Incarnate

“At myself, for not realizing how serious you’d been when you said you taught yourself to read. Because you were on the verge of reading music a moment ago, and you’d only been at it, what, five minutes?”

I couldn’t speak around the knot in my throat.

“Ana,” he whispered. “I’ll never lie to you.”

And how was I supposed to know he wasn’t lying now? About that? Maybe watching me was like watching a newborn kitten, blind and mewing for help, food, and love. Cute, but helpless. Little victories like finding its mother’s milk got praises. Little victories like figuring out which markings were musical notes got praises.

“A long time ago, before the Council, before we realized we were going to keep being reborn no matter what happened, there was a war. We fought each other, thousands against thousands.” Suddenly he sounded old, as if the millennia weighed down his words. “I didn’t have much of a stake in the war, and I didn’t want to fight. I stayed away most of the time, but I had friends on the battlefield. While I was experimenting with different sounds one day, I realized that a string stretched on a curved stick made a pleasant twang, and different lengths made different notes. If you used a bunch of them together, it would make music. I rushed to show my friends what I’d discovered, thinking they could use a respite from the war.”

Wordlessly, I sat on the corner of the bench again, but still couldn’t bring myself to look at him.

“They were so pleased, and since archery had just been discovered, there were a lot of strings on curved sticks to go around. But when they thought I was out of earshot, I heard everyone start laughing and plucking the strings on their bows in a tune. They’d been practicing it for weeks already.”

I let my hands fall to my lap. “It’s not the same thing.” My words didn’t come out as fierce as I’d intended.

“Certainly not in this case, because I truly am impressed. But I imagine growing up was like that. Discovering how to read, only for someone to laugh because they’d known how to do it for thousands of years. Realizing more efficient ways to do chores, only to discover someone else had always done it the easy way and decided not to tell you.”

“Assuming something has gone horribly wrong, even when it’s normal and no one had told me. And—” I shook my head. Past lives or no, I didn’t want to talk to him about my first menstruation, or pimple, or anything.

“Being laughed at.” He played a few notes on the piano and hmm-ed. “Did you have friends?”

“I’ve read about them, but I don’t believe they exist.”

“Your cynicism is amazing.”

“Even if other children had visited Purple Rose Cottage, children aren’t like me. They wouldn’t have wanted to do the things I did. They were waiting until they were big enough to survive on their own to get back to their lives. Not explore the forest and collect shiny rocks, or read books about great discoveries and accomplishments. They were there. We’d have had nothing in common.”

“I think you and I are friends.”

“Nosouls don’t get friends. Neither do butterflies. Don’t you know?”

“So all our time together in the cabin was nothing to you?”

I remembered listening to him read aloud, telling him about the roses I’d brought back to life, and falling asleep leaning against his shoulder. “It was everything,” I whispered, half hoping he didn’t hear.

Four notes sounded on the piano. “I saw how you looked at this earlier, and just a while ago you got up to study the pages. On your own. Because you like it.”

I shrugged. “That doesn’t mean we’re friends.”

“It gives us somewhere to start.” Four notes filled the silence again. “In my experience, friendship happens naturally. By talking, doing things together, learning.” He didn’t give me time to ask what he could possibly learn from me. “I like your company, which is fortunate since you’re living here now. Friendship isn’t reserved for people who’ve been reincarnated over and over. Even a newsoul is allowed happiness.”

There were still so many questions, like why should he bother with a nosoul and why was this so important to him, but I just bowed my head. “If you think it’s worth it, we can try.”

Sam touched my shoulder, ran his hand down to my elbow. “Let’s go to bed. Tomorrow will be busy.”

I shivered with the memory of waking up after drowning, his body behind mine, his hand over my heart. That probably wasn’t what he meant by ‘go to bed.’ And good thing, too. Good thing.

“Play for me again, first.” Something was wrong with me, with the way my insides squeezed up when he was near. I turned straight on the bench, next to him, and rested my hand over the keys. “Please.”

“Of course.” He adjusted the pages on the shelf above the keyboard; there were several still empty. “Pay attention, though. You’re going to learn music. I hope you’re okay with that.”

It was probably the light, or weariness, but even though his voice was as level as ever, from the corner of my eye, he looked nervous. My retort died before it left my tongue. “Please,” I said again, and before he could tilt his face away, I saw his relief.

As the music came, I tried to match the sounds to the dots and bars on the paper, but it went by too quickly for me to keep up. Over the music, he said, “Second page,” and then after a while, “Third page,” and I heard the music match what I saw for a moment before the dots were just dots again.

Music overwhelmed me, soaked into my skin like water. I didn’t have words for the squiggles and dashes across the pages, or the way his fingers stretched across the keys to make my heart race. If I could hear only one thing for the rest of my life, this was what I wanted.

He let his hands rest on the keys as the music faded from the room.

“You changed it. It’s not the same as before.” I caught his raised eyebrow and fought for the right words. I did need lessons, if I wanted to sound even halfway knowledgeable. Or at least describe what he’d done to the music. “It’s softer. Not as angry at the end.”

“Is it all right?”

I laid my hand across his.

Chapter 10 Impulse

SAM WALKED ME back upstairs as sleepiness threatened to engulf me.

The exterior wall made me uneasy, so he dragged the bed across the room until it rested in the corner of two interior walls. Then I climbed up while Sam tried — unsuccessfully — to hide dust on the floor where the bed had been.

“The first thing I want you to learn about music is that you have to hear everything.” He sat in a chair at the desk, while I perched on the corner of my bed. “This is something I started doing every lifetime to retrain myself. Close your eyes and listen to all the sounds at once, especially those that are hard to hear.”

Like I was going to do that in front of him. I just nodded.

“You can hear the cavies and chickens, the noises they make. You can hear the wind in the trees, and everything in the house. Pay attention to each sound all at once, and one at a time.”

“That sounds like a lot of work.”

He grinned. “Well, it is. But having a good ear is an important part of music, and it’s easiest to train yourself while you’re young.” He crossed the room toward me. “I’ve always enjoyed how everything is slightly different in every life. Raspier or deeper, warmer or kinder. Some bodies were harder to train. Some had better hearing.”

I hoped I got to experience that.

“Once, I wasn’t able to hear at all.”

But I didn’t want that. I almost asked how he’d coped — a lifetime without music — but he yawned, reminding me he was probably tired, too. I slipped under the covers.

“Good night,” he murmured as my eyes fell closed. He leaned toward me, so near I could feel the warmth of his breath on my skin, and I waited for whatever came next.

Nothing did.

He sighed and left the room, and I lay there, suddenly too awake to sleep. There was no reason for me to imagine him kissing my forehead, or remember the way he’d touched my arm by the piano. He was Sam.