That was either really kind of him, or really moronic. “You told me your name was Sam. Everyone else called you Sam, too.” I was really sure I’d have noticed people calling him Dossam, at any rate.
His face reddened. “It’s shorter, and everyone’s been using it forever now. Back at the lake, when I told you my name, I didn’t know you wouldn’t know. I should have clarified, but—”
“It’s okay.” I stood and tried to collect myself, but Dossam was right there and how could I ever look at him again, knowing he’d seen me at my worst? How could he ever be Sam again, now that he was Dossam?
This was what he’d tried to avoid by not telling me his true identity. If I didn’t get myself together, he’d think horrible things about me.
I forced myself to look at him, still sitting at the piano, palms on his knees. He still looked like the Sam who’d pulled me from the lake, and the Sam who’d wrapped my hands after they’d been burned.
“What was that you played?” I edged closer. To the piano. To him.
Same wide-set eyes, same shaggy black hair. Same hesitant smile. “It’s yours,” he said. “It’s called whatever you want.”
I staggered back. So much for collecting myself. “Mine?”
He took my shoulder, stopping me from crashing into something. “Didn’t you hear?” he asked, searching me. “I used the notes you picked, things that remind me of you.”
My notes. Things that reminded him of me. Dossam thought of me, the nosoul.
He didn’t think I was a nosoul.
Oblivious to my thoughts, he went on. “It isn’t often I have the pleasure of performing for someone who hasn’t heard me play a thousand times. I think Armande and Stef are bored of it.”
“I can’t imagine ever getting bored of that. I could listen forever.” I bit my lip. Why couldn’t I say anything halfway smart? But he smiled. “You made that up? Just now?”
“Some of it. Some I’ve been thinking of for a while. I’ll have to start writing it down before I forget.” He offered a hand, which I just stared at because a minute ago, that hand had been on the piano making a melody for me, and suddenly I wasn’t no one anymore. I was Ana who Had Music.
I had the best music.
“Are you all right?” He held me by the elbows, as if I’d been about to topple over from the weight of all my thoughts.
“Fine.” Overwhelmed. Dizzy. But I didn’t want him to realize I’d made more of his gift than he’d intended. I didn’t even know how to thank him.
“It’s late. Let’s clean up and rest. Does that sound okay?”
Dumbly, I nodded and let him lead me up the stairs, down a corridor, and into a bedroom decorated in shades of blue.
Lace hung over the shuttered window, covered the bed, and hid a closet alcove with hanging clothes. The walls were little more than sheets with hand-cut shelves pressed against both sides. Some cubbies held folded blankets and things, while others held books or small instruments carved from antelope horns. One wall had been made into a desk. Only the outside wall was stone, but he’d covered that with paintings of erupting geysers, snowy forests, and ancient ruins.
“Help yourself to anything that fits. I’m sure there’s something, even if it’s outdated.” He motioned at another door, made the same way as the walls. “There’s a washroom. Everything you need should be in there.”
“You have all this stuff in case a girl comes to stay awhile?”
Sam shifted his weight away from me. “Actually, it’s mine.”
I was imagining him in a dress before I remembered he’d been a girl in other lifetimes. He wasn’t the strange one.
“Right. Sorry.” It was a poor apology, but I couldn’t make myself come up with anything better. I was tired and sore, and echoes of his song—my song!—stayed in my head. My chest felt tight with need. “Sam, will you play your piano more?”
His expression softened. “And anything else you’d like to hear.”
Everything I’d felt downstairs, all my stupid childhood fantasies: They all returned, hitting me hard.
How could my insides be so taut and relaxed at once? After a lifetime of hoping to meet him, imagining what he might be like, he was not what I’d expected, mostly because he put up with me.
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Chapter 9
Reprise
HE’D BEEN RIGHT about my needs being met.
In one of the cubbies, I found cozy shirts and trousers made of wool and synthetic silk. I laid them out for after I was clean. He had feminine underwear, too, but that was too weird; I left them.
After a quick shower to remove the worst of the road grime, I ran a hot bath to soak my poor muscles. When I turned the water off, strains of music floated upstairs. He was playing my song again. But just as I relaxed into it, the whole thing stopped in the middle of a phrase, then started again. He continued like that, sometimes only a few notes. Perhaps he was writing it down, like he said.