his shoulder. “Like this?”
“Yeah,” I say. “That’s right.” I pick up the bow. “This goes in your right hand. Think of the bow as the breath of the cello. It’s what draws the music out. Hold it like this.” I show him the right way to hold a bow and hand it over. “Don’t put your finger on any of the strings yet. Just let the bow glide over them.”
Griffon has a light but firm touch, and only makes a few screeching noises when he gets too close to the bridge. “Show me a note.”
I reach over and put his left hand in the correct position and his finger on the G string. “Now hold that down and use the bow to make the note.” The bow bounces a little bit, but his fingering is strong. “See? That’s an A.”
“Great. Now only twenty-five more letters to go,” he says, smiling.
“Ha-ha.”
Griffon holds the cello away from his body. “You want to try?”
I stand looking at it, afraid to find out the answer to the question that has been hovering over everything for the past eight days. Because I took it almost everywhere and spent so many hours playing, the cello has always felt like a part of me, but lately it seems like a parasitic twin that’s been removed. I’m not sure if either one of us can survive on our own.
“It’s just us,” he says quietly. “Not even your mom will hear it.” He turns the cello in my direction, and I let it settle against me. The weight of the instrument against my body is so familiar, I haven’t realized how much I missed it until now. I’ve always loved the curve of the wood and the delicate flashes of bronze in the sheen of the finish, and they seem even more beautiful to me now. I feel guilty for making it stay tucked away for so long.
I pick up the bow and hold it in my right hand, feeling like it’s an extension of my fingers, of my thoughts, even. But my left arm begins to throb, and the tingling in my fingers feels more insistent. The splint covers the spidery black stitches, making that hand useless, and no amount of wanting or trying is going to change that right now. “It’s too soon,” I say, handing the bow back to Griffon. I shake my head, trying to push back the tears that are rising in my throat. “I can’t.”
Griffon reaches over and pulls the cello out of my hand, leaning over to kiss me gently. “I shouldn’t have pushed you so quickly,” he says. “It’s not going anywhere. It’ll be here when you’re ready.”
One lone tear courses down my cheek, and I angrily brush it away.
As he sets the cello back down in its case, Griffon’s eyes flick to the doorway. I turn to see Mom pretending to walk into the room for the first time, although the shine in her eyes tells me that she’s probably been standing there long enough. “I, um, was just coming in to tell you that the oven timer is going off.” She hesitates, keeping her eyes deliberately off the big black case. She straightens her shoulders and regains her composure as she turns to walk back down the hallway. “I’ll take care of it, though. You just keep studying.”
As the knives and forks clatter on the plates, I can’t help but track Griffon with my eyes and try to keep the smile off my lips as he focuses his attention on Veronique. It only took a little begging to get Mom to invite him to stay too, and I’ve had her put them next to each other at the table. I watch as he sets his hand close to hers, and brushes her arm as he reaches for the butter on the table. If he’s getting anything from her, it doesn’t show on either of their faces.
The front door slams as Kat comes rushing in, her apologies reaching the table before she does. “I know, I know,” she says, as she pulls back her chair. “I got hung up at work again. I’m sorry I’m late.”
Mom forces a smile, while Dad has on one of his what-are-you-going-to-do looks. If you didn’t know better, you could easily be fooled into thinking that they’re still together instead of Dad only making appearances downstairs on special occasions. I wonder if they’ve ever been connected in a past life, and if there was something there that made things go so wrong in this one. Are they destined to keep coming together over and over until they either get it right or give up on the whole thing for good?
“Good thing we didn’t wait for you,” Mom says to Kat, her mouth set in a hard line. “Veronique, Giacomo— you know my oldest daughter, Katherine?”
“I don’t think we’ve met,” Veronique says, giving her a smile from across the table.
“I’m the one with no talent,” Kat says, making Mom cringe in her seat. I can see her hands gripping the cushion of her chair as she tries to let Kat’s words slide off of her.
“Kat,” Dad warns from his place at the other end. Except he knows that none of us are buying his disciplinarian act, so he doesn’t push it. Dad is always best in the role of Good Cop. Mom plays the Bad Cop without even breaking a sweat.
“Oh, come on,” Kat says. “I’m only kidding.” She points her fork at Griffon. “Well hey, look at you there.” Kat nudges me with her elbow. “Didn’t think we’d be seeing him again.” As she turns to me I catch a whiff of alcohol on her breath and wonder if Mom and Dad can tell that she’s been drinking. “Owen’s thinking about coming out here this summer. Do you talk to him much?”
Dad looks confused. “Do you and Griffon know each other?”
“Didn’t Cole tell you? Griffon is the guy who helped her out when she fainted at the Tower of London that day.”
“Fainted?” Mom sits up straight. “You didn’t say anything about fainting. Sam, did you know about this?”
Dad shrugs. “She said it was nothing. Jet lag. She’s been fine ever since, haven’t you, Cole?”
“Mom, please,” I say, looking pointedly at Veronique and Giacomo. We’re quickly becoming the world’s best argument for not starting a family. Single and childless is probably starting to look pretty good about now. “It’s nothing.”
Veronique turns to Griffon. “So, let me get this straight. You were visiting London with Cole?” Dad glances at her and then over to Mom, and I know they’re all waiting for an explanation.
“I live there part-time,” he says. “That’s where we met.” He looks at me and I can tell he doesn’t know how much to say.
“That’s a funny story, actually,” I say with a little laugh for emphasis. “Turns out that Griffon’s dad is a Yeoman Warder at the Tower. I felt a little sick, and Griffon happened to be there, that’s all. Kat found out through his friend that he lived around here and we got back in touch.”
Kat spears a large forkful of salad. “Isn’t that the cutest coincidence?” she says, jamming the salad into her mouth.
Veronique tilts her head toward me, her eyes locked on mine. “Totally,” she agrees. “That’s an amazing coincidence.” Something about the way she says that word makes me uneasy, and out of the corner of my eye I can see Griffon sitting motionless next to her.
“A Warder?” Dad says. “That must be fascinating.”
Griffon’s focus shifts visibly as Dad speaks to him, and I wonder if anybody but me notices the effort. “It is,” he agrees. “When I’m there I stay with him at the apartments inside the Tower.”
Kat busies herself with the lasagna, and I can see Mom relax now that we’re on to other, less volatile subjects. “I visited there years ago before the girls were born,” she says. “What’s it like after dark?”
“Haunted,” Kat says, apparently listening to the conversation despite appearances. “Headless ghosts and chained prisoners roaming the grounds all night long.”
Images from the vision at the Tower give me a sinking feeling in my stomach, but I press them down, determined not to let detached, fleeting memories overwhelm my evening. “Knock it off, Kat,” I say. “There are no ghosts.”
Giacomo smiles at me. “Ah, a skeptic,” he says. “You do not believe in the supernatural?”
I can feel the smile on my face shift, and I will it back into place. “No. Not really.” After all, people who can remember hundreds of years’ worth of past lives, put overturned chess sets back together, and memorize a page of writing in ten seconds aren’t exactly supernatural. Are they?
Mom jumps in. “Nicole has always been the practical one,” she says. “She didn’t even like fairy tales when she was little.”
I can feel my face getting hot, and am grateful when Griffon takes over, steering the conversation in another direction. “There may not be ghosts at the Tower, but there have been a lot of famous people who came through over the years.”
