Chapter Ten - Evangeline
I dream of birds and summer days.
I string together words in books that earn me praise.
But the words are notes and the books are songs,
and the birds and summer days are gone.
The winter wind is strong and sounds
like the missing music I lost and found.
I wake up, confused. Still hearing birds. Still thinking it’s summer. But I am chilled to the bone, and shaking in my core, and the winter wind is blowing outside with force. And then I remember where I am. What I’m doing. And why the fuck are there birds in this house?
My sunglasses are all askew on my face, so when I open my eyes in the darkness, I can see a little more than I’d be able to had they been affixed properly.
The library, I remind myself.
I glance at the corner where the violin is propped up on the stand. The sun has set and there’s just a faint glow of light coming through the window. Outlining it, as if I needed it outlined.
The song of birds is coming from a speaker somewhere. I look up and find all the cameras, then quickly straighten out my sunglasses to hide my eyes. But that just sucks all the remaining light out of the room, blinding me.
Pushing up from the floor, I get dizzy. So I stay on all fours and hang my head for a few moments, staring down at the pattern on the rug. It’s an ancient rug. Like a real, ancient Persian fucking rug. I can feel the bare threads under my fingertips. The softness of the wool it’s woven of.
And that’s when I see the note.
Evangeline, it says, written in neat print and all caps. And there’s a little squiggly line underneath the letters that looks like a fancy, elongated cursive lowercase e, but it isn’t an e. It’s… just a fancy little squiggly line.
I look up at the nearest camera again and say, “What’s this?”
I’m not expecting an answer, and it never comes, so I just sit up better so my legs are underneath me. I straighten out my sweater. The second the thin blanket falls down from my shoulders, I shiver with cold.
But the cold can wait.
My watcher has sent me a message.
Is this part of the treatment?
I don’t think so. And I don’t care. When was the last time someone sent me a letter?
I can’t even recall. I was a child, probably. It was a fan. Or one of the many perverts who used to stalk me online and after performances.
Read it! my mind screams. Open it and read it!
My fingers are so nearly numb, they fumble with the folded sheet of thick paper. It’s nice paper, I realize, as I manage to open it up.
You’re cold. Go upstairs. Find the master bedroom. Get in the bed, cover up, and go to sleep.
One fact and five commands.
Just as that thought leaves my head the birds stop singing.
I think about that for a little while, unexpectedly reflective about the loss of music. My heart is racing, but not too bad. Which surprises me.
You’re cold.
I’m chilled so bad, all I really want is to be at home taking a hot bath in my giant, private tub. But that’s not gonna happen. Not while I’m here, at least. There are cameras up there. In all the rooms, even the bathrooms. That much I know.
Go upstairs. Find the master bedroom. Get in the bed, cover up, and go to sleep.
It’s the answer I’m looking for.
Simple. Direct. Obtainable.
I push up from the floor, still clutching the note in my hand, and exhale.
It’s dark now. I could leave. Find a phone somewhere. Call the concierge and go home.
But it all sounds like so much effort.
I look at the note again and sigh.
That all sounds so easy.
So I do what I’m told.
I leave the library, closing the double doors behind me so I don’t have to see that stupid violin again should I wander down this way tomorrow, and walk down the dark hallway until I come back to the grand foyer.
I stand there, looking up, the wide staircase beckoning me like an old friend. I go to it, heeding the call, and place my hand on the smoothly polished wood of the banister. Still looking up as I climb, wondering if my watcher is waiting for me up there.
And unexpected heat rises from my lower stomach. A stirring between my legs as I picture him. Maybe it’s a her? No, the printing was very masculine.
What if he is old? And Lucinda was lying?
What if he’s not?
It doesn’t matter because when I get to the top of the stairs, he’s not there.
I look left and right. Nothing but closed doors in both directions. There’s another staircase at the end of the hall to my left. Is he in the attic? Did he mean for me to go up to the third floor?
Find the master bedroom was his next command.
So I do that. I open the first door and find a bathroom, then notice a little red blinking light in a plug and wonder how hidden his cameras are. If it wasn’t dark I probably wouldn’t notice that red light. I’d think that was just a useful adapter for my phone.
I close the door and go to the next. A bedroom, but small and decorated for a small princess, so not the master. And then another, a nursery. And another, a teen room. And another bathroom. Then more bedrooms, but none are what I’ve been assigned to find.
So I turn back, pass the grand staircase again, and head towards the second set of stairs. I pass several doors, but they are closets, and one is a bathroom. And another bedroom, still too small to be a master in this size house.
