Music Agsint Silence

by Kari of the Ice

A girl raised by her aunt who never fit in at her school or Christian neighborhood had only one way to live: Music. But when he aunt takes away her music, and the girl runs away, who will she meet?

Music against Silence.

Reason for writing the story: Hi. For some, astranged reason, I have an obsession with jazz and blues and saxophones. I then noticed, that this fandom is filled with punks and no jazzers. Okay, enough with my rambling

Summary: A girl raised by her aunt who never fit in at her school or Christian neighborhood had only one way to live: Music. But when he aunt takes away her music, and the girl runs away, who will she meet?

Disclaimer: Yu Yu Hakusho is not mine. Sorry for any misspelling, grammatical mistakes, or anything else that is... odd.

Final Note: Oh, I know I've posted other stories up here, but this is my first real fanfiction story. I wrote it when I was 12, but have done major editing. Be kind, please.


Dark eyes the color of the night stared out into the world. They scanned the outside, looking over the lawn and the asphalt road. They saw the bland white houses next, each lined up next to eachother perfectly.

The owner, a girl, sighed. She hated it here.

The house directly across from hers had a cross in the window, lit by white Christmas lights. The girl could see the owner of the room working away at her desk.

Shifting again, the girl let her book fall from her knees onto the floor. It was hopeless now, to read such books. Why should she?

Her aunt would never let her go.

Sighing, the girl picked up the book and again began to read the pages. They spoke to her, trying to let her into their arms. To except her into some unknown paradise.

The girl smiled. It was all she could do.

Her room was filled with things of music. Her walls were covered with saxophone players and posters for jazz clubs. Her tables had random instruments strewn across them. Old guitars with frayed strings and broken necks, clarinets with snapped and missing keys.

This was home. It was dimly lit, and smelled of incense and polish. This was home, home in a white wasteland.

Knockings came from a door so heavily covered with music posters that the original finish could not be seen.

The girl looked up, she tried to hide the book, but her most feared enemy came in.

Cecilia, what are you doing? Asked the woman in a fluttery tone. From her neck hung a gold cross.

Cecilia didn't answer. She only looked at the woman with hard eyes.

Why, you should be asleep. Have you done your nightly prayer? Asked the woman, her tone falsely sweet and on the brink of anger.

Said the girl flatly, I don't believe in you religion.

The womans face fell a little.

said the woman, she dropped to her knees and clasped the girls hand, Come back to the divine light. Jesus loves you, and you should love him.

Cecilia didn't move.

And you shouldn't devote all of your time to this horrid music. Your saxophones and things. Singing the blues again? I should get you some nice gospel and take you to a concert. Now, brush your teeth and get into bed.

Cecilia didn't move.

The woman pursed her lips.

Ruth, I don't want to move. Why don't you just send me to the school? They gave me a scholarship and I can pay for the rest.

Your going to a nice Christian school. That's it. You'll be a nice little faithful wife after that. Enough with this music, devote your time to other things. The woman said. She grabbed the book from Cecilias hands.

I told you to throw this rubbish out! Said the woman. She read the book, her eyes looking at the pictures of the handsome black men playing the bronze instruments. She frowned at them, ignoring the beautiful music that should of flowed from the bells. She scoffed even more at the scantily clad girls singing into the crowd of forlorn love and lost families.

Get this out of your head, Cecilia. You'll never be this way. Look at them, what do you think her life turned out like? Asked the woman. She pointed angrily and a life sized poster of a woman with dark skin playing a tenor saxophone.

She got a husband, had three kids, became a very successful Seattle jazz star, and died a happy woman. Said Cecilia, her voice filling with anger.

Get this all out of your head! We're going to church tomorrow and that's that! Yelled the woman. She stood, took the book in both hands and ripped it in half.

Cecilia looked at the shreds falling to the floor. Tears brimmed in her eyes. If she could write the pain she felt now into music, it would be the saddest blues song ever.

Now, get into bed. Said the woman. She grabbed Cecilias ear and forced the girl into bed. On her way out, the woman grabbed the broken guitar and clarinet and threw them out the door. They landed in a head of chrome and ebony out on the white carpet.

