Page 45 of Petrify

In the daylight, I am normal. He can’t touch me. He’ll leave me alone. I can pretend that I’m like everyone else in this house. Like Julia. I’m here to do a job. To play music, to watch Henri. I’mnormal.

Julia makes an excuse not long after, leaving me alone in the practice room.

I find the waltz he wrote hiding amidst Henri’s music, shuffled between scale sheets and etudes, where it hides every day.

There’s still something simmering in my blood after playing theScherzo. A door that began to unlock in my head, before I slammed it closed again.

There’s no use dwelling on the past. I only want to move forward.

Ineedto move forward.

Centering myself with a breath, positioning my fingers over the keys again, my eyes scan the handwritten melody, even when I know most of this by heart now. I run through the few dozen measures.

The end is still too abrupt. I keep going, my left hand repeating the chords of the bassline, my right fabricating the rest of the melody, searching for a resolution to this sinking, desperate feeling.

I’m unsure if I can feel his stare, or if it’s just wishful thinking. His name slips from my lips.

Maybe he’ll show himself. Maybe he’ll break his promise.

I let my fingers continue their dance, grounding myself in the quarter notes of the lower register. Letting my worries fall away, letting the memories theScherzouncovered fade, letting myself feel nothing but the music in this moment.

There is power in doing as I like in the daylight, knowing he can do nothing about it. I can spend my afternoon at the piano and he can’t interrupt. I can change his melody however I like and he can’t say a word. Not until it’s dark.

He said he would listen. And he told me to make the songmine.

The music keeps coming.One, two, three, my fingers carving melodies from the air, until there’s nothing in my mind anymore, no thoughts, my body given over to the waltz. It takes a life of its own. It uses me to find its ending.

Maybe this is what Henri’s last tutors didn’t understand: that music can only be coaxed, not controlled. I’ve given this instrument the last decade of my life, and in return, it transforms me into who I want to be. A Faustian bargain. I let this inanimate object use my soul, a vessel for its music.

My eyes snap open. It’s still early afternoon, but the room is awash in gray, shadows creeping into the corners. More time passed than I thought.

The hair raises on my neck.

“Bastien?”

Chapter 22

The Pianist

I’ve angered him.

I never should have pushed him away like I did. I never should have made him leave, I shouldn’t have made him promise to leave me alone.

It’s dark, it has been for a few hours, and even though I played all afternoon, calling to him with his song—oursong—he hasn’t revealed himself.

I didn’t bother any of the staff for the rest of the day. I made sure to dip in and out of the kitchens early, so I wouldn’t get caught in any conversations. Folded my laundry, tidied my room and bathroom. Kept glancing at my phone, as if I were expecting a call, but of course I wasn’t, no one ever has a reason to call me.

I reach for the chain around my throat.

It’s not there. This morning I probably forgot to put it on.

Two minutes of searching around my room, something icy sliding into my veins, and it becomes clear it’s missing. It’sgone.

My throat threatens to close up.

No, it’s fine. I didn’t need it anyway.

It was probably a bad idea to hold onto that necklace so long. At least that’s what I tell myself.