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The first thing that came into anyone's mind – anyone relatively sane of mind, that was, which in these crazy times where horses could be replaced and towers the size of mountains could be built in the middle of the greatest city in the world, was no small feat – as they pushed the old, worn wooden door of the pavilion and stepped into the dusty floor of its hall, was that it had clearly seen much better days, and that these better days might as well have been twenty years ago.
The pavilion was one of the secondary residences of the Dessendre family, a lovely little house on the outskirts of the Vendean coastline, a decent walk away from the nearest train station, and the only roads to there barely distinguishable from forest paths if not for the cattle walking by. It had been a safe haven for painters not only for its relative security, isolated as it was from anything and anyone of any remote importance, but also for its impeccable view of the Atlantic ocean, of which it was said that to capture its beauty within one own’s eye was a Painter's true last trial.
Verso Dessendre had certainly not once dared to attempt such a feat, and was more content to explore the gardens, the forest, the hills and the sand once the sea had receded far towards the horizons with the help of his elder sister Clea. He was older now, certainly far more than the last he had stepped foot inside the property. Little Alicia had barely been born by then, a terrific little terror of an infant, all red and screaming in the face. Their parents had not dared attempt the rambunctious train journey from the capital with two – albeit nearly grown – children and a baby in tow, and the house had been left to erode away by the salt and wind of the seafront.
Until now, that was.
“Verso!” A voice broke him out of his daydreaming.
The young man stopped looking at the horizon and turned instead towards the much more active and busy place that was the ground floor of the house. It was filled with suitcases, miscellaneous boxes and a half a dozen or so young lads from the nearby farm busy bringing everything inside. At the center of all this, by the stairs, stood his elder sister, whose voice had called him. She was directing everyone like the queen bee of the hive, the workers given little choice but to comply. He could tell that she had taken advantage of the countryside ambiance: gone were her petticoats, she only wore two layers of skirts above her thighs, and had tied her painting apron at her front. Though she was most likely taken by surprise by this “summer” weather that was truly unique to this kind of area, and had to wear a jumper that definitely belonged to Verso. His favourite, at that. She did not lose any opportunities.
She stepped away to come join him by the door. He expected a smile or a greeting, perhaps a relieving thanks that he was here to help ; but when she was within close enough distance, she hit him square on in the shoulder, the kind of punches their mother would blanch at if she knew her daughter was capable of such a feat.
“Ow!” He complained between gritted teeth, not wanting to look even more like a sad excuse of a man in case any of the workers in the house heard them. “Clea!” He rubbed his shoulder. “What in Heaven was that for?”
“You know exactly what this was for.”
“I absolutely, truly, really do not know what this was for.”
“Stop doing your tortured artist act outside and move out of the entryway. There should be new arrivals for the house at any moment.”
He noted then that she was tucking her hair behind her ear repeatedly. She was stressed; that was plain to see. Plain to him at the very least. Though why, he could honestly not tell. Sisters had their mysteries that even brothers ignored.
She was about to do it once more but he batted her hand away. “You're making me stressed just looking at you.”
She snorted, gazing at him with piercing grey eyes. “That's rich coming from you. Stress is all that you've brought this family for months.” She seemed to think about it for a moment then extended her arms in emphasis, “no, for years !”
He ignored her words. “What is it that you're waiting for?”
Her next look told him without words, “you're an idiot who should really know better.” She crossed her arms and attempted to look down on him, a rather failed attempt given that he was about a head taller than her.
He grinned. “Do you want me to bring you a stool from the kitchen so you can try that again?”
This time, he was fast enough to dodge her incoming blow.
“I hate you,” she said.
“Will you tell me what worries you so much, now?” But cut himself off before he could taunt her some more. He held on to the door wall with his right hand, clutching near desperately. He winced and rubbed his left temple with his hand. He had been standing for too long already and now a headache was coming.
Clea observed him for a few moments with an unreadable look in her eyes. When he finally looked back at her, she only waited a fleeting instant before taking his arm and forcefully dragging him along with her, by which point he was glad to have recovered only enough so that his head moving around was not complete torture. “You are an idiot-”
“-she speaks!-”
“-shut your mouth, will you!?” She bit back with definitely less amusement in her voice than what was in his own. Her eyes were equally as serious as she came to a stop in the living room and forced him down into one of the armchairs by the chimney. It was brown and surprisingly comfy, although all that dust made him cough, and it took him quite some tries before getting his respiration back under his control.
Clea’s forehead furrowed even more with worry. She did not hesitate to press a hand to his forehead to check his ailment.
“You fool. All you're accomplishing is getting yourself more sick.” She was trying not to sound too afflicted, but her hand was trembling where she tucked it into her pocket and produced a small towel to wipe the sweat off of his brow.
He had not even noticed it happening.
“That's why I'm here,” Verso said quietly, airily. He started to feel sick again but got his breathing back after one cough.
Clea turned away and called one of the workers over, and Verso noticed that he was the only one left standing, surprisingly. There was a vague, distant sound outside, and the young lad looked both guilty and terrified as he made eye contact with Clea.
“A-ah! Mlle Dessendre!” The boy said, immediately raising his hands in panic and lowering his head. “I, uh, I was definitely working with the others. I was on my way actually-"
“Don't move,” Clea said. The poor boy froze in place, white as a ghost.
His sister continued as if she could not notice the kind of anxious and panicked state the lad was in, and pointed delicately at the foot holder on the other side of the living room, nestled amongst various pillows and other objects they had too many of, too many for one man living alone. The worker immediately made a dive for it, almost creating a mess and making a tower of boxes fall to the floor.
A cloud of dust followed him and stray goose feathers crowned his hair as he blinked happily towards the siblings in stupor, clutching the foot rest like it was a precious stone.
Clea looked annoyed, but the downsided turn of her lips when she heard Verso chuckle at the display.
She recovered back to her nagging ways, however. The workers installed the foot rest while she scolded her brother, one finger pointed at his face, almost reaching his nose: “you will not move, got it? You need to rest Verso. Rest. Stay immobile, passive, whatever fancy word Alicia would use, I do not know, but I better not see you out of that armchair.”
Verso chuckled some more as he clutched the towel on his forehead. He was about to add something else when the noise outside got louder, and the young lad by their side promptly rushed out of the door, still looking jittery and anxious, perhaps even more than before – if such a thing was possible – as he joined his companions.
“My, my, my, what could they be doing out?” Verso asked.
Clea ignored his gaze as she, too, looked in the direction of the opened door to the entryway, her long hair fanning out behind her with the motion.
From his position in the living room, Verso only had the slimmest of view as to the world outside, and could only really resort to the glimpses he could catch and the cacophony outside indicating.
And what chaos it was!
The workers were all running around, attempting to trail along boxes upon boxes, like a disorganised ant mill which had just been stepped into. Two of them were carrying on their shoulders a thin and rather long object – what, he had no idea, for it was hidden by a white travelling veil – with the utmost carefulness, before a third worker – who was himself carrying a rather high pile of papers, certainly higher than he was tall – ran headfirst into the plank and collapsed to the floor, stringing stray pieces of paper everywhere as seagulls started to rain down, attracted by all the agitation.
The only reason Clea did not completely implode and set everything on fire in her ire was for the second group of workers, busy opening one of the ornate glass doors of the ground floor, these ones located in the kitchen, and started to actually succeed in bringing a rather large, that was not to say frankly enormous mass covered in white inside, setting it down next to the bookcase facing the east side of the pavilion, on the right of the living room. Verso was frankly impressed. Even if he was vain enough to admit to pride when it came to his own physical condition, before the illness, he was still the ornate heir of a family of artists in the capital. A far cry from the rowdy youths raised on farms all their lives who never whined at a little effort and bore sun-kissed tans and calloused hands like it was the latest fashion.