Before she left, she ripped the poster of the female sax player and left it in a heap on the floor.

May God save your soul. Said the woman.

Cecilia looked at the poster on the floor, to her poster of Ray Charles on the ceiling, to the picture of Duke Elington displayed in a frame on the wall.

She cried for the rest of the night.



That monday could be compared to the ninth level of hell.

Cecilia looked from side to side under her dark hair. Girls in crisp white blouses whispered every where. In the corners, in the middle of the room, right into front of her.

They all whispered about her.

They were all perfect little girls. They all had strait white blond hair, perfect figures, blue eyes, and long legs. They all had gold crosses around their necks.

They all hated Cecilia.

They called her a tart and a whore, a slut. They shamed her for playing the music of the devil. The music that had made Cecilia whole.

Cecilias mother had been a jazz star. She rose in the world of saxophones like a star in the night. She played at famous clubs and at small restaurants. One night, Cecilias mother met her father, a handsome fellow with a baritone voice. They fell in love, and five days later, Cecilias mother was pregnant.

A year later, when Cecilias mother lay in labor, her father was playing his trumpet at a large club. In the club sat a drug dealer, and one of his rivals hitman shot the club out.

Cecilia would never know her father.

Her mother would never play music again. After labor, she fell into coma. The doctors took away life-support and left Cecilia motherless.

Her mothers sister took her in. A faith obsessed Jesus freak who believed that blacks were for slavery and abortion was evil and gays were horrid. It was torture for Cecilia, who knew of her fathers ancestry by chance.

Cecilias aunt, Ruth, never let the girl play music. The girl relied on outside sources to learn of jazz. She found a tenor saxophone that had once belonged to her mothers friend at a club when she was 12. She learned how to play it, and paid for the reeds through her allowance. Now she was obsessed with music.

But Ruth did everything in her power to make Cecilia like her. She dragged her to church every Sunday, tried to make her believe in a God she didn't even know about, and forced her to go to a religious school.

The neighbor hood was a perfect picture of conservative suburbia. It was filled with perfect little white houses with beige trim and green lawns. And every family that lived in there had at least three crosses and a little girl with blond hair and blue eyes.

But Cecilia was not one of them. She had almond skin with little darker spots on her arms and face. Her eyes were black and bright, and her hair was shoulder length and dark brown. She stood out at her school like a sore thumb.

She was not one of them.

They all prayed daily, they all listened to gospel, and they all vowed never to have sex until they were married.

Cecilia was not one of them.

And she never, ever wanted to be.

When Cecilia came home that day from school, she found a great pile of trash bags on the side walk out in front of her perfect little house.

She could see the tarnished bronze neck sticking out of one side of a black trash bag.

She knew it was over.

Dropping her backpack and running up the walk to her house, Cecilia constructed her argument. Anger boiled in her veins, making her blood hot. She grew more furious with each step.

Throwing open the perfect white door and walking onto the newly shampooed white carpet, Cecilia let out a scream.

Aunt Ruth came in from the kitchen doorway, calmly drying a dish. Her blond hair was tied up into a tight bun at the top of her head, and her blue eyes were blank.

What did you do?! Cecilia screamed at her. She waved her arms and shouted again.

I just threw out all of those... things. They are not worthy of this house. Said Ruth calmly.

Not worthy of this house?! Screamed Cecilia.

Cecilia, calm down. You can rest now, the sin is washed away. Said Ruth, a cool smile spreading on her painted lips.

Why should I calm down?! You threw away all I have!!! I thrive on my music!!! If I don't have music, what do I have?!

You have God. You should accept him as he has to you. Said Ruth.

What are you to judge me on what God wants for me?! I want my music!!! Why did you throw everything out?! Some of those posters were priceless!!!

Priceless pieces of trash, that's all they were. Said Ruth, her voice rising.

I'm leaving, that it. You can't do this to me.

Listen to me, Cecilia. I take you in after that whore of your mother dies, I feed you, give you a good Christian education, give you the clothes on your back, and THIS is how you repay me?! Yelled Ruth.

