Page 49 of Unraveling Fate

The creekunder the bridge sang chimes and guitar strings. Cadenza wanted to scream at it. She ran past the bridge, towards the back edge of the estate. The dirt road hummed under her feet.

She abandoned the path, scrambled through the underbrush. The bear clover scratched at her legs, its notes scrappy and harsh.

Something fluttered in the trees to her right and an owl zoomed overhead, the dark between the trees swallowing it from view. She clambered over what was left of the back fence, legs trembling. The roots of the oak trees on the other side vibrated bass, and their leaves danced soprano. The empty, packed-earth road thrummed. Notes hovered above the ground.

Go away!

The thrum ignored her, seeping into her shins. A night wind blew across the clearing, and flute melody stuck to her hair. Cymbals vibrated in her fingertips. The overgrown grass on the side of the road tangled in her ankles. She crashed to all fours gasping, sobbing, exhausted.

Her mother had warned her. She’d indulged this thing that she heard, never told anyone, never sought help, and now she was seeing things andinsane.Because if she was hallucinating about Taran being the Ferrari, then what if the earthsong was a delusion too?

Pazza, pazza, pazza.

It made so much sense. Why she never had friends, why directors wouldn’t hire her. They could tell. They could tell she was wrong in the head and wanted nothing to do with her.

Just like Ilaria wanted nothing to do with her. Like Taran wouldn’t want anything to do with her now.

Just like the direttore in Venice won’t want anything to do with me, even if I can get there, which I can’t now because my car is ash and I’m insane and I can’t and I can’t and I can’t?—

She raked her hands across the ground wishing it would open and swallow her whole. Her throat ached with song. Her skin felt ready to split. If she really were insane and none of this was real, what was the point of working so hard to control it?

She threw her head back. And screamed one note.

A crack ripped through the air, and an oak tree crashed to the ground.

Shock cut off her sobs. The night went quiet. Her mind began to clear. Slowly, as if moving too fast might bring back the furor that had possessed her moments ago, she rose to inspect the tree. Roots pointed to the sky, dripping soil. A branch waved from the impact. Cadenza ran two fingers over it, the bark rough and grounding.

Real leaves. Real bark. Real tree. And really laying on its side because of her. No hallucination.

But then…

Cadenza spun and raced back towards the estate, searching for bodhran song.

She’d gonewhere he couldn’t follow.

Taran paced, twenty feet from the chain-link fence that marked the eastern edge of the estate. Cadenza had fled the grounds, and he couldn’t go after her. Couldn’t calm her, couldn’t comfort her. He tore a rock as big as his head from the ground and hurled it at the fence. The chain-link rippled in a benign wave that mocked Taran’s fury.

He ripped more stones from the earth, heaved them at his prison walls. He howled his grief until his throat burned. No one heard—another reason his father had bought the acreage he had.

He spun, panting, searching the ground, but he’d used every rock already. No matter. He ripped off his shirt and threw that at the fence. It didn’t make a difference what he threw. Rocks or fabric, nothing helped.

Bad enough he was trapped here with no hint of a way out. Now he’d hurt the one bright spot to his life, the one person who gave him a reason to laugh again. To wake up and see the stars.

His father had warned him.

“Selfish bastard,” Taran raged at himself, at his own helplessness, at this never-ending curse, a punishment for one mistake. Rocks and shirt expended, he launched himself at the fence. The metal swayed, flimsy under his fingers, and he tore away a chunk.

It did no good. Nothing would.

The fence wasn’t the problem.

He hurled the piece of chain link over the fence just as a breeze ruffled past his face. He jerked his head up, sniffing the air. Caramel and chocolate. Lilies from her shampoo. And stress.

“Taran?” Cadenza called his name, and his heart sped up. He turned, aware of the dirt beneath his nails and the sweat dripping into his eyes, and slid down the slope to where she waited, shifting her weight back and forth and clutching her hands.

He could still smell the stress, but the fear scent had faded. “You’re not crazy,” he said.

“I’m hoping that’s true.” She glanced between him and the hole in the fence. “Did you...rip out a section of the fence?”