Dead and Alive

Chapter 5

Julie opened one of the giant doors to the studio and crept inside.

She'd cried herself to sleep the night before but had woken up well before dawn. She'd had a dream she was playing piano with her mother that felt so real that her tears had started anew when she'd woken up and realized it wasn't really happening.

But along with her sadness, she also felt a longing, a desire to play music like she'd used to do. The dream had reminded her of how much she'd missed it. She missed her mother with a fierce ache, but for the first time in over a year, she realized that she missed music, too.

Meeting the ghost boys from the band and then Flynn's crazy suggestion to join them had sparked it in her again. It was still small and fragile, but it was there.

"Hello?" she called softly, wondering if the boys were awake. In the soft pre-dawn light, she could just make out that the sofa bed was still extended, and one of the garbage bags of clothes had been brought down from the loft. The air smelled faintly of teenage boy: a pleasant scent of soap and something masculine underneath it that she'd recognize anywhere. Not bad, just different than what she was used to.

"Hello?" she said louder, then turned on the lights. The studio was empty. The boys were gone.

Julie frowned, wondering where they'd gotten to, and then decided it was probably a good thing. She wanted to play music for the first time since her mother went to the hospital. The last thing she wanted was an audience, especially when one of them was a musical Empath.

The cloth pooled around her feet as she pulled it off the piano. A sheet of music fluttered to the floor, and Julie picked it up. It was a song sheet, clearly written in her mother's handwriting for a song called "Wake Up". Julie had never seen it before. Her breath caught as she read the lyrics, struck by the beauty of the words. Carefully, she laid it flat on the top of the piano and began to play.

The music flowed from her, and it was the easiest thing in the world for her to add her voice to the song. The lyrics spoke to her and she could hear her mother's voice singing them. She could feel her mother's wish for her to survive her grief, to live through it and, even, eventually, thrive.

Tears slipped down Julie's cheeks, but instead of sorrow, these were tears of joy. Her mother loved her and was with her, still.

A faint halo of light shimmered around her as she played; soft and inviting, like the sun illuminating the edges of a cloud. The plants behind her perked up as the light hit them, stems rising straight and the leaves going darker green. Julie didn't notice. She was too caught up in playing the music and singing the words her mother had written just for her: a song of farewell and a new beginning, both.

Finally, the song ended and Julie came back to herself, feeling more whole than she had in a while. She would miss her mother always, but some of the rawness of her grief had faded. She had relit that spark inside her, just as her mother had asked her to do in the song. She smiled, then grinned, then laughed out loud at the joy of rediscovering this part of herself.

There was a small noise, like an implosion of air and Julie looked up.

The boys were there, gaping at her in amazement.

Luke's hazel eyes were sparkling. "Holy shit. You can sing!"

Julie closed the key lid with a bit more force than necessary and stood up. "Where did you guys come from?"

"Outside." Luke gestured towards the doors with his thumb. He couldn't understand why Julie looked so upset. Didn't she know how amazing she sounded? "Well, the beach, actually. And Hollywood."