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“Hello?”
Myles woke up to nothing. He tried to open his eyes, but he couldn’t see anything.
I’m having a nightmare, he thought, and pinched his arm. Only for his fingers to touch nothing but air.
“Hello?”
Myles tried again, just as he realized he couldn’t feel his mouth moving either. In fact, he couldn’t feel anything. His eyelids, his lips, his toes… Nothing. He couldn’t move any part of himself no matter how hard he tried.
His mind prodded at where his fingers should be. His beloved fingers, the ten digits that once held his dreams together. He was so close, so close to the Steinway on stage, he couldn’t possibly lose them now! Let’s start from something simple. Twinkle twinkle little star. C’mon, you know that!
A middle C, C again…
Abigail jabbed her tiny finger on the keys, one at a time. She was squinting her bambi brown eyes at the big black notes printed on the score, tongue sticking out in concentration. The note at the bottom was a C, she knew that, but what about the one high above it?
Myles sat at the edge of the piano bench. Not waiting, just watching.
“You wanna count together, Abby?”
“I can count!” Abby said loudly.
“You wanna count the lines and spaces?”
Abby pointed a finger at the first line, then the space, then the second line, reading out the numbers as she went. Distantly, Myles was amused; was he like this when he first touched a piano?
“Five!”
“Very good!” Myles said with the most serious, adult face he could muster. “And what’s number five?”
Abby moved each of her fingers on the keyboard, before pressing on the G repeatedly, with all the triumph of Napoleon conquering Europe.
Feeling very proud of herself, Abby returned to jab out the tune. Still slowly, still—
—One note at a time, with his pointer finger.
Myles’ hand had formed a fist, as he pointed forcefully downwards. Down, down, down. C, C, G…
He moved to stand behind Abby, enveloping her small hand in his. Gently, Myles guided her fingers—all of them—to rest on the key. He could already picture where each digit belonged: thumb on the C, ring finger on the G instead of F, leaving the pinky to play the A.
Abby sang out the tune as they played the first line, beaming at her father.
“You wanna keep going?” Myles asked. He knew he should let Abby get familiar with the first few notes, but he couldn’t resist it. The musician in him demanded for the line to end on a C, a perfect ending.
“Yes.”
And the ring finger did a skip back to F, as the fingers made their way back to the home of C.
Myles thought of the skip, and felt his wrist lift up just enough to shift where his ring finger was. He was content, very content as his thumb pressed down at the imaginary piano to sound out an imaginary C.
His mind scrolled back to the beginning, but as he lifted his thumb again, an impossibly strong force clamped down at his hand.
Myles willed his thumb to lift up, but as soon as it moved even an inch, the force forced it down again.
“That’s very rude of you,” Myles said with his mind, because all he had right now was a mind and five fingers.
A wave of displeasure washed over him, like wind rushing through the plains and bending the grass. Myles didn’t have legs right now, but he felt his mind doing a flip as the wave passed, and knew that if he was standing he’d be knocked over by it. Whoever this entity was, they didn’t like it when he moved.
Well, tough luck.
Myles harrumphed, and tried to lift his finger up.
The wave, stronger this time, rushed through his consciousness. For a moment, Myles was a leaf on the stormy sea, up and down and up and down, tossed carelessly by the might of the sea and beaten down by the thunder crashing down. It was an assault of color and light and motion and sound and touch, raining down on him, piercing him with their needle prick. There was Paula when they first met, then Paula in her white wedding gown, sunlight shining through the sieve of the trees towering over them and landing on Paula as glowing white dots and small patches of shadowing gray, Paula clutching his hand so tightly he couldn’t breathe in the doctor’s office as Myles’ ass grew numb sitting on the thin cushioned chair and from shock that gave way to teary smiles, Myles learning to knit to make a blanket for Paula in baby blue, it was always her favorite color and suited her so well, and Paula and Paula and Abby and Paula—
And Paula wrapping an arm around his waist, her hair tickling his neck.
“Whatcha thinking about, Myles?”
“Nothing.” Myles said truthfully. His mind was fuzzy with TV static.
“Go sleep. You have an hour until we have to feed Abby again.”
Myles mumbled something. He loved Abby but, god, he wished she could cry a little quieter when it was past midnight.
Paula shushed him, kissing his neck again.
And he wanted to sleep so much. To just put the fingers down, and let his mind fall silent. It sounded so nice.
But he wasn’t done yet, a small part of him urged. He couldn’t sleep yet, he hadn’t finished the tune yet! The C was only half the story, he had to keep on to “up above the world so high”, and so on and so on, until the tune hits the final C. That’s the final destination!
And what about the variations? His mind raced on, Mozart didn’t only write one verse. No, Mozart then went on with twelve variations of the nursery tune. There was the right hand trilling at the upper register, then fingers leaping over each other in arpeggios, the minor variation, the ¾ time variation, and on and on and on as Mozart made his merry way up and down the keyboard. The simple tune wasn’t even half the story; it was only the prelude to the real show.
