a/n:

this was originally written for the November Short StoryContest on A Writer's Touch message board, and it was the winner. i like it enough that i'm posting it here now that the contest is over :) the rules were: "Story must be Fiction Rated T (PG-13) or below. All stories must begin with the paragraph supplied (italicized in the story). Story must be a minimum of 1000 words and a maximum of 3000 words. Only words in the actual story count towards the word limit, including the beginning paragraph. Additional notes, as well as the title and the line breakers, do not count."

-k8

Beyond Redemption
by: aiur

She wandered down the hall, strands of hair hanging in her eyes. She didn't bother to push them away. It was too late at night to concentrate on such trivial things as that. The stairway door was open and as she reached it, the strains of music reached her ears. The unfamiliar tone froze her in place. The world roared around her, and she gripped the railing to steady herself. No. Not this...

There was only one person she knew in the entire world who could play music like that. But he couldn’t be here.

Holding her breath, she crept down the stairs as quietly as she could, then peaked over the banister.

The room was hardwood floor, empty walls, panelled windows with bars. It was empty except for a grand piano, set right in the middle of the room as if someone had intended to refurbish the room to complement it but had never followed through, now only a reminder of yesterday’s delusions of grandeur, a forgotten centerpiece, a dust-covered dream.

The piano lid was never open, but tonight it was and the white of the ivory keys leapt out at her from either side of a dark figure.

She focused on his back. He sat at the piano, playing notes quietly. They sounded discordant, but deliberate. She shivered; he kept on playing.

“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice soft.

There was a sharp jump in the beat of the song as his hands faltered in surprise. He recovered quickly, finished playing the next bar, then stopped. The music died away, and the air seemed barren, thin, without it. She sat on the bottom step of the stairs, rested her bare feet on the cold floor, wrapped her arms around herself to keep that comatose air away from her as she stared at the back of his head.

He looked over his shoulder at her, and she froze. The moonlight streaming through the barred window threw a strange cast of shadow and silver over his features. She tried to look away from his face, at the moonlight that shone like liquid purity, at anything else, and failed.

“I live here, too, you know,” he answered.

She watched his lips move in the moonlight, breathed in as his voice echoed around the room and cut through the air that still clung, dead, to both of them. His voice was beautiful. It used to be the voice of hope, of belief. But here, at this moment, she couldn’t fall back on that. It had been so long since they’d talked. Now she heard the beauty and longed for it but didn’t fall under the spell. Maybe she no longer could.

“No, you don’t,” she protested, her brow furrowed.

He shrugged. “Oh,” he said, easily. “Then I came here to visit you.”

“It’s a bad time to visit me. You’ll wake everyone.”

He turned around on the piano bench so he was facing her. Her heart thudded. She was both glad and scared to look him in the eye.

The features she’d once loved – still loved – so dearly remained expressionless. “Did I wake you?” he asked.

“No,” she admitted.

“Then why,” his head tilted, “would I wake them?”

She looked down, at her hands. They played such dangerous games with their words. Nothing had been simple with them. She hated it. The girls here talked, and they complained of young men who didn’t know the meaning of poetry and who couldn’t take a hint, even if it was spelled out for them. He did. Too well. He made her yearn for stability. Why couldn’t she have that stability?

But she couldn’t tell him. She’d never been able to tell him. They both set aside what they wanted when they were together, focused on other things, complex things. She couldn’t tell him that she blamed him, either. He hadn’t woken her – he was never responsible. So he got away with everything. And she was left to blame him in private.

“Why are you up so late?” he questioned.

“I couldn’t sleep.” She peered up at him through her hair.

He smiled. She flinched. He was still beautiful when he smiled.

“So you wandered downstairs?” Downstairs. The word caught, bouncing off the walls of her mind. Downstairs was where the men had to sleep. The upper levels were reserved for the females. There were a lot more girls here than boys.

But he was speaking of deeper things again.

