The Memorist

Chapter 71

Thursday, May 1^st-8:52 a.m.

He stood in the doorway to the bathroom, a towel around his waist, his hair dripping. The strong shoulders and delineated muscles in his arms and chest were tensed. “You figured it out?”

She nodded.

“Play it for me, please.”

“We don’t know what it can do.”

“I don’t care about that.”

“Beethoven was so convinced of how dangerous this was he went through an elaborate ruse to hide-”

Sebastian cut her off. “Beethoven lived over a hundred and fifty years ago and you don’t know for sure why he hid anything.”

“I do know. He was sure the song was a malevolent force. He’d heard it. He knew what it was capable of. He was right.”

“That’s not in the letter. He never explained that.”

“But I know it. Don’t you believe me?”

“If I didn’t believe you would I have come this far? Would we even be here? Did you really figure out the song? Please, Meer. I won’t hold you responsible for anything that happens to me, just play me the song.” The plea in his eyes was even more desperate than the one in his voice, and she wished she could help him but she’d experienced memories without being prepared for them. Trying to run away from them had almost crippled her.

“Not without knowing what the full ramifications of your hearing it might be. Not while we’re alone. Not while we’re still in danger. Help me get out of here with the flute…get me to my father and Malachai…and then together all of us can figure out what we need to do next.”

Sebastian started to interrupt her again but she wouldn’t let him. “I know you want to play the music for Nicolas-and I want you to be able to do that. Nothing would make me happier than if the music works and brings him back but we need to do this safely. I can’t risk hurting him or you. I’ll go on blaming myself forever.”

Sadness overwhelmed her as her last words lingered in the air. She had been blaming herself forever, for much more than one lifetime, but why? And as soon as she asked herself the question, she knew the answer. His death had been her fault. But whose death?

Meer closed her eyes and searched the inestimable blackness until she finally saw the outline of a man. But who he was and who she had been when she was with him wouldn’t come into focus. Only the sickening horror that someone she’d loved had died because of her, and somehow this flute and its music were connected to that tragedy.