Shattered Silence

by Ron C. Nieto

  “Ready?” I asked the room.

  Alice nodded and held my gaze. Lena muttered something like “Get on with it.” I began to play.

  As predicted, the sound was extremely different. The notes I played this time were curt and pure, and the song twisted along into despair without wailing and found hope again with a steady hand—harmonics barely audible and weak vibratos, yes, but nevertheless it was all there.

  When I brought it to a peaceful ending, the piano was all there too.

  “It didn't work,” Lena whispered, confusion evident. “But this is the right piano. I'm sure of it.”

  “And that was the right song,” Alice added. “It sounded different, but I felt it. So that means…” She twisted around in the bench and began to trace the contours of the piano with her fingers.

  “What are you looking for?” Lena asked after scowling for a full thirty seconds.

  “I'll know when I find it. In the snow globe, the important thing was the base. I'm hoping something similar happens here. An engraving, an ornament, a figurine… Something.”

  “Great. Just great,” she huffed.

  “Good thinking,” I said, leaning the guitar carefully against the wall. “I'll start looking on the other side.”

  It took us several precious minutes. Near the end, I gave up hope of ever finding anything, but just when I was about to stand up and suggest we try something else, my fingers slid over rough wood. Swallowing a curse, I crouched lower and peered at the underside of the soundboard.

  Someone had taken out a piece. The empty shape of an angel holding a rectangular plate stared back at me through gaping, bleeding eyes where the brass screws that had held it in place bad been torn out.

  “Shit,” I breathed out. “Shit!” I repeated, louder this time. “Alice, find Anna.”

  She punched the speed-dial almost as soon as I had the words out.

  “Did you find it, whatever ‘it' was?” Lena asked.

  “No,” I said. “It's not here.”

  “So what's the big deal?”

  Alice put down the phone. “Not getting signal,” she said.

  “The big deal is that Anna is out there with what's left of Beatrice in her pocket.”

  Chapter 26

  “I'm trying Dave.”

  He picked up on the second ring. When Alice's face fell after asking whether Anna was with him, I grabbed the phone. Lena might have gotten some formal education of sorts on dealing with ghosts, but I knew Beatrice much better than she did, and I was starting to get suspicions about what the grand finale might entail.

  “Are you two together?” I blurted.

  “What? Look, I don't know what's going on with you two, but do you think you could start making sense?”

  “No, I can't. Not now. Just answer me, I'll explain another time.”

  “Fine,” he grumbled. “We aren't—I haven't asked her yet. You'd know that if you'd been around lately.”

  “Throw as much guilt my way as you want once we find her,” I muttered. “Did you notice something odd about her lately?”

  “Not really, but you're starting to scare me. Is she…? Has something happened to her?”

  I hope not. “No. But we need to find her.” I punched in the speaker mode in Alice's cell and added, more for the girls´ benefit than for his, “I think she's trying to get another Andrew.”

  “What!” Dave croaked, misunderstanding the situation.

  “Dave's not that good,” Lena mused.

  “But he's very well placed. Beatrice is very much like Anna in some aspects, don't you see? Anna is in love with Dave, but they aren't together. Dave does love Anna, though, so his reaction, should anything happen, would be even stronger than Andrew's… And we all know how that turned out,” I reasoned.

  “Who is Beatrice? And what's this Andrew guy's role again? I'm not really following you,” Dave protested feebly from the phone.

  “Do you think…? The mansion?” Alice cut in.

  I thought about it for a second. “Yeah. She'll feel safer there.”

  “Hey! If this is a drunken prank, it's not funny—it's not even making sense. So knock it off already.”

  “Dave, don't hang up.” Alice grabbed her cell and motioned for us to leave the house for Lena's Cabrio. “Listen, Anna might be in trouble. We think she might've gone somewhere… I'll text you the address. You have to get there. We're on our way now, too. If you do find her, don't do anything until we arrive—just make sure she's okay and stay with her.”

  “You're going to explain what this is all about.” His voice had gone deadly serious.

  Alice sighed as she closed the car's door. “Yes, we will. That's a promise.”

  Dave hung up without another word and Alice tapped a quick text with the address to the old mansion. Lena started the car and began navigating the way out of Anna's neighborhood.

