It’s obvious he feels as miserable and hopeless at offering the option as I do, knowing it’s impossible. “The music, or the hunger?”
“Either. Both.”
“Since we’re playing pretend, yes. If I could go back and choose, things would be different. Then I wouldn’t have killed my—” Regret steals the air from my lungs and cuts my confession short.
Resituating the can, I strain to listen for his response with tears gathering on my lashes. He’s seen my childhood. He knows what I’ve done. Please, please. You’re my last hope. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me there’s another explanation. The pain that I’ve held inside for so long expands behind my sternum as silence swells between us.
With the cold metal still cupped to my ear, I sit down on the stone bench, my legs too shaky to hold me up. The chilly night wind gusts around me, snagging my bun loose. Even when the strands stick to my tear-slicked cheeks in itchy tangles, I don’t attempt to dig myself out. I want to stay hidden forever.
The phone’s ribbon goes limp across the horse’s leg and the other metal can hits the statue’s edge. Etalon has dropped his end. It’s then I know that I really am a monster, because one of my own kind can’t even face my sins.
“Sweet Rune, don’t cry.” His voice reaches out—no longer a vibration along the ribbon, but in front of me.
I release the can and shove hair from my face.
He looms over me. His white half-mask reflects the greenish glow around us, giving him a spectral air. He offers me a rose. I take it—careful not to get pricked by any thorns—and nuzzle the duotone petals, inhaling the sweetness.
“There is no agony more acute than believing yourself responsible for the death of a parent.” Wrapped within his cloak, he seems even taller and broader than I remember, almost godlike with Apollo holding vigil behind him like a stony doppelganger. Yet there’s a softness in his eyes at odds with his powerful form. “It took me years to make peace with my maman’s murder.”
I’m reminded of the tiny toddler who watched his mother being driven away in a dark car every night to sell her body so she could care for him. And then, that little boy on the porch, the moment he realized she was never coming back after he’d finally convinced her to change her life.
The aching chasm in my chest fills with empathy. “But you weren’t responsible.” I wind the rose’s leaves around my finger. “You were blaming yourself for something someone else did.”
“As are you.” His reassurance grinds like deep, sanded velvet from his throat—a tender virility that strips away the image of the boy and leaves the man in his place. “You did not kill your father, and I can prove it.”
From within the hooded cloak, he brings out his other hand clutching a violin case.
Daddy’s Strad. I drop the rose, eager to see the instrument again, yet dreading every painful memory woven within those strings.
“You were only a child when he died.” Etalon lays the case on the bench between me and my tote bag. My nerves twitch both at his proximity and at being so close to my father’s beloved violin again. As Etalon works the latch open, I study his hands—strong, with the long, skilled fingertips of a master musician. I’m transported in time, to uncountable moments when Dad opened this case, preparing for a performance with me. Etalon’s cloak sweeps the tips of my boots as he kneels. “You hadn’t yet had your awakening when you were seven. That didn’t happen until you attacked the boy in your hometown. So it’s impossible that you could’ve killed your father. Although I’m starting to think this Strad played a role. Playing the instrument might have been his downfall.”
I frown. “What? How?”
“I don’t have that answer yet. Only a suspicion, and three puzzle pieces.”
He drags his cloak from his head and shoulders, revealing a creamy thermal undershirt, its V neck dipping low enough to showcase a fine line of hair between his pecs. Tweed pants sculpt his legs like well-worn jeans, hooked to a pair of brown suspenders holding his shirt snug against his toned build. He no longer looks like an out-of-time gardener or an employee at a psychedelic rave club. He looks gentle and philosophical: a musician, a poet, and a romantic dreamer.
He leans over to arrange the cloak at my feet. Thick, dark curls flutter across his forehead and dust the nape of his neck in the wind, close enough for me to reach out and touch, if I had the courage. I catch a whiff of his shampoo—something woodsy, soothing, and spicy, like the ginger root tea I like to drink at home.
After smoothing the fabric on the roof, he seats himself, his hand at rest on the violin’s case. The flawless side of his face is tempting in the soft light: one-half of a squared chin, one-half of full lips. He flips open the lid, and my eyes well up, drowning at the sight of the instrument nestled in the velvet lining. Not a scratch or a crack anywhere on the glossy surface.