Echo
Rain splattered against the glass walls of the top-level room, streaking them and causing the cold, bleak sky over the stoic skyline of the city to look even more gray and depressing.
The only figure in the room was seated in front of a sleek, shiny grand piano, both out of place in the modern gray-and white-and-black interior of the elegant room, tinted blue with excessive daylight. Her long fingers swpt across the smooth keys with practiced, confident ease, the booming, extravagent music harmonious and loud.
Her thoughts were not on her current location, nor were her dark eyes open to see what she was doing. Her fingers each knew exactly what note came next. She hadn't had to look as she played in many years. Her thoughts were on the past; the cloudless azure sky of a bright summer day over a neighborhood of colorful flowers, quaint old houses, and lush green lawns. She could remember the details as easily as if they'd been yesterday. The sounds, sights, smells. That warm sun, the feel of the water of the sprinkler, the smell of the barbecue. The laughter and voices of friends, family, and neighbors.
It all seemed so long ago.
As the piece ended and the echo faded, Jessica Ramsey paused. So often over the hardest years of her life had she danced to the sounds of piano, practicing to tapes in the basement and performing to live music, always played on the piano, on stage. The movement, rhythm, music, familiarity, it had always calmed her down, helped her see sensible solutions, cleansed frustrations from her life whether they be over friends or family or homework. But her ballet days were long gone; her injury resulting from Mallory Pike's only drunk-driving mistake had cost her the one hobby and the one best friend that kept her happy. But things had changed all around; Claudia had been tortured and had moved to Chicago; Jessi couldn't dance; Mallory was a different person, refusing to believe her own bad judgement had changed her longtime friend's life so dramatically.
That was the problem with life, Jessi knew. People didn't like taking responsibility for the bad things that happened, but if something good or amazing happened, everyone wanted credit for it.
Mallory's spontaneous idea to drink, though she was only barely sixteen, had been discouraged. Jessi had done her best. But Jessi was with her at that cabin where they'd been out of range of communication with others, and Mal was the only one with a drivers' license. As the sky darkened, an ominous mist creeping closer, Jessi had no choice but to either stay alone in the cabin or risk being a passenger in a car whose young, barely-licensed driver had taken a few drinks beforehand. That risk had cost her the one career she'd always dreamed of.
Mallory, of course, suffered too. She lost her license had had a broken leg, plus a long scar that ran from her temple to her cheekbone. And she'd always remember that it was her fault Jessi was stuck behind a desk eight hours a day, writing out detailed reports, and playing the piano in the local ballet studio when she had taken enough classes in ballet to teach the six-year-olds who danced to her melodies.
Jessi started playing again, the pause for effect a nice break. This piece was something harmonious, too, but haunting and deep.
Why had Mallory decided to drink, effectively tainting herself, a person who had never before sipped anything alcholic?
That answer was easy. Mallory had been blackmailed by Claudia's tormentor. Mal's sister had been kidnapped and threatened with death of Mallory didn't cooperate. So of course she did. While the blackmail had been plenty to deal with, Mal also feared forever for her little sister's sake, as well as her own, fearing Dahlia would someday come back for them both. And Mal also had to deal with knowing she'd helped, in a way, to make Claudia suffer as she had. Not just Claudia, but everyone else Dahlia had captured, too.
Jessi and Mallory grew apart slowly. Mallory had kept everything a secret, and only when Jessi had awoken in the hospital after the accident, her leg amputated, Mallory had sat in the chair beside her as she had for half a day already, sobbing, apologizing. Their friendship had been held together only by the fact that they had to share a hospital room and therefore had to see each other, hear each other, every day. After that, Jessi was in too much pain and in need of too much help for Mallory to abandon her, and Mallory, forever guilty, spent all her time trying to make up for what had been lost. 'Trying' was the key word. Nothing would ever make up for it.
Jessi was sitting in silence, realizing as the echo faded once again, a hollow, lonely sound in the otherwise-silent space, that unless she started making music in a less-metaphorical and more realistic sense, she would fade just as easily as the echoes did. It had already started. The situation involving Dahlia's potential release had caused Mallory enough alarm to increase the nights of insomnia and days of looking over her shoulder every time she was out of the house. Dahlia's death caused so much relief that Mallory suddenly found her voice and needed someone to talk to, who could relate. Claudia, needing a roommate, had reluctantly at first accepted Mal's proposal and the two now shared a space. Jessi had taken over ths space Mallory had vacated in their shared suite below a family of five who were almost never home and although Jessi appreciated the freedom and independence she now had, having not realized how tense she still was around Mallory after all that had happened, Jessi felt lonely.
She had attended Ashley's funeral days earlier, as one of the invited few. Hundreds of others came to show support and relief that the horrors of the past and fears of the future were being laid to rest in the form of, as someone poetically put it though Jessi was crying too hard to see who, 'an angel with a tortured soul.' Dahlia was being buried somewhere else, some other way. Jessi personally hoped she was being shot out of a cannon and into deep, shark-infested waters, where nobody would dare ever travel to remember her.
It was hard to believe, but trusting, maybe nostaligia-trapped Bobbi had grieved. She was glad she didn't have to worry about raising her children in a world where their aunt was a killer and terrorist, knowing how people would ask them questions as they got older, but her sister had died, too. Perhaps Dahlia had died long before her body had, or maybe she'd been trapped somehow in a body that couldn't stop killing.
It was over, though. Claudia would cope and move on. Mallory was going to move on.
It was time Jessi did the same. As the echoes of her third piece faded, she got up and left the room, intending not to fade nor to blend in, but to move on with her life, make the best of it, and perhaps continue to create echoes for those who saw them not as fading sounds that once brought joy but would be forgotten as all things were, but who saw them as lessons learned, happier memories to be remembered, happier times to come, and just maybe, someday, a story with a happy ending to be told.
Author's Note: This is related (kind of) to both 'Accusations' and moreso to 'Release of Terror,' both written by me. Somehow the thing felt unfinished until I'd written for Jessi.
- 'Angel with a tortured soul' are the words of an anonymous reviewer for R.O.T., and as I couldn't reply to that person directly and typically I think responding to reviews in a story's notes is silly, I felt I had to acknow;edge their reviews somehow. The words were perfect, but if it bothers you that I used them, feel free to let me know and I'll work to find a similar revision for them. Thank you so much, all who reviewed! -