I, am a musician. I see my music, not you. You force me to believe a God that I do not believe in, you try to mold me into a Stepford wife, but I will not give in.

Don't talk to me like that. Don't you dare. Warned Ruth, her voice was icy now.

You try to make me into your daughter. I know why you took me in, because you knew that no man would love you. You knew, and you know now. You try to make into your ideal version of a daughter. I am not your daughter. And I refuse to think that you are my aunt. Said Cecilia.

Shut up! Screamed Ruth. The plate that she had once been drying flew from her hands. It hit the perfect white wall behind Cecilia and shattered into perfect white pieces.

I refuse. Said Cecilia.

With that, the girl left her perfect white living room, her perfect white house. She strolled down the walkway, picked up on of the black trash bags, and left her perfect white aunt behind.



The world was cold. Cecilia stood with her knees drawn up to her chin and sat shivering at a bus stop. The black trash bag was next to her, and was open.

Inside of it was a few clarinet keys that gleamed silver. But there was one treasure. A full tenor saxophone, the very one that Cecilia had found five years ago at the club. In her backpack, she found forty dollars from her allowance and some of it had been stolen from Ruth.

The bus creaked up to the stop and wheezed when it halted. Cecilia grabbed her luggage and walked up the bus stairs.

The driver was an old man with gray hair and gray eyes. He didn't give Cecilia a single look.

There was only one other person on the bus. He was sitting in the back. His eyes were shadowed by a wide brimmed hat he wore on his red hair but Cecilia knew he was watching her.

Sitting down in the middle of the bus, Cecilia thought about what to do next. Forty dollars could buy her a cheap hotel room for the night and some fast food. She could make money off of her saxophone and even start some repairing work. All she needed were a few tools.

Sitting back against the foam seat, Cecilia closed her dark eyes. This bus wasn't perfect with shiny white walls. It was gray, with graffiti scratched into the walls with a penknife and adds for Planned Parenthood posted on the ceiling.

This was home. This odd gray place with a wheezy old man who looked like he could suffer a heart attack at any moment and a crazy guy with red hair in the back. This imperfect place with gray walls telling of torment and arched ceilings speaking of wreaked futures.

This was home.

Cecilia drifted off to sleep.



There was a sudden commotion. The sound of a struggle. The sound of a fight, of kicks and shouts of pain. There was movement in the back of the bus.

This is what woke Cecilia.

She stared up into the ceiling. The sounds continued. She looked to the front of the bus.

Someone had boarded. They had knocked the driver out, and he lay bleeding on the floor.

The attacker was tall, about six foot. He had hair a shocking color of blue and wore a leather trench coat. He didn't look at Cecilia.

I know you're on here, Clancy. Said the tall man. Cecilia ducked as the mans gaze went over the bus.

And you are right, Levent. But you didn't have to kill the man. Said the cool, collected voice of the man in the back of the bus.

You have the rock, don't you? Asked the man named Levent.

Perhaps I do, perhaps I don't. Said the man named Clancy.

Even in her situation, Cecilia thought: Clancy? Whose parents were on drugs?'

Levent walked down the bus aisle, his footsteps echoing heavily on the dirty floor.

Clancy... Give me it, now. Levent stopped right beside the seat that Cecilia was crouching under.

Levent, I shall not. It remains here with me. Said Clancy.

Cecilia could feel dark eyes on her back. A large hand grabbed her by the back of her shirt and hoisted her up.

Do you want a human to die?! Asked Levent. He held Cecilia close to him, and Cecilia could feel the barrel of a gun against her temple.

The girl looked at Clancy. He sat, his hat thrown aside off his head. He looked slightly alarmed, but not very worried.

Put the girl down, Levent. Said Clancy. Cecilia noticed that he had only one gray eye. His other was covered by a patch.

Give me it, now.

Clancy looked apologetic.

Sorry, but I cannot.

Screamed Levent.

Cecilia heard the click of the trigger.



The ground was hard and cool under her. Blades of soft grass pressed up against her neck, making it itch.

Was she... dead?

Her head hurt, that was for sure.

Cecilia opened her eyes. It was nighttime still. The stars glowed above her with a frosty light. The moon was large and pale, illuminating the whole scene.