Myles couldn’t rest, not right here, not right now, he needed to keep going, until he finished on the last variation. It was one of the first things he played for Paula, deceptively simple and full of childlike whimsy and wonder. He had to play it again, just to see Paula smile at him again.
The wave didn’t sigh, but it shifted in such a way that signaled to Myles it was doing the equivalent of what humans would call a sigh.
It quieted down, if only in speed, and flooded Myles with visions that he had never seen, that he had never lived through. Myles standing at Duncan Ely’s funeral with an unreadable expression, Myles and Paula listening as the lawyer announced that he was to be Ely’s sole benefactor, Myles playing Liszt flawlessly like he had never played before as an unsettled Paula looked on… Paula, scared and screaming and so terribly lonely.
(And where was Abby?)
“That never happened,” Myles murmured. He rarely ever left Paula’s side, and the one time he did was at the masquerade where Roxanne ended up kissing him. Or he kissed her. He didn’t remember the party very well. In fact, when he really thought about it, Myles couldn’t recall how Roxanne looked.
God, he thought, he hadn’t even apologized to Paula for that yet.
This is happening right now, Myles, a voice in his head spoke. All these… are happening now. Because of you.
“Me?”
Yes, Myles, the voice was dripping with syrupy thick sympathy. You were careless, and you let her seduce you and lead you astray… and now look at what happened. Poor Paula, left alone without a husband, and poor Abby without a father. All because of you.
Myles never wished he had eyes more than right now, if only so he could cry. He needed a channel, any channel to release the horror and sadness building up in him. The thoughts of Paula alone in their bed, Abby’s hand resting on the piano without a clue about the next note, threatened to crush him. Just what had he done?
He was dead, wasn’t he. This had to be it. He was alive, and now he wasn’t, and it had everything to do with Roxanne Ely.
Face it, Myles, you were a horrible husband, and a horrible father. What kind of a man would leave his family behind just like that? Wouldn’t it be better, if you just leave them be?
Just go to sleep, Myles.
Myles breathed out. And out. And out. He could feel the tension in him bleeding out, the strings holding his mind and his fingers and one lung loosening and unwinding as his fingers slackened—
No, no he couldn’t sleep yet. Don’t you see, he wasn’t done yet. The tune wasn’t done yet, he had to finish it. What else were his fingers for? They needed to complete the whole journey.
Sleep. There’s nothing else for you to do. There’s nothing more you can do.
“I don’t want to.” And in that moment Myles realized he sounded just like Abby when they herded her off to her bedtime.
You’re dead. You can’t change that.
“But I can’t be dead,” Myles said, hands growing restless by his side. “I’m only thirty three! I- I exercise, I eat my greens, I don’t have anything chronic going on—I don’t even remember getting into an accident! I shouldn’t be dead!”
He couldn’t die yet, he still had so much to do. He just bought Abby sheet music for some simple four hands duets, he promised she could lead. He found a new ice cream spot just last week, and he hadn’t had the chance to get Paula and Abby to try it out yet. And most importantly, he had to apologize to Paula right now, tell her that he absolutely did not love Roxanne, that the woman meant nothing to her compared to Paula, that he only wanted to be with Paula and no one else. He had to make amends before a little incident grew into cracks too big to be repaired.
Oh god, he sounded just like every other cheating bastard under the sky, didn’t he.
Yeah, you do.
Myles didn’t jump, but what was left of his heart did a flip flop. He did not enjoy the intrusion at all, it felt like someone had turned him inside out, flesh and bone an all, and read all his dirty little secrets that he shoved into the back of his mind.
You’re not a good husband, you’re not even passable, really. What kind of a husband would let another woman kiss him? You left Paula behind, again and again. You couldn’t even stay with her in a room full of masked strangers? Really?
What are you anyway, Myles Clarkson? A failed pianist. You couldn’t even get through four years of conservatory.
Myles flinched at the mere mention of the con. He could almost hear his father snapping at him. His mother refusing to look him in the face. His roommates’ questioning gaze as he packed in the middle of winter.
“It wasn’t my fault,” Myles’ fingers tapped on his arm in familiar patterns of variation IV, a child trying to soothe himself. “I didn’t ask for a nervous breakdown and lose all feelings in my hands. I didn’t want to quit.”
And you think that’s the type of man Paula wants? It snorted, an ugly sound. You’re a wuss. She plays with your hair like you’re a dog. You’re not even human enough for anyone to like you.
Myles wanted to say that no, that wasn’t true at all. Paula was one of the very few people who never looked at him differently when his hands froze. That was why he fell for her in the first place.
But what if this was true? Doubt wormed its way into him slowly. What if Paula secretly felt nothing for him anymore, looked down on him even?
