Chapter 1: The Silence of Trying
It was all too much of a distraction - the too white walls, the maddening flicker of the wonky light overhead, the sleet pelting the large glass window that allowed the whole world to peer up into the practice room. The wide open view down onto the street was the most irritating. She could feel the eyes of strangers looking up toward her as they heard her club the keys on the antique Steinway. They must have thought it sounded like a baby elephant was stomping the poor piano to death.
In truth Arabella was much more talented than she gave herself any credit for. Despite only being able to use the left side of her body she had a way with music that most able bodied people never would, even if dedicated to the craft for a lifetime. The teenage girl had only been playing for four years but had surpassed her teacher two years past. Since then she had studied the great works of composers ranging from classical to contemporary, practiced styles from jazz to death metal to renaissance and beyond. There wasn’t an area of music theory that confounded the astute girl. Then again, she didn’t do much else with her free time.
Sure, she could go sit out in the living room and watch her foster mother get drunk while watching cooking shows on t.v. Hell, sometimes that was entertaining...for a while. Lynn would get giddy at the sight of new dishes that she longed to try, at first, but as the show progressed and the wine glasses emptied one after another the late thirty something’s mood would deteriorate until she was dwelling on the fact that she couldn’t cook worth a damn and didn’t have anyone in her life to cook for. The next few hours would be spent draining any additional wine bottle unfortunate enough to be located within her pantry while she cursed Amelia for walking out on her five years ago. She had adopted Arabella to fill that void but it took less than four months before that fullness had drained from her now empty heart. It wasn’t the kind of love that the upper class banking executive desired. Unfortunately, Lynn’s reputation as something of a selfish tyrant within the entire Atlan Valley financial industry prevented anyone from taking any kind of romantic interest in her. The conservative community also made it more difficult for a lesbian to find suitable company without being judged and having her professional life jeopardized by a long term relationship. Though Lynn felt inclined toward taking that risk for true love, time after time her partners hadn’t been willing to potentially sacrifice successful careers for her.
Arabella had grown tired of witnessing her stepmother descend into her fugues on a weekly (sometimes more often) basis. She preferred to sit in the large practice room, in full view of the public, and bang away at some random tune. Her own compositions would come out to play at night, never during the day. There was far too much discomfort in knowing that strange ears outside might hear the notes that poured out of her broken heart.
The music stopped and a sigh escaped the young girl’s lips. She turned her head toward the large window and considered wheeling herself over to the edge of it to shut the blinds. It was always such a tangle that Ari usually gave up and accepted the audience of passersby on the street below. Today was different, though. She was in a mood.
It was the end of Spring break and tomorrow she would have to go deal with people much more up close and actually interact with the assholes. There were few students or faculty at the academy Arabella cared for, and they weren’t worth the effort of dealing with stares and snide comments from the classrooms and halls full of ableds at the school. The mocking was monotonous and unoriginal, anymore. At the beginning of the year there had been some witty new insults, a few that even made Ari chuckle to herself, which then became more fodder for the cretins who made fun of her disabilities.
The chair moved quickly over to the wall next to the window. Navigating the unwieldy contraption close enough that she could reach the blind cord was a challenge and Ari accidentally scuffed the eggshell paint next to the window with a grey smudge from the rubber of the front wheel. Whoops. Lynn would notice it and be sure to lecture the poor girl yet again about how she had no business trying to do things for herself. Then the lecture would devolve into a guilt trip about how thoughtless Arabella was to deprive Lynn’s prized ficus of its much needed sunlight shining through the oversized window.
Half lifting herself with her good leg, Ari grabbed the cord to the blinds and tugged on it hard enough that the blinds obediently flopped closed. The room was bathed in refreshing darkness but now she had to roll herself over to the opposite wall to flip the lights on so she could see her sheet music. Another sigh.
Arabella turned her chair and pushed with her left arm, aiming herself toward the darkened doorway that lead to the main living room. The switch was low enough that it would be a quick trip. About halfway across the room a motion in the darkness caught the girl’s attention. She turned her head and allowed the chair to roll to a gradual stop. Ari swore that she had seen some motion on the stairs the made their way up to the third floor. Something beyond the white bannister and between the bars had most certainly moved. Hallucinations weren’t a part of her disability and Ari was quite keen about sensing things. It seemed to be a heightened sense that compensated for a blind eye, deaf ear, and half of a paralyzed body.
There it was again. Ari was unsure what she was seeing but it was definitely something. Her skin prickled at a slight cold breeze blowing over the hair on her arm. She could only describe it as a darkness within the darkness, like there was a shadow hiding within itself on the steps.
