Thank you for all the favorites and follows! :) It's really encouraging to see such an enthusiastic response. I wasn't really expecting it.
It started out like any other weeknight. She sat at her armchair after supper, with her violin resting in between the side of her jaw and her shoulder, the garlic still lingering on her tongue as the notes twisted across the room softly. The melody was the sort that grew in intensity.
Her family loved to listen to her play. As a child, it was a mandatory rule that each of her siblings pick up some sort of hobby. Eventually Cecelia's hobby grew into a passion, but before that came many years of lessons and countless arguments with her mother in particular. Even though it was a rule that her father made up, her mother enforced it with all the compassion of a warden.
But as time went on and her skills sharpened, her father would play piano alongside her, and together they could play for hours. There were few things she enjoyed doing more than playing music with her father.
At the moment, she was doing something that her dad sort of hated. You see, Cecelia had always had a natural affinity for the stringed instrument. A prodigy, some might call her. Even from the earliest memory she had of playing the violin she could recall drawing the bow across the strings to mimic music they'd been listening to earlier that day. Playing by ear, her violin teacher had called it. Modern music, like Simon and Garfunkel's Sound of Silence, her mother's favorite, or even Whitney Houston.
But her father was a staunch traditionalist. It seemed that as far as he was concerned, covering modern music on a traditional instrument was an affront to the musical institution as a whole, and therefore, Vivaldi and Mozart became the two leading men in Cecelia's life. But when her father wasn't around?... Well, that was a different matter entirely.
She was currently playing a cover of River Flows In You by Yiruma. A soft thud came from behind her and the note she drew out choked to a shrill halt without warning. Cecelia's eyes flew open, though she could not see anything, and her father's best friend's voice reached her ears.
"Cecelia," He said, his tone quiet and humbled. He sounded to be lingering in the doorway of her room. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to stop you… I just heard—"
"Tell you what," She interrupted, a smart smile on her lips. The violin was still resting across her arm, but she'd dropped it from her shoulder and pointed at Paul with the bow in her hand. "If you promise not to tell dad, I'll play the rest for you."
There was a long pause. Then, just as Cecelia started to think he'd walked away, he quietly promised not to tell her dad. His voice was unusually somber, and although it pricked her interest, she understood that sometimes music moves people to a haunting sort of deep emotion that's intensely personal.
So without remarking further, Cecelia turned back around in her armchair and lifted her violin to her shoulder. She rested her jaw down against the smooth surface and breathed out a calming breath, and closed her eyes as she drew the bow across the strings again—from the beginning, as she'd promised.
When it finished, Cecelia finally settled the violin back onto its stand and turned to smile at Paul. "Cecelia, that was…" He had never been as good at masking his emotions as her dad was. Paul was a lawyer, an extremely skilled lawyer—actually, he was their lawyer. But first and foremost, he was Paul. Her dad's best friend. The man who took her family out on his boat every Memorial Day weekend. The man who shared hilarious stories about a younger version of her father, a version that hardly existed anymore. "That was incredible. Did you compose that?"
She snorted loudly. "Um, no. That would be Yiruma."
"Yiruma…" Paul repeated as he came further into her room and stopped about three steps in. "I'll have to look him up on iTunes."
She snorted again. "You do that, Paul. But you didn't hear about him from me."
"Why wouldn't you want me to tell Ken about that?" Ken was her father's name. "If I had a daughter who could play like that, I'd be—"
"Paul, you know how dad is. He's a purist," She said with a wry grin. "No two ways about it."
"Well, he's—" he broke off, like something had happened that she didn't see.
She frowned, looking around unseeingly and trying to listen for something out of the usual. But all she could hear was the ticking clock on her nightstand and the slightly unsteady breath of Paul. "…Paul?"
"I'm sorry," He said, clearing his throat as he struggled to compose himself. "Cecelia, I came here to tell you that—" he broke off and cleared his throat again. "That something happened earlier tonight."
Dread grew in her chest, causing her stomach to prickle and her skin to chill with that odd sort of panicked heat. But it seemed like an overreaction, so she did her best to suppress it. "If this is about sneaking up on me, don't worry about it. It happens a lot." She chuckled a little too tightly, trying to make light of the situation that was so obviously more serious than she was willing to acknowledge. "I am blind, you know."
"Yes…" He said, almost absently. "It's not that."
She frowned. "Paul, you're starting to scare me a little here. What is it? Did dad do something? Do we have to move again?"
He took a breath. "I'm sorry," He said, his voice embodying every single part of that phrase. "I'm so sorry."
"Where to this time?" She asked, assuming that his indirect response was an unspoken confirmation. "Alaska? Europe? Perth, maybe? Something fun, I hope."
"No, Cecelia… your father is gone."
Cecelia's eyebrows drew together tightly. "…He left already?"