Whatever that mysterious thing was, it brought great pleasure to Clea, a satisfied smile playing on her lips as she trotted immediately to see it.
“Verso!” She called to garner his attention, as if he could ever truly ignore her. “I have a surprise,” she nearly sang.
He shifted minutely in the armchair to lay more comfortably, cocking his head to the side. “A surprise?” He questioned. “I thought you helping me move here was the surprise?”
She shook her head. “That's because there was no way I could leave you to the torture of being alone with our parents for however long it would've taken them to organise this.” She winced, “if they ever did organise it. You know how our parents are,” she simply concluded.
He sure did. They were half of the reason he was even in this situation in the first place.
A voice that sounded like his two sisters’ combined whispered, “the entire reason,” but he brushed it away.
Clea was about to lift the drape but seemed to think better and stopped to run out after the various workers and send them all on their way back with their pay and a surprisingly strong handshake - on her part, of course-.
The papers had been cleaned from the courtyard, the seagulls chased away. The plank that had caused so much ruckus had been moved next to the still mysterious shape by the library's sunny windows.
Verso was growing terribly curious but remained still. He owed his sister that.
Clea came back inside, the front door shutting off loudly in her wake. Before long she was back in the library. Since none of the rooms on the ground floor had doors, and if they did they were seldom used, he had a great view of her little theatrical act.
She took hold of one side of the veil, and with a triumphant expression, pulled on it swiftly.
He felt his mouth drop open.
A grand piano stood among the books, the sunrays of the midday illuminating speckles of dust in the air and the shining black coat of paint of the instrument.
“It's a piano,” he whispered. He could feel his fingers itch to run across the keys.
“Yes Verso, I know that. We both know that. I brought it here and you're a literal pianist.” Her snark fell and she frowned. “Your fever isn't acting up, is it?”
“It is not.”
“Good. That's good…”
Verso gestured at himself with both hands, “but why would you-” he had to stop himself to cough in a tissue. His lungs were wheezing along his breathing but he had kept on talking. “Why… Why would you bring it here? I cannot play much at all in my current condition.”
Clea ran one hand along the closed keyboard, before stepping away and going back by his side. She held one of his hands in her own, running her thumb over it. “You have a look in your eyes when you talk about music, one that has disappeared for months now.”
She smiled shakily. “One that I only just saw back now. Not when you look at me, or even Alicia.”
He did not know what to say.
“It must have cost a small fortune to bring that here from the next town over.” He laughed, “you truly are stubborn.”
She laughed as well. “Maman’s deserving heir, I would say.”
His eyes kept stealing glances at the piano. A grand piano in a solitary house, just for him.
“The doctors back in Paris said that I shouldn't strain myself, Papa recommended I do not force myself to play; not only if it only ever brings me pain.”
“They are wrong.”
“Since when are you a doctor? Are you hiding more ‘surprises’ from me?”
“You're not as hilarious as you think when you can barely stand.”
“Humour me.”
She tightened her grip, like she really was afraid that he would let go. This contrasted vividly with the look in her eyes.
“I may not know all the enzymes in the body, nor all the ways a human heart can stop beating so jarringly, but I do know my own brother. You have an illness of the mind, Verso.”
He unconsciously coughed once more, as if wanting to prove her wrong.
“You are,” she insisted. “I was the one who rang the metaphorical alarm bell, remember? When you cried to me that you could not play a single note.”
She stepped away and started to fret at all the windows, her voice carrying more or less loudly with the distance as she opened them all to let the frisk sea air in. “Why do you think you've ended up in this badger's den of a house? Papa would have put you in la Pitié Salpêtrière on new coming of age trials, Maman would have kept you at home with the best doctors in the country. No, you needed to be away, Verso.”
When she deemed her task sufficiently done, she appeared back in front of him. “You need to get your spark back, brother. You are an artist like all of us. You don't have tuberculosis, or pneumonia, or any of that; you are withering away because you cannot create.”
He stared at her with wide eyes. Within his chest, his heart beat louder.
She lightly hit his shoulder. “Find your creativity back. Find the will to create, and your ailments will be gone. I don't need a doctor to see that they've all been taking you for a fool.”
There were minutes of contemplation, a silent exchange between brother and sister, the monotony of the wind howling between the branches of the trees and the waves crashing in the vast ocean beneath.
“Thank you, Clea,” he said sincerely. Such a word paled for all that she had done.
She rolled her eyes but a faint flush painted her cheekbones. “Can you imagine how annoying our parents would be if you were to pass? If anything, I'm doing myself a favour.”
“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” he teased.
Clea was looking around, her eyes settling on her coat, hat and travel bag by the door. She had taken the first train that morning along with him, just so he would not have to be alone. He was glad for it because she had been the one to pack their lunch.
“Are you leaving soon?” He asked.
She nodded, expression forlorn. “I am still very busy back in the capital. We can't all be laying around all day doing nothing: a family should have no more than a single tortured soul crawling through the darkened hall.”
The wordings of this specific sentence sounded familiar. “Did you rummage through Alicia's diaries again?”
“She's the one leaving them hanging all around the bathroom between our hairbrushes. ‘Borrowed’ would be more accurate.”
He hummed. “I wish I got the chance to have proper goodbyes with her. She seemed sad to see me go.”
Clea began to fasten her overcoat back on, the buttons all elegant jewellery and polished ivory. “Don't inflate your ego too much. She trusts my plan and she has faith in you; she knows you'll meet again before she even starts to miss you too much. No, she's only sad because it's just another confirmation that she's the only one who has never seen this house before.”
Verso stared at the vaulted ceilings, heard the creaking flooring and the tiny padding footsteps of stray field mice wandering inside. Nothing had changed in the more than a decade he had spent away. “I wouldn't say she's missing much,” he eventually settled on.
Clea did something complicated with her hair – magic, witchcraft, that could only be it – and tamed her long mass into a neat bun that she tucked beneath her hat with pins. She looked much more soft now that she was dressed in a pale lavender, only one strand of hair breaking free at the last second and dancing on her forehead along with the wind. She tucked it behind her ear.
“She's sixteen years old. She's jealous of anything and everything. Even the worst house owned by our family.”
Verso straightened up and started to rise up from his seating position. He heard Clea protest but paid it no mind and powered through. His head was barely hurting now, his vision free from its disorientating black mist.
In quick long steps, he was by the door next to her, not even needing his arm to latch onto the doorframe this time.
“Let me at least see one of my sisters off properly, will you?” He fondly requested.
She could not say no to that.
Clea never managed well when the situation was too emotionally-charged, and thus immediately deflected while putting on her white gloves.
“Have fun at your lonely stay in the creepy, haunted house.”
“The house's not haunted” he said quickly. Too quickly.
Of course she caught on to that.
“Verso… could it be that you're… scared?”
“I'm a grown man.”
She had a smile like the Cheshire's cat, which coupled with her lilac attire was not that far from reality, her eyes alight with an unnatural glow of mischief.
“Don't you remember what Papa used to tell us about this house when we were children? About the people-”
“Firstly, I'm still an adult, as I've mentioned, and the less than two years you have on me count for nothing after eighteen years old. Secondly: they're all fantasy tales. You know how Papa is. Always lost to worlds grander than he could ever paint them.”
She was still looking much too joyful about annoying him, which unnerved him. “Well, give it a thought tonight, when you're all alone, in your big empty bed in that big, lonely house.”