Myles felt very small, and very cold in the vast emptiness.
Let go, if you love her. This is the best thing you could do for her, really.
He wanted to, he really did. Myles was tired and cold and he wanted to cry and the space where his chest should be hurt so much. His fingers had tangled themselves together.
Fingers, yes. His beloved fingers. He lost them once, and that was one too many times. He longed for the cool, smooth keys beneath his fingertips.
“I’m not leaving her,” he said. “Dogs don’t leave their humans.”
The voice groaned in his head, louder and louder until it exploded from his mind and filled the whole space, so loud and harsh even Myles couldn’t hear his own thoughts.
You are one stubborn human.
“Yeah, I suppose I am,” Myles shrugged with his newfound shoulders. Paula did always say Abby was just like him, stubborn as a mule.
Everything calmed, and Myles had the vague sensation of being lowered from mid-air gently to the floor. Porcelain tiles, he noticed, smooth and cold on his feet.
Ah, feet. He had them back now.
Suppose I let you finish your little music, would you go to sleep then?
Myles thought that over. Why was it so intent on making him go to bed? That was very strange behavior from someone who was not Paula. The velvet smooth, seductive voice, the distinct discomfort of being read like cheap pulp fiction, the whole eternal sleep thing… it was ringing alarm bells in him.
He made a mistake with Roxanne, and he and Paula were now paying the steep cost of trusting her. Myles couldn’t do this again. He couldn’t afford to.
It’s not usual I even make an offer, Myles.
“You’re offering a deal.”
Ha, you’re not entirely brainless.
Myles bit on his lips. The coppery tang was sobering.
“I’ll go to sleep when I’ve finished every variation.”
And before he could even blink, he was sitting down, hands resting on cool ivory keys.
Myles flexed his fingers, and started. Everything came back to him at once. The sweet tone Mozart required, the delicate touches it took to achieve a special feel of effortless display of joy. The precise strength he needed to press each key (careful on the thumb!), the weight each piece of wood had and the force they would exert on the strings. That was the old upright piano from his childhood, he recognized every sound it made. And now, from Abby’s childhood.
It was watching, he felt its hungry gaze on him. It wanted him to finish.
One day, he would teach Abby every variation of it, and watch as she went through the phase of groaning at Mozart and his unique challenges. Paula would laugh, and tell Abby that her father had done that too, only more melodramatic. And Myles would hide his red face in the crook of her neck and try not to laugh along.
Yeah, he’d very much like that.
When he reached the sixteenth variations, it finally spoke up. What is the meaning of this?
Myles didn’t stop. “Pardon?”
I can count, human. Twelve variations. You are finished. You should be finished by now.
“I never said it was twelve.”
Its mood shifted, he could feel it in the air. Myles fought not to squirm.
“I never said whose variations I’d be playing,” he said, trying his damndest to keep his voice even, even as his long dead heart was beating like a hummingbird’s wing. “I only agreed to every variation’, that’s our deal. And my mind is not running out of new ones yet.”
That was the trick about variations: they were all based on the same melody. You could shuffle them, scramble them, break them apart and reassemble them, flip them upside down and sideways and inside out, and they would still be the same tune, fundamentally speaking. Myles could come up with a thousand ways and one to play with the melody, he could frankenstein variation I’s right hand with III’s left hand, he could do it in Beethoven’s style and then Chopin’s, and he still wouldn’t be running out of things to play. It could be the end of time before the piece was truly, properly finished.
Myles braced himself for a tidal wave of… anger? Disappointment? He didn’t know what to expect, though he was beginning to have an idea what, or rather, who he was dealing with. But what did he have to lose anyway? He was dead and probably in hell right now.
For a moment, Myles swore he could see a shadow that didn’t belong to him. The devil tilted its head, considering him. Myles knew that feeling; right now, it reminded him of the way Duncan looked at his hands. Predatory.
Very well. You have beaten me.
A beat. You do realize you don’t have a body anymore, right? This here, all of this, the shadow waved a hand at the piano, is just a conjured image.
“Yes,” Myles lied, heart sinking. And he thought he was beginning to gain them back too.
Although, he thought, a floating, disembodied soul is still better than nothing. He just needed to get back to Paula and Abby, he could improvise; he was good at that. He simply had to be back around his family, to drape himself over them like an old, well-loved blanket and soak up their warmth. Everything else could come later.
You’re fascinating. I look forward to watching your afterlife.
Something brushed against his cheek, a comforting gesture. For the first time, Myles could sense amusement in its voice, without mockery. It worried him, attracting attention from the devil, but at the same time a part of him perked up at the hint of affection, instinctively leaned into the touch, before he forced it down.
Nope. That was something strictly Paula-limited.
I can’t wait to see what’ll happen, either, Myles thought, looking out onto a field of white, endless paths for him to walk on.