  “I hope she's okay,” she said in the tense silence.

  If her words surprised Alice, she didn't show it. She accepted the comment with a curt nod and stared out the window.

  “Can't we go any faster?”

  “No.”

  “There are no cops around. It's late. They're not going to give you a ticket,” she insisted.

  “I don't want to crash,” Lena said, keeping her temper in check.

  We went on quietly for a couple of miles and then Alice's cell rang. She picked it up and connected the speakers in one movement.

  “She's not here,” Dave said, not leaving room for a greeting.

  “Are you sure?” I called from the backseat. “She could be inside. It's easy to enter through—”

  “I know. I just did. It's empty. What now?”

  Yeah, What now? School? It would be ironic, to perform her macabre act in our stage, where everything started.

  Except “everything” didn't start at the school. Everything started…

  How had she died again?

  “The lake,” I whispered.

  “What lake?” Dave asked.

  “There's a lake in the park near my neighborhood… A lake or a pond, call it however you want. She's there.”

  “Are you sure?” Alice asked softly.

  “Yes.”

  Lena took a wild turn to catch the correct exit and then navigated the streets to the park. Dave's BMW was already there, carelessly parked over the sidewalk. Alice noted it and threw open her door, jumping out. I followed a split second later and then we were running for the tree line.

  The last time we'd been here at night, we'd been setting the very tentative basis of some sort of relationship. We hadn't known where we were going, hadn't even dared to wonder about it at the time. It had been a magical visit, an encounter apart from the world at large where we had begun to know each other. The secluded lake, the trees hiding us from view and the thick silence hiding the city from us: it had been perfect.

  Now, the silence was heavy and ominous. We couldn't see what was happening ahead—was Anna there? Was she okay? Why couldn't we hear her voice or Dave's for that matter?

  At first, Anna had been Alice's friend, nothing more. If I had been particularly polite to her, it had been because of good manners and moral principles and not out of a personal preference. But with time, I realized she'd become my friend too. It was hard not to like her, with her cheery personality. She knew when to joke and when to be serious, and her unfaltering loyalty to those she cared about was impressive. When I had realized she had included me in that small group, it had shocked me—until I understood that I had also counted her as a friend.

  If something happens to her because I haven't been able to fix this mess in time…

  Alice and I took a sharp turn and skidded to a halt when the lake came into view, its water lapping at our toes. The silvery moon, nearly full, peeked over the treetops and faced its reflection in the black waters, mute witness to Beatrice's vengeance. Its cold light fell upon the couple standing near the shor
e, mocking every poem of nightly romance and secret rendezvous. Dave's shoulders were hunched protectively over the unmoving figure of a girl. It was hard to recognize Anna in the quiet stillness of that girl, pale and frail like a china doll where she'd be so full of life and laughter.

  I couldn't see whether she was breathing.

  Alice's strangled cry shook me out of my reverie. She plunged into the lake, slipping and struggling and wading toward her best friend. The other half of Team A. Her sister. I tried to keep up with her, knowing that I needed to be there for her, for Dave, and wondering who'd be there for me.

  “Anna!” she sobbed.

  Dave didn't turn. There was a tension to his back that bespoke how hard he was trying to hold himself together. His voice, when we reached him, was low and hoarse and on the verge of breaking.

  “She's alive,” he said. “She's alive.”

  Alice held onto one of Anna's hands and cried. I held her, a tether for my own sanity as relief flooded my chest, dousing the fire of adrenaline in its wake and leaving me empty and spent. Awkwardly, I placed a hand on Dave's shoulder, partly to comfort him and partly to assure myself they were fine.

  “She's going to be ok,” I heard myself say, my voice too steady to match my feelings. “Let's get her dry. C'mon. She'll be ok.”

  Dave didn't relax his grip on her. I didn't begrudge him that. The four of us made our way up the steep shore and onto the pine-covered floor. On autopilot, I disentangled myself and began searching her.

  There it was.

  I slipped my hand in her pocket and pulled free the small brass angel, hiding it in my fist. A small thrill of triumph fought its way through the fog that had claimed my senses, trying to celebrate that we had won. It was swallowed by the numbness.