She hesitated, but gave in and played along. Just like she always had. She wished things didn’t have to be so complicated; she wasn’t as good as he was at being complicated.

“I didn’t mean to. It’s against the rules to be out of your room without supervision. I was just going to walk down the hall. But then I heard...” Her voice quieted. “I heard the music.”

His smile broadened. She sat immobile, caught by the arrogance on his lips, the precision of his dark blond hair, the challenge in the blue sea of his eyes.

“What did you think?” he asked, boldly.

“Would it matter?”

His face darkened. “It always matters.”

She held his eyes levelly and wondered how he could lie so blatantly and still sound and look completely honest.

Her silence seemed to frustrate him. “Did you like it?” he pressed.

“Yes.” She wasn’t going to lie to him. She didn’t play as dirty as he did. Was that why he always won?

His face relaxed. “Good stuff, huh?”

“Yes.” Why couldn’t she just lie to him?

“Want to hear more?”

No. But she nodded her head. “Alright.”

The music was louder when he began again, and she glanced up the stairs to the dark landing above, thinking he’d never been this careless. Someone was bound to hear his playing. Her hands twisted in her lap, and the floor felt even colder beneath her bare feet. Did she want someone to hear, or not? She wasn’t sure.

It seemed like he would be heard, whether she wanted it or not – he played louder and louder. She could see his hands as they lifted and fell to smash the black and white keys, and she watched them move, transfixed. The notes ricocheted around the room, bouncing off the walls and the windows and her as they crashed into each other and were heaped on the bare floor and then winced as the next set of notes tripped over their pile and fell awkwardly on top of their backs and broke them. Sound wrestled against sound, note against note. Harmony blended then clashed then blended again, toying with the listener. Right when it strayed too far and she wanted to plug her ears, the cacophony lightened, became a planned accident that made the melody perfect because it wasn’t complete. There were strange pauses that were too long or too short and notes that hit the mark but gracefully lost their grip and slipped. It was a song of tragedy, of glass figures falling and shattering on the floor. It was disaster’s story, destruction’s tale, broken irreparably beyond redemption ... and beautiful, so beautiful, for it. She felt like she was standing there, in the music itself, looking down at the pieces strewn about her feet. And it was all in her hands – she could choose to walk away or not. She had the ability to fix it. But she didn’t, because that would wreck it. Fixing it would wreck it. It was everything it was because it wasn’t whole. It was something that, for once, wasn’t ashamed of its ruined state. Something that didn’t pretend to be more than it was.

“Hersh?”

The sound of her nickname jolted her back to the present, sitting in her nightgown on the bottom stair. She blinked, looked up at the young man who was sitting facing her once more. His face was all concern. Another lie.

“Why did you stop playing?” she demanded. Her voice rang in her ears, unfamiliar and stilted.

She got up. Anger simmered inside her. He always stopped, brought her back to reality. He did it on purpose. The song – she wanted to get lost in the song again ... lost forever...

She walked over to him, walked straight through the pool of moonlight. She faltered. The floor felt like ice. It wasn’t supposed to feel like ice – it was in the moonlight. It was supposed to be perfect. Pure and perfect.

“What?” he asked, cutting into her thoughts.

“Why did you stop playing?” She glared at him. “Play it again.”

He looked at her, studied her intensely. Calm. Why was he always calm? She shook the hair off her face, upset. Something deep within her was wounded and bleeding all over her insides, and she was disturbed and restless and didn’t know where to direct it.

“No,” he said steadily.

“Play it again.”

“No.” He shook his head, slightly. His perfect eyes darkened, shot through the moonlight and impaled her.

“You-” she began, then stopped as her gaze fell on the piano lid. It was closed, and the moonlight reflected off the bits of smooth black surface that had been cleared of dust when he’d lifted and lowered the lid. “It’s closed,” she said. Her gaze swung to his again, furious, and the confidence in his dark blue eyes retreated slightly. “You closed it!”