Cecilia looked around. The last thing she remembered was being held by a crazed man with a gun. But why was she in a....

Forest?

Tall evergreens soared up to unknown heights. They tickled the skies with their needled branches. A few rocks lined the clearing she was lying in, and as Cecilia moved her hand, she found a saxophone case, long and hard.

She grasped the handle and drew the case closer to her. It was a feeling from home. It was something from home.

The case was light, so it must of been an alto, not her tenor. At least it was a saxophone.

Cecilia tried to get up, she needed to walk around for a little bit, get her bearings and figure out what had happened.

She had heard the click of the gun, she had heard the bullet whizzing through the air.

She felt the pain in her head.

Cecilia lifted her free hand up to touch the area where the barrel had rested.

There was no blood, she felt none. Her hair was parted away from the spot, though, as if something had forced it away.

The pain was horrible, and it pulsed through her mind as the scene on the bus replayed itself.

Cecilia looked around. There was no sign of Levent or Clancy. No sign of a bus, no sign of anyone walking to or from here.

She inhaled the crisp air deeply as was shocked to find how clean it was. Even if she had been asleep for hours on the bus, there was no way the air could be this clean. No way possible. No pollutants were in the air, no toxins from cars or trucks. No rumble of jets above her head.

This place was peaceful.

Cecilia had never seen the stars this bright. The glowed with a forlorn light and glistened like diamonds in a sea of ebony.

Then she heard it.

Voices.

They were coming from somewhere to the right. Cecilia spun to face that direction. She wound't let anyone sneak up on her.

The voices got louder. They sounded like they were owned by friends, chatting away happily. But the words sounded....

Different.

Cecilia could understand them, but they weren't english.

Oh shut up. It's not my fault that she kicked you out. Said a loud and slightly obinouxis voice.

My ma didn't kick me out. She just... passed out. Said another voice. It was hard and harsh, not to nice to listen too.

And why did you come with us? Asked the first voice.

No reason in particular, but mother wanted me out for the night. She thinks I'm spending to much time inside. Said a cool, calm voice reminiscent of Clancys.

Why don't you see if grandma will let you stay, Kurama? Asked the second voice.

Maybe I will, if it is of no trouble for her.

She won't care.

Cecilia listened as the group went up higher. They must of been walking on a hill.

The voices halted. They grew slightly quieter, but were still there. Cecilia couldn't hear what they were saying.

Something rustled in one of the bushes to her left. Cecilia looked at it and screamed.

One of the branches from the bush leapt out at her. It seized her waist and right arm. In shock, the girl dropped her saxophone and tried to push the plant away.

We got a lurker out here Asked the second voice.

Cecilia looked to it. There were three boys standing about five feet away from her.

You know, it's not a good thing to be walkin' around the forest at night. Said the boy with the harsh voice. He had greased back black hair and brown eyes. By his grammar and accent, Cecilia knew that he was a ghetto boy.

Hey, it's a girl. Why are you walking around at night in the forest? Asked the tallest voice. He had odd orange hair and black eyes. He wore a strange blue jumpsuit. Even though he was quite ugly looking and sounding, he sounded nicer than the first boy.

Hey, get away! Screamed Cecilia. She wrestled with one of the plants branches.

The third boy who had not yet spoken snapped. The plant fell away, and it creeped back into the leafy bush.

Sorry about that, but we thought that you were someone else. Said the boy. he had flame red hair down to his mid back and large, beautiful green eyes the color of polished emeralds.

Sorry is nothing. Said Cecilia. She grabbed her saxophone case and held it to her chest.

Listen, sorry if we scared you. My name's Yusuke, this is Kuwabara, and plant man over there is Kurama.

Cecilia frowned.

Do not trust these guys. Some kind of whackos. Do not trust these guys.

Hey, why are you so quiet? Asked Kuwabara, We're not going to hurt you.

That's what everyone says. Said Cecilia, My name's Cecilia.

Said Yusuke, And you are doing what out here?

None of your business. Said Cecilia hotly.

It can be if you're trespassing. My.... friend owns this property. Give me a good reason why you're out here and I'll let you go, no harm done.

