Mira (10 page)

           
Rillan heard the so-called music stop and stepped quickly back into the shadows down the hall.
 
He didn’t want her to be insulted.
 
If his laughing brought her to the door, it would be a great way of getting reacquainted.
 
Hi Mira, I was passing your door and heard this awful sound from inside.
 
When I realized it was you I broke down into gales of laughter.
 
You’ll have to forgive me.
 
I didn’t realize you could play,
his brain said to him sarcastically
. Oh that would make her forgive you.

           
He watched as her door creaked open, and her beautiful face popped out the crack.
 
At first it was a small look down the hall in both directions.
 
Then she stepped out.
 
Rillan felt as though a vice were being tightened in his chest, as he looked at her.
 
There was a wicked handprint shaped bruise on her throat, but her brown eyes were bright and filled with curiosity, as she looked up and down the hall.
 
Her hair hung in neatly curled waves about her shoulders.
 
The neckline of the dress she was wearing dipped dangerously low.
 
He wanted to slide his arms around her trim waist, pull her into his arms, kiss the bruise and apologize for all of it.
 
The vice tightened a bit more in his chest.

           
After a thorough inspection of the hall, Mira went back into the room.
 
That’s where I told her to stay, wasn’t it?
 
Rillan stood in the shadows for some time, staring at the closed door.
 
“She doesn’t belong down here,” he said softly.
 
Then he walked back to the library, randomly chose a book from a shelf, laid the note she left him carefully on the table, and went to his own rooms.
 
This one never should have been chosen for me,
he decided, as he closed his own door and disappeared into his dark halls.

* * * *

           
Rillan had been holding back the hunger for days.
 
His indecision was annoying him again.
 
Over the past couple months, he watched Mira visit the library a couple times, but she mostly remained in her own rooms.

           
Rillan was pleased.
 
She wasn’t wallowing in her own misery, as he tended to do.
 
Still, the small pleasure he took from that was like adding more salt to the wound which had opened in his soul since she arrived.
 
It was constant and nagging.
 
He wanted to be near her, but he couldn’t bring himself to believe that she could ever be what she seemed.
 
Then his mind would drift to
Elizabeth
again, and he would become angry.
 
The continual shifting from sad longing to irate anger had him tired from the inside out.
 
The only real decision he made about the situation was that she at least deserved some amount of consistency in his behavior. So, until he could figure out which way to go, he was keeping his distance. After a great deal of debate, he decided on a solid middle ground for his emotional state and chose to warn her that he would be coming for her again in the near future.
 

           
Walking down the hall, he heard it start, softly.
 
The notes were sad and slow.
 
He could almost feel the loneliness in the tune, as it slipped through the cracks in the stone and filled the dark hallway.
 
She had been practicing.
 

           
Mira immersed herself in the pages of the books she found on music.
 
It didn’t take very long to master the scales, considering she spent all day, every day practicing.
 
She soon found the line in the book which said music was only variations on the scales.
 
It was as though something clicked into place in her mind.
 
Suddenly the music poured out of the little tin whistle.
 

           
First she tried playing happy songs and imitating the ones she heard at solstice or in the market.
 
She remembered songs played by old men with beards, accompanied by fiddles and sometimes dancers.
 
Unfortunately, the happiness needed for playing those was simply not in her.
 
The soft lullabies she remembered from her childhood followed, and from there she began playing with the notes on her own.
 
The songs that she found herself playing were low and slow.
 
They started from inside her chest and flowed out the tin whistle, causing the candlelight to dance the shadows around her in time with the soft sounds.
 
She had no idea how far the stone walls of the cave carried the music.

           
Rillan stood outside her doorway listening and breathing.
 
He closed his eyes and let the sound pass over him.
 
Even as sad as it was, the music was beautiful.
 
How could something that comes from her be anything but beautiful,
he thought.
 
After a few moments, he finally knocked loudly on the door.
 
The abrupt stop to the music was almost painful.
 
He knocked again.

           
Mira wasn’t sure she heard right at first.
 
It had been so long since noise came from anything other than herself.
 
When the knock came again, she set down the whistle and leaned over the edge of her bed to look down her hallway at the main door so far away.
 
Uncertainly she called, “Come in.”

           
Rillan didn’t know if the tone in her voice was fear of letting him in or confusion for his presence.
 
He opened the door and walked down the hall, not realizing how much the music softened his features.

           
Mira stood as Rillan approached and watched him coming toward her.
 
He noticed that she looked concerned, but not upset.
 
The bruise their last encounter left her with was completely gone.
 
His dark blue eyes met her soft brown, and he almost looked away.
 
It was still strange and unsettling to him.
 
After all this time and the realization that he was unlikely to break her spirit, even if he tried, her strength still baffled him.

           
Rillan cleared his throat, as he realized he was staring at her.
 
“Why don’t you play something happy,” he asked to break the silence.