I stand at the bottom of the second staircase and look up into darkness.
Is he up there?
Is he waiting for me?
What’s that noise?
I crane my neck forward, head tilted, desperate to hear more.
Birds…
I climb without thinking. This is where I’m supposed to go. And even though I have this tiny, niggling thought that this whole fucking setup is dangerous and stupid, I don’t care.
I just want to hear the song again.
At the top there’s a small landing. The darkness is complete. So much so, I have to inch forward and feel for the doors I know must be there.
I find a knob, then a second, and realize they are double doors, just like the ones downstairs.
I turn both knobs and push them inward and find a softly lit bedroom.
The master.
There’s only one small light, and it barely counts as a light and it’s shaped like a quarter moon. More like one of those decorative things you place in a baby’s nursery to give off the glow of comfort.
But it’s just enough for me to see everything.
The bed has been turned down. The comforter is either white, or pale yellow or cream. Can’t really tell. But it looks soft and inviting
Did he do this for me? Turn the bed down?
Or was that Lucinda? Was she in here? Did the watcher know she came and got the room ready, so he told me to come upstairs?
Did Lucinda tell him to write that note?
I deflate at that thought. It’s an unexpected sigh of sadness to even think about it.
I don’t want her to be responsible for this turn of events. I want it to be him. His easy commands. His firm expectations. And not her just playing mother with me.
I don’t need another mother. One was more than enough, thank you.
There’s a camera in the corner, facing the bed. In fact, I count six total. Each of the four corners, one on the fireplace mantel at the foot of the bed, and one directly above the bed in the form of a reflective black bulb among white ones nestled in the intricate chandelier.
Get in bed, cover up, and go to sleep.
I walk towards it, curious about the room and the dark doorway that must lead to the en suite bathroom, but wanting to follow directions, I push that curiosity aside and kick off my shoes.
The rug underneath my feet is soft sheepskin. My toes wriggle, eager to feel it on my bare skin, so I pull off my socks and give them that luxury.
I feel like I suddenly have a lot to say. A million questions. What song is this? What kind of bird? It sounds familiar. Like something in a dream.
Which is probably why you were dreaming poetry, Evangeline.
Right. Because that’s all I do these days—dream.
I kneel on the bed, feeling it give with my weight, and then crawl in, fully clothed minus socks.
The sheets are cold, but they warm quickly. I pull the heavy comforter over me and bury my face in the pillow.
Something leaves me in this moment.
Something not worth keeping, I think. It’s dread, maybe. Or anxiety. Or fear. Maybe it’s fear?
Or, I think, maybe it’s something returning and not leaving. Maybe it’s curiosity.
When was the last time I was curious about a person? Or anything?
And the recordings of child prodigies don’t count. Because I know why I was doing that now. That was the very first thing Lucinda and I worked out.
I wanted to feel safe in their failures so I didn’t judge myself too harshly.
Almost all of them had trouble as adults. Most of them stopped playing just like me. They made me feel like a statistic. I wanted to feel like a statistic.
When I finally said all that out loud Lucinda smiled at me and said, “How does it feel to be reduced to a number?”
That was the first time I really thought about why I had this fear of being watched.
“Not good,” I said back.
I felt very used, honestly. Like I was nothing but a fulfilled expectation.
I’d worked that out as a teenager too. I remember feeling used, voicing that feeling to my parents. And I remember their reaction. And what my father said next. How I agreed, and did what he asked. Let him use me again. And then…and then, when it came right down to it, I didn’t. I refused. I took a step away. A step forward. I fixed things. Made them better.
But then why did everything get worse?
Fuck. Let it go!
Anyway, when I called up my old agent and told her to schedule the performance, Lucinda said, “How does it feel to want something?”
“Exciting,” I said. “And scary. Mostly scary.”
And now I know why. Because it was a lie.
She was right. I was never going to go through with it. That’s why I was getting worse instead of better. I needed an excuse to back out.
But then every time I thought about backing out I just wanted to vomit.
The birds are suddenly gone, the room quiet.
And then the light on the bedside table, the soft one lighting up a porcelain moon that absolutely belongs in a child’s bedroom, dims and then darkens. Like it was on a timer.
Maybe my whole life is on a timer and now it’s over?
I close my eyes and force myself to stop thinking, listen to the winter wind outside the windows of this stranger’s bedroom, and pretend I hear a whisper in its blowing gale.
The wind says, “Good night.”