“Who—who are you?” Robyn asked.
“I am nothing in your presence,” the girl said in a whisper.
She stepped back and folded herself into the shadows. She was gone as mysteriously as she had appeared.
Robyn could think of nothing else except the girl. Her face haunted Robyn’s dreams. Robyn found herself peering into dark corners, not afraid of seeing the strange figure again but hoping that the girl would show herself once more.
Mr.Eisen’s death was plastered across the news. He’d been killed by an as-yet-unidentified intruder. A seventeen-year-old girl was left unharmed.
Robyn was unharmed but not unaffected. She went to her mother to share the truth of what had happened.A truth she could not have shared with the authorities because there was no way they would have believed her.
“I played the song Grandma told me not to play,” Robyn confessed to her mother.
Robyn had expected her mother to be angry with her but instead, she lost herself in a tangle of words and tears.
“Your grandma had never actually seen the sheet music until Lester brought it to her that night,” Robyn’s mother began. “She’d heard of it. There had been rumors that it existed but I don’t know if she actually believed it.”
“Believed what?” Robyn asked. “What does playing the music have to do with anything?”
“It’s the music that calls to it,” Robyn’s mother said. She clasped her hands together in front of her, shifting in her seat. “The notes are cursed. The music itself is cursed.” She sighed and shook her head. “It’s used to summon something from the spirit world, something that takes human form but isn’t human at all.”
A belief in the supernatural, in magic itself, was not new to Robyn. Her family’s traditions were steeped in it. It was as real to her as anything, a part of her everyday existence, and so this revelation did not come as a shock. It did, however, come with a very real and palpable sense of dread. There were things to be fearful of in the dark. So then, what did it mean that Robyn wanted nothing more than to traverse the shadows to find the strange girl again?
“What is she?” Robyn asked.
Robyn’s mother shook her head. “A demon. An inhuman entity. Something from a place beyond our understanding.”She gripped Robyn’s hands. “What I know is that it is not to be trifled with and what you will do is promise me right here and now that you will never play that song again.”
Robyn nodded, which satisfied her mother but gave Robyn an out. She hadn’t actually made the promise this time. It was for the best. She knew she could never keep it.
Alone in the house while her parents were away at dinner, Robyn sat at the bench of her grandmother’s piano. Henrietta had left the baby grand to Robyn in her will.
Robyn had a choice to make—be the girl everyone thought she should be or be something else. She knew what everyone wanted from her. They expected her to finish school and go on to become some world-famous pianist, maybe teach or lecture or write a book about her tremendous talent, but no one had once stopped to ask Robyn what she wanted. All she yearned for was the strange music and the even stranger girl and there could be no more waiting.
She heard the notes of the forbidden song in her head and then made them come alive as her hands slid across the keys and her feet pressed against the pedals. She moved through the song and it made her feel alive. At the closing notes, Robyn knew that she was not alone.
The girl had returned and Robyn stood, approaching her carefully, hoping that she was real.
“You’ve played it again,” the girl said, her eyes burning bright in the darkened living room. She took Robyn’s hands in hers. “Do you know what you have wrought?”
“I—I don’t know if I care,” Robyn said truthfully.
The entity ran her fingers over the side of Robyn’s face. “I want nothing more than to spend every moment of whatever time I have in this place listening to you play. I have never wanted anything more in the entirety of my existence.”
Robyn breathed deep and interlaced her fingers with the girl’s. “Then stay.”
“I am summoned every time you play that piece. That is my curse. And with it, the unbreakable rules of this treacherous state of being. There must be a sacrifice. Every time.”
“I only think of you,” Robyn said. She’d spent too much time trying to convince herself that she was wrong and selfish for wanting the girl the way she did. She didn’t want to pretend to be concerned with anything other than making sure she could have this girl near to her. If that made her bad, if that made her the villain—so be it. “If you tell me you want me the way I want you, I will tell you what we should do.”
The girl ran her hand up the side of Robyn’s neck and gently pressed her lips to the bare skin there.
“I may very well be a monster,” said the girl. “But I amyourmonster.”
Robyn didn’t care how many people had to perish—all she wanted was this.
A man with heavy hands and a penchant for violence died in a house three doors down from Robyn’s. His name was Gregory Wheat and Robyn’s parents had known him sincethey were children together. At his funeral, Mr.Wheat’s wife hid her smiling face in her hands and Robyn heard her say to their three young children that they were free.
Robyn watched the clock intently. She could feel the hum of the crowd in the concert hall as she sat backstage. She checked her reflection in the mirror. She wanted to look her best, but not for the crowd that had come to see her play.
