Darkness and Beauty (The Fated Series, #1)

Chapter 22 - Fauna - Her

"Does he sing in the middle of the song?" I ask the Queen. I'm not sure if she can hear me because I can barely hear my own voice over the ringing in my ears.
How long has it been since I've heard that song? Since I allowed myself to remember those familiar notes that meant more than the world to me?
As I walk to the piano, I feel my heart begin to race and my eyes water. There's this pull coming from my chest leading me to the eighty-eight black and white alternating keys, and I can't stop myself from running my trembling fingers on them. When I first saw the piano in my sitting room that first day, I couldn't stop the rush of memories that flooded inside of me. There were too many and I didn't want to get lost in them, so I followed Darius to the bedroom and left those memories in the back of my mind where I keep them locked behind a door marked DO NOT ENTER.
Now, I can't stop the last memory of when I last heard Mi Vos Can Vado Nunc. My Dear You Can Go Now.
We were at the House of Jade in my parent's bedroom, my father at his desk planning some kind of assignment, and me and brother sitting on either side of our mother on the bench before the big brown and detail carved piano. She set her fingers to the notes I couldn't possibly ever forget. Her left hand in front of my brother moved in a quick and steady pattern, while her right hand before me sang a slow and mourning lullaby. Then, as her lullaby falls to the lower scale degree, and her left hand continues with the pattern, only louder with urgency, her voice rises with the tempo in a sinfully soaring song.

Nos sunt lux, et vita
(We are light, and life)
Custodes habitabanz
(Guardians of the living)
Nos autem non in perpetuum vivere
(We will not forever live)
Eius lux est, et defluxit
(His light had faded)
Vale dilectus
(Goodbye beloved)

And as she sings the last two lines twice in a mournful call, Lance and I would come in singing the overlay as quick as her left hand danced.
Fata impleri
(Destiny Fulfilled)
Somnus nunc
(Sleep now)
Hoc casus est super
(This adventure is over)
Mi vos can vado nunc
(My dear you can go now)

When she finished the second round of the verse, Lance and I continued with ours three more times, and she echoed beneath in her final farewell.

Amor meus, vita mea
(My love, my life)

Then, after our three repeats, we all glide into her line - "Amor meus, vita mea" once and in tune with the fading melody of the dying climax that her fingers let play out on dark and misery filled notes.
Lance and I would then take the place of her long and soft calloused hands, and we'd play the beginning tune. Lance with the quick and steady pattern, and me back on the higher scale degree to play the lullaby. Though we played quieter than her trained fingers, she never once scolded us for it. In fact, she said it added more to the songs, like a missing puzzle piece to a bigger picture. And as we would play the tune in which embedded deeper into our bones with every press of a key, she'd serenade the room with the final verse.

The song sounds
Forever I will find him
Hidden in these notes
Hidden in these notes
Hidden in these notes

The song ends with our mother's voice on a low note and me and Lance on the higher notes of our scale. Father had stopped his planning to listen to our song and watch with glossy eyes as we sang with our mother for the last time, though none of us knew of what was to come.
Lance and I had begged her to start it again, but she'd simply pulled us beneath her arms and said it was time for our minds to take its own adventure within our dreams. They tucked us into bed with soft kisses and then went back to their room to fall asleep themselves.
The song  - the cursedly beautiful song that told a story of love and love's mourning, recited by her languid notes - replaying itself in my mind sang me to sleep that night, echoing in the dreams she said I'd have, would never to do the same after it was her we had to find hidden in those notes. Her we had to lose in them and continue to do so over and over every time it's played, because that's all there is in the song. Her. Her voice. Her music. Her song - and no one could do it justice as she did. Not even me, and I've tried. I tried to play after she was gone, to give her life again, but the mere sound of the melody's intro at the very beginning of the song was too painful. My hands shake too much to play steadily as she taught me, my eye blur too fast for me to see the keys, and my chest...my chest feels like there's an arrow lodged in it, yanked this way and that with every drop of my finger and echo of a single note.
I lost her, and I've lost the music. I envy Lance for his ability to play without feeling like his blood is boiling with guilt and shame because I love playing. Getting lost in the notes is the only place I've ever felt well and truly free. There's no ecstasy like there is when your soul finally gets to speak through music, and I...I haven't been able to do it. Saints, I can barely take sitting here staring at the damn thing despite its silence. The lack of notes hurt, but the choir of it will hurt more because it's no longer her that will be playing and singing. It'll be someone else, and it'll be a different song entirely.
"Clarice?"
Darius's voice jolts me back into the Queen's sitting room, my hovering hand slamming on the keys. The horrid awning blast feels like lighting in my veins. I yank my hand back, ending their sound.
"If that's how she plays then I think we should wait for Arthur to get back."
"Kat," Darius snaps.
She snaps her mouth shut and I realize I must've missed something while lost in the memory. "I'm sorry, what is it you said?" I ask, ignoring Kat's questionable look to Darius.
I look around the room trying to figure out how long I've been standing here, only to find only no less than a minute has passed. Kat and Thomas are still standing at the wall, the Queen still in her chair by the soft fire, though I'm sure she can't really get up and move on her own. The only person who isn't where I last saw them is Darius, who's now at my shoulder. He eyes me carefully, an arm extended in my direction as if to comfort me, but still not touching me like he's unsure if he should or not. It's comforting and...weird to know that we don't get awkward around each other with our situation and closeness and all. I mean we've held hands several times and I haven't cringed yet.
Gods, what's wrong with me?
"She asked if you could play a song on the piano," Darius explains slowly before I can set my face in my hands.
"Oh. Um," I stutter unsure of what to say. "I can't. I mean I can play but I..." I haven't played since that night.
My thoughts must've shown on my face because Darius changes the subject to the events of the day. He started off by informing his mother about his lessons and then discovering me with my nose buried in a dozen books. He keeps the conversation focused on him, steering away from me when he can. I'm grateful for it, but my mind keeps drifting to the many songs my mom taught me and Lance to play. Then I think of all the songs that I've learned since then. Some while she was still here, a small few just after she passed from listening to the Melodic Orchestra in the amphitheater.
When I finally got out of mourning, I still had to cope with it for a long while. I would often sneak into the theater and sit on a beam to listen to the orchestra rather than watch whatever play was being performed. And when the orchestra had a concert I'd sneak under the stage, lay down on the floor, close my eyes, and let the music sweep me away. Music has always been my release, both playing and listening to it, but it hasn't sounded the same since her. Even when I listened as the orchestra for hours on end, I'd find myself walking out with puffy eyes and a runny nose. Sometimes I'd lay right beneath the conductor's feet, but I mainly stuck to watching the pianist through the floorboards as their body swayed with the melody.
You play what you feel, or you play what was written.
Slowly, I sit on the piano bench but make no move to touch the keys. There's a part of me that wants to play, that wants to just put everything I'm feeling and have felt for so many years into one long song. But there's the other part of me that knows that it's something that I should do on my own.
So I sit at the piano, look over the keys, and remember which chords were my favorite to play, but keep my hands firmly in my lap.