MORTAL COILS (30 page)

   
Young girls and boys run far too fast, wheel o’ life turns but never

   
lasts, too soon grown and knowing sin, that’s when the fun really

   
begins!

Fiona
touched Eliot’s shoulder and he snapped out of his daydream. They stood at the
mouth of an alley off Midway Avenue.

Eliot
would have shrugged his sister’s hand away, but for the fragile truce in effect
from last night’s fight. If they were going to pass the upcoming trials, figure
out anything about their family, they’d have to stick together. Besides, his
mind didn’t wander when she was this close.

The
old man finished the music with a wild flourish and bowed.

Eliot
clapped. Fiona let go of him.

“That
was the nursery rhyme you played yesterday,” Eliot said, “but all twisted and
layered, right?”

The
old man tapped his lip contemplatively and his smile faded. “Yes, yes. You have
excellent ears to decipher the tune.”

Eliot
wondered if that comment was directed at the dorky angle his ears stuck out
from his head, but decided that it was a simple compliment.

He
reached forward. He didn’t know what he was doing. It was instinct, the way a
plant turns to the sunlight, as unconscious an action as drawing a breath—he
reached for the violin and bow.

“May
I try, sir?”

Eliot
flushed. What was he thinking? Didn’t you need years of practice with a violin
to make it even sound like cat claws torturing a blackboard?

“What
are you doing?” Fiona hissed behind him. “You’ve never even touched one of
those things before.”

The
man looked disappointed. “You don’t know how . . . ?”

Sure,
Eliot had never touched a violin before, but he desperately wanted to. Why was
Fiona always ruining everything for him?

“I’ve
never tried,” Eliot admitted.

The
old man pulled the violin away.

Eliot
quickly added, “So I don’t know if I can or not.”

The
old man snorted, and a smile quirked at the corners of his mouth, which for
some reason made Eliot uncomfortable. The old man then sobered and stared at
Eliot the way Grandmother could, looking right into his center.

“Then
perhaps you should.” He handed Eliot the violin and bow.

“The
rules,” Fiona whispered. “Grandmother is going to—”

“—never
find out,” Eliot muttered. “If we don’t tell her.”

He
took the instrument.

It
felt light and heavy in his hands, too big and too small for his grasp, both
awkward and a natural extension of his body.

“Be
careful with that,” the old man told him. “It is one of a kind.”

Eliot
examined the violin.

It
was battered, chipped, and as dull as ordinary wood could possibly be, and yet
there was something about it, something deeper than he could see.

He
propped the violin on his shoulder as he had seen the old man do and cautiously
drew the bow over the strings. A sound like grinding glass on crackling
high-tension wires shrieked from the instrument.

The
old man flinched.

Overhead,
crows cawed in protest.

Undaunted,
Eliot relaxed his grip and let the bow’s weight do most of the work. The sound
calmed to a swarm of angry bees, then settled into smooth tones.

“Ah,”
the old man sighed, looking impressed.

Eliot
repositioned the bow and plunked the strings. To his delight simple but steady
notes resounded. After a dozen of these notes, he reassembled their order in
his mind and plucked out the nursery rhyme.

The
old man applauded. “Bravo, young maestro!” He leaned closer. “So much talent in
such delicate hands.”

Under
normal circumstances that comment would have made Eliot blush, but his hands
were delicate, too small and too slender—but maybe for an instrument this size
just right.

Eliot
held the violin and tried the song again, this time bowing. A shaky noise—all
scratches and warbles—came at first, but he kept going and it relaxed.

He
played.

He
no longer saw the alley or the old man or Fiona. Eliot was somewhere else with
another audience around him: a thousand silent held breaths in a packed concert
hall, the shrieking laughs and padding feet of children dancing about him. The
air itself circled, driven to frenzy by his song, and Eliot smelled fresh
flowers with every note.

He
finished with a little uncertain vibrato flourish and withdrew bow from the
quavering strings.

Eliot
panted. Not a car drove on Midway Avenue, not an insect buzzed over the nearby
trash cans; Eliot couldn’t even hear his heartbeat. There were only the
faintest, dying notes still vibrating deep within the violin.

“Magnifique!”
The old man clapped Eliot on the shoulder.

Fiona
stood staring, her mouth open. Eliot had never seen this expression on his
sister before: something between astonishment and anger.

Or
was it jealousy? She’d never been jealous of him before. She was always
better—at everything.

Fiona
composed herself. “We better go. We’re already late.”

If
they were late, maybe Ringo’s would call Grandmother. And if she found out
about this music . . . Eliot wasn’t sure what she would do.

Eliot
grudgingly handed the violin and bow back to the old man. “Thank you, sir. Very
much.”

