Tristan stared at the keyboard for an impossibly long time. Then, although Annie had been the one to ask the question, he looked directly at me when he answered. “Yes. I think it’s time, Daniel, don’t you? I’m tired.”
Acid ate at the back of my throat. I didn’t want to take responsibility for this decision.
“There is one other thing,” Annie said.
I saw it now, this other thing. It was a fear in her eyes, a tiredness of her own that I hadn’t had time to notice. “Annie?”
She looked down at her hands. “I was unsure before, but I believe something might be happening. To me. This all sounds so silly.”
“Go on,” Russ told her.
“I am supposed to be practicing. For the Hull. And for my upcoming shows. It is just that I cannot seem to play anything aside from the Prelude. I have not been able to since I played it on this piano the first time.” Her cheeks colored, and I stared at Russ, willing him to sort this out as he’d sorted out so many issues in the past.
“You mean, you aren’t playing the other pieces well?” Russ asked, but I knew that wasn’t what she meant.
Annie shook her head. “No. It is more as though I feel I have to play the Prelude. As though I can’t stop. I am incapable of playing anything other than this.”
I breathed in. “Is this part of your…?” I asked Tristan. I couldn’t wrap my mouth around the word “curse.” “Is that why Annie has been up playing in the middle of the night?”
She came up next to me. “I have been having problems sleeping. Playing the Prelude is the only thing that feels right.”
Tristan looked pained. “I’d never want to hurt Annie. Is this my fault?”
We all looked to Russ for answers. He took a deep breath. “It isn’t you,” he said to Tristan. “It may be the curse, but it isn’t you.”
“So, what do we do?” I asked. If anyone was to blame for dragging Annie into this mess, it was me. I should have done the right thing and sent her away the night she showed up, instead of selfishly allowing her to stay.
Russ stood at the window, his back to us. I could see his shoulders rise and fall as his breathing sped up. When he turned, he said to Tristan, “If we’re going to try to end the curse, I think you and Annie have to finish the Prelude while you still can.”
“So, if we do this, Tristan will be okay?”
Russ shook his head slowly. “No. As I said, if we do this—and it works—Annie will be free of whatever it is that’s making her play the Prelude and Tristan will be”—he hesitated—“at rest. Whatever that means.”
“But it will be like it was with my dad, right? Like you’ll still be out there somewhere?” I asked.
Tristan wrapped his arms around himself and stood next to Russ. Their silence said everything.
Chapter 45
Russ
Tristan stood behind Annie, placing his hands—the shadow of his hands because that’s all that was left—over her own, guiding her through the music. It was an amazing thing to watch, but if there was one thing I knew, it was that the universe didn’t simply hand you gifts. It wanted payment. In full. I had no idea what would be asked of her. Or Tristan. Or Dec.
When the last note stopped ringing through the cavernous room, Tristan whispered, “What happens now?”
“I wish I could tell you,” I answered truthfully. This sort of stuff wasn’t in any of the books I’d borrowed from Eaton Hall.
“We can’t just sit here and wait,” Dec insisted.
“Well, what?” I snipped. “Do you want to play a game or something because…”
“Wait,” Tristan called out and slowly sunk to the ground. “I…”
Annie cast me a concerned look and leaned down next to him. Her hand hovered just above his shoulder for a moment before plunging straight through him as she tried to comfort him.
“No,” Dec demanded. “No, not yet.”
“Dec,” I warned, stopping him in his tracks.
Tristan looked up at me and then to Annie. “Could you play something else please, Annie? Not the Prelude, but can you play something of your teacher’s, perhaps?”
We all watched as she turned back to the piano and settled herself on the bench before launching into something that managed to be slow, sad, and somehow uplifting all at the same time. The notes seemed to take on a life of their own, swirling and swirling around us. Damn, she was good.
Tristan sat in the floor with his eyes closed, swaying slightly to the rhythm. I wanted to go over and hug him, but my feet were rooted where I stood, and I wouldn’t have been able to touch him anyway. He was getting more and more transparent as we watched, or maybe it was a trick of light or a product of being tired. But probably not, because before the tune ended, he was gone completely without another word.
Chapter 46
Annie
After the silence, and the tears, and the attempts to say something to take away our pain, and my proving I could now play the Tchaikovsky although it was rusty, and I could not work myself up to caring whether I won the Hull or not, Russ excused himself and went outside.
Dec had gone to speak to Laura about all that had happened. At a loss, I followed Russ and found him lying on the hood of the Mustang. Moonlight shone off the silver surface, the black of Russ’s coat reflected in it like a dark cloud across its face.
I walked up to him tentatively, unsure if he wanted to be bothered. Sometimes people walked out because they wanted to be alone, sometimes because they wanted to see if anyone would follow. It had been like that with Dmitry. He would always test people’s love for him by doing something outrageous and then wait to see who still cared about him after the inevitable explosion.
Russ sat up before I reached the car and moved over, making room on the shimmering hood.
“That sucked, and I feel as though it is all my fault,” I said as I climbed up next to him. “Had I just flown to Canada like Viktor told me to, none of this would have happened, and maybe Tristan would still be here.”
“That’s possible,” Russ said in a way that made the words not hurt as much. “But you have to reframe it. I think the reason he stayed around St. Hilaire so long was to help you. Not deliberately, of course. Maybe he knew, at some subconscious level, that you would come here someday. But either way, at the end, I think, you made him happy.”
I had not known Russ long, but I had known him long enough to know he would not say something comforting if he did not believe it. “Thank you,” I said.