Overtones

by Parda, December 2005

"Do you sing?" Connor asked when Alex ran her fingers over the keys of the grand piano in his New York loft. The bright sunshine of a winter morning made a silvered mirror of the black lacquered wood. They had met just three weeks before.

"Christmas carols sometimes, but only if I'm in a group," Alex answered breezily, and knew immediately from his stillness that she had disappointed him. "Play something?" she asked, moving out of the way. After a diffident shrug, Connor obliged with a two-fingered rendition of chopsticks.

Only after she asked him again, saying: "Play for me, Connor," did he close his eyes and begin to play -Chopin, he told her later, just before they fell asleep that night. She stood within the curve of the piano and watched his face and his hands, and when he had finished she kissed him before he even opened his eyes. "Thank you," she said softly, then found that she was crying and didn't even know why.

"Thank you," he told her, and she knew that this time she'd said and done exactly the right thing. "For that piece, tears are better than applause." He kissed them away and then he kissed her, and then they went to bed.

"Did Heather sing?" Alex asked the next morning at breakfast, for she knew very little about Connor's first wife.

He nodded. "Mostly to the lambs."

"Oh." Alex could easily imagine Heather, clad in a long skirt and a shawl, perhaps with a kerchief wrapped around her hair, singing to a lamb on a distant Scottish farm. Alex had a harder time seeing Connor as a sheep farmer.

"Sometimes she sang to the chickens," Connor offered.

Alex, reaching for the jelly, had to smile. "And the cow?"

"And the cow," he agreed.

"What was left for you to sing to?" Alex asked. "The pig?"

He shook his head as he sipped his coffee. "Pigs aren't much for music."

Alex leaned her chin atop her folded hands. "Aren't they?"

"No," Connor replied with utmost sincerity. "But I did sing to the horses."

"Ah," she murmured then kept her gaze on him, waiting for him to say more. Already, she knew he spoke best into silence, if he could be enticed to speak at all.

"If they were skittish about being shod," he explained. "It gentled them."

Alex had no problem imagining Connor working with horses. He certainly knew how to ride. And how to gentle. Last night...

When she finally came back to earth and looked at him again, she found that Connor had set down his cup and was smiling at her. "Bed?" he suggested, and she abandoned her toast and her coffee and went with him up the stairs.

During the next two years, he played for her now and then - when she asked him to - and occasionally she heard his voice lifted in a fine baritone, but he didn't ask her to join him, and neither of them mentioned singing again.

Until, on another morning of bright winter sunshine when Alex was watching Connor once more (though he was driving this time, so his eyes were open and his hands were quiet on the wheel as they wound their way through the hills of Scotland), Alex said, "You sang with Cassandra, didn't you." It was not a question.

His answer was a silent sigh, and then the start of a helpless shrug with a hint of a smile, a man bowing to the inevitable: the curiosity of a wife. He finished it all with a murmured assent: "Mm-hmm."

"I see." Alex looked out the window. Three weeks before Christmas, and the hills were gray and brown.

Connor explained anyway. "No Internet, no TV, no radio."

"No light bulbs," she added.

"Right. And only two books." He shrugged again, an entire shoulder this time. "Not much else to do back then, after the sun went down."

Alex knew better. "Except have sex."

The sound he made was part embarrassed cough, part surprised snort, but the corner of his mouth was twitching up, not down, and Alex wasn't worried. She knew he preferred forthrightness in a woman.

Luckily for her, he liked stubbornness, too.

Connor had turned north on A833, away from Loch Ness, and the car was slowing as it headed up a steep hill. He downshifted before he answered simply, shortly, "Yeah."

There wasn't much more to say. He'd already told Alex about his time with Cassandra. (That was how Alex always thought of it: "his time with Cassandra." A relationship that had spanned nearly four decades and had included mentoring, sword fighting, friendship, tenderness, sex, betrayal, deception, murder, and unrelenting rage couldn't be called "an affair.")

Apparently it had included music as well.

Connor hadn't mentioned that before. Though he had told Alex about Cassandra in June, as soon as he knew she was coming to Scotland. Connor was a forthright kind of guy.

But he was not, as Alex well knew, a completely forthcoming kind of guy. Two months later, he'd told Alex more about Cassandra ... and even more about himself. Alex hadn't liked a lot of what she'd learned.

