Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters; I'm only borrowing them for a while
Spoilers: Valley of Darkness and The Farm
Author's note: I found a download of that brilliant Phillip Glass piece that is played in Valley of Darkness and this just came to me.
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She would sit and listen for hours. For a six year old, it was amazing how quiet and still she could be. She just sat on the floor in the corner of the room not saying a word; just letting the beautiful music flow over her, around her, through her, as she watched, enthralled by the genius of the figure hunched over his piano. Sometimes he wouldn't even be aware that she was there and sometimes he would acknowledge a peripheral awareness of her presence by a caress of his hand on her white-blond hair and a nod to send her towards 'her' corner before he started to play. Her favourite days were when he would beckon her over and let sit her on his lap and teach her how to press the keys. She could feel the talent that her father had bequeathed to her flow through her fingers.
All she wanted to do was play the piano just like him; to be able to create the fabulous sounds that resounded through the house when he was there. It was all she had ever wanted to do for as long as she could remember: she knew that the genius to express music was in her, as it was in him.
When he went away, on tours or to play somewhere, she would secretly let herself into the room and raise the lid of the instrument and practice like he had shown her, determined to be able to show him her mastery when he returned.
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She was too young to realise that her mother was jealous; jealous of the child who managed to hold her husband's attention when she could not, jealous of the daughter who understood the obsession with music which meant nothing to her. To her they were so alike in their ability to loose touch with reality when surrounded by the sounds flowing from the piano. She kept the jealously under wraps when he was there. It was only when he was gone that she let it show.
In actuality it was her that was loosing touch with reality. She believe that she had lost her husband to music and a six year old child; her own daughter. She didn't realise that it was her indifference to all that was important to him that drove him away. She decided that her only way to get her husband's attention back was to take away that link to the music.
−
The metal bar banged down on Kara's fingers. There as a loud 'crack' as the bones broke. The pain was almost unbearable. Her eyes immediately smarted with tears, but she gripped her mouth shut to stop herself from crying out and snapped her eyes shut to stop the tears from falling. It also shut out the vision of her mother's maniacal face as she raised the bar again. There was a second sharp pain as the bar cracked down over her other hand.
"Please, mommy, don't," she whispered.
"Shut up, Kara. This is for your own good. You'll never amount to anything if you carry on this obsession with music. Your father hasn't and you won't either. I'm just making sure that you won't ever have that choice. Now pray to the Gods for guidance against your wickedness."
She locked the bedroom door behind her as she left. The little girl curled up on her bed, her throbbing hands laid gingerly on the covers. She didn't pray for guidance; just prayed that her father would come home again soon.