The Catcher's Dreams (FEATURED)

CHAPTER TWENTY - notes

The piano was like yesterday, lilac shards peeking out from in-between the white and black keys. He dusted those away, arranging the uneven stool that accompanied it. The golden letters on the piano were rusty. With one hand, Drake smudged the rustiness to the side and they shone.

He sat down.

There was a small design facing him at eye-level, carved into the piano. A strange square, with curved lines weaving in and out.

He focused on it. If he didn't blink, the lines seemed to be moving. Colored glows filled his vision, blurring at the edges.

And there was something else, too. Something crawling into the crevices of his hearing – a soft snakelike whisper, a tickle of voices. He couldn't tell what they were saying.

As he stared at the design, his index finger struck an A sharp.

He gasped, immediately flying down to marvel at his finger. He didn't remember meaning his finger to move. From the corner of his eye, he saw his sister wipe one ethereal eye and sit down on the staircase.

"Was that you?" he asked.

"Was what me?" she asked.

"Did you say something?"

"No, I didn't."

"Okay, then." He turned back to the piano. This time his left hand started moving, playing out a series of low notes.
The voices came back. The curves started moving.

Is that me? Is that me playing?

His right hand came in. He'd never learned to play before. Was he playing?

The voices crescendoed at the sound of his thoughts.

How am I playing? How?

They were louder now, a throng of anxious whispers dancing through the golden notes. They were so loud, as loud as the buzzing of silence. Drake remembered what Cody had said about voices in his head. They were supposed to stay at the same volume, were they not? But these...these coursed through the rivers of louder and louder, so loud it began to hurt.

His hands flew across the keys, up and up until they reached the high caves of the final octaves, pushing the voices back again in their constant struggle. The notes sounded like birdsong, like singing. The notes sounded like angels.

He couldn't tell what the notes were anymore, or even what key he was playing in. The music was empty and higher than he was prepared to acknowledge.

What is this? What am I playing? How am I playing?

The voices fed on his thoughts, gaining volume again.

My head! Stop! It hurts!

Drake squeezed his eyes shut, clenching his teeth. He felt as if his head was a balloon, inflating with every pump of his fingers into the keys. The curves; they were moving like mad now, following the trails of snakes once before, dancing to the songs of the raindrops.

Stop! Please!

The voices didn't listen, instead gaining even more in volume. His ears were abuzz now with their constant snake-whispers, layers of these hurried whispers, these screams too hushed. The voices were all he could hear anymore. His fingers were moving and playing notes with no sound. Cassandra could have been crying, but no one could tell.

Drake didn't complain anymore – the pain had become numb and quieting. Instead he listened. He soaked up the voices. What were they saying? His fingers moved quicker than before, nimble as mercury bangles. The glows condensed in his vision until the curves were smeared away from sight and all he could see were colors, endless colors, even when he closed his eyes and wished them away.

Then there was one voice, a feminine whisper but not Cassie's. It was so loud, louder than anything else, drowning out all the other whispers. And this one he understood.

Drake.

A thin streak of nothingness burst through the veil of colors in his eyes, curving to fit the design, over, and over, and once again.

Drake, come home.

He didn't understand anymore, though he understood the words. He was already at home. The piano, the sister, the staircase, the dust. But the murmurs replied to his thoughts.

Drake, you don't belong here.

And the colors were gone. One single image filled his mind, of the back of a ghostlike lady sitting at the same piano with joyous humility. But the walls behind her – the walls were white, not faded brown like his. Was he dreaming?

The woman had flowing hair like wind, dark as his, dark as a raven's nightmare. She was wearing a white dress that picked up in the wind and waltzed. The strands of her hair curled up in vine-like spiraling ends like she had them fastened in hairspray, only they were too soft and breeze-looking to have actually been fastened in hairspray. Her arms, on the other hand, shone with an inhuman paleness that was almost blue.

Then she turned her head at owlish degrees to face Drake. It was strange to see her heart-shaped face cocking in wonder at him when the rest of her was still turned to the piano. Across her ice-blue skin a trail of pink jewels danced, inlaid in the snow. They formed the curves of the piano design. He sucked in his breath. The woman had huge eyes, even bigger than Cassandra's. The pupils took up everything. Dark as midsummer shadow. They pulsed, an exaggerated pulse like that of a glow. They shone with specks of color. Dark as midsummer shadow.

The woman's chiseled rose quartz lips opened.

Drake.

Drake sucked in another breath as the woman smiled. Her teeth were barely colored amethysts, sparkling in the whiteness of the wall.

"Mama," he whispered, and then he fell back and consequently hit his head.