Duet: Death's Recital Read online

  Duet Book 1 Copyright 2020 by Lizzie Vega 5 Series Publishing

  This is a work of fiction.

  Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  No part of this eBook may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author.

  Chapter 1

  Just walking into the building made her heart race. Relax, relax…oh for fuck’s sake relax, Mikalya, it’s why you’re here, she thought walking carefully down the gently ramped aisle of the dark concert hall. It was third time in as many days she’d snuck into the old auditorium. Feeling her way along the aisles, row by row, her hand brushed against the tops of the overstuffed seats. The soft mohair upholstery was probably original from when the building had been built.

  Her brain naturally veered into thinking how many performances had occurred there, how many talented no, elite level musicians…stop…stop it, Jeezus, get a grip. Don’t get carried away.

  Halfway down the aisle, she stopped and quietly pushed the first spring-loaded seat to sit down. It responded with only a tiny squeak. Not bad for a seventy-year-old chair, she grinned as her nerves began to calm. She looked around the shadowy hall, only then did she think of the increased warnings from campus security. Strange happenings around the school, don’t go out at night by yourself. She quickly dismissed it.

  “I’m not playing,” she said softly to the other three hundred empty seats, “Just here, being in the moment.” Her doctor had suggested a pragmatic step by step re-introduction to her performance dream. All the work she’d done on re-building her confidence was finally beginning to take hold.

  Slow breathing and thinking happy non-musical thoughts were the two cornerstones of her therapy. Maybe in a week, she’d bring her violin. Just set it next to me, she thought, baby steps. Looking out into the auditorium, the sloped seating brought her eye level with the dimly lit stage. A concert-sized grand piano sat in the center, it’s sleek enameled top propped up in the darkness was eerily outlined by the orange exit lights on each side of the stage.

  Mikayla saw a thin metal stand at the front of the stage and her heart pinged back a quick pulse. There must have been a soloist practicing earlier, she thought, recognizing the microphone. The realization of being a performer steered her back into a negative mode, I could do that someday, I could sing...my voice is good…my voice is crap…ahhh deep breath, shut up…shut up.

  A sound behind the stage curtains caught her ear. A door had opened, there were soft footsteps, and someone hit a light switch. Mikayla froze as a dim center spotlight lit up the piano. The reflection from the heavy lacquered finish sent a reflective flare out into the empty seats. Stuck in the middle of the auditorium, Mikayla glanced to the back of the building and rose to make a hasty exit. Being a mid-year transfer student, all she could hear in her brain was the sound of her Music Department head scolding her for already breaking the rules.

  A figure stepped out from the curtained side of the stage and she ducked back into the row. A tall and rail thin young man, he stopped and looked out into the dark auditorium now softly illuminated for the first few rows. Mikayla sunk down in her seat, but the old theatre seat squeaked again.

  Straining to see into the gloom, he brushed his long hair back from his eyes and took another step. The floorboards of the stage repeated a time worn creak of their own and he seemed satisfied that he was alone. Walking to the piano, he stared at it for a minute and sat down.

  Mikayla peered over the rounded back of the seat in front of her. Glancing side to side, she could tell if she moved, he’d easily see her. That’s trouble, she thought, He’s only got one chart, I’ll ride this out. Her imagination began to get the best of her, my phone, it’ll ring. Gotta turn it off. She quietly dug in her bag only to come to realization that no one ever called her except her little brother. Old friends from her first year at State rarely called or texted. With a quiet sigh, she settled down low in her seat, an unwilling audience of one, and waited for him to play something.

  And waited.

  Peeking again over the seat in front of her, she saw him sitting quietly at the piano staring at the one sheet of music he brought with him.

  C’mon let’s get on with it, she silently implored him, I had a lot of coffee today…shut up shut up, don’t put that idea in your head…c’mon.

  He reached up and snapped on the switch of the piano’s music lamp. Now she could see him clearly as the little lamp cast a dark shadow of his head and shoulders into the curtains behind him. Kinda handsome, she thought, squinting up to the stage to see his angular features, well maybe this won’t be such a chore.

  Raising both hands to the keyboard, he began with a bass chord at the far end of the keys. Starting with the rich and deep notes, he played a full run of the keys, hand crossing over hand until he ended on the high C. Without using the foot pedals to dampen the strings, the reverberating strings sang in a jumbled harmony as they vibrated to silence. He’d played one note out of order.

  Just as Mikayla caught herself critiquing his practice scale, he stunned her by returning to the single note that had been out of sequence. Tapping on the A key at the end of the fourth octave, he played it alone, then added the notes on either side. Faster and faster he played before running back down to the beginning, note by flawless note.

  Mikayla could feel herself leaning forward, Who is this guy? This is no first-year student, too young to be an instructor.

  His hands flew in circles at the bass end of the piano repeating the passage again and again with an almost surgical like precision. There was no way Mikayla couldn’t be drawn in by what she was hearing, and she let it happen.