"No," Paul said, though it clearly pained him to do so. "He's dead, Cecelia. He was shot."
There was a long pause. Her heart felt like it had imploded. It was all she could do not to panic or throw the bow of her violin at him and scream for him to stop, to stop trying to hurt her with his lies. "That's not funny," She told him, angry.
"I'm sorry," He said again, his voice thick with unshed tears. "But this isn't a joke."
"Shut up," She hoarsely said, standing from her chair. "Shut up! He's can't be dead! Don't be cruel!"
But she was being venomous because she could tell he wasn't trying to trick her. She could tell by the way he was stepping forward and meeting her anger with details, like adding fuel to a fire. "It was on a case. It was supposed to be easy, but something went wrong. They killed him. They pulled the wool over his eyes and—"
"Paul." Her mother's voice was strong and disbelieving, the definition of rage. "That's enough! This is wildly inappropriate—"
"Mom," Cecelia practically pled, stepping towards the hall and bumping into Paul's arm along the way. He backed away from her as she addressed her mother. "Is it true?"
There was a pause. "After I show Paul out, we can speak—"
She turned away from her mother. It was true, then. As Paul and her mother began to fight with each other over whether or not it was appropriate to give the details to Cecelia, she went to her window and placed her hand on the sill. She withdrew into herself, just like she's always done when adults fought near her. And they fought a lot in her family. Cecelia always withdrew into herself and pretended to be a thousand miles away.
Paul felt that Cecelia needed to know. He claimed it was what Ken wanted. "You know that, Betty," He said. "He told you himself! It's time—"
"It's time for her to grieve," Her mother snapped. "Not be bogged down by the gory details of her father's murder!"
"You mean the truth?" Paul countered equally as venomously. "There was a time for sheltering her, but that time has passed. It's only putting her in danger, especially with her condition! Can't you see? Now is the time, Betty! They've come for Ken. They'll come for one of you next! Things will escalate unless—"
"Enough!" Her mother used that resounding shout that she usually saved for arguments with her father.
Cecelia wanted to break something. Her emotions were almost too much to take, a whirlwind inside her, as her mind flew a million miles an hour on a single thought alone. He's gone? He… was shot? Her dad? Kennedy Rose? Shot?
Paul left then. He said something to her, perhaps muttered another broken apology, perhaps bit something nasty at her mother again. She couldn't be sure. She was too lost in her own thoughts. Her mother left, too.
With her jaw clenched, she turned back to her violin and picked it up. A long, sweet note curled through her room as hot tears spilled down her cheeks through her tightly shut eyes. She made it through the first few notes before her finger would skip a string, or her bow would drag across them in the incorrect direction and produce a cringe-worthy screech.
Three times, she started over. Three times, she couldn't play properly. So she switched from Yiruma to Vivaldi—The Four Seasons; her father's favorite. But she screwed that up, too.
In a fit of rage she cracked her bow over her knee and dissolved into a sobbing mess. And after that day, she couldn't bring herself to pick her violin up again.
"My mom didn't want this life for me," She told the Sheriff. She wasn't even sure if he'd been listening this whole time. He's just sat across from her, silent as she spoke. "She wanted me to go to prom. To get a job in some restaurant and slave for measly tips, to live life as normally as I could with my condition."
"You mean… your blindness?" Sheriff asked, as gently as possible.
A ghost of a smile played over her lips. "But my dad always knew I would be the one to carry the torch after he ducked out. Everyone else thought I would go on to play the violin for some orchestra in some swanky city—but my dad… he knew."
"I'm sorry, but… what does this have to do with… anything?" Sheriff tried to be as tactful and respectful as he could, but it was a bit like trying to glue a cracked egg back together.
"I'm trying to help you understand the nature of how we work. The Argents have their way, their motives, and we have ours. My family's business wasn't something I willingly stepped into. At least, not at first. It wasn't until my father was killed that I ever felt the need to step in."
"Right," Sheriff said, though it was clear he still didn't exactly follow.
"I could have let Tommy handle it. I could have let Charlie take control. I could have lived my life as averagely as possible, but… at the same time, I couldn't. After dad died, it wasn't my choice anymore."
"Okay, Michael Corleone," He smartly quipped, drawing a surprised laugh from the girl. "I get it. You're the favorite child. Go on, then."
"That's not what I said," She laughed. "Tommy's the favorite. He's the baby. Charlie is the most responsible, he's the oldest. And I'm… I was the one with the most potential. Which is ironic, I know, given my… condition. But it's true. I was the one who had no desire to become a Hunter. I wanted different things from life, something all my own. Charlie was treated like—like a prince in training to take a throne, or something. The one who would eventually take control. Tommy was the suck up. He was the one who wanted it too bad."