“Didnt you say maids and cooks would come by every two to three days?" He crossed his open jumper tighter against his body, seeking its warmth, the wool a welcome barrier against the cold. The wind was starting to get to him and he shivered against his will.
All amusement left Clea's eyes when she saw him do that. Her eyes were steel-grey once more.
"I'll be fine," he said again, as reassurance for her more than me for him.
She got on her tippy-toes to kiss his cheek. “Take care, Verso. I don't like seeing you like this.” She confessed.
He kissed her cheeks twice. “Goodbye, Clea. Trust me, I don't like seeing myself like this either. I'm losing all my pretty boy charisma, it's terrible. I'm like that writer guy, the melancholic one. Baudelaire. With the greasy hair and unpleasant frown.”
That made her laugh and she walked away with a lighter composure to her frame, both annoyed and amused by his parting words. The wind had picked up again and she held onto her hat with her hands, another strand of hair coming undone. “Always so vain, always a Dessendre." was what she said last.
He chuckled as he watched her hail her driver, getting ready to board a train that very same day. The world did not stop just for him and she was prove enough. He looked at the seagulls hovering above and tried to not think about the capital, his family, the house and its too many eyes. Recover, that was what she had ordered him to do. He might as well try as best as he could.
***
The afternoon found Verso sat at the Grand piano, lost among piles upon piles of sheet papers depicting concertos, sonatas, symphonies and arrangements alike that were staring at him from their places on the floor, these walls, everything that could constitute a table. He was his own boat along the stream of music, the latter quickly becoming an ocean ready to submerge him. Many partitions were still unopened, still safely tucked away in boxes laying in piles next to the bookshelves. But many more indeed laid adrift, ready to be caught by a passing hand. Concertos from Finland, symphonies from France, sonatas from Germany, music from baroque artists, classic or romantic composers; they all stood without rhyme or reason around the edge of a single man.
Verso Dessendre still sat at the piano, head reeling and eyes having difficulty to focus on the paper in front of him, an unassuming British melody. He had played the piece a million times in his youth, a million times more in the ensuing years. He did not need to read it to play; only to feel the way his heart sang and echoed the melody. He had never forgotten a piece after having played it once; it was his teachers’ greatest pride, the only reason Maman authorised the pursuit of music. For how can you stop a child who never did stop playing?
Sheets of papers flew across the room like delicate birds as they fell from their piles and descended slowly. It was a state of disorder.
Perfect.
His fingers stood at the ready on the piano keys, spread among the white and black tiles, the lower and higher notes. The sunshine basked slowly on the tail of the grand piano. Not a sound could be heard.
Everything was in position. Everything was ready.
He took a deep breath, and;
Nothing happened. Not a single tune, not the slightest note.
No music. Only the creakings of the wood in the walls, and the wood on the piano.
He tried again, lifted his fingers, pressed them on the keys-
Nothing again. He could not get himself to feel the music flow through his veins until it reached the very edge of his fingertips.
He rested his forehead against the raised closing board with a deep sigh, tracing a finger along the ridges of the piano. He had been like this for months, now. Back at the manor his piano was eroding away under a layer of dust and unplayed partitions.
What was an artist that could not create? Who was he without his heart? Perhaps his father had been right to look down on his music. He could not produce a sound anymore. A silent musician, that was what he had become. An accumulation of broken strings stuck together and strung to a ribcage that was piercing his bleeding lungs.
He stood up. Looked at the piano, the taunting wink of light from the sun glinting at him. Testing him.
He shut the board briskly with a loud and resounding bang! sending papers flying all around the room in a sickening ballet he was not privy to. He had to have hit the board too loudly; for at that same moment the floorings started to creak and the woods within the walls’ foundations did as well.
His chest protested the action and he started to cough once more, a hand pressed to his chest in an attempt at reining it in. He began to stumble past the library, past the petit salon until he was all the way in the kitchen, fingers desperately latching onto the doorknob and pulling, pulling-
Fresh air. The sun. The cries of the birds and the waves splashing below.
Immediately his lungs started to feel better, his throat loosened.
Verso wondered if Clea had not been wrong: if perhaps the piano was making him more sick, and not less. He had not painted in years – had not picked a brush since childhood, at that – but he almost felt a tendril of envy, a need to hold watercolours in his hands and to let his mind wander.
He looked around the garden at the back of the house. Calling it an untamed English garden was not too far off of an assumption. Verso could not stand still as he took in the view, drank in all the sights and sounds and shapes; it was beckoning him to go outside for the first time in weeks.
Mind resolute, he grabbed the thick raincoat by the door and elected to walk slowly through these gardens he used to have countless memories of. He could barely remember any of them anymore, his mind too old, his spirit too changed. Childhood had these mysteries and secrets that only children and those who had retained their inner youth could ever hope of deciphering.
He curiously looked around at the great elms spread in a manner too regular to be happenstance, at the colourful hydrangeas painted in dozens of hues at their feet. There was life in this garden. He could feel it.
At his feet he could see the tiny footsteps left behind by squirrels, or perhaps ferrets, their oblique paws leaving the tiniest of steps on the damp grass. It surprised him to feel a smile draw on his lips at the sight.
He tugged at the hems of his raincoat. Its dark blue fabric was the same as the one he used to have in his youth, a matching set with his sister and father. He blinked; it was such a small innocuous thing to remember and it, too, surprised him. He decided to keep on treading these grounds.
The tree to his left, one of the elms, this one perhaps the eldest with its greying bark and sagging branches, had in its center a birdcage that caught his eye immediately from even the meters of distance separating them. It was familiar, and he narrowed his eyes to make sure he had recognised it and correctly identified, when, there-
Ah! A minuscule flicker of silver caught one of the sunrays and reflected it.
Verso was immediately reminded of a similar afternoon, nearly fifteen years ago.
In a similar raincoat, in that same garden, gazing upon that same birdhouse. The fabric of his father's trousers being caught in his tiny fist, his other grabbing the back of Clea's coat. The sky had been stormy all afternoon on that same day, and even in the middle of May, it was hard to see clearly. Verso, back then, had been utterly terrified. He had only been coddled outside by the promise of warm milk and his mother agreeing to take him to a concert in town the week afterwards.
His memories were still blurry, but he remembered the way he had looked at his father, his tiny eyes blinking owlishly. By his side Clea was yawning, more than a little bored herself.
“Ah, children,” Papa had said. Or said something alike, but this changed nothing to his recollection. “Come and look- I am finished.”
The two young children had stared at the tiny house hanging on a tree some distance above their small heads.
“We can't see it!” Clea had complained. She had stomped her foot. “You said it was a dollhouse but I can't even touch it!”
Verso had cocked his head to the side. He had had read about the houses people would put in trees in an illustrated book during his lesson with his tutor earlier that season. His young mind had lightened up; he knew what it was!
“Is that a birdhouse?” He had asked.
Now that Verso was an adult, he could accurately describe the loving but strained smile on Renoir's lips as ‘pained.’
Their father had chuckled, more to fill the silence than out of real humour. “It is neither. It is just a house-”
“-why is it in a tree then?” Clea had interrupted.
Their father had minutely straightened the house until it was perfectly leveled with the line the ocean had drawn on the horizon before bending done so that he had been of a height with them. He had ruffled the siblings’ hair and only Clea had protested, loudly declaring that her headband had had to stay put before dinner that evening. They had been made to receive guests on that same evening, but Renoir had spirited them away to the garden to show them what he had had spent their entire afternoon working on.
Their father had teasingly booped her nose. “You stay quiet, my little bird. I was just about to explain.”
