yesterday.”
“He was really stressed, wasn't he?” Alice asked casually, becoming the good cop to my bad one. “With his art projects and homework and such.”
“Heaven forbid Wyatt stresses out. Sometimes I wish he'd take it more seriously,” Rachel replied with an eye roll, not realizing that she had moved past defensive and into talking mode.
“Oh, come on. He won that county prize and I heard he was going to compete again. That's plenty serious.”
“That's the perfect example! He decided to send his piece for the contest right out of the blue, and then spent hours and hours working on it. But he ditched it again because he had this minimal shot at being part of the Golden Crowd, then he started again...”
Alice and I exchanged a glance.
“The Golden Crowd? Are they still calling it that?” Alice said.
“Of course. What else? With their fake blondes and glittery gloss as if they could become real gold. Those girls think they are better than everyone, and Wyatt was so stupid that the moment he saw an opening, he went rushing. They weren't even interested in him! The one who landed the hot bimbo was his partner.”
Something clicked in my head. Two incidents, two people getting popularity points when they shouldn't be entitled to them. It couldn't be a coincidence.
“Perkins?” I asked, as nonchalantly as I could. Alice's gaze snapped to me when Rachel nodded.
“Yeah. You noticed him around, sticking out like a sore thumb, right?”
I had noticed him when he had decided to jump into an empty pool, but I decided not to bring it up.
“Perkins the mathlete and Reynard the artist?” Alice broke in, not seeing the connection.
“The fractal artist,” I muttered.
Rachel didn't hear my commentary or chose to ignore it, because she went on. “Right? Aren't they the most horrible couple ever? Perkins is such a douche! All damn day staring out at butterflies while waiting for inspiration to strike instead of actually working. Wyatt should've found a better partner and this wouldn't have happened! Now look. He's stuck in the hospital and his project's not finished with the deadline getting closer and closer…”
“Can I see the artwork?” I cut in.
Rachel studied me dubiously for a moment and then turned around to root through some stacks and folders. “Why not? It's not as if you're going to rob the idea. You don't have the talent, and you're lacking the source anyway.”
She handed me a fractal printed in A4. It was incomplete, that much was obvious. The curves entwining and dancing were beautiful and haunting, but there was something missing—the eye had too much room to wander. The swirling colors were pure madness, a wide array of almost every hue available blending into deep reds and gloomy purples. There were notes, harsh lines and scribbles in pen all over the place, ideas to fix whatever it was that didn't work.
“It's pretty,” Alice said, looking over my shoulder. “Can I keep this copy?”
“Sure. Now can you tell me anything new?” She looked at me pointedly.
“About him?” I shrugged. “No clue. But you might be interested in doing that Wikipedia research about ‘jealousy,' because it stinks here.”
“You're going to tell me why you suddenly looked ill when you saw that drawing, right?” Alice asked when we left the school behind after classes that afternoon.
“Did I?”
“Keith…”
“Sorry. It wasn't anything, really. I didn't realize I had had a reaction to the print or anything.”
“He looks talented though.”
Talent was the only common point we'd been able to establish for Beatrice's victims. They all were gifted in one way or another, and while it didn't take a genius to draw her hungry attention, it seemed she did require a very particular spark.
“It's difficult to judge fractal, but there is... something to it. That's for sure.”
“You've been bringing it up over and over. What's so important about it being fractal or modern or whatever?”
I stopped for a moment and pulled out the print. “What would you evaluate in an abstract painting looking like this?”
“The ability to convey feeling.” She let the end of her sentence linger, adding a question to her own answer. I smirked a little and kept silent, prodding her. “Okay. I'd look at how pretty it was. But my art interpretation tends to be skewed, I warn you.”
“Not as skewed as you might think. There are exceptions, sure, but most of those exceptions are conscious transgressions of the rules that seek some particular effect. For the most part, if something is pleasing to the eye, it's because it has harmony, balance, focus… that kind of thing.” I pointed at the image and started running a finger along the lines while I talked. “The lines are converging here and here, see? There's symmetry and there's also a very clear fugue point—where the drawing tends to escape the page. The colors are mostly cold, but they boil when they approach that point, giving an illusion of motion. It succeeds in creating an emotion because it grabs the eye and directs it toward turmoil, toward an abyss without end.”
“This is not fair,” she said quietly.
“What isn't?” I forgot the paper for a moment and focused on her. There was a forlorn look in her eye and she just stared at me, not really following my explanation.
“Music and also art? There's so much more about you I still don't know. It's not fair.”
“You'll have time to find out the details,” I said, my voice coming out gruffer than I wanted it to. “You might not know everything yet, but you know who I am. The rest is just a matter of time.”
She nodded after a moment and I reached out to touch the side of her face, needing to see that bright smile again. Needing her.
“You've seen me,” I whispered against her lips. I tried to tell her more, to explain it better. I tried to let that kiss show her that there was nothing about me but this—this love that had changed from infatuation to inspiration to obsession.
Alice pulled back a long while later, her cheeks flushed and her eyes nearly black. “Mom's waiting for us, remember?” Her hand was still fisted in my jacket and I dared to hope that she had caught even a glimpse of what I wanted her to see. “If we want to be presentable, we should stick to that piece of junk art.”
“Great.” I groaned at the reminder. I'd let Wyatt's print fall to the ground at our feet and it was muddied and creased. “It's going to be so much easier to appreciate the design now.”
She laughed. “You did an excellent job of explaining designs earlier. It turns out it's a nearly perfect piece, right? All that... composition stuff.”
“That's what I was trying to explain before you sidetracked me,” I said, and she stuck her tongue out at me. “In an abstract piece, it'd be nearly perfect. But it's fractal.”
“Which is vital because...”
“Wyatt didn't draw this. An equation did. A really complex one, possibly more than one even. Wyatt fed it to a computer progra
m, and then the program spit out what those equations would look like. That's the reason the proportion is so perfect, and that's why the correction notes aren't new lines or adjustments in color. They need adjustments to the equations that gave birth to the lines. Some adjustments I'm sure Wyatt himself could do, but others—and the basic design itself, I bet—would be beyond the level of knowledge of a high-schooler. But a mathlete? A good one could handle it, I bet.”
I saw her think it through, watching the smudged annotations. I saw her make the connections.
“So, for all intents and purposes, both Wyatt and Perkins are artists here.”
I nodded. “Talented ones.”
She grabbed the print from my hand, folded it and dropped it into her book bag.
“Who would've thought that math could be pretty,” she said, entwining her fingers with mine.
“You aren't impressed.”
“I am. Well, no, not really. I don't see how this can help us figure out anything about what's going on.” She averted her eyes and I decided to let the matter drop. She did see; she'd admit it when she had some time to mull it over. “Come on. We're running late.” She leaned in for a quick peck before picking up our pace toward her home.
Mrs. Thorne was a figure I barely remembered from my childhood. She'd been in the background while Alice and I grew up, but I never had much interaction with her. She didn't even have a face before I met her with Alice during the Beatrice incident.
That emotional distance of mine made it extremely difficult to explain her warmth when I entered her house for the second time in such a short time.
“Hi, Mrs. Thorne,” I said when she looked up from the book she'd been reading.
“What did I tell you about the Mrs.?” she said with a welcoming smile.
“Sorry.” I might have offered a better apology, but she rose from the sofa and came over to hug Alice... and me.
