Page 85 of Persephone's Curse
The next morning I found Evelyn sitting in front of the piano bench, not playing, staring down at her hands resting on the keys. We had all decided to go to Todd’s for breakfast and I had been sent up to fetch her. She had been sleeping later than she usually did, these days. In truth, we all had, and I had the sneaking suspicion it was due to the tear in the sky, that it was somehow leaching our energy from us…
“Evie?” I said, standing behind her in the attic.
“Can you come here?” she said softly, not turning around. “Will you sit next to me?”
She slid over to make room for me, and I sat next to her on the piano bench. She folded her hands on her lap.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Will you play something?”
“I don’t know how to play anything.”
“‘Chopsticks,’” she said. “You know how to play ‘Chopsticks.’”
I wanted to question her, but I also wanted breakfast, and I sensed the fastest way to the latter was to skip the former.
I played “Chopsticks.”
I was far from musically inclined, and even the simple, staccato melody of “Chopsticks” came out rough underneath my fingers.
When I was done I looked at her and said, “Okay?”
“I thought it might be broken,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“I thought maybe there was something wrong with the piano, because… I can’t play.”
“There’s nothing wrong with the piano.”
“But I can’t play,” she repeated.
“I don’t understand.”
“There’s either something wrong with the piano or something wrong withme.”
“You’re not making any sense, Evelyn.”
“Watch.”
She put her hands back on the keys and began to play…
But no sound came out.
The keys moved as they should, and I could hear the heavy, mutedthunkof each one dipping down and popping back up, but the piano itself remained silent.
After a few moments of this, Evelyn removed her hands and looked at me, her eyes wide and fearful.
“It’s the tear,” she said. “It’s whatever’s coming out of the tear, Winnie. It’s doing something to me. And Mom, the other night, talking about Henry. I think it’s doing something to her, too.”
“We don’t