He had gestured with his hands at the house who had seemed to loom over them from where they had been so close to the ground, fern tickling at their shins and grasshoppers jumping between them.
“This is not just a birdhouse, or a dollhouse. This is a house for borrowers.”
And he had had stressed that last word in such a manner, that young Verso had been so impressed and never quite able to forget it since.
“A borrower?” Clea had asked with a frown. “What's that?”
A secretive smile had played on Renoir's lips. The darkened skies of the late afternoon had been drawing all kinds of fantastical shadows on his face, and Verso had hid his face a little further into his father's leg.
“These are tiny, tiny people,” he had raised the empty palm of his hand to show them, “so short that they can fit in between the tip of your finger and your wrist, and be quite comfortable with all that place allowed.”
“Then why are we making them a house in a tree?” Clea had stretched out her arms widely above her head, nowhere near close enough to actually reach the bottom of the house. “It's so high!” She had gasped, “they might even fall!”
Verso's eyes had widened.
Sensing their growing panic, Renoir had immediately interjected, “that's why I installed stairs.”
“Stairs?” she had asked.
He had pointed a finger towards the root of the tree then had drawn a very long line along the trunk all the way up to the roof of the house, and then past that until it had disappeared behind the branches and leaves. And on that invisible path stood hundreds of tiny little wooden pins. It was the most spectacular thing Verso had had ever seen.
They must have both been particularly baffled because their father had laughed warmly, one of these laughters usually reserved for the chimney in winter, and not for dark gardens in the spring, so far away from home.
“These are good stairs,” he had said. “They will not fail.”
While Clea had contemplated the miniature architectural endeavour, Verso had timidly asked as he tugged on his father's leg, “but why do they need a house? Don't they have one to live in?”
And then, still with that very warm smile on his face and the shadows magnifying all of his features into a face that was not quite Renoir anymore, their father had said the most terrifying thing Verso had ever heard, something so terrifying that Verso could not sleep for the rest of the trip and did not ever ask to go back to the beach house in Vendée. Something so terrifying that Clea still teased him to this day about the way he had shrieked as if his arm had been cut off or his precious piano burnt.
But as he had had asked that question, the young Verso had been still oblivious to its answer.
“Why do you ask?” Renoir had questioned back. Clea had turned to look at them.
Verso had shrunk a bit more onto himself. The shadows on his family's faces had been starting to scare him a great deal, and he had just wanted to get back inside. By finishing the conversation they might have done just that.
“I-I just want to know.”
And then Renoir had smiled, all of his teeth showing, and his eyebrows hiding his eyes, and had told Verso that it had been because the borrowers lived inside of their walls.
Nearly fifteen years later, an adult Verso still shuddered at the memory. He was older now and no matter what Clea said, he was not afraid of their father's stupid tales and even crazier beliefs anymore. He had in fact long stopped believing in what he could not attest with his own eyes.
He looked at the house, still standing on that tree, now looking a great deal smaller as Verso towered over even his own father. His eyes now filled in the details omitted by his memories over the years.
The house had once been painted a delicate ochre and the paint was now peeling along the edges. The ‘stairs’ remained safely in place, as his father had promised long ago.
Verso got closer. He was eager to catalogue everything given that his thoughts were not plagued anymore by the old terrors of his childhood.
He could safely say that it was an admirable work of craftsmanship, with a set of windows and a front door. There was not much left and it was like the house had been sawed in half so that it would be attached better to the trunk of the elm.
It was as such noticeably different to both a dollhouse and a birdhouse, a hybrid of sorts. It was noticeably wider than a birdhouse, but not particularly deep like a dollhouse either.
Verso noticed a locket from where the front panel of the house probably opened to let the artisan work and install everything. He decided to not spoil that mystery for himself.
Even though Maman had threatened Papa quite a lot, and had screamed at him so much that night when he had terrorised Verso, so much so that a part of Renoir's soul was more than likely still printed on the floors of the parental suite, it had not fully prevented him from telling Clea and Verso, and eventually little Alicia, all kinds of miraculous stories about these ‘borrowers,’ whatever or whoever they might be.
He had the distant thought that a few years back Clea had attempted to retrace all of their father's incoherent ramblings into a single notebook and imagine the mythology behind these creatures. But Verso was confident in his assumption that she only did so because she wanted to paint them, as she always did like painting out of the ordinary. It was around the time that he had stopped truly being afraid of the idea of borrowers: for nothing could be more terrifying than the monsters his sister dreamed of.
He looked at the house on the tree for a moment longer. If not for the paint forming cracks, it looks as brand new as the day he had witnessed it being hung. And if it was not… perhaps it was his memory playing tricks again.
He elected to walk some more around the garden, to the end and back to the edge of the house, by the garden shed and next to the wall formation he used to climb and scrape his fingers and knees on.
It was remarkable how well the garden had self-sustained itself in all the years when no Dessendre had inhabited the house. The fern and ivy had not swallowed everything beneath their overgrowth, prevented by lucky twigs and bricks falling on their paths. The small kitchen garden had surprisingly survived as well. And while it looked extremely chaotic, a far cry from the orderly manner seeds were always sowed, he was pleased to note that the descendants of the vegetables he once ate a lifetime ago still lived on. The most amusing thing he had gotten to notice as he walked quite a stretch and trekked all around the grounds was how many toys and other knick knacks Clea and he used to lose here.
For how many they were, of varying uses as well! Bobby pins from the sewing kit upstairs, buttons from the laundry room, a tiny playing dice that belonged to the library, horse figurines from the children's room…
Perhaps that was, too, one of the reasons why his parents had not insisted further when Verso refused to come back.
That, and the incessant noise.
Verso noticed it as well, what with his keen musician ears. It was easy to ignore when lost in thoughts in the gardens, when chasing seagulls from the terrace or humming to yourself in the living room. But it was impossible to ignore the way none of the sounds ever sounded right, and none of the silence was ever true.
He had thought earlier that perhaps he was so unnerved that he could not accurately perceive the silence that surely had to be there, that his heart beat too fast or his breath was too airy and strained in his lungs.
But no. He was certain now: the house had a life of its own.
Not… not in the literal sense. He was not completely daft. But the house never quite ceased being, as if it always wanted to remind you that it was here, around you, a sleeping giant ready to be awakened and spurge to life on big, long feet.
There was never a moment of quiet. Verso had been afraid when he had first noticed it: would it infringe on his fragile health more? Would he go even more insane, unable to hear the sound of a piano's strings but only of its wood?
But it had astounded him to realise that he truly did not mind. He lived here alone after all, and would keep on doing for who knew how long it would take for him to recover. In a way, the house was his neighbour, or his roommate, or the confidante whenever his musical attempts failed.
The sun was starting to set on the horizon, basking everything in orange and red hues.
He went back to the kitchen door, glancing at the clock and huffing as he read the time. That had been the most time he had spent outdoors in months. Just as swiftly as he arrived in, he left, one of the slices of bread with cured ham and hard cheese brought in by the cook that morning securely in Verso's hand.
He was actually looking forward to eating for once. He had not even forgotten to do so.
Verso walked in quick long steps through the garden, over jumping frogs and what he now realised was a forgotten cufflink catching the fading light of the sun. All around him, hundreds of objects or so were catching the rays as well, and it was like the garden was illuminated with a new species of fireflies who only came in at dusk.
It was mesmerising.
He walked past the birdhouse, past all the trees until he reached the gate at the very end, the one that led to the beach below. He checked it once by shaking it tremendously – as best as he could with one hand, anyway – and deeming it safe hoped over it and sat on it to look at the setting sun.
