It’s his eyes that call to me first—coppery and glimmering. I squint, unsure if they’re real.
Then I hear the music, and there’s no denying the reality, or that I’m meant to be in this place. Meant to see, hear, and feel everything. It’s the only way I’ll be complete and comfortable in my own skin.
I stumble into the pitch-black tunnel without hesitation, following the heart-rending chords of the violin. Literally following the notes. Each pitch dances along the stony wall—a different color—like a laser-light show. My hand traces them, drawn to the tactile delicacies they offer: blistering reds, temperate greens, sun-warmed yellows, and blues as cool and variable as the ocean depths, where cerulean and navy glisten like sapphires on the tails of monstrously fanged fish.
In the distance, I see him: my maestro, draped in shadows. His eyes flash again—two pennies at the bottom of a wishing well. Can he make my wishes come true? Can he help me sing without pain?
A heavy mist seeps down from above and separates us.
A dripping sound echoes, and my feet splash through cold, rising water. I’m momentarily brave, but my courage wanes when the liquid turns black and swallows me up to my neck.
I shiver in the icy waves. My throat constricts. I panic . . . struggle to keep my head exposed. It’s not a tunnel; it’s a box. A box filling with water that reeks of rotting fish and stagnant mud.
I’m drowning.
My skin freezes, my lungs burn; my mind grows dizzy, numb. I kick against the wooden walls, but I’m too weak, too small, too scared to break through.
Unconsciousness ebbs.
The violin revives me. It becomes more than music. It becomes a voice.
My maestro speaks through it, coaxing me to fight my way to freedom. I grit my teeth and kick again. Everything I do is in slow motion, until finally, my left knee bursts through, leaving a gaping gash in my skin. It will be a scar one day.
But all that matters right now is I’m free.
The box bursts open and I swim to the surface. Overhead the night sky greets me, blanketed in stars. The musical laser-light show becomes planets in chaotic disarray. I drift upward until I’ve joined them, in the middle, at the epicenter of the Milky Way, where it’s warm and comforting like a velvet throw.
My own song breaks free to join the violin, a duet both celestial and powerful. The spaces resonate in my head, lining up behind my mouth and nose and transitioning to my upper register. My voice lifts—a high C so pristine it forms a golden glow—a bubble made of glittering energy. It matches my maestro’s sparkling eyes.
The planets and stars in the galaxy float around us, aligning, riding upon the melody the violinist and I now carry as one.
Two halves united.
With the heavens aligned, all is right with the world. Music and love and happiness. Also, peace.
The universe belongs to us. Together, we own it.
Together, we won.
“Rune.”
The whisper warms my ear. I curl up and pull the covers over my head, reluctant to leave the private haven of REM sleep.
“Come on, hon. They’re serving breakfast in the atrium. You need to eat so you can get to class on time. How are you feeling today?”
The concern in Mom’s voice shatters my utopia, but I already know the details of that dream by heart. It’s the same one I started having shortly after Dad died. The dream that pulled me through the darkest and most terrifying event of my life, when my grandma tried to drown me. When I was falling unconscious, his music roused me and gave me the power to save myself.
Even after that, my maestro continued to keep my subconscious company for a long time during nightmares of the event, until I suddenly stopped dreaming of him two years ago. I’ve missed our duets in my sleep. It felt so good to finally be in that place of comfort again.
All this time, I’d always assumed Dad’s spirit was the one playing the violin . . . my deliverer of music. And that his eyes shifted from hazel to flashing coppery-gold to serve as my beacons in the darkness.
But yesterday, I saw those eyes shining inside the gardener’s hood. And now I’m having my dreams again.
What does that mean?
I shiver, only partly because Mom drags off my covers to expose my skin to the chilly room. I squint at her. She’s holding the bed curtains open, and soft lavender light filters into my comfortable cave from the lava lamp. It still looks like midnight in my tiny room. Her stance is blocking my digital clock.
“What time is it?” I ask.
“Seven thirty a.m.”