After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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cindyrae77
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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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"I'm not positive I've dreamed any other way," he said slowly, his steps moving in a laggardly, measured pace. "Devin and I dreamed together. Large dreams and small. But part of me knew he would leave, one day, and where he would go I could not follow. There was no cruelty in him, and none in me. I just knew that if he chose to stay with here, stay with me... nothing else he ever dreamed would have come to pass. I couldn't ask him to stay, even though part of me wanted to. If I did... he might just do it. I couldn't bear that, couldn't bear it for him. I knew what he was feeling, how conflicted he was. I understood why he left suddenly, why he had to. Sad as I was when we let each other go, I knew what it meant, for him, and it was something wonderful. When I tell Rolley 'We all love you, you can come back,' I think what I'm trying to tell him is 'It is safe to dream here. There is no cost to it. What could happen that is worse than what is happening, now?' When I tell you that the price of our dream is that it will cost you all your other dreams..." he let the sentence trail, as they drew closer to the music chamber where the great piano sat, gathering dust.
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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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*
A surprised look on his face, he had suddenly lifted his head. “What is it, Vincent?” she asked. She strained to listen to what he was evidently hearing. The pipes were quiet, she could only hear the echo of their steps.

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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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He knew that in a few more steps, she would hear it too. Sound. Sound from the music chamber, but not music, not exactly. Sound coming from the only thing in that room that could make sound, at least make it that way. The piano. Someone was... tuning it? Tinkering with it? He heard a repeated note, as fingers tapped a key. Middle C. Tuning note. The only note held by both the left thumb and the right, (the strongest finger on the hand) as a matter of course. The anchoring note, for fingering. Where you began. Where you began, before you moved up or down a keyboard. Middle C. The first place Miss Kendrick had ever set Rolley's young, untrained hands. Scale, going up, faltering on a flat G.

In a moment, she would hear it too. Mouse? Was this Mouse, or Eli, or someone else, thinking Rolley might return? Everyone knew about Vincent's encounter with Rolley, by now. What was known to one was known to all, on the pipes. The sentries had been told to keep a look out for him, to make sure he came down safely, if he came near.
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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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>> I LOVE what you wrote!

*
“It’s a piano!”, Catherine exclaimed, stopping dead in her tracks. Incredulous and hesitant, she looked at him. “Don’t you suppose… ?” She didn’t dare finish the sentence.

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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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"It can't be. Can it?" Vincent asked, feeling ridiculous for questioning the obvious. Clearly someone was in there, and someone had hands on the keys. Her steps were ahead of his, arrowing toward the chamber. She turned back a second and gave him a smile. One that said 'Sometimes, you just have to have a little more faith, a little more hope.' He came behind her quickly, yet still cautiously, dreading her disappointment, if her optimism proved untrue. He was still dreaming carefully. Catherine came back a step to tug his hand forward, as if to say "No more of that." The flat G evened out a little and toggled between the F and the G, testing. The wavering sound mirrored his hopes, as they neared the entrance to the large room.
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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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*
No, it was not Rolley. It was hope. Hope at work. Quietly, like in a solemn ritual, Mouse was going about the chamber, lighting the candles on the tall candlesticks scattered all around. Standing close to the piano stool, Jamie was holding a lantern herself, to light up the work of a balding man Catherine remembered having seen at Winterfest. It was the sounds he produced, tuning the great instrument, that they had heard. The piano cover had been removed, and Rebecca with a couple of children was cleaning it up. A strange, suspended, palpable atmosphere of… careful dreaming filled the chamber.

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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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Catherine's head adopted an almost Vincent like pose as she tilted it to the side, a little, her smile still in place as she watched Rebecca rub lemon oil into the wood. If Vincent feared for her disappointment, she showed none. The children had the job of polishing the low parts of the instrument, the legs and sides. The adults and teenagers all seemed more interested in what went on in the piano's higher reaches. The flat G lifted some more and began to sound true, as Mouse chattered. "Got to be good. Better than good. Better than better. Might get played. Might get played, soon." He finished lighting the last taper.
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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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*
Smiles and unusually subdued greetings were exchanged when the couple appeared at the chamber entrance. Rebecca stopped her work for a moment. “Hello, Catherine. You look lovely. Are you dressed up for the concert already? I wish I had as much faith!” she softly teased.

---

I have copied the paragraphs we wrote so far in the CLEAN COPY. In it, I have evidenced in red a couple of sentences in one of your installments that are almost identical. Do you want to keep them both? And would you be kind enough to take a look at my paragraphs, to see if I fixed them properly per your suggestions?

I'm going to reply to your beautiful post in TALKS soon!

S
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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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"Faith is a thing I'm learning to have a little more of, as I go," Catherine replied, stooping so she was eye level with Kipper who was vigorously polishing one of the legs of the bench. She gave him an encouraging smile and held out her hand for the extra rag that protruded from the pocket of his overalls. Vincent watched in amazement as a woman dressed for a night at the Met now carefully squatted near a piano bench, helping to make it gleam. The scent of lemon oil battled with the very expensive fragrance she subtly wore, and the furniture polish won out. Mouse crowded near the great instrument's opening, and watched the old man ply his trade as he brought the Grand piano to heel. Vincent could see the wheels in the youth's head as they turned. He was probably thinking he could make a gizmo that could do the same thing the Helper was now doing. Something that could tune a grand piano, without taking so much time. And speaking of 'time,' when had word of a concert come down?
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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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*

Kipper said, “I don’t remember him. Rolley, I mean. I want to know him. Listen to him. Not only playing, that is.”

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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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Vincent knelt near Kipper, placing his broad hand on the young back. "Rolley came to us when he was near your age, Kipper. A young boy with little family and enormous talent. We loved him like we love you, but... something bad happened to him, and he went away for a while. A long while." Vincent looked at Catherine, meaningfully. She gave him a gentle smile and handed him the lemon scented rag, then moved over to where Rebecca was wiping down one ivory key at a time.
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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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*
Zach came with his cloth and sat on the floor beside the bench, starting to rub an already shining leg. “I remember him, Vincent.” He said. “He was a little older than I, veeeery shy. At night, when we chatted in our beds before sleeping, he never said a word. But he was always the last one to say good night after all the chats had quieted down. To whisper it, that is. I heard it because his bed was next to mine.”

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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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"Did you?" Vincent asked. He hadn't known. Not for the first time Vincent realized that children lived a life that was different than the ones adults thought they were living. He did not know if that was more true of Tunnel children than it was of others, but he knew it was so.
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*
“Yes, and also Samantha remembers him,” Zach added with a mischievous look on his face. She was busy trying to clean up the stripes of whatever it was that Mouse had used to connect the pieces the piano lid had been cut into to carry it Below. She nodded with a little smile, appropriately sad and adult. “She had a crush on him!”

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Re: After "Chamber Music" DRAFT

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Samantha cut Zach a look that implied he was an annoying child to her mature 'adult,' and did not move from where she worked, though Vincent noticed her cheeks pinked, some. "I am sure Rolley appreciated whatever gesture of friendship he received, here," their large teacher said, wisely.
Last edited by cindyrae77 on Sat Dec 06, 2014 4:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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