She exhaled once, properly, the way she had not been able to in the room with Mills and Helena and the three-quarters of an inch.
The family music room sat at the far end of the house, down a corridor that grew measurably quieter with every step taken away from the main rooms.
She pushed open the door and stopped.
There was a boy sitting at the pianoforte.
He could not have been more than six; slight, dark-haired, with wide brown eyes that found her the instant the door moved. He drew his hands into his lap and looked at her without blinking, as though he feared immediate reprimand.
He was not even playing. He had been, it appeared, simply sitting with the instrument.
Annabelle did not move from the doorway. She had learned that the wrong word or the wrong gesture in this kind of moment sent children retreating entirely. She read the set ofhis shoulders, the way he watched her without blinking, and understood exactly what was required.
“Good day,” she said softly.
The boy watched her, unmoving.
“I’ve always liked this room,” she offered, keeping her tone as gentle as she could. “It’s away from everything. Very good for thinking.” She moved to the chair nearest the door and set her folio down without urgency. “The party downstairs has rather a lot of voices in it all at once.”
His shoulders dropped, fractionally. He was still watching her, but he seemed less wary of her reactions now.
“I was going to practice,” she said. “But I’m quite happy to wait, if you’d like to play something first.”
His eyes brightened for a moment, then quickly dulled.
“I don’t know how,” the boy said. He spoke carefully, clearly choosing each word before tentatively offering it.
“No?” She moved to the bench slowly, without any intention of rushing it, and sat at a careful distance. “I could show you a few notes, if you like. Only the easy ones.”
A pause. She waited it out without filling it.
He nodded.
She placed her right hand on the keys. “This is C. This is E. And this—” she pressed the G— “is G. Three notes, and you already have the beginning of something real.” She pressed all three together and let the chord settle fully in the room, clean and unhurried. “Would you like to try?”
He looked at her hand before glancing at the keys. Then, he placed three fingers exactly where hers had been.
The notes came out slightly uneven, the timing rushed.
But Annabelle said, “Good,” nonetheless, because it was true in all the ways that counted.
Encouraged, he pressed them again, more deliberately, and they rang out with considerably more evenness.
“Lovely work! What’s your name?” she finally asked, while his full attention was on the instrument rather than on her.
“James,” he said, and it came out in an easy admission.
“I’m Annabelle.” She guided his fingers to the next position, one note at a time, watching his face rather than his hands; she had always found the face the better document.
James pressed each note with complete attention, heard it, weighed it, and moved to the next only when he was ready.
He made an error on the fourth note and stopped at once, as if, again, expecting swift reprimand.
But Annabelle had no cause or intention to give it.
“Once more,” she said, and he tentatively played it again; correctly this time, and genuine but brief satisfaction crossed his face.
His excitement now thoroughly piqued, he played the sequence through again and again. By the third pass, his body had loosened entirely: his shoulders no longer braced, and his hands no longer held in anticipation of failure.