  The first color flared up from his fingers and twisted up into the dark rows of theatre lights suspended above him. Only the single light gel in the center of the stage caught the streaking green arc. Oblivious to the display, the young pianist continued to play the sequence and a second, then a third bright stream of green light erupted from his keyboard.

  The A notes, Mikayla thought as she watched the display. Another pass over the same keys yielded another set of streaming lights. Breaking from the pattern, his fingers ran back up the keyboard sending a repeating curtain of emerald lights up into the rafters. Working with the pedals, he tamped down, then released the strings to let them ring and the colored curtain began to shimmer with the pulsating rhythm.

  Mikayla blinked, thinking she could stop the colorful display, but it continued, even grew in intensity as the young man continued playing.

  This isn’t a performance, that’s not even a song, she thought as the light danced over the piano, I shouldn’t be able to see this…then it hit her, “I thought I was getting better.”

  Her eyes flew open. She’d said it out loud. The music never stopped, never varied from what was becoming a fevered performance from an artist the likes of which Mikayla had never heard. Drawn in by the simple notes, she fought the urge to stand up when the exit light to the left of the stage blinked, then dimmed and went dark.

  Squinting from her hiding place, a shadow seemed to creep across the stage. The exit sign wasn’t dimming, there was someone in front of it and it went flared again before being blocked completely. Her heart started to beat heavily in her chest, I was getting better…

  What the hell, she thought and gasped. Immersed deeply in his music, the pianist never looked up from the keys but as Mikayla saw the dark shape moving slowly across the stage, a thick
dark billowing mass reached from the shadows like the dead branches of a windswept tree.

  God, oh God, it’s gonna get him, she began to stand. What do I do? Its growing bigger. The leading edge of the mass began to rise ominously behind the young performer. As the dark tendrils neared the overhead spotlight, Mikayla looked on in horror as the branchlike forms took a familiar shape.

  Those are hand’s...it’s gonna get him. She tried to take a deep breath, but her warning stuck in her throat. “Get out.” she screamed but it came only as a hoarse whisper but as the playing continued, the swirling mass stopped and turned to Mikayla. Out the dark billowing cloud, illuminated only by the fading spotlight and the colored lights that Mikayla could see from his music, a face slowly emerged from the darkness. A pair of grey and lifeless eyes locked on to her.

  Drawing back, gasping for breath, she screamed. Years of music practice and multiple attempts at a singing career came together to produce a deep, then ear-piercing wail aimed in the direction of the mysterious piano player.

  Startled, he spun on his bench only to see a soft flash of her long blonde hair as it sprinted up the aisle and burst through the main doors of the auditorium.

  Seeing a group of students in front of her, shy Mikayla bolted left and ran into the Humanities building, quickly searching to find an empty hallway. Turning against the wall to hide her tear-stained face, she gasped for breath, grateful for the silence.

  I did that, she thought between muffled sobs, My fault, all my fault. It’s over...all over…I’m done.

  In the still silence of the hallway, she leaned her head against the cool plaster and recounted the music she had heard. Only a warm-up scale, she thought of the series of practice runs. “What absolute precision,” she said, “it was so beautiful.”

  A sudden breeze blew across her face, her hair swayed as she stood alone in the still passageway. Looking at her hands, she could have sworn that something had just softly brushed against her cheek. Taking a long breath, Mikayla sighed deeply. The flaring colors in the auditorium had been her doing, a not quite secret gift from years of loving music and something she was desperately trying to understand.

  The dark mass that seemed to menace the piano player…now that was different. She tried to dismiss it as a product of the stress she was feeling from transferring so late in the school year. That, and she already had a mountain of work to catch up with.

  “A mountain,” she said as she made her way out the doors and headed to her dorm, “or maybe a big tree with a lot of branches I can’t get caught up on, that was it. Just stress.”

  Walking down the sidewalk, she stroked her cheek again though it didn’t seem nearly as soft and calming as the first time. “Interesting guy,” she said out loud just as a gaggle of students passed by. They stared back at her odd greeting.

  “Sorry,” she grinned. “I’m just a little out of sorts today. Don’t mind me.”

  Chapter 2

  Two months earlier

  “I’m never gonna get this done, he thought looking at the stack of assignments and heavily tabbed music books. He picked through the pile separating the music from his other core classes. History would be okay-ish. Algebra was starting to get easier, but he wasn’t sure how that was even possible.

  The three compositions that were due by the end of the semester had him spooked. Already a half a year behind, he worried and fussed until a sheen of sweat covered his forehead. Not only had he not started on their creation, the juried recitals in the old auditorium where the stuff of legends and heartbreak.

  “Fine,” he said out loud, reaching deep in his bag for his medicine. Setting the small prescription bottle on the corner of his desk. He touched it once, then set it back down, “Just in case. I’m better. I can do this.”

  Looking around his room Ethan wondered how long it would stay this clean. “Watch for your tidiness level,” his mother had always warned him, “If it starts to slip, you start to slip.”

  “Thanks mom,” he said out loud as he gathered up his music, “I’ll just go make a mess in the practice room.”