She wasn’t sure what she was accusing him of, only that she needed to accuse him of something, anything, for revenge. Because he had given her something precious and had taken it away and wouldn’t give it back. Again.

“Of course I closed it,” he stated, unruffled. “I finished the song.”

“You’re not supposed to finish it,” she hissed. “You never finish playing anything for me!”

“Is that what you simplify me to?” he asked, voice strained now, clenching his jaw. He slouched a little on the piano bench, jammed his hands hard into his pocket. Something inside her snapped. He was as tired of everything as she was, and he was still trying to win the game. She fumed silently. Cobalt eyes flickered briefly to her face, then away.

She took a deep breath, tried to hold onto her rage. As long as she was angry at him, she told herself, as long as she was the one attacking, he couldn’t hurt her.

God, but it would be so much easier if that were true...

“Play it again,” she ordered. There was no response. She sighed. “Please?”

He looked up, full into her face. “You never used to ask,” he said. He was right. They had never bothered asking. They’d jumped right over it.

She struggled for words, found none as they all slid from her tongue like the moonlight that hazed and slipped through the air.

“Please,” she said again, and this time she wasn’t asking – she was pleading.

He said nothing for a long moment, considering. His fingers ran thoughtfully over the black lid, wiping the dust and leaving black glistening in long streaks behind them.

“Alright,” he finally conceded.

She exhaled, sat beside him in the moonlight, leaned her head on his shoulder. “Thank you,” she murmured.

“What are you doing?”

She blinked, once, twice. Sunlight glared harsh into her eyes. Her cheek rested on something cool and hard. Groggily, she sat up, and slid onto the floor with a thud. Her body ached terribly.

“Sleeping on the piano bench,” the Morning Lady huffed. “What next, I wonder?”

Sleeping on the piano bench? She frowned – she hadn’t been sleeping on the piano bench! The lies people here came up with ... sleeping on a piano bench, of all the ludicrous – oh. She blinked at the bench inches from her face. Light swam over the polished wood. A headache crowded at the edges of her mind. She shook her head, trying to clear the daze she felt by concentrating on the light. Moonlight. She suddenly saw moonlight in her head, a pool of moonlight. But it vanished, and she was left sitting on the floor staring at a wooden bench. Where was that moonlight now? Where?

The Morning Lady bustled around her efficiently, all white cloth and pink skin. She glared at the lady’s white clothing – it was a cheap imitation of the moonlight, a mockery of it.

“How long have you been here?” the Morning Lady demanded.

“I don’t know. I don’t remember falling asleep.”

Glaring seemed pointless, all of a sudden. She stopped, and tried to remember the night before, but after Erich agreeing to play his song again she remembered nothing.

“You girls ... why can’t you-”

“Where’s Erich?” she interrupted.

The Morning Lady blinked. “Who’s Erich?”

“He’s a boy I used to know, before I came here,” she muttered. She looked around the room. Hardwood floor, bare walls, panelled windows with bars. Nothing else. No music. No moonlight. She shivered.

“You’re not allowed to have visitors here,” the Morning Lady said sharply.

“I didn’t invite him,” she said. She looked down at her hands. Frowned at the paleness of her skin, the lack of lustre. “He doesn’t even know I’m in here. He was the one, who ... who...” She choked. The Morning Lady didn’t seem to notice, let alone care. “He told everyone that I ... that he thought I was...” She couldn’t finish.

The Morning Lady sniffed. “Boyfriend?”

She nodded. “I trusted him,” she whispered, tasting the tears in the back of her throat. “I thought he’d be there for me. He told me he’d be there for me. He gave me everything. So I told him everything. He said he loved me. He smiled and told me he loved me anyway. And then the next day, he abandoned me. He took it all back.”

“I think,” the Morning Lady said, briskly, “that you need to sleep.”