But that's what you get, Alex had told herself as she lay in bed at the end of that sleepless summer night and watched the slow advent of a gray dawn through the windows. That's what you get when you marry a man who's lived for nearly five hundred year ... surprises.

Still, after she'd had some time to think, she was glad that he'd told her everything. She understood him much better, and she understood Cassandra better, too.

And anyway, Alex reminded herself as the car passed a sign that announced they were on the road to Beauly and Ardnagrast, Connor's time with Cassandra had been long ago - four hundred years ago. Connor hadn't loved Cassandra back then, not really, and he certainly didn't love her now. He and Alex had been married for a year and a half, and, thanks to the wonders of modern medicine, they were both delighted to be expecting twins (him maybe even more than her, since Connor-like all Immortals-was sterile and had never before had a family of his own), and he loved her and she loved him, and Alex knew he would never stray.

One of the babies started kicking, and Alex shifted in her seat, trying to get comfortable.

"Another 'battle of the bulge'?" Connor asked, with gentle teasing in his voice and a smile in his eyes.

Somehow, that used to seem funnier. Alex nodded then looked out the window again. The sky and the land were still gray.

The car climbed another hill and then down again. "I know this isn't easy, Alex," he said next.

It wasn't an apology, but then why should it be? He hadn't done anything wrong. She turned back to him and reached for his hand with both of hers. "It's all right, Connor." His finger traced her wedding ring, and then she traced his. "I'm all right," she said, and she meant it. She shrugged a little, and smiled a little, too. "You and I both had lovers before we met."

Connor gave the quick sniff that Cassandra had once labeled "the snort of derisive dismissal," before saying, "We're not on our way to buy one of your former lovers a Christmas present."

Alex shrugged that off with a tiny sniff of her own. "None of my former lovers is spending Christmas at our house."

"I didn't invite her," he said quickly, and it came out both defensive and offensive at the same time.

"That's right," she agreed. "I did." Alex hadn't been planning on doing that, but when Cassandra had called yesterday to wish her a happy birthday (Alex was thirty-four now, which somehow seemed much older than thirty-three, because while three could still be considered "early thirties", four was definitely closer to "mid"), it had seemed like the right thing to do. And when Connor had immediately suggested they take a trip to buy Cassandra a Christmas present, Alex had assumed he thought so, too.

But now, Connor was saying nothing, only staring straight ahead at the road.

"I like Cassandra," Alex said next. Cass was witty, engaging, hugely informative, and fun. Plus, she was an Immortal, the only female Immortal Alex had ever met, and Alex needed to learn more about what it meant to live forever. Connor didn't like to talk about it.

"A fan club of one," he murmured.

"You don't like her." That wasn't a question, either. Not that Alex blamed him. Around Connor, Cassandra wasn't fun. She tended to be prickly. Or needy. Or raging. She'd even gotten all the way to terrifying a few times, and she was almost always irritating. Alex didn't like Cassandra either when she was around Connor.

To be fair, nor did Alex like Connor very much at those times. Around Cassandra, he could be obnoxious, domineering, even cruel. Alex hated seeing that side of him.

But Connor and Cass were both better than they used to be, and Alex hoped they might someday be friends again. A relationship that doesn't end peacefully, she remembered reading long ago, never really ends at all.

Another mile slid by before he responded, "I owe her."

"I know," she said softly. "You told me."

This time, he looked at her before he squeezed her hand and smiled, then said simply, "Yeah."

Alex woke from a light doze to find Connor exiting a roundabout. "We're just south of Dingwall," he told her as she pulled out the map. Not that he needed it, but she always liked to navigate. It helped her learn the lay of the land. To the right, the morning sun glinted off a narrow band of water, the beginning of Cromarty Firth. The road took them inland again, and after a few miles, he turned onto a narrow drive marked "Castle Leod."

Alex's eyebrows went up. "Any relation, O 'Son of Leod'?"

Connor shook his head. "This is Mackenzie territory now, and the castle is the seat of the Earls of Cromartie. Through a Mackenzie did marry a MacLeod about four hundred years ago, and then use her dowry to help pay for rebuilding it. But it was called Castle Leod even before that. My father told me he fought in a battle near it, back when the MacLeods and the Mackenzies both laid claim to this land."

Between the trees, Alex could see a tall, narrow structure of reddish sandstone atop a small hill. It looked to be in decent shape, and a car was parked nearby. "Is it lived in?"

