Chapter 10: Ethereal Musician

 

Alayna lives as a recluse in the giant redwood forest far from prying eyes. When intruders break into her home with the intention of robbing and using her, a man with vivid green eyes becomes an unlikely saviour. The instant they see each other their fates are sealed. Ben and Alayna have the kind of attraction that reeks of a celestial mandate.

 She realises what Ben truly is, but he’s too young to know his real self. She sends him away to discover his destiny, telling him to play the music able to move stars, and awaits his return. Their attraction, though, is so visceral and overwhelming that Ben comes back again and again, each time finding it harder to leave the only woman who has ignited his soul.

Alayna feels it too, because Ben possesses a kiss able to break worlds. His green eyes are an ethereal magnificence amid the redwoods, lighting the way for love, music, dreams and destiny to mark their paths, but such a connection has a price.

Ten

  

A VIOLIN RESTED in its case on her desk.

Ben stopped dead when he saw it.

His heart had thundered during the night and his blood had raced. Every emotion hidden and unknown had surfaced until flesh was soul and time was as ancient and unknowable as the cosmos. She emptied him from the inside out and then she remade him.

That quickening was now as nothing as to what assaulted every sense he possessed.

A violin.

Music.

In the filtered light of this new day, he approached it as if it was a viper. Already his hand reached to take possession. The contradiction between thought and action created theories of chaos in his mind.

The desired object was in his hands.

This was a work of art, an instrument lovingly crafted.

An ache grew in his gut.

Alayna paid a lot of money for this. Why?

“To hear you play,” she whispered behind him.

He did not move. He simply stared at what he held in his hands. The ache sought release.

“You know yourself now …”

“Do I?” he croaked.

“You have a fair idea and it will become clearer as you move forward.”

He swallowed. “So?” But those answers were of less importance to the growing pressure within him.

“Knowing means leaving, Ben. You returned to understand that … and to accept it. You must go forward, never back.”

Her hands were on his shoulders, warm through the thin shirt he’s shrugged on to stave off some of the chill. He took great comfort from her touch, now. Every word she spoke was only truth. This was finally relief.

“We have an ages difference that won’t hold up in this society,” she murmured.

He turned then. “Ages?” he said, his gaze intent.

She did not blink. “Yes. Ages.”

“How old are you?” The words tore from him. Suspicion could now become fact.

Even now she wouldn’t give him that. No lies, but not straightforward fact either. “Too old. Very old. We are old souls both.”

She intended to leave him with only his suspicions. She intended to keep to the rumor of what souls were capable of.

He dug deeper. “How old am I? I do not mean my soul.”

Alayna blinked. “That would be the real question, wouldn’t it?”

And that answered it for him.

Smiling then, he lifted the violin to his shoulder, tucked it under his chin, sensing the knots unraveling inside. Already notes floated into his blood.

“And you want to hear me play before I hit the long road.”

Her sigh settled over him like a warm blanket. “It will be your final gift to me.”

He lifted the bow. It settled whisper soft onto the strings. Fingers found the right chords automatically. This he knew; this was his true self.

The first angelic note soared, and every bird in the forest fell silent to listen.

Tears coursed freely over Alayna’s cheeks.

Worlds far, far, away knitted back together as the flows of energy flew along the musical curves of creation itself.

It was her final gift to him as well.

ETHEREAL MUSICIAN