           
“I’ve tried,” she said softly.
 
“Those don’t seem to come out right.
 
I need more practice.
 
Is that why you’re here?
 
I didn’t realize you could hear it outside my rooms,” she blushed, as she realized he could have been listening all this time.
 
“I’m not very good.
 
I can close more doors and play more quietly,” she said quickly.
 

           
The blush across her chest was a tempting target for him.
 
Though Rillan was sorry he had embarrassed her, he took great pleasure in the sweet way she reacted.
 
“No.
 
That’s not why I came.
 
And I enjoyed listening.
 
I wouldn’t want you to stop.
 
It’s a much more pleasant sound than silence.
 
There has been too much of that of late,” he sighed.
 

           
Even as he spoke, he could hear her heartbeat and almost see the pulse of blood running through her warm body.
 
Rillan closed his eyes, and he could smell the rose scented water of her bath, mixed with her own scent on her skin.
 
Mira watched his eyes open, and the black of his pupils bled tellingly into the dark blue irises, and then out into the white until his eyes were solid black in their sockets, giving his face the demon appearance that sent chills over her skin.
 

“You’re hungry,” she breathed.
 

           
Rillan watched her hug herself, as she said it.
 
The movement was subconscious and spoke volumes of her total lack of desire to experience that again.
 
Even so, neither her gaze nor her voice wavered at the certainty of the statement.
 
She was amazing to him.
 
Smart enough to know that it was not something she wanted to do, but she accepted it and was sensibly afraid of it.
 
She gave the appearance of someone facing down an approaching storm and knowing there was nowhere to run
to
.
 
He nodded.

           
“Now,” she asked in a quiet but certain tone.

           
“Soon,” he said.
 
“But it doesn’t have to be now.
 
I’ve only come to warn you.”

           
Mira’s eyes shifted to the walls and then the ceiling.
 
“Last time you said it would be worse the longer you waited, and when I came to you it was still not so bad as it could have been.”

           
Rillan nodded at the statement.
 
She was weighing her choices with a logic he admired.

           
“How bad has it gotten now?
 
I mean in comparison to what it was last time,” she asked with concern.

           
He sighed heavily.
 
Rillan had yet to admit to her that he took it too far the last time, and normally it would never be that bad.
 
“I’m not as far gone as I was,” he replied, trying and failing to sound reassuring.

           
“Alright,” Mira said haltingly.
 
“I guess if I have any choice in this, then I would prefer that it be done sooner rather than later.
 
I don’t mean to be insulting,” she added quickly.
 
“It’s only… the after effects are not very pleasant.”

           
Rillan smiled at her phrasing, and the look of distaste that crossed her face.
 
“I’ll be in my rooms.
 
Come to me when you like,” he said.
 
“I take no offense at things that are fact.”
 
With that he turned away from her and walked back down the hall toward the door.

           
Once he was outside, he stood and waited to see if she would start playing again.
 
After a short time, he heard the song start, low at first and then gaining in volume.
 
For the next few hours, he stood against the wall outside her room and listened to the sad sweet music.
 
It was as though she was singing to him in the darkness and knew the exact notes it would take to reach into him.

           
Getting herself cleaned up and lighting a lantern to take with her down the hall, Mira wondered what time of day or night it may be.
 
She lost track long ago.
 
There was no way of telling how much time passed, without seeing the sun rise and set.
 

Mira waited until she was so tired that she was almost falling asleep sitting up.
 
She hoped that if she was tired enough, then she wouldn’t stay conscious as long as she did the last time.
 
As she walked down the hall, she considered asking Rillan for something to tell time with.
 

           
Rillan’s door was closed when she reached it, and she knocked loudly, setting the lantern down next to the door.
 
Almost instantly, he called for her to enter.
 
The cold metal latch clicked open, and the door swung slowly.
 
Mira crept down the tunnel toward Rillan’s bedroom.
 
Stepping inside, her eyes instantly went to the closed door over the shaft that led to the sky.
 

           
“It’s not yet sunset,” Rillan said.

           
Mira flinched at his voice.
 
It wasn’t as if she didn’t know he was there somewhere, but she hadn’t actually noticed him when she entered.
 
He was standing next to his fireplace, staring into the flames.
 
Shadows darkened his features and made him seem more menacing.

           
“When the sun can no longer reach it, I’ll open it.
 
Not before.”

           
Mira nodded quickly, but remained silent.
 
She was very tired and was afraid of how he would react to any continued conversation about the shaft.
 
He didn’t seem upset at the moment, even so she wasn’t willing to risk it.
 
“I suppose then I should get ready,” she suggested and yawned.

           
Rillan was amazed.
 
Her voice didn’t waver a bit.
 
He was strangely pleased by the yawn.
 
In a way, it was a compliment.
 
Generally frightened people don’t find time for yawning.
  
“You look tired,” he said gently.