She refused to let the Morning Lady pull her up. “Where’s Erich?” she repeated.

“I don’t know where your Erich is,” a hint of exasperation crept into the Morning Lady’s voice, “but he was never here. You were the only one missing from your bed when we checked. I don’t know why you came down to sleep on the piano bench, but we’re going back to your room, now.”

“He was here,” she insisted. “I saw him. I heard him.” Her head snapped up. “You heard him, too! You must have. He was playing so loudly!”

“Playing?” The Morning Lady repeated.

“The piano.” She turned to look up at it, remembered softly how it had looked in the moonlight. “He was playing a song on the piano.”

The Morning Lady knelt beside her, and took her face in her broad hands. “Come upstairs with me, dear.” Her voice was suddenly very gentle. “We’ll get you some warm food.”

She twisted away, stood up. “I don’t want food. I want Erich!”

“Dear-” the Morning Lady pleaded, standing as well.

“He was right here, last night!” She turned to look at the grand piano, admired the finish of the instrument, the layer of dust coating it, the morning light that bathed it like the moonlight had. “He-” She stopped, a weight dropping into her stomach.

“Dear,” the Morning Lady said, quietly, “no one’s played this piano for – years.”

She stared at the dust, as if staring hard enough would make it vanish, make the moonlight return. “No...” she whispered, numb and lost and confused. “He was playing it ... he even wiped the dust off when he was thinking...” She looked at the Morning Lady, desperate. “He was here!”

“Hersa, he couldn’t have-”

“He was here!” she screamed. Tears slid down her face.

“Hersa, you know you’re very sick.”

“I’m not-”

“You see things, remember?” The Morning Lady talked right over her. “You see people who aren’t there, and then you forget. You came here so you could be watched in case you hurt yourself. You’ll forget this soon, too, dear. Let’s go upstairs now. I’ll get the doctor. Maybe he has medicine to calm you.”

She let herself be guided to her room, everything lightless to her eyes. And she sat on her bed, staring blankly into the dark around her. There was nothing wrong with her! She knew she was broken and needed to be fixed. He had broken her, by giving her something precious and taking it away and refusing to give it back. He was the only one who could fix her. But he didn’t want to. He wanted her to stay his planned accident.

There was nothing wrong with her!

Suddenly, light flooded her room. She looked up apathetically, expecting the doctor, and jerked.

Moonlight bled from the smiling figure in her doorway, pouring from his perfect eyes until a pool of infinite depth lay between them on her floor.

His smile disappeared. “Hersh.”

She felt an innate quiet inside, a sudden clarity. All she could hear was disaster’s story – her story – playing on a piano, urging her forward. Blue eyes glowed amid even the flaring radiance, beckoning, commanding, and she looked into those eyes, took a step forward ... and felt herself drown in the pool of moonlight at his feet.

The moonlight evaporated, leaving her body forlorn on the cold floor. Calmly, Erich knelt and produced a sharp knife from his pocket. He turned her over and proceeded to slit her throat, the action slow and perversely tender.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs, but Erich remained squatting in the blood seeping over the floor, his eyes still alight. He pressed the knife into Hersa’s hand, closed her limp fingers around its hilt.

“I love you. I love you, and you doubted me,” he whispered. “You believed I wouldn’t ever fix you.”

He rose slowly, to the sound of the Morning Lady’s scream. The Morning Lady rushed forward, passing straight through his body, and dropped to her knees beside Hersa.

“You were wrong, love.” His smile returned. “Because I just did.”

a/n:

in greek legend, erichthonius was the son of hephaestus. he was so hideous that the goddess athena put him in a box and gave it to three sisters, warning them never to open it. but one of the sisters, a girl named herse, opened the box -the sight caused her to go insane, and she committed suicide. that legend inspired nothing but the characters' names.

feel free to tell me what you thought :) and thanks to FireBringer and Bubbl3gum for their previous comments!

-k8