"And you're—what? The smartest?"
She laughed again. "I'm the girl!"
Sheriff laughed too, amused by her somewhat cheeky explanation.
"Charlie was too impulsive. He let his temper get the better of him. Tommy takes the easy routes; he's a big fan of shortcuts. I think, more than anything, Tommy wants to be loved by everyone."
"Where are your brothers now?"
"Tommy is still in junior high. He still tries pretty hard to help, but for the most part I try to occupy him with small potatoes."
"And Charlie?"
"As I said, Charlie's sort of like the prince. But I volunteered to step up. I took initiative, and I did something no one thought I would."
"I thought you were in charge?"
She shrugged a shoulder. "My mom has the final say."
It was clear that the Sheriff didn't follow the dynamics of her family at all. "Okay… So what does this have to do with Beacon Hills?"
She drew in a breath. "Moving here was Charlie's idea…"
"It's all the way across the country," Cecelia reminded her mother, in case that seemed to somehow escape her notice.
"This won't be the first time we've crossed the nation on business," Her mother dismissed, and Tommy enthusiastically chirped up from his seat near the end of the table.
"Cece, just think about it! California. Come on," He took a large bite of his roll. "SoCal. The Golden coast? Palm trees? Surfer babes?"
"Tommy, shut up," She said with a roll of her eyes.
"Hey," Her mother scolded. "Don't talk to your brother that way."
"Yeah! That's the last time I try to cheer your crabby ass up!"
"Tommy!"
"Beacon Hills is landlocked, Tom," Charlie informed him. "The nearest beach is an hour and a half away. And it's in Northern California, not Southern."
"I've got a car," Tommy easily dismissed.
"You're thirteen." Charlie firmly swatted any fantasy that was floating around Tommy's mind to the ground with that reminder. "You've got another three years before you'll be driving anywhere in America. And another eight years before you'll be drinking, so don't get any wise ideas."
"Who are you?" Tommy bit. "My—"
"Tommy!" Cecelia and their mother chided. "That's enough," Their mother continued. "Charlie is right. You'll still have to have piano lessons, too, so don't think you're getting off the hook there either. Everything is going to be the same in California."
"Mom and I still have business to do," Charlie added. "And you two still have school to finish."
"Yes, masta," Tommy grumbled, and Charlie smacked the back of his head at the same time their mother scolded him for the hundredth time that night.
"I'm not telling you again," Their mother said. "Keep it up and I'll give your car to your sister."
"What!" Tommy squawked. "She can't drive!"
"Neither can you," Cecelia slyly commented, though it was ignored as Tommy went on.
"What's she gonna do with a car?"
"I'll use it for scraps," She cruelly told him. "Hawk them on eBay and use the profit to buy a new little brother from the black market."
A piece of food hit her face and their mom immediately scolded Tommy, who was practically on the floor laughing. Cecelia wiped the glob of mashed potatoes from her cheek with grudging amusement, letting it smack the floor beside her with a wet plop. Instantly, Malachi was up and licking away any traces of the starchy food.
"On second thought, maybe I'll just buy a one way ticket to London and me and Malachi will ditch all of your sorry asses."
"Cecelia, that's not funny," Their mother said in a suddenly serious tone, and suddenly even Tommy wasn't laughing anymore. "We're a family. We need each other now more than ever."
"Besides," Tommy interjected, desperately trying to lift humor back into the conversation. "If you visit London you're taking me with you."
"Three years, TomTom," She said, using her childhood nickname for him. "You and me. Pub crawl."
"Over my dead body," Charlie interjected with thinly veiled amusement. At first they ignored him, but then he surprised them by adding, "You two will be having your first beers with me, you got that?"
Tommy was quicker to recover. Brightly, he cheered, "Hell yeah!"
Cecelia smiled secretly to herself and pushed her plate away. They didn't know it, but Cecelia had already had her first taste of beer. And she preferred a nice red wine.
"You all will see," Their mother suddenly interjected, her voice unusually optimistic. "Beacon Hills will be the place you make the memories to last a life time. I really think it's going to be good for all of us. I can feel it."
"The same way you felt North Dakota was a great place to live?" Tommy smartly asked, and Charlie erupted into laughter.
They all began to regale each other with memories of different disasters that happened in that place, and while their mother pushed the blame onto their father (claiming that he chose it because of the army of vampires that had been gathering) for a moment, all was well.
There was no way of knowing that their mother was right. Beacon Hills would be a place to make the memories, and friends, of a lifetime. But it was also where Charlie would die, and where Tommy would lose some of that spark in his eyes, and Cecelia would forget to dream about traveling to places like London.
We're getting closer to the start of season four! Next chapter, we should have some interaction with familiar faces. What do you guys think? Like it so far?
If I get a review I'll probably make the next chapter longer.
