While playing Rosalinde vigorously, the months flew by. Luckily my fear that she would be teasing me constantly in my head had been unfounded. She only popped up now and then, mostly when I was practicing intensely or at Aleksei’s. “Time passes differently for us, ghosts.” She had told me when I asked about it. It was only after another intense session at Ms. Vanderstuck’s office, that I learned she had a really sweet side to herself too. She really helped me to get through those sessions. Things had been going so well, that Ms. Vanderstuck even said that I was taking giant leaps after having stagnated for so long. Not that that meant anything to me.
Unfortunately, on the ghost front, things remained silent. Even though Rosalinde showed me dad, and Lise showed up from time to listen to me, I had made 0 progress toward finding any more signs. So, seeing them was as far as I could get, but knowing Lise was watching over me had kept my spirits up. I knew I was close. I just needed that extra little push.
I kept meeting up with Sara, and after having helped her a couple of times more, she started calling me her mentor. Which I thought was really embarrassing. We were friends, only separated by a few years. When I imagine a “mentor”, an old man with grey beard springs to mind. But her disarming smile while she said it, made it impossible for me to protest. I really had a problem saying no to that smile, and I slowly began to expect she knew how fearsome that weapon was since she seemed to use it always at exactly the right time.
Aleksei’s lessons were taking fruit as I could feel that I was improving at a tremendous rate. We had gone over to play several popular pieces in the search of the third piece I needed to pick, but there was none among them that gave me that “This is it”-feeling.
While visiting Aleksei another problem popped up. Interacting with Nastya had become a lot more difficult. She had been acting haughty toward me and had kept the rivalry going. She often passed me a snide remark on the practice of that day, but when I grew tired of those and asked her why she always listened so closely since she clearly did not like how I played it, her face had turned completely red and she had called me an idiot, before storming off. I could make head nor tales from her behavior. It’s a shame really because I would have loved to hear her play the violin again.
Aunt Christina’s relationship seemed to be going in a good direction if all the dates and her mood were anything to go by. My guess was that it would not be long before she would introduce me to her boyfriend. I was happy that she found someone. She had always been alone as far as I knew. I know mom often tried to couple her with someone, inviting another bachelor over for dinner parties and that kind of stuff, but she always found a reason to refuse them. I remember her being angry at mom for setting her up like that without telling her. I remember thinking that grown-ups sure had their own share of worries.
Slowly but surely the day of the entrance exam was approaching. We had been notified that it would be broadcast live on tv as a build-up toward the famous Queen Elizabeth competition that would start the week after the exam, so the pressure to perform increased even more. To me, that did not make much of a difference, but the moment Sara found out, she had called me, and it had taken me quite a while to calm her down. She had been deadly scared of messing up on tv, but after I promised to help her even more, and I had assured her that I would remain her friend even if she messed up, she had finally calmed down.
Nevertheless, the exam was approaching, and Aleksei had given me an ultimatum to decide on my final piece against his next lesson.
So, this resulted in me sitting here on a Thursday evening, going over scores in the hope to find something that clicked with me on the last possible night. My room was a complete mess. Scores lay around everywhere as I was going through all the scores that I had. They had been piling up since Aunt Christina had been buying me a bundle of scores on a weekly basis. When I realized that that had not been a one-time gift, I had been stupefied. I still remember Aunt Christina’s smug grin in response. Her smile clearly said, “I won this round.” I still needed to find a way to thank her for buying me all these scores…
I realized I must have been at it for quite a while when Aunt Christina came home from work and came to my room to tell me that dinner would be ready in an hour.
“What a mess! What on earth are you doing?” Aunt Christina asked baffled.
“I need to pick my final piece by tomorrow… I am going through everything I have…” I answered without looking up. I needed to keep myself concentrated if I wanted to find something tonight.
“Do you need help?” Sara had asked the same thing. But this was one of those things I had to do myself. There were a lot of good and beautiful pieces, but I wanted one that I connected with emotionally.
“No, I’m fine.”
“You want your old scores too?” Aunt Christina then asked.
“What do you mean?”
“The box with scores that were in your old room. It must be somewhere in the attic.” She was talking about scores from before the accident. Up to now, I had always refused to look at anything from before the accident. There was a lot of music in that box that I played with Lise, and to be honest it was painful to even see those scores.
But wait… maybe that is where Lise left her sign. After all, we connected so much through music.
“C-can I have the box?”
Aunt Christina looked at me with big eyes. I could see she considered this another of her victories.
She hurried to the attic to get the scores and a couple of minutes later, a big old cardboard box full of scores stood in front of me.
As soon as it stood in front of me like possessed, I ripped off the tape. I started going through the scores. I passed a lot of the etudes and pieces I played in my early years of playing the cello, and a lot of the stuff that I practiced and played with Lise, and although it brought back memories, I gravitated toward none of them.
I felt tears of disappointment running down my eyes.
“Dammit!” I shouted. I hit the pile of scores in front of me. I had really hoped that this would finally have been it.
In horror I watched the pile of scores falling down on the ground like the leaves falling from a tree mixing up with all the scores that were already spread over the floor. This would be a nightmare to sort out again and clean up.
I decided to go and have dinner first to clear my mind, but I still spend most of my time at the dinner table sulking and pouting. I had really hoped that that box would have been the answer.
“I am sure you will find something. Even if it is not as ideal as you had hoped, I am sure you will make something beautiful out of it in time for the exam. You always do,” Aunt Christina said, trying to raise my mood a little.
That’s right. I was doing this to find a piece for the exam. That had funnily enough completely left my mind the second I had set my hopes on finally finding Lise’s sign.
Aunt Christina talked a bit to me about all the pieces she knew I could play and what she thought of them while we ate dinner. She was doing her best to keep the conversation going, and we had been getting along a lot better than we used to, but now once again I mainly replied with short sentences. My mind was still preoccupied with getting my hopes up for nothing. “Where are you, Lise?” I muttered.
Now, Aunt Christina looked worried at me. She was doing her best not to show it, but I could recognize that particular smile. I cursed myself for muttering that out loud. That was careless of me. After I finished eating my dinner, I excused myself and went back to my room to start the ordeal of cleaning up the mess I made.
I let my eyes wander over the incredible mess, but then I noticed something I could not unsee. My eyes had caught on something peculiar. The word Lise stared at me from beneath the scores that I spilled.
Getting my hopes back up I immediately dug the score from beneath the mess to find a copy of Beethoven’s “Für Elise”. Would it really be that simple? I remembered mom’s parting words that were hard to make up. Could they have been “Für Elise” instead of For Lise? Lise used to play this song all the time, just because her name was in it.
My mind was set. This would be my third piece. I looked at the clock. It was 8 pm now. I had to start working on an adaptation for the cello right away and would have to work late into the night if I hoped to get it ready by tomorrow.
I let the mess be for what it is and made my way to my desk. There was more important stuff right now. I lit my desk lamp and started working feverishly on the adaptation. This was finally going to be it. I could feel it!
her face had turned completely red and she had called me an idiot, before storming off. I could make head nor tales from her behavior.
For now she is all tsuntsun, I hope she goes deredere soon tho
who knows?
(i do but i will not spoil it )
its time to shine!
thanks for the chapter
Thanks for reading Trunk