For a moment the girl wheeled herself back, slightly, then actually pushed herself forward in the direction of the stairs -- curiosity getting the best of her, despite a growing concern that someone was in the room with her. Arabella pushed her chair a couple of times then allowed it to slow. From a distance of just a few feet she now looked carefully between the rails of the banister. She didn’t see anything yet there was a motion there. Something moved! What the hell was it?
Ari pushed her chair again closer to the railing. There was a movement on the fourth step up, nearly at level with her face. She could see through it but it was almost like a darkened silhouette that followed her movements. It wasn’t tangible, yet it was there in front of her.
The temperature was dropping in the room by a marginal amount. Arabella wasn’t sure if she should be scared. The one emotion that had been missing from most of her life was a sense of fear. It came with the territory for someone who has spent considerable amounts of time plotting ways to end her own life. A bit of warm breeze seemed to waft up from the shadow within a shadow on the step, brushing Ari’s hair in such a way that it felt a bit like the warm caress of a hand on the side of her face. The sensation was so utterly alien that she shook in her chair. It was at that moment the panic hit and she tried to wheel herself backward. The chair wouldn’t move. Ari reamed hard on the wheel but it wouldn’t budge. The brake had somehow locked on it and she couldn’t move! She struggled and gasped for help, trying to climb out of the chair to get away from whatever was in the room with her. The chair flipped over, and Arabella with it. The resulting thud on the floor resounded throughout the entire second floor of the home.
The presence seemed to move off the stairs, through the rail and down toward Ari’s face. She tried to scream, but of course no sound escaped her paralyzed vocal chords. All she could do was flail and try to drag herself away from the malice. She felt the presence descend upon her. The heat of it approached her back as she pulled her body toward the door.
The living room door opened and light flooded into the room. Lynn gasped in shock as she flipped the light on, quickly making her way over to her distressed foster daughter lying on the floor. Reaching a hand down to help scoop the girl up while using the other to right the chair, “Oh, Ari! You’re going to scratch the hardwoods! Are you alright?”
The concern for Arabella genuinely seemed secondary and the girl reacted as such. Instantly gone was the panic of whatever had spooked her, replaced by the massive inferiority complex that always manifested within her anytime her foster mother was near. Ari let her body go boneless, it was about the only way she had of being passive aggressive with the older woman.
Once Ari was back in her seat, Lynn quickly inspected the maple hardwoods in the room while her foster daughter plaintively flailed for her attention. Lynn barely even noticed.
Exasperated, Arabella wheeled herself back over to the piano and slammed her hand down on a chord so dissonant that it made Lynn jump to her feet. “What the hell is that for?”
Grabbing a pad of paper and her pen from atop the Steinway, Ari scribbled out as best as she could with her left hand. She didn’t know whether it was her naturally dominant hand but her penmanship raised serious doubts about it. After completing her scribbles she tossed the notepad over to Lynn, who spent several seconds deciphering the scratches.
There was something on the stairs. It scared me.
“What? No, there’s nothing on the stairs. Crazy girl, there’s nothing there at all.” Stamping her heels across the maple wood, Lynn likely scuffed the floor far more than Ari may have during her fall. She walked up the first few steps and looked around the room.
Arabella wheeled herself over to the edge of the banister and pointed to where she had seen the shifting darkness. Her emphatic gestures were nothing more than wasted energy in Lynn’s presence, and Ari quickly quieted her motions. Another sigh. It was so damn hopeless. Despite the years together she could never get through to her foster mother. It didn’t matter what the topic was, Lynn’s personality existed solely to dismiss any matter that she didn’t want to put the energy into dealing with. This time was no different.
“Well, Ari, there’s nothing here at all.” Lynn studied the girl in the wheelchair from her vantage above the banister, gazing hard at the child. “Is this because you have to go back to school tomorrow?”
Ari’s disdain for school was common knowledge to most of Atlan Valley at this point. She proudly owned the record for most suspensions by a disabled student in the school’s illustrious thirty year history. The previous record was zero, but Arabella was setting the bar high with a running total of four. She looked down, now realizing that it was pointless to waste the effort on trying to express herself to the older woman.
Lynn eventually wandered back out of the room, closing the door behind her but leaving the light on. The aroma of merlot lingered well after she was gone.
Left alone, yet again, in her silence Arabella went back to the piano and began to play one of her own compositions. It wasn’t her best. The notes were slow, sad, meandering, and rhythmless. The song was a perfect reflection of its creator.
_____________
Interested in knowing where this story is heading? Look for Maestri, available on Amazon around August 2020.
Want to know the beginning? Check out The Morbid Fascinations of David Bennett on Amazon now available in kindle (unlimited) and paperback. https://www.amazon.com/Morbid-Fascinations-David-Bennett-ebook/dp/B07ZG4N2XB
No comments:
Post a Comment