Don't trust them.

Cecilia pondered what she could do. She couldn't fight off three boys, but she could outrun them...

But what if the plant psycho decided to set another one of his killer bushes on her? What would she do then?

I don't know what I'm doing here. Said Cecilia. She knew it was a risk, she knew that people like these took advantage of things like this.

Yusuke widened his eyes. His look became questioning, not mean.

You don't know what you're doing here? What'd you do, randomly drop from the sky?

Cecilia almost thought about telling them the story. But who would believe that she had run away from her heavily religious aunt and caught a bus ride, then was taken hostage by a psycho after a rock?

She wouldn't. And they most likely wouldn't, either. They'd haul her off to the loony bin, that's what they WOULD do.

Umm... yeah, sure. I just.... wandered here.... Stuttered Cecilia. She felt uncomfortable but tried not to show it.

Right then. You expect me to believe that? I'm a little slow, but not stupid. Said Yusuke.

Sure you are, Urameshi. Now who got a nine on their science test? Asked Kuwabara, looking to Yusuke.

I fell asleep that time! Saving the world takes energy, ya know! Answered Yusuke, looking strangely dangerous towards his friend.

Sure you did. Said Kuwabara. After that, the two launched into arguments.

While the two boys yelled at eachother, Cecilia saw her chance to run. Kurama seemed tied up in making sure the boys didn't kill eachother.

Cecilia ran.



Breathless, but still going, Cecilia ran up hill. She didn't care where she went, she had just picked a direction and began to run.

A low hanging tree branch flew into her view. Cecilia ducked, but slammed the top of her head into its rough surface.

She let tears fall, but didn't stop, even as the world grew hazy.

And she ran right into something.

Falling sharply back, slamming her back into a sharp rock and banging her already sore head into the ground.

You should watch where your going, kid. Said a gravely voice of an old woman.

Cecilia sat up, rubbing the sore spot on her back.

It was an old woman. She had faintly pink hair down to her shoulders and a wrinkly face that told of long lost beauty. She was short, too.

Now, you would be? Asked the woman. To Cecilia she felt... safe...

Cecilia told the woman her name.

And it turned out the woman was named Genkai.

Why are out here? You're trespassing. Said Genkai.

I really, really, really don't know. Said Cecilia. The girl began to search her head for a raised bump.

Hmmm.. I can tell by your accent. You're not from here, are you? Asked the old woman.

Cecilia shook her head.

And you need a place to stay?

Cecilia nodded.

Genkai sighed.

Can you cook?

Cecilia nodded again.

Follow me. Said the old woman, who turned and began to walk away.

Cecilia picked up her saxophone and slowly began to follow. Heck, this woman didn't seem so bad...

They didn't speak, but after only a few moments, Cecilia knew this woman had suffered. She felt it in her blood and bones.

The place where the woman lived was huge. It was a temple, or at least it looked like one. Cecilia wondered in the back of her mind if she had traded a psychotic aunt for a hermit woman.

But what did she care?

As long as she had a room for the night.



The room which Genkai had given her was small and rectangular. It had wooden floors and a beautiful screen door. There was a futon pushed up against one wall with a thin looking blanket and single pillow.

Said Cecilia. She looked at Genkai and bowed. The girl then reached into her pocket and brought out the random collection of dollar bills.

No, I don't want money. Said Genkai, holding up one hand, I want you to... how should I put this.... cook.

Cecilia stared at the old woman. The girl could cook some stuff so she might as well.



There was a yell from the front of the house and Cecilias heart dropped.

Oh NO!

It was Yusukes voice.

Genkai seemed to notice the expression on Cecilias face.

Met him? She asked.

The girl nodded.

Hmph. He may be loud and a dimwit, but he's harmless.

Cecilia wanted to tell the old woman to the killer plants, but decided against it.

As the old woman walked out of the room, Cecilia looked at the futon.

She dumped her saxophone one it and sat down.

It was going to be a very, very, very long night.

But looking on the bright side, she was away from a crazy woman.



Well, how was it?!! I know I need to go and finish a few stories but I'm just jumping around and finding what flatters my fancy.