Page 175 of Play of Love
This was what it sounded like when she played with sadness. Like a breaking heart, like the world had ended and all hope was gone.
It gripped me.
The music was beautiful, mesmerizing and spellbinding, but it gripped at my heart and I felt sad too.
How many times had I heard Lucy play this piece? How many times had I heard it at school, college, at concerts? But never like this.
I played on, but it was more like I was backing Lucy up rather than accompanying her. As we hit the finale, Lucy took it to another level. I stopped and gave Lucy the honor of finishing.
When I did, she lingered on the last note as if she were holding on to the thought, no... her belief that Angelo was alive.
That got to me even more.
Lucy actually laughed when she finished, and Gage was clapping.
"That was incredible." He was saying, but I couldn't take my eyes off Lucy.
"My dear Evie," Lucy began, reaching across and cupping my face. "You are amazing. You cannot be the little cherub who lived next door. You can't be that little eight-year-old girl who I taught." She looked so proud of me. "Truly, the student has surpassed the master." She smiled.
I shook my head. "No Lucy. You were never just a master. You're a legend. You can't surpass legends." I meant that from the depths of my heart. I truly did.
My words seemed to have taken Lucy by surprise because she stared at me in complete awe.
She pulled me in for a hug and said, "thank you. I needed that. Thank you for being so dear to me."
She gave me a soft kiss on my forehead as we parted. It was then that I saw Gage looking at me.
He was staring at me in that transfixed way as if he could see something that fascinated him. I looked at him too and found myself once again lost within the depths of his gaze. My heart expanded and glowed, and this time I didn't have to touch him to hear the music. The whole symphony was there, in his eyes, all over him, everywhere.
"Let's do another one." It was Lucy's voice that broke the trance.
I looked back to her and smiled against the swirl of emotion that rushed throughout me.
I was normally so in control of everything around me, but it was the first time I'd ever felt out of control. As if some ethereal force had consumed me, and it happened to me every time I was with Gage or in his presence.
* * *
I swung the pendulum shaped crystal across the entire map of Italy just like we did in that show I used to watch when I was in College.Charmedit was called, and this little trick of mine was scrying. The show was about three sisters who were witches, good witches. We'd always do this first when we were looking for someone or something. It was a magical way of searching or getting answers to serious questions. The crystal would swing until it stopped or pointed out into a certain direction. That would be where we'd find whatever we were looking for.
I was hoping for the same results here. One time I was certain it worked. I'd been looking for my friend's dog that had gone missing for two days. We'd searched everywhere and only found him when we scryed. Granted he was found at one of his usual hang out spots we'd missed the first time we looked, but just maybe scrying pointed us back in that direction.
"What are you doing?" Gage asked coming up behind me in the lounge.
"Shhh." I hissed at him.
"What are you doing?" he whispered. "It's midnight."
"This works best at midnight," I retorted.
"What?"
"Witchcraft." I simply answered. Gage looked at me with narrowed eyes and burst out laughing.
"Evie, what the hell?"
"This is what you call trying everything, and I'm going in big. I'm not just looking for the sisters I'm going to find Angelo."
He only laughed at me even more. "With a crystal on a piece of string and a map."
