Beautiful Symphony

Chapter 6

I walked down the rocky beach, with the warm air blowing my hair back. I retraced all of my steps, all the way back to the tree. I couldn't find that stupid book anywhere.

A part of me wondered if Elliot himself had picked it up, which was concerning. I didn't want to see this boy ever again, and if he had my book, he had a tie to me. I held on to some hope that the book was taken by another person, probably thrown in the garbage. It sucked to lose it, but it sucked more not knowing what happened to it. I didn't even get to read it.
*****

I wandered around the house, searching for something, anything, to do. Anything to keep my mind from thinking of that weird boy and the Summer Festival, which I was not the least bit excited about attending.

I found myself back at the double mahogany doors that hid the "music room", as I liked to call it. I walked in and quietly shut the doors behind me. Everything was the same as I had found it once before. Dusty furniture, an abandoned fireplace, old paintings, and the piano.

The piano. The best part of this amazing place. I had yet to play it, because I was preoccupied with unpacking and such. I wandered over to it, and sat on the seat. It was cold. No one has sat here in decades,I thought to myself.

I got back up and scavenged the room for any kind of sheet music, but I could only find one page. It was old and worn, clearly someone's favorite. The title read, "Endless Love". I wonder who played this? My mother? Grandmother? I had no clue. I decided to play all that was on the first page, because it was all I had.

I sat back down and took a deep breath. I hadn't played in a while. I smoothed out my shirt and took a few breaths. I closed my eyes, and took off. It was good. Like, really good. I felt a bit proud of not only myself for playing it so beautifully, but also the composer. It was only the first page, but it was great. It was short but sweet. I had to find the other pages. There was no way I could just search them up online.

There was no internet in this Victorian fossil, and the signal was not so great. So, I had a mission. A mission to find the missing pages to "Endless Love".

I sighed, tired from the day's events. I looked out the double glass doors at the evening view. It was a sunset, painted with warm pinks and oranges. I got up and made my way back to the mahogany doors. One of them was opened a little. Didn't I shut this one?

For a moment, I questioned whether or not someone was listening to me play. Dad wasn't home, and I had seen no signs of Crystal. Weird. I quickly pushed the thought away, exiting the room. I went back to my room upstairs.

After laying on my bed, phone in hand, for a while I wandered into my closet. I wonder what I should wear to the festival tomorrow. I sifted through the hangers, most with vintage shirts and a few skirts. My eyes wandered up for a second, only to see the few boxes I had noticed the day before. My mind immediately thought they might have more sheet music in them, so I got them down.

You could tell they had been in there for a while, judging from that "old junk" smell that wafted off of them. There were two bigger ones, about the size of cereal boxes, and a smaller wooden one. I chose to open one of the larger ones first. It had a bunch of papers in it. Great. It'll take me hours to search through this for sheet music.

I opened the second one, only to find some old books with flowers dried and pressed into some of the pages. My short dissatisfaction ended quickly when I remembered the third box. I quickly grabbed it and undid the latch. There were some pearls and other random jewelry inside. My eyes found a different type of necklace, which was an old (what I assumed to be) skeleton key on a thin chain. I inspected it thoroughly, intrigued by it. Then, I had noticed the name on the inside of the box.

Marnie.

It was mom's.

[Author's note: Thanks so much for all of the support! Please, always feel free to leave any thoughts you have in the comments!! I know you probably want to see more Elliot, which will be coming soon. ;) I thought it would be nice to have a chapter more about Ariette herself, so I hope you enjoyed!]