"Yes. And by the earl himself, no less." He shook his head and emitted the snort of disdain, not at the earl, Alex knew, but at the sorry state of many castles throughout Scotland, and at the motley bunch of pop stars and rich foreigners who lived in most of the ancient ancestral homes that were still habitable.

"I wish I could see it," she said.

"It's open to the public in the summers," he told her. "We can come back."

"I'd like that." Alex hadn't done much archeology lately - she'd been busy getting used to being married and having a twelve-year-old stepson and moving from New York to Scotland and setting up a house and getting pregnant - but she had been learning the local history and she'd started writing a book. This castle looked interesting.

Connor turned left at a sign that read "Orchard House" then parked the car in front of a much more modest building. Alex undid her seat belt and waited for him to get out and open her door. She had felt odd about that at first - betraying the feminist cause by acting like a helpless idiot who couldn't even open a car door - but Connor liked to do it, and she had to admit it made her feel cherished. And now, at nearly eight months, she actually did need the help getting out of the car.

Connor offered her his arm as they walked, and she took it gladly. That gesture was also more than gallantry now; the ground was slippery with a thin covering of snow, and she couldn't see her feet. Or tie her shoes. Or ride a horse. Or have sex; the doctor had forbidden that last month.

Alex sighed then patted her side where one of the twin's head was and then patted the other one's backside - she thought it was a backside; it might have been a knee - and smiled fondly. Only six weeks left to go! Less probably, twins seldom went full term.

The winter air was sharp and bracing after the warmth of the car, and Alex paused to breathe deeply before they entered the warmth of Orchard House.

Harps of different sizes and different shapes stood all about the floor, like one of the haphazard collections of standing stones that were common in the Highlands. In the far corner, a bearded man stood before a work bench. A harp lay on its back in front of him.

"Mr. Taylor?" Connor called, and the bearded man looked up. "I'm Connor MacLeod. I called yesterday."

"Yes, of course," the shopkeeper said, setting down a small silver tool and coming over. The men shook hands, and then Mr. Taylor nodded to her. "Mrs. MacLeod."

Alex nodded back. "Mr. Taylor."

Like most people these days, his gaze had settled on her enormous waistline. "Would you like a chair? Something to drink?"

"No thank you," Alex replied. "I'll just walk about." And she did, blinking a little at the price of the harps, as he and Connor wandered through the store discussing tone, timbre, the quality of the wood, and the number of strings.

It didn't take Connor long; he plucked a few harp strings here and there before he stopped at a small, dark harp with an inlaid knot design on the front. Alex would have picked one of the taller, more graceful harps, or maybe the triangular one that looked like it was from an ancient Egyptian drawing, but Connor plucked a few low strings and a few high strings, and then he stooped to peer inside the boxy part. Alex came over to see.

"We call this model the Rose," Mr. Taylor was saying, "because in Kilravek, the castle of the Rose clan, there's a carving of a mermaid with a clarsach."

"A clarsach?" Alex asked.

"A harp with wire strings, instead of the nylon that's common now," he explained. "Traditional Celtic." He turned back to Connor, who was running both hands along the wood. "The lowest string is a drone, tunable either to A or G."

Connor nodded as he peered from eye-level at the pins along the top. Then he sat down on a small stool, pulled the harp closer to him, and began to play.

Alex hadn't realized he knew how.

He did scales at first, one string after another, and then played two or three notes together in different locations. He ran his hand up all the strings and down all the strings, making the harp sound as Alex always imagined harps sounding, and then he bent his head and closed his eyes, and his hands began to move.

The tune was plaintive and haunting, from its opening clarion call through the melody that spiraled in, losing itself and wandering, until it emerged somewhere on the other side, to the final steady low beat that echoed in the heart.

"Lovely," Mr. Taylor said after Connor had finished and the last notes had died away. "I'm not familiar with that one. Is it new?"

Connor almost smiled. "No. Rather old." He set the harp down and stood. "I'll take this one."

"Excellent! The harp stand and the tuning key are, of course, included, and we also sell carrying cases and a full set of extra strings."

"Good. I'd like a case and two sets of strings."

"Yes indeed. I'll get them ready."

"No hurry," Connor said. "We're going to eat lunch in town, so we'll pick it up later. When do you close?"

"At three," Mr. Taylor said.

"We'll be back before then," Connor said, and that was that.