  He already found a favorite place to play. Given the difficulty to even get to the music building basement, he’d stumbled upon an old piano room that hadn’t seen a janitor in years. Cleaning and tuning the piano took time but it calmed his thoughts as he worked. Having watched his mother obsess over her baby grand for years, he knew a few things about getting the old upright piano into shape. Never occurred to him that he’d have to ask permission to use it. The best part was the lock on the door.

  “I’ll make you proud, mom,” he said in a little child’s voice as he repeated the encouraging words from his therapists, “I’m gonna be a star. I’m gonna have fans.”

  “All I gotta do, is forget everything I know, everything that’s happened. Learn to play again and have the balls to go up on a stage and make...” He raised an angry fist above the keys, then paused knowing that a hard blow could damage the already fragile keys let alone screw with his tuning attempts.

  “Fuck,” he shouted and flung the thick folder of blank staff paper across the room, sheets spiraling everywhere. It seemed to help until he picked up the only page that had landed within reach. Having picked it off the floor sideways, the five lined music staffs stared back at him like prison bars.

  “I’m sorry,” he blurted suddenly, his emotions spilling over and down his cheeks, “I’m so sorry.” Searching through the top drawer of the adjacent desk, he found thumbtack and hung the blank sheet of paper directly at eye level.

  “Nothing is scarier than that,” he said as the sheet fell back flat against the ancient wood paneled wall. “Cept maybe having conversations with myself.” Gathering the other sheets of paper from the floor, Ethan added them back into the folder and sat down on the piano bench.

  He began to run through a series of rudimentary finger exercises to warm up. Halfway through, he slowed and looked back at the door just to make sure that he’d closed it tight. Continuing with the warmup, he slogged his way through a half hour of disjointed chords and sequences, hating every minute of it.

  He sat up straight, “Don’t slouch, Ethan,” he said. He cracked his knuckles in retaliation to the not distant enough memory in his head, “She’d hate that.”

  As his finger touched the keys, his broad hands spanning a full octave in each direction, he could see the notes in his head. Which direction to go, how the old foot pedals would do a sketchy job of dampening the metal strings. Not a full grand piano, not even a baby, this old upright would be enough for now.

  Without looking at the keyboard, eight keys pressed with a decade of precision, rang out like a church bell. The strings vibrated as a choir until he shifted up a full third in a gentle ascending progression. Not a song, just a full feeling of what the perfectly tuned instrument could do under his guidance. Strong steel and carved wood, probably more than a hundred years old, the strings and chipped ivory keys responded instantly to his touch.

  This wasn’t a mindless practice exercise. It was the sound he heard in his head as he sat on a bench in the middle of a concert stage. His professional debut. He could see it in his mind.

  Now only if he could his hands to stop shaking long enough to get his heart to play along.

  After two months of sequestering himself in the basement practice room, few of his fears had faded. When he’d first realized how calm he could be after an hour or so of playing, he’d dismissed the feeling as boredom given the simple level of music he was playing. Deep down, he knew the calm would soon be replaced by the sheer terror of performing live.

  No one seemed to be able to explain to him the contradiction of being able to play an instrument at a prodigy level yet being terrified to actually let people listen.

  The realization was a setback. Going from his dorm room to the practice room became a challenge. Staying late into the nights after classes and returning home in the middle of the night suddenly had its limitations. Many times, he’d been warne
d by campus security to both make his trips more public and not to stick so close the buildings like he was a stalker.

  There were so many warnings he figured they had researched his file and knew about his issues. It only caused him to withdraw further.

  One very late evening, he’d no sooner locked the practice room to leave, when a few steps down the hallway he heard a sound behind him. “Mice,” he said nervously, “steer clear of these size twelves.” He took a few more steps before sprinting down the hall and vaulting up the steps to the parking lot. A security guard’s flashlight tagged him instantly. “Mr. Carson, a word please?”

  The head of the college security team tried to be cordial, “Just so you know, we tolerate your coming and going here at the building. Honestly, you’ve been better lately about not looking so sketchy.”

  “Okay, thanks,” Ethan said genuinely happy to have run into someone. His nerves calmed as they spoke. “I appreciate that.” Even in the poorly lit parking lot, the badge and the buttons on his crisply pressed uniform seemed to glow in the dark

  “However,” the guard continued, “there have been multiple instances of peeping over in the coed quad in the last two weeks. For your own protection, try to tighten up on your hours or better yet, give us a call when you’re leaving. I’d hate to have somebody beat the shit out of you in a case of mistaken identity.” He leaned in toward Ethan, “People overreact. They do bad things in the heat of the moment.”

  “Oh yeah, I see,” Ethan nodded, tipping away from him, “So I can call you?”

  “Yep. We’d appreciate it. Students are on edge over this. Creepy stuff like this isn’t good for the school’s reputation. I’ve been here for a long time. There’s always something.”

  “But if I see anything, I could call you too?”

  “Yes, but don’t go and get a superhero costume and play vigilante. Let us do our jobs. Here’s my card if you need to call.”