  “What is that?” Dave said, his fingers closing around my wrist. He had started to shiver.

  “It's what hurt her,” I replied, gently prying off his fingers to stand up. “Come with us. We'll tell you everything once Anna's warm and safe.”

  He shifted Anna and lifted her bridal style. I helped Alice up and held her. When she made to grab onto her friend again, I shook my head slightly and she nodded. Slowly, we made our way back to Lena's car and she took the chance to pull herself back together.

  “Is she…?” Lena asked when we were within whispering distance.

  “She'll be fine,” Alice said. Then, she climbed into the backseat with Dave and Anna.

  “Take us back to your place,” I told Lena, showing her the angel. “This is nearly over.”

  Chapter 27

  Dawn's cold, grey fingers were creeping up the horizon by the time we settled into a semblance of normalcy. Lena had gone to bed half an hour earlier, and Anna had been awarded the guest room. Dave was staying with her just in case. Alice was supposed to sleep up there too, but I could hear her light footsteps coming down the stairs.

  I turned from the garden's view when she reached the door to the living room, Sparrow walking like an eerie shadow at her heels and wearing a satisfied expression. We'd found him sitting on the porch when we arrived, and somehow it hadn't struck me as odd—he'd been as much a crusader against the evil ghost as any of us, so it was only fitting he joined us to see it all end. Even my cat-hating girl appreciated his presence.

  I offered Alice my open arms when she looked up and she crossed the distance between us to snuggle against me; her eyes were red from crying but her features had begun to regain some color after the shock of fear and pain.

  “They accepted it better than I thought they would,” she said, her lips brushing the side of my neck as she spoke.

  “Give them some time to process it. I don't think they were at their finest, so it might take a while for the ghost story to sink in.”

  We stood there for a moment longer, just holding each other and relishing each other's presence. Then, Alice said, “I haven't heard you play yet.”

  “I'm scared,” I admitted. “At the moment, I'm angry and scared.” I sighed. “What if I break the song again, Alice? What if we're playing right into her hands and I give her back what she wants?”

  She stepped out of the embrace and her hands cupped my face, forcing me to meet and hold her gaze. In her eyes shone an absolute confidence I was far from feeling.

  “You can't,” she told me, smiling gently, “because you love me, remember?”

  She kissed me without hurry, her lips fleeting and warm and the only real thing in my world. When she pulled away, her fingers tangled in the hair at the nape of my neck, and my heart beat both faster and steadier.

  “Okay,” I said.

  I took some perverse pleasure in sitting in one of those pristine couches, one leg tucked in, with Alice behind me and resting her head on my shoulder. The guitar was ready and the first notes sounded almost eager in escaping the strings, weaving a tune that had become familiar and still kept changing every time I played it. If there were darker shadows this time, the highlights were also more intense—Alice's hand ran up and down my side, just the barest touch, nothing but the hint of a caress, and the sound warmed with emotion and something more primal.

  The sun began its daily climb, its rays slowly reaching the garden, the balcony and us, and the brass angel in my pocket heated up as if the soft winter light that could not touch it were a melting furnace. Ignoring the bite of pain, I focused on her fingers gliding along my skin, and with the guitar's next phrase, the angel shattered becoming a handful of dust.

  With a smile, I kept playing, adding a twist of excitement for the future from a song that had been conceived as an anthem of death.

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  Thank you for reading Silent Song. I hope you enjoyed it!

  If you want more, I've some good news: there are a few freebies waiting for you! Just head over to www.roncnieto.com/go/ghostlyrhapsody and sign up for my newsletter.

  Please consider leaving a review with your thoughts wherever you bought the book, or simply tell your friends about the duology. Spreading the word is the best thing you can ever do for any author!

  And of course, I'd love hearing from you. Feel free to get in touch via Twitter, Facebook, GoodReads, or at www.roncnieto.com

  OTHER TITLES

  Ghostly Rhapsody Duology

  Book 1: Silent Song

  Book 2: Shattered Silence

  Faerie Sworn Series

  Story 0.5: Faerie Nights

  Book 1: The Wild Hunt

  Story 1.5: Faerie Oaths

  Book 2: The Wild Curse

  Story 2.5: Faerie Hearts

  Book 3: The Wild Herald