After lunch, they strolled arm-in-arm through the town of Strathpeffer. "Have you been here before?" Alex asked.

"The valley, yes - Duncan and I first met in Marybank, not far from here - but there wasn't a town before the railway came. This is all new."

New meaning Victorian. But also meaning he hadn't been here with anyone else ever before. Alex hugged his arm a little tighter and looked up at the fine stone buildings across the street. "It reminds me of towns in Pennsylvania," she said. "I suppose they were built about the same time. And the topography is the same: a valley between low hills." Though Strathpeffer was more prosperous than any town Alex had seen in Pennsylvania lately.

"Cold?" Connor asked, for a few flakes of snow were coming down, and the wind moved quickly through the narrow street.

"No," Alex said. "One of the benefits of being pregnant." Even so, she snuggled closer. After they passed a flower store and a chocolate shop, Alex began asking the questions she'd been wondering about all through lunch. "While I was planning our wedding," she began, "Duncan told me you didn't like harp music."

They took four steps before Connor answered. "He was right."

"Because it reminded you of her?" If she hadn't been looking for it, she would have missed the slight hesitation in his stride, the slight tenseness in his arm. She'd nailed that one.

It was six steps this time. "Yeah."

"Did you play the harps together? As well as sing?"

"No." That answer came right away, but they reached the corner before he said, "Cassandra's never heard me play."

At least there was one thing Cassandra hadn't taught him. And one thing Cassandra had never seen him do. "Connor," Alex began, but he was looking at a display window of a music shop.

"Do you think John would like that?" he asked, pointing to a CD.

"Probably, but he has enough presents." She moved to stand in front of the window, right in front of him. "Connor-"

He leaned forward and kissed her, lips warm in the chill air. "I'm fine, Alex. I'm over it, and I'm over her. OK?"

"OK," she said, not because she believed it, but because she knew Connor believed it, and so he would say no more.

Not today.

"Let's cross," he said then escorted her across the street. This time it was Alex who paused in front of a display window. "Want to go in?" he asked, and when she nodded he held the door.

It was a tiny shop, barely ten feet across, just wide enough for the narrow glass cases on either side. The saleslady sat on a high stool behind a desk near the front door. Connor paused to look at a collection of antique pocket watches, and Alex moved on to the jewelry: rings, earrings, bracelets, charms...

The white stone lay on black velvet, alone. The subtle intricate carvings spiraled in and out of each other, curving back and forth to form three crescent moons. "I'll take this one," Alex said immediately, and both the saleslady and Connor came over to see.

"A lovely piece," the saleslady said, bringing it out of the case. "Traditional Celtic." She held it dangling by a fine silver chain.

"For Cassandra?" Connor asked.

"Yes." Alex took it from the saleslady. The back of the stone was polished smooth, and it felt warm in her hand.

He nodded, but made no move to touch it. "She'll like that."

"I know."

On their way back home, with the harp carefully stowed in the back seat and the sun beginning to set behind the hills, Alex asked, "What was that song you played?"

"A ballad. It's called 'Brothers'."

"It sounded sad."

"It is." The lowering sun backlit his fair hair to gold, and made silver the eyes that were usually gray. "But it ends well."

"I'd like to hear the words," she said.

"All right," he agreed, but then he fell silent and the miles ticked by.

Perhaps he'd thought she meant someday. Or perhaps he was tired of singing alone. Alex could sing; she even liked to sing. She just wasn't very good at it. But so what? John wasn't superb at playing the piano, and he still had fun doing it. She wasn't "really good" at gardening, but she enjoyed that. Why not sing? Especially at this time of year.

Alex put a CD in and fast-forwarded it until she found the song she'd been looking for. "Shall we sing?" she asked, and Connor gave her one quick surprised glance before he laughed and joined in, his voice and her voice spiraling in and around each other, with a steady beat that echoed in their hearts.

"Thumpety-thump-thump, thumpety-thump-thump..."

More stories from this author about Alex and Connor:

- Wild Mountain Thyme (they meet in the winter of 1994)

- All the Good Women (their courtship)

- All the Fun (their wedding)

- The Oak and the Ash (their marriage)

They also appear in Hope Remembered (parts 1, 4, and 5), Dearer Yet the Brotherhood, Goddess Child, The Only Game in Town, and Hope Triumphant (parts 1 and 2).