Robyn lifted her hands and placed them on the keys. The stage lights were on and she glanced at the room full of empty seats. No one was there. It couldn’t hurt—could it?
Robyn took a deep breath and retrieved the notes her grandmother had played that night so many years before, from the place in her mind where all the music she’d evermemorized lived. Her fingers danced across the keys and Robyn felt the thing she’d been searching for, that feeling of weightlessness, of knowing exactly what she was meant to do. Her body swayed in time with the piece. As the notes ascended and descended, Robyn found herself nearly lifting off the bench. Her braids draped across her face, the heat rising in her chest. She didn’t need to see. She only needed to feel. As the piece came to its end, an image flashed in her mind—Henrietta’s terrified face as she herself had played that very same final note.
The clapping was slow at first and then grew to a near-frantic repetition.
Robyn was used to hearing applause but it took her a moment to snap out of her own head. She was alone. There should have been no one clapping for her and still the thunderous applause reverberated in the small, dimly lit concert hall.
Robyn peered out into the seating and saw that someone had come to watch her. Seated four rows back, where the stage lights could just barely reach, was a figure. Robyn pushed her hair out of her face and readjusted herself on the bench. The applause stopped and Robyn thought she heard a breathless sigh.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize anyone else was here.”
The figure stood. “I can see. You play that piece with such abandon.”
The voice was low and husky. Something about it sent a shiver right up Robyn’s back.
“I-I’m practicing, so if you’ll excuse me...”
The figure rose and stepped into the aisle, staying just outside the circle of light.
Robyn was suddenly on her feet, her heart crashing inside her chest. The figure shifted where it stood but remained cloaked in shadow.
“You’ve summoned me,” it said, voice choked with malice, words thick with anger. “Shall we commence the sacrifice?”
Robyn didn’t know what she was seeing or hearing or why it made her feel like she should run, but she didn’t question it. She turned and sprinted into the wings of the concert hall. A deep, throaty laugh echoed through the cloaked passageways as Robyn fled.
The dark was disorienting, and Robyn stumbled over her own feet, crashing through an endless maze of curtains and narrow passages. The soft click of a lock drew Robyn’s attention to the rear door of the theater, where Mr.Eisen, the theater director, suddenly appeared. A flood of relief washed over Robyn.
“Everything okay?” Mr.Eisen asked. “I thought I heard—”
With a loud crack, his neck was suddenly bent at an unnatural angle. His bright eyes went dark as the life slipped out of him. Around his neck, the hand of the shadowy figure.
Robyn tried to scream but nothing came out. She ran back into the rear passageway and when she’d put as much distance between her and the broken body of Mr.Eisen as she could, she stopped and pressed her back into the wall.There was no way out from where she’d cornered herself. In the dark she clasped her hand over her mouth to stifle her frenzied breathing.
Please. Please don’t find me here, she thought.
Footsteps approached but Robyn could see nothing.
Breathing that was not her own sounded in the blackness. It was steady, controlled.
Robyn shut her eyes and wrapped her arms around her waist. A warm breeze brushed her cheek.
No.
Not a breeze.
A breath, exhaled from the lips of whatever monstrous creature stood before her.
Robyn decided she would look upon her assailant, even if it was the last thing she ever did. She opened her eyes. A young woman stood before her. She stared at Robyn, her wide-eyed expression a mix of wonder and surprise as she slowly lifted her chin and narrowed her gaze at Robyn. Her full lips parted just slightly and the hard angles of her face softened.
Robyn’s brows arched up at the shock of seeing this figure, this stunning young woman—this murderer—come undone before her. And what’s more, Robyn had come undone as well. She blinked once and then again, thinking maybe she was imagining it. Someone so beautiful surely had to be a figment of Robyn’s imagination.
“Please,” Robyn said. She wasn’t even sure what she was pleading for—her life? A moment to gather herself?
The figure took a single step forward and lowered her head just slightly, keeping her gaze locked on Robyn.
“I did not expect... this,” said the girl. She brought her hand to her chest.
Robyn’s heart sputtered, heat bloomed in her face, and her gut twisted up. There was fear. So much fear and yet there was something else mixed with it, something entirely unexpected—a desperate and frenzied longing, an immediate spark that ignited something deep inside Robyn. As it burned through Robyn, the girl lowered her gaze and reached out to touch the back of Robyn’s hand, and when her delicate finger traced a path across Robyn’s knuckles, it sent a shiver straight through Robyn.
