more-ish.....
“Where did Alia go?” she asked. She wished the maid was here; she would have felt much better!
“Mrs. Beaver needed her for something, so I was the closest one available to go find here,” said Peter more casually. He rolled his eyes and smiled. “That’s what you get when you try to taste-test.”
She glanced up at him, and almost smiled. Hope rose in him. Maybe she was more reachable than he thought. He had noticed that she had been cleaned up since he had seen her that morning. Her brown hair was combed and pulled back loosely, and the dress looked much nicer than the rags she had been in earlier. She was pretty, in a very different sort of way. She was extremely thin, but Peter guessed that was from being under-fed. Everything about her was tall and thin. Her face, hands; everything. Not so that she looked odd, just so that she looked very graceful and stately. The only thing that countered that was her rigid stance and her fearful eyes. He paused before saying,
“Would… would you play something for me?”
She glanced up, looking surprised. Her mouth opened, closed, and then she said,
“Of course.” She hesitated before sitting down on the bench again. Before she started playing she heard him walk up onto the platform. Her heartbeat quickened. She mentally told herself to calm down, and then she began.
The song she chose to play told a story. Not a specific one, but you couldn’t have heard the song without coming to that conclusion. Peter was transfixed. He could see what was happening in the story so clearly in his mind. Neither of them knew at what point it happened, but by the end of the song he was sitting on the bench beside her, watching her hands move perfectly over the keys.
Near the end of the song the story took a heart-rending turn, and Peter closed his eyes. He suddenly got the thought that maybe the story was about Katriana. He opened his eyes and looked at her face. She wasn’t even looking at the keys as her fingers flew over them. She looked above them, out into the back of the room. Her lips were barely parted. Katriana seemed to be in a trance, and as she reached the climax, a tear rolled silently down her cheek.
Listening: I'm thinking still The Stairs. Listen to it again if you have to.
