One Midnight (ONC 2024) ✔️

Chapter Twenty-Four The Storm

September 1722

The winds are unlike anything that I have ever seen before. They roar around us as I steady myself. The wind whistles, its high pitch loud and terrific enough to rouse the dead. The heavy downpour of rain is incessant.

My music. God, if I lose my music, then I will lose everything that I hold dear. All of my work that I have done for the past year will be for naught. I take the casket and lift it higher. If I take this outside, it will not survive in the heavy winds, nor will it survive the river and its constant spewing of water.

The heavy downpour wages war against me. I should never have left when I thought the storm was over, for it has come back with a mighty vengeance. The wind is bringing me closer and closer to the river. I cannot stop its force. The water is getting heavier.

"No!" I hear a voice cry out. "Marie, no! Why are you out here in this storm?"

I am at the precipice of the river, the combination of the wind and the river flooding. It is almost like a siren song, leading me to it, but I fight with all of my might to push back against it.

"Marie," Nicolas says, trying to push me back, but I'm nearing the river even more. "Do not go any further! I will save you. Take my hand."

I take his hand and he pulls me in. And for a moment, he holds me in his arms and I am in his embrace, but he quickly lets go of me and I feel him pulling away from me.

"Get to the land now," he says. "I don't think I will survive, Marie. The current is taking me in."

"No," I say, my heart falling. "Please, no. Fight, Nicolas."

"I can't?" he says, water coming to his mouth. He coughs. "I can't fight the power of this river. It is too strong for me. Marie, I want to tell you two things." He pants, struggling to keep himself afloat. "Finish your opera. Finish it and send it to the French court for me. The world deserves to know your opera."

"I cannot finish it," I say, frowning as tears pool in my eyes. "Not without you."

"Do it, not for me, but for yourself, Marie. You deserve it after all that you've been through in your life. You deserve this one treasure all to yourself. And the second thing," he says, fighting against the current.

"What is it?"

"I have always, always loved you." Nicolas smiles at me with tears in his eyes. "Ever since I first saw you that day at the river. when you first arrived here."

My heart drops to my stomach, the weight of it like an anvil. "I love you, Nicolas. So much."

He reaches for me and smiles one last time. "Marie, I have longed to hear those words from you. I can die a happy man now."

"No," I say, shaking my head. "You will survive."

But it is too late. Nicolas has gone under, the current taking him in like a siren reaching for her prey.