The birds were beginning to quiet down. Tonight the tides and moon were moving the sea away from the coast and towards the ocean. The wind had calmed down as well. And this far from the house, he could not hear anything.
He took a bite of bread and gazed at the colours of the sunset.
For the first time in what could have very well been years, Verso Dessendre was finally alone.
Something shook within him and he began to cough, an awful sound that he hoped would not be followed by the sight of blood.
By the time he had regained his bearings, the sky overhead was a dark blue speckled with millions upon millions of tiny stars, not a cloud to be seen.
***
The concert hall was packed to the brim. Rarely had anyone seen the Opéra Garnier this filled with people. The ticket masters at the entryway had been overwhelmed by the sheer amount of impatient concert attendees, and under the pressure – both metaphorical and literal – had been forced to let people inside. The crowd was euphoric, excited chatters rising from the seats on the ground floor to the private lodges above and the champagne flowed as eager flutes toasted. The atmosphere was packed with nervous energy and the gilded details flickered along with the lights on the walls.
They suddenly all shut off and a great silence fell over the assembly like a veil draping them in a hushed ambiance. It was as if the audience had been enthralled, put under a spell.
United as one, the entire room gazed towards the scene. It was bare except for a lone grand piano in a splendid and resplendent white colour.
Verso was sitting at this piano dressed in a similarly coloured three-piece suit. Thousands of eyes stared at him, unblinking.
His hands trembled on the keys. He could not get them to move.
Maman, Papa, Clea and Alicia were all seated in the front row. His youngest sister turned to their older sister and began to whisper with a worried expression. Clea shook her head.
The silence stretched out, and out, and out, like the horse hair on which the sword of Damocles hung.
More murmurs began to emerge from the crowd. But he could do nothing but stay silent.
Then, he heard it. A distant foreign melody, one that he had never heard before, one that was unlike any he had heard before.
His eyes widened, his heart picked up: and yet the tremors stopped. The tremors stopped. He could hardly believe it.
He took a deep breath and it was like he was being embraced from the inside out, a warmth spreading out from his lungs and coursing throughout his entire body.
He pressed his fingers to the keys again, felt the cold ivory beneath his touch, and-
Verso woke up with a gasp and immediately turned his head to cough in his elbow.
He groaned as he fell on his back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. It had been that same haunting dream again.
Who needed ghost stories when one's own mind could conjure fantasies more cruel than any literary monsters?
His eyes turned towards the window. A beam of moonlight entered the room from where the moon shone high in the sky. Another passing glance at the clock on the wall confirmed his suspicions: the pendulum swung elegantly, indicating that it was the middle of the night.
Verso could almost remember what he had felt in the dream, in that delicious nightmare. The way the piano felt so real under him, the way the suit was a perfect replica of the one he used to wear for his concerts, even the faces of his family were as good as their best portraits.
But there was only one detail that had long evaded his mind: that melody. One from no land known by man, from no era History had laid its hands on. A mystery, a ghost, a memory that only existed in his dreams.
He sat up and massaged his temple to ease his headache like Maman's handpicked doctors had recommended. He wished that any of them had an inkling as to what his illness was. He had had the feeling for too long that he was being strung along from one person to the next: following Clea’s medical advice was just another footnote in an ever-growing list.
He felt so tired, all the time. Like his eyebags would never disappear and he would never know a full night of rest again. Most nights he spent waking up with a jolt from another one of those tantalising delusions where he was still able to play again, and where he was not the failed pianist he now had become. Nights where he was back on stage and where the music flowed endless, en rythme molossique with his heart.
The house was chilly at this hour as was the rest of this part of the country. He figured that he might as well make himself a warm cup of milk on the stove if he were to stay awake anyway. He put on slippers, tied a dressing gown at his waist and tucked it in at the neckline, and began to make the trip downstairs.
Even though he was being very careful as he walked down the stairs – which he needed to be, for his own sake more than anything as his head still hurt him to leave him out of balance – the wood panels creaked and whined under each of his steps. It was dampened somewhat by the carpet but impossible to ignore.
It all so eerie at this time of the night. He wondered for a moment if he was still dreaming.
Once in the kitchen he scratched a single match and used it to turn on the lamp on the table, then the gas stove. The farmboys who came this morning had left him with a carton of a half-dozen small bottles of fresh milk. He picked one and warmed it on the open flame. While waiting he recalled how one of the lads, the youngest, proudly bragged to Clea that he had been the one to boil them back at the farm before the early hours of dawn.
When the bottle was sufficiently warm he picked it up and immediately began to drink, uncaring of the near burning sensation on his lips and down his throat. No one was here to watch him and the milk tasted like freedom of his tongue.
The bottle was set in the sink to be washed by the maids tomorrow.
Verso picked the lamp and started to walk away when he heard a noise coming from behind.
He stilled and listened.
Another sharp sound, the sound of glass on wood. A creaking noise.
He narrowed his grey eyes and swiftly turned back towards the source, the lamp held in front of him to guide his vision.
There was, and this truly would come as no surprise, absolutely nothing. The lamp shined on the carton of milk bottles at the bottom of the stove. But strangely, it was as if something was amiss. Verso did not know why but something told him to check the number of bottles. It was stupid, he knew that, he had not heard anyone come in, and why would anyone steal a milk bottle of all things and not his mother's paintings? But he had a bad feeling about this. His hair stood on edge at his nape. He frowned as he started to count.
One… two... three… four… five… and where was the last-
Crrrrrk!
Another noise. Louder this time. It came from the other side of the ground floor.
Throwing caution to the wind, Verso all but ran to the opposite wing, pushing the door open and ending up in the library.
It was silent. Truly silent at that. No creakings, no mice, nothing. And the windows were still closed as well. All was in order, if order included the papers still lying everywhere from his attempted afternoon practice session.
The piano was of course at the center of it all. The long curtains from the windows were a translucent white like the ones in the rest of the house, and the library had more windows, wider as well. He could see clearly even if it was the middle of the night.
He approached slowly, his steps dampened by the sheets of music, and he had the distant fleeting thought that he ought to be more upset about this. But how could he when he had not been able to play any of these pieces in so long despite his infallible memory? How he only carried them everywhere in the holes of tricking his own mind?
It was as if Verso was in a trance as he approached the piano. He knew that the noise did not come from the piano, could not. But it was beckoning him all the same, urging him to play and play and play.
He sat down. He did not feel particularly different from what he had felt these past few months. Then why did he feel the need to play at night, his heart naked and raw like this was his musical bain de minuit?
As Verso started to despair, the most extraordinary thing happened.
He heard the melody from his dreams.
He stood frozen in something between fear and disbelief, not trusting his ears at first.
But as the minutes rolled on the truth became clear like springwater. There was something playing the melody in the house.
Or rather… and it was there that his eyes widened, that his hands clutched over the keyboard; for he could not hear the distinct crackling sound of an audio recording.
There was someone singing the melody, in that very room.
He blinked a few times but nothing changed. He would have expected his vision to start swimming the same way his illness always made him do, but the opposite happened and he felt his head being lighter than it had in months.
The melody came from the right. He did not need to turn his head right just yet to know that there was a window hiding behind the closed pale curtains.
Verso feared that uncovering the mystery too soon would fill him with a dread and terror he did not need. He wanted to relish in the peacefulness his mind was feeling. The near joy that this music was bringing him.
He closed his eyes and listened to the siren-like song, for the first time while awake and fully cognisant of his thoughts. It truly was like the melody that had been haunting him. Was it even the same one as the one in his dreams? The notes did not sound too right and the cadenza was off at times. He did not know, and could not care. What mattered was the effect on his very soul.
