That didn’t bother me so much. At least, I told myself it didn’t bother me.
My new humiliation was ensemble work, where everyone had to go off in groups to work on concertos. The twins were inseparable, and Ivan’s sapphire shards made it clear he’d stab me if I got close to his sister. Aroha and Titus had a definite flirtatious thing going – a jealous seethe ached in my belly at the idea of being stuck in that sandwich – and Heather seemed permanently attached to Dorien’s hip. I left the room whenever they played together. I told myself it was because it was such a shame to see Dorien’s talent dragged down by Heather, the succubus who sucked the life out of every piece of music she played. But really it was the jealousy again.
Which was fucking ridiculous, because it wasn’t like any of the Muses wanted to pluck my strings. But it was more that I wanted them to see me as an equal, as someone worthy to share their spotlight. It was like being picked last for teams in gym class, only a hundred times worse because unlike gym, I was actuallyfucking good.
At the violin, maybe not the sex. I’d only donethatonce before. Not that I wanted to get vertical with any of the guys. I had no desire to have Ivan’s cold eyes locked on mine, or feel Titus’ enormous hands on the small of my back, or feel Dorien’s cock…
Nope.Not at all.
It was a moot point since none of them would talk to me. The only people who so much as uttered a word in my direction were Master Radcliffe, during our lessons, and Madame Usher, to snap at me for some perceived infraction.
Still, I had the music. I filled my head with Master Radcliffe’s knowledge. The hours I got to spend alone with my violin lifted my spirit. But what surprised me was how much I’d started to enjoy composition. For the last two years I’d done nothing but work dead-end jobs, try to get my schoolwork done, and sleep in that cursed plastic chair while Mom underwent tests. Being able to learn something for the sheer pleasure of it lit a flame inside me I thought had been extinguished forever.
One evening after returning from another visit to my mother (no change, no results from the lab yet), I was in the kitchen, planning menus for the following week and chopping and roasting a bunch of vegetables I could use over the next few days. I figured out that if I took each Monday as a prep-night, I’d be able to get most of the food cooked, giving me more time during the week to practice.
While I stood at the stove, caramelizing onions, I noticed a figure dart from the porch toward the trees.Aroha. Without thinking, I switched off the stove, flung my hoodie over my shoulders, and headed after her.
I cut through the walled garden and emerged on the overgrown path leading down through the trees. Moonlight glinted off Aroha’s leather jacket as she picked her way around the ruined gazebo and continued deeper into the forest. I followed, wondering if I was making a huge mistake.This is how girls in horror films get stabbed or exsanguinated or eaten alive…
The path emerged into a small clearing. It might once have been beautiful – a ring of trees surrounding a domed glasshouse. But neglect had wreathed the structure in weeds, had broken several glass panes, and had given the plants inside a life of their own. They overgrew their pots with such vivacity they tangled together into an impenetrable mess that spilled out through every available crack and cranny, trailing vines and delicate floral tendrils across the forest floor. Aroha sat on an upturned terracotta pot, wreathed in the shade of some strange plant with weird, elongated leaves. A cigarette dangled from her lips.
“Piss off, trash,” she muttered when she saw me, but the words had no venom.
I shifted my weight from foot to foot. Aroha had spoken to me, of her own accord. Sure, it might have been to insult me, but it showed one thing – Aroha didn’t conform to the rules Dorien had put in place. Foolish hope surged in my chest, the kind of hope borne of loneliness and desperation.
I lifted an eyebrow. “Can I bum a smoke?”
Aroha shrugged. I took that as an invitation. I grabbed another pot and upturned it, plonking down on the damp surface beside her. I picked up the cigarette box gingerly, expecting her to snatch it from my hands. She stared at the box as if she was debating it, then shrugged again. I tipped a cigarette from the packet and brought it to my lips. I didn’t really smoke – I tried it a few times at my shitty school in an attempt to fit in. It turns out smoking doesn’t make dorky music geeks cool unless you looked like Dorien Valencourt. Who would have guessed? Sometimes I shared one with the other staff after a late shift at the bar – Creepy Cory couldn’t be around cigarette smoke because of his asthma, so it gave me a break from his lewd comments about my body.
Silence stretched between us.
“You come out here a lot?” I asked.
“If you’d said you wanted to talk, I wouldn’t have given you a ciggie,” Aroha snapped without looking at me.
My turn to shrug. “Fine.”
I took a long drag of the cigarette, letting the smoke fill my lungs. A calmness swept over my body. This almost felt normal.
“I come out here because sometimes I can’t stand it in that house,” Aroha said, tapping her diamond ring against the terracotta. “All that fancy furniture. All those dead eyes staring at you from the walls. It feels like a time capsule or a dead person’s house after they’ve passed on. I like being out here where things are living, reclaiming the edges of the estate. It reminds me of home.”
“Where’s home?” I asked, daring to continue the conversation. Loneliness ached inside me. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed just interacting with another person, just how much I longed for my mother’s boisterous laugh. Aroha reminded me of her in some ways.
“New Zealand. My parents run a church. We used to live right on the edge of a mountain range called the Waitakeres. I spent my childhood climbing trees, shooting rabbits, catching eels in the creek. Then Dad decided to become a preacher and we moved to the city, and then they shipped me off here.” She sounded bitter about it, but that might have been her reluctance to talk to me.
Ah, her accent made perfect sense now. “Do you miss New Zealand? It must’ve been interesting to grow up there.”
She shrugged. “It’s normal, I guess. There aren’t exactly wild hobbits running around everywhere like most Americans assume. My family is Maori – the indigenous people of Aotearoa, New Zealand. We used to live on our marae – that’s like a meeting house for our community. I was practically raised by my aunts and cousins. There was always music and laughter and games. My parents gave up a lot when they moved to the city, and the city didn’t always accept them in return. It’s the Pakeha world.”
“Pakeha?”
“White people.” She elbowed me in the arm. “They sent me to a Catholic boarding school, all prim and proper and white as fuck. There were no traditional instruments, so I learned violin instead.”
“But you love the music.” Aroha adored atonal pieces, which she played with a loose aggression.
“Of course. But more than that, I love being a brown girl in a fucking white musician’s world.” She grinned. “Just you wait, trash. As soon as I get out of here, I’m gonna use this upstanding Classical education to bring my musical heritage into the spotlight. I’ve got plans, so don’t you fuck them up for me by letting on that I tolerate your presence.”
“How would that mess up your plans?”