“Thank
you. It was an honor to witness your first performance. I hope one of many more
to come.” He gave Eliot’s shoulder a squeeze and took the violin—although the
instrument stuck to Eliot’s fingers as if it didn’t want to leave.

He
wanted to play more. This wasn’t like work or writing an essay. Eliot had
created something all his own.

“I
really better go,” Eliot said, his eyes still on the violin. “There’s work . .
. and Grandmother’s rules. I’m not supposed to play.”

“A
rule against playing music?” the old man said. “Really? Even in the Dark Ages
they had music—not very good music, but music nonetheless. Even the Nazis liked
music. What a ridiculous rule.”

“Yeah,”
Eliot whispered. “Maybe it is.”

Fiona
led the way back onto the sidewalk.

On
the street six crows clustered about some roadkill; they looked up and stared
at them.

Back
in the alley, Eliot heard the old man whisper after him, “Promises,
hearts—everything was made to be broken, young man . . . especially rules.”

21

UNDER
THE INFLUENCE

Eliot
tried to outwalk his sister—an impossibility given that her legs were three
inches longer than his. Instead all he managed was to march in lockstep with
her down the street.

“We
need to talk,” she said.

“About
how I can’t play the violin?”

Fiona
frowned and sighed. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“Because
Grandmother has some rule so I don’t miss my homework?”

“There’s
probably a better reason than that—like all the things she did to keep us
hidden and safe from the family.”

“I
think,” Eliot said, “she’s making us work and has all these rules just to keep
us from asking more questions about the family.”

“Of
course she is. She’s kept them a secret to protect us.”

Eliot
slowed. “But wouldn’t it have made more sense to tell us about them? Like
teaching us how to cross a busy street? Or to stay away from drugs?”

“Maybe,”
Fiona murmured, slowing as well.

“Now
we’re not protected and we don’t know anything. Like how these people—our
so-called relatives—might kill us if we fail their trials? How can they get
away with that? Are they like the Cosa Nostra?”

“We
should definitely check those Machiavelli papers tonight. There might be
something we can use in there.” Fiona halted. “But in the meantime I want you
to stay away from the old guy with the violin. We don’t know him. He creeps me
out.”

“He’s
a great musician,” Eliot muttered.

“He’s
an old homeless guy.”

Eliot
was done talking. He’d wanted to figure out what they were going to do about
their family and the trials, but Fiona was apparently jealous that he could
play the violin, and that’s all she was thinking about. She had a talent with
foreign languages, and no one had a rule forbidding that. What harm could there
be in playing a violin? Millions of people played musical instruments—famous,
respectable people. They didn’t turn into ax murderers.

He
turned toward Ringo’s. Cars were double-parked on the street. Over the entrance
was a banner that proclaimed UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT. NEW AND IMPROVED MENU!

“That
was fast,” Fiona said.

“Does
that mean Mike isn’t coming back?” Eliot asked.

Six
people sidled past them into the restaurant.

“We
better get inside,” Fiona said. “Yesterday was busy. Today looks insane.”

Together
they pushed through the doors.

Eliot
blinked, seeing double. Two Lindas stood by the cash register, helping the
people that had come in ahead of him.

He
quickly realized as one spoke that they were two different girls. This other
girl was blond and the same height as Linda. Eliot hadn’t met many girls, but
Linda had always been his top pick for beauty—not that he had ever dared look
at her too long. But now, Linda’s good looks only served to highlight what real
beauty was.

The
new girl glowed, her skin pale and lustrous like marble. Her hair was tousled
and curled. Her cheeks and lips and eyes were so fascinatingly animated that
Eliot couldn’t pull his gaze away. His heart hammered in his chest.

The
girl looked up and smiled. It hit Eliot like a punch in the stomach.

“That’s
them,” Linda said, then helped seat the party of six.

“Oh,
wonderful,” said the other girl. She moved from behind the cash register. “I’m
Julie Marks, the new manager. It’s nice of you all to show up early. We could
sure use the extra help.”

She
spoke with a honey-sweet Southern accent. She wore a dress with lacy ruffles at
the hemline and neck. It was old-fashioned and not the least bit revealing, but
the way it moved over her was so hypnotic that Eliot felt dizzy.

“No
problem,” Fiona replied.

Eliot
nodded. It was all he could do because his mouth was too dry to form words.

“Dishes
already piled up in back.”

Eliot
smiled as if Julie had just asked him out.

She
said to Fiona, “Help Linda today. Take a few orders, all right?”

Fiona
tried to say something, but more people came in and Julie greeted them.

Fiona
pulled Eliot into the dining room and whispered, “She seems a little young to
be a manager.”