And in that aspect they were equals.
Now that he could focus more he immediately realised that the melody was indeed a song, one sung by a mesmerisingly talented male interpreter. It was a soothing tenor, a deep and rumbling humming. He could not make out any of the words: he thought that he did not need to.
Was this what Odysseus had felt, tied to the mast of his once-great ship as he listened to the inviting and divine lulls of the sirens? A voice inside of him screaming to reach them and drown in the music?
No, it could not be. Because Verso felt anything but mad.
He breathed shakily, blunt nails digging into his palm. He could not believe his ears. This had to be the most beautiful thing he had ever heard in his entire life. His heart was protesting the secrecy while his mind told him that he should not look and extend the dreamlike lull, lest the memories be spoiled.
But he could hardly resist his heart for too long, for it had its own reasons that reason was not privy to.
Verso lifted his head in the direction of the mysterious singer, facing head on the gentle moonbeam gazing from the window. The curtains were so thin that all silhouettes came through like a shadow theatre.
At first, he saw nothing. Nothing but the pure milky white of the moon. Then he could nearly glimpse a tiny motion at the bottom of the window, so tiny that it could not have been more than a few centimetres out from the bottom of the frame.
He frowned. Perhaps a squirrel or a tiny owl stood on the other side of the glass? It was too small to be anything but.
The shadow was so thin, so delicate in its motion as it flowed along to the rhythm of the music like the dolls inside of his sister's music boxes. Human in its movements.
His mouth went dry. Surely it could not be...?
The curtain lifted due to the action of the mysterious singer and Verso finally could see that it was a delicate-looking man, not taller than his hand and with the gracious disposition of a dancer as he swirled around, lost to his own music.
Verso could not believe his eyes. He already knew that he was staring dumbfoundedly at the display.
His tiny dancer looked so enchanting on his small stage, and his voice was still as enthralling as the most stunning of symphonies. He was swaying along to the song, as if he was rehearsing a waltz, his feet guiding him towards an imaginary partner. His long black coat flowed behind him in a swooping motion, his arms forming elegant arcs, his knees and feet bending just so.
Verso first thought that his mysterious singer must have been a fairy, for that was how beautiful he looked. His short brown curly hair formed a halo around his head, the top part braided like a crown over his forehead. His features were handsome, with a straight nose, full pink mouth and an attractive curvature to his jaw beneath a well-kept beard. But most pleasing of all were his eyes, which he kept closed most of the time during his dance, safe for when he needed to regain his footing and continue along quickly with his performance. His eyes were, even from a distance, a soulful brown speckled with hazel and green like a marble vase, shimmering in gold under the moonlight. He was dressed entirely in black with gold, silver and vibrant purple accents: he looked wholefully like a dream.
Verso should have been more panicked and not stupidly mesmerised by this impossible beauty. And yet he remained staring like a voyeur, captivated by the song and the dance, by the vision of the man at their core.
Something within him compelled him and he had to get closer, had to feel that tangible dream against his fingerprints. He rose up quickly, standing on clumsy legs unused to such physical activity especially while tired at night.
The dancer was still singing, lost to his own thoughts.
Verso's vision swum and his knees almost bucked- he was quick enough to catch himself back on the piano. But not enough that he had been careful of where his hands fell.
A single and melodic la at four hundred and forty Hertz echoed across the room.
That spooked his tiny dancer who immediately awoke from his trance and turned his face in his direction.
Grey met brown. Verso could not breathe.
The dancer's brown eyes widened, eyebrows shooting up on his forehead. He was frozen in stupor, for some reason clutching his left – gloved – hand to his chest. He was like a fawn, struck between flight and fright.
Verso raised both hands to show that he meant no harm. He had not awaken even after hearing the stark note; was this truly not a dream.
“I meant no harm,” Verso whispered.
That did not seem to quiet down the dancer. Whom, now that he was not moving anymore, Verso was able to notice was not exactly dressed in the manner of a dancer but in what could only be described as the strangest hiking gear Verso had seen in his life. The coat that would sway after his footsteps was worn down at the bottom and covered in specks of mud and dust, he was wearing sturdy boots and thick pants and upper layers. And at his back he bore some miniature crossbow and icepicks, fastened out of what appeared to be bobby pins and coloured sewing thread.
The hiker-turned-dancer's brows furrowed, a serious expression on his face, and pulled a needle out of the scabbard at his back.
Verso probably would have been much more intimated if that sword was, well. Not a needle that did not look blunt enough to even leave a scab. Nonetheless he maintained both hands raised.
He did not want the mysterious many to leave just yet. And having seen the objects he was saddled with, a thought came to Verso's mind. A memory from his childhood.
“I truly mean no harm,” Verso repeated. “I am alone, and-” his sentence was broken off by a cough. His eyes watered under the force of it.
When he managed to strand up straight and to look back at his conversation partner, he noticed that the needle-sword was not raised so offensively anymore, but rather in a prudent defensive manner.
His brown eyebrows were still knitted in a tight line on his handsome face. He stood stubbornly silent, and Verso longed to hear his voice again.
Verso could already imagine Clea berating him for his curiosity but he could not stop. He needed to know. Needed to hear that melody again, needed to know if the myth was indeed real.
“It was you who were singing just now, wasn't it?” He could not even attempt to hide the wonder in his voice. When the other did not answer, Verso added, “I heard you. You have a beautiful voice. I wouldn't mind hearing you singing again.”
Could he really have been one of those creatures from Papa's tales? Not some terrifying beasts as his younger self had imagined, but a beauty as enticing and magical as the ether above?
The man's cheeks flushed a very attractive pink colour under the praise. But at last, he spoke, and his voice was as warm and alluring as his song had been.
“I did not sing for you. I was unaware anyone was here.”
A small smile tentatively broke on Verso's face.
“I thought your kind could not speak to humans.”
The mysterious man's eyes narrowed, the brown becoming a somber black as the moon slipped from his eyes.
“So you know what I am, then.”
His smile became wider and he suppressed a hysterical laugh. “I wasn't sure at first, but your answer tells me everything I need to know.”
He could hardly believe it. Papa had not lied.
“It is a rule we tell our children,” the borrower began to say. Verso had difficulties wrapping his head around that. An actual borrower was talking to him. “And what's more you have already seen me. I gain more by bargaining with you.”
Verso breathed deeply to regain his senses. He felt a nervous yet excited sort of agitation running through him. It was electrical.
“A bargain?” He eventually asked.
The borrower's right hand shook on his grip on the needle-sword, his brown hair swept across his forehead. “Is it only the song you are after?” He asked matter of factly, not a hint of warmth in his tone. He was terribly reserved.
“What else could a musician be after, but the perfect melody?” Verso foolishly questioned. The worst part was that he was being sincere for once.
The borrower was still looking healthily flushed but his eyes were like steel. “I have no reason to trust you.” Then, in a much quieter voice, he added; “and that is not a perfect melody. I know what my singing sounds like-”
“-that it sounds enchanting? Ethereal? Like nothing I'd have ever heard before?” The young man cut in. He did not why he felt so defensive over that melody, especially if the creator himself felt that way.
The borrower paused. He tentatively lowered his needle-sword again until it was resting by his leg. He lifted one eyebrow. “How much do you know about our kind?”
Verso hummed in thoughts. “Only what my father would recall to my siblings and I, and what my eldest sister tried to research while in her younger years.”
“Then you most likely know that we do not have any magical powers. So please, no need to continue with the false pleasantries about my craft.” The other said in a flat no-nonsense voice.
He did not know if he was allowed more questions. Did not know much about the personality of the borrower, only his captivating voice and brown eyes. The rest he could only guess from his behaviour and his outfit.
He tried to remember what he had put aside all these years. How his father had tried to explain that they were not malevolent creatures, that the borrowers were more akin to gentle fairies 'stealing’ only what they needed to to survive. They would remain hidden from humans as to not be discovered. That they were as smart as any man and, according to Clea, probably smarter given the average intelligence of the men in Paris. That was where their names had come from: they were borrowers living where the humans resided.
A sudden question came to his mind.
Why, then, was the borrower here?
His behaviour did not show that he expected Verso's presence, and in fact he seemed surprised to find him in the library. He said that his performance was meant for no spectators, but why was he out in the open, where any human could find him?
And this house had not been lived in for years. Verso had to get all the necessary supplies shipped.
He realised then that he had many more questions than he did answers, and he would have to tread the following minutes carefully if he wanted a chance to have his curiosity sated.
“Did you not know that I was in the house?” was what he ended up asking with a genuinely questioning voice.
Judging by the borrower's stunned expression, he probably had expected any other question as well.
“I- of course I knew!” He replied too quickly, clutching at his left arm with his ungloved right hand.
Verso hummed. “Right,” he said, not meaning it. A quirk formed on his lips. “So who was this little performance for, if not for the human living in the house and ready to be awakened at any moment?”
The borrower's face paled and he froze, caught in his lie.
Ha, Verso thought. No one could outplay the master of deceit at his own game.
“But then again,” he continued nonchalantly, “it is a good thing that said human resident found it to be utterly lovely, wouldn't you think? I must thank you for that wonderful welcome.”
The borrower broke eye contact and looked to the side. “I was warned about your family's wits, but it has been too long since any of you came here.” He stared back again, this time with defiance in his brown eyes. “I, too, could start asking you questions.”
Verso found himself growing quickly addicted to his personality.
He decided to humour the borrower. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth; and perhaps voice for piano.
“I am the Dessendres’ only son, Verso Dessendre.” He bowed his head politely. “And you are right, my family hasn't come here in a long, long time. To be perfectly honest, I am not too sure as to why there even is a borrower living on these grounds. Surely there can be a better place for you, no?”
But the borrower remained tight-lipped. “I still cannot trust you,” he said. “M. Dessendre,” he added like an afterthought.
“You won't answer any of my questions?” Verso lured. A thought had crossed his mind. “I could answer any that you have.”
“And what makes you think that you would have anything of importance to teach me?”
Verso grinned, trailing his fingers on the piano. “Because I am willing to bet any amount of money that you haven't seen a human before.”
The borrower took a step back. “You can't know that,” he said in an accusing tone.
“Really?” He hummed. “And yet you're still there, in this room, with me, instead of having safely retreated in your burrows.”
The other gritted his teeth in annoyance but Verso could clearly see the curiosity and eagerness to know more that were pooling in his pretty eyes.
“You are right,” the borrower said. “But if we are to have an honest conversation, I cannot remain by the window.”
Verso nodded. “That's fine with me. Do you want to-”
But before he could continue his sentence, the borrower grabbed the crossbow from his back and shot a tiny iron dart that got latched onto the top of the piano, a long line of rope attached to it, which he used for abseiling with his tiny ice picks.
He was terribly fast and efficient, a truly skilled hiker. Verso found himself immensely impressed.
“-or you can just do that,” Verso lamely finished. “Right. Why didn't I think about you launching yourself across the room.”
The borrower was only slightly winded as he packed everything to his back with that same efficiency, brushing tousled brown curls away from his eyes.
“Much better now,” he told Verso.
The man quickly sat down straighter and he found that he did not have to bend his neck too much to look straight at the tiny borrower in front of him. It was even more amazing to see him from up close.
The borrower was indeed no smaller than the size of his stretched hand, like his father had first told him an eternity ago. He was also not wearing a glove on his right hand, and instead his lower arm seemed to be replaced by a fascinating metallic contraption.
He also happened to look even more handsome and adorable, but that was probably a personal thing.
Said borrower's melodic voice declared with only a slight exertion to his words, “Very well. I'll ask the questions first.”
That broke the man from his reverie. “I'm sorry- could you repeat that?”
The borrower smirked. “What, you're the only one allowed to take actions first?”
Addictive personality, he was reminded. He had no doubt that the borrowers had to be secretly magically gifted. That was the only logical explanation.
Though today, all logic evaded him.
Verso chuckled. “Fine, have it your way.” He rested his chin on his joined hands, tilting his head to the side cockily. “Ask away.”
The borrower thought for a second, fingers tapping on the pommel of his sword. Before long he raised one hand.
“OK, I have my first question.” His eyes were so incredibly piercing when they focused all of their attention on Verso. “Why did you come back?”
“Because this is my house.”
The other frowned. “Yes, I know that you're a Dessendre. But why now?”
“I already answered your first question I'm afraid.” He said with no apology in his voice. “You'll have to wait for follow-ups.”
The borrower's mouth dropped open. “What-!? That's not fair-”
“Ah-ah-ah, a deal's a deal's, my dear borrower.”
“-I already knew that it was your house-!”
Verso raised his pointer finger and brought it in front of the borrower's chest, lightly touching him. His fingertip covered it almost entirely, and was bigger than his thin waist. “Then you should ask better questions.”
The borrower looked stunned, and Verso could feel the heart picking up speed from where they were connected.
“Good? Good.” Verso smiled wolfishly. He bent down until his head was closer to his conversation partner.
“I want to know your name,” he whispered. “You are the most fascinating thing that has happened to me in months, and I refuse to call you n the same manner my father called your kind when I was a child.”
The borrower was looking at him with wide brown eyes and an astonished expression. He said with no small amount of surprise in his words, “Oh. It really is me that you are interested in.”
Verso lifted one eyebrow. “Is it so surprising?” He murmured. “My younger sister always did say that I had a weakness for a good song and pretty eyes.”
The borrower shook his head. “Between the two of us, I do not have the prettiest eyes. Surely you would be more mesmerising than I?”
“And why would that be so?”
The borrowed sighed, a sad and melancholic thing that looked much too out of place on his person. He grabbed his left arm reflexively. “We borrowers don't have access to the rest of the world, too grand and vast for people like us.” He gestured at the wide expense of the library, a broken laugh tearing out of his throat. “I must have read every book by now, learnt all that I could about the world of the humans. But it doesn't change the fact that I am small, and I can't even do many of the beautiful things that you humans get to do.”
And then the borrower put a small hand on Verso's hand from where it rested close to his body. “But you, you can do so many beautiful things. You can even play the piano.”
Verso's eyes hardened. “I cannot,” he simply said.
The borrower frowned. “Of course you can. The others saw- uh, I mean, we- I saw you sitting at the piano for hours!” He turned around, doing one graceful full circle. “And there are sheets of music strewn everywhere in here!”
Verso clenched his fist until his nails bit into his palm. “It doesn't change the fact that I cannot.”
“But I heard you play, just now,” the borrower said simply, his eyes a window to his heart and devoid of any lies. Verso got the sudden strange feeling that the borrower rarely lied.
The young man frowned. “I most certainly did not. I haven't been able to play even a single note in months.”
“Well I can trust my own memory, especially on the same day, and I can confirm to you that you ‘most certainly did,’ M. Verso Dessendre.” He emphasised it with his hands on his hips.
But when the borrower saw that Verso was not convinced he grabbed Verso's pointer finger in his arms and asked, “may I?”
Verso did not know what he was asking this question for but nodded anyway.
The borrower tugged on his hand and it probably took a great deal of strength because his coat was flowing along. But he succeeded in his endeavour and managed to lift Verso's hand enough so that it fell down towards the keyboard, the borrower in tow.
Verso’s eyes widened and he quickly scrambled to pick up the tiny body before it fell against the keys, his hand cradling the borrower in his palm a centimeter or so above white and black tiles. The borrower felt so light in his hand and yet so warm.
“Careful,” Verso pestered as he tried to stay as still as possible to not bother him. But it was said without a lot of bite: he was filled with too much wonder for that.
The borrower kneeled across his palm and Verso could feel the scabbard, the rope and the coat tickling him, the tiny boots digging into his skin. It all felt even more real, tangible in a way it had not truly felt before.
“I am being careful,” the other retorted. He pressed his hands on Verso's pointer finger that was hovering over one of the piano keys, bending Verso's hand with the motion.
Verso let him do as he wished, watching with curious fascination.
“I definitely heard you,” the borrower said while moving Verso's fingers until they were touching the keys, himself now kneeling on the back of his hand. “You had just heard me, I think. You stood up and were startled, and-”
“-no, you don't understand,” Verso quickly denied, “I can't play-”
“-you pressed this key. La four hundred forty. I remember it.” And his tiny, delicate hands pressed just as gently, and Verso was actually playing the note.
The young man could not believe it. He stared as if he could be able to see the sound, a playful gold dancing across the room.
The borrower looked very pleased with himself. “See? I told you!” He laughed.
Verso could not breathe. “H-how…?” He whispered.
He spread his fingers so that they were all touching different keys in a simple succession, on a lower register this time, and the borrower hopped off the back of his hand to sit on a piano tile next to him.
The borrower was careful of his coat and tugged at it so that it did not fall over a different tile. He looked at the keys and his eyebrows frowned ever so slightly as he analysed what sound they could make.
Then, he began to hum a very simple, but beautiful melody.
And Verso did not know why but his fingers started to move to the soft song.
And for the first time in what felt like eons, he was actually playing.
The melody being sung and that echoed in the space around them, in the silence of this house, in the tranquility of the night, was a song of longing and yearning like first loves would sing to each other. The borrower would sing happily but with a hint of deeper sadness within his heart, and Verso would repeat it on the piano. They were so well-matched on that aspect that the piano did not feel like an accompaniment but like the second soul of the piece, the answer to the borrower's song, an essential part of the performance.
Verso's small chuckle was halfway between laughter and tears. His hands would not stop playing and an euphoric feeling rang throughout his chest.
“How?” He repeated. “How?”
But the borrower was oblivious to his internal dilemma. He paused his singing so he could listen to Verso. He laid out his truth like it was the most obvious thing in the world,
“You are a pianist, aren't you? That's what you do.”
Verso blinked away tears before they fell from his eyes. He wore a tired smile. “That's not what I do though,” he whispered.
The borrower laid his hand gently on his own, his brown eyes gazing up warmly at Verso. “And yet you're doing it now.”
Verso sobbed. “Yeah,” he said as he played, the song coming to a quiet end on the final note. He let his hands rest on the keys, breathing shakily but fully. “Yeah, I guess that I am.”
They were both silent for a moment as they basked in each other's presence. Phantom notes could still be felt through the air between them.
The borrower said with admiration, “you play beautifully. I'm glad that I got the chance to hear it.” He surprisingly turned bashful, pink running up his neck from where he was rubbing it with one hand, “even if it's only with my simple song. I would love to hear you play one of those melodies that cover the floor.”
Verso bent down and picked the first one that his hand could reach.
It was the first promenade from Moussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. He showed the borrower the partition, who immediately started reading it avidly.
Verso felt the tremors begin in his lower arms just at the thought of playing it. But a theory came to his mind.
“Say,” he asked and the borrower looked at him with curious eyes, “do you think you could hum the melody?”
He looked surprised. “This isn't a very long piece and you look like you know it, given the number of annotations on the page. Do you really need me to?”
Verso stretched his arms and yawned. “Think of it as humouring me.”
“You are a very strange musician.”
A musician. How weird to consider himself as one again.
“I feel like I haven't gotten this much inspiration in some time, is all,” and it was only half a lie. But he was not about to lay his pity story on an innocent soul.
If this really was a dream, and it was slowly feeling more and more like one, he might as well enjoy it. He was starting to grow more and more tired from all the action of the night.
Verso set the sheet down so that the borrower could read it as he sang. He crossed his arms over the piano and rested his head on them.
“Are you not going to play again?” The borrower inquired.
Verso nodded. “I will, I will. But I need to hear the melody coming in your wonderful voice first.”
This time, his blush was a very pretty red colour, and Verso wanted to get lost in it. “What am I, your servant?” The borrower joked. But he looked relaxed as well, perhaps even as tired as Verso felt. “A perverted version of a muse?” He added with no real anger.
Verso nodded again as he closed his eyes.
“I just need to rest my eyes for a moment. So… if you wouldn't mind…” His voice lost its volume, “just… a moment…”
The last thing he could remember was a beautiful and familiar melody filling his every thought and shining hazel streaks of light on a deep brown sea.
***
Verso woke up as the first rays of the sun started beaming into his bedroom and directly into his eyes.
He groaned and turned his head into his pillow.
Just a few more minutes… he thought. He could almost still hear the Promenade..
Ah, the Promenade. It had always been one of his favourites to play, ever since learning it at seven years of age. He had never heard it sung before.
And what an unexpected singer at that. He clenched his blanket tighter. He was so glad to be here, sitting at the piano, with his pillow, and-
His eyes opened immediately.
Pianos did not have pillows.
He was in his bed, in his room upstairs, under his comforter and blanket because the room was chilly by the seaside even in the summer.
His heart dropped.
He was in his bed, in his room upstairs, and decidedly not sitting by the piano listening to the most marvelous voice he had ever heard.
His head began to hurt and he could feel a fit of coughs building within his chest. That part was definitely real. He could not picture such intense pain even in his wildest nightmares.
Fuck.
In between bouts of heavy breathing and whizzing, slamming his chest with his hand for good measure, he tried to recall everything that had happened during the night.
The piano calling to him and the beautiful song haunting him, meeting an actual borrower like Papa used to tell them so many stories of… Not being scared or frightened but fascinated by him… And finally, after months, playing the piano again with his help.
Verso stared at his hands. He had been able to play the piano again. Had been able to express the thoughts in his heart through his music.
He rubbed his face with his hand, his black strands of hair getting tangled in his fingers from where he was clenching and nearly tearing them. His exhale was a shaky, pained noise.
It had all been a fucking dream then. Too good to be true like all the positive things in his miserable life. He felt like crying again.
But suddenly a tiny glimpse of light caught his eye from across the room.
He raised his head sharply and narrowed his eyes to focus better.
There definitely was something.
He got out of bed on trembling legs, and crossed the room in three quick steps until he reached the dresser on the other side. He looked at what had caused the shimmer of light.
It was a needle, stuck in a tiny piece of paper.
His eyebrows shot up on his forehead and he immediately grabbed it.
Could it be-? He thought desperately. Could it be-
But it had all been a dream, had it not been?
A tiny piece of leather and thread was tied around the eye of the needle. His heart picked up.
He placed it back down and grabbed delicately the tiny piece of paper.
He opened it and a laugh of pure joy started ringing all throughout the room. He could not stop grinning.
On the piece of paper was written a single word, with great flourish despite small inky footsteps decorating the edges. The handwriting was shaky but admirably clear, with gracious loops and lines.
"Gustave," Verso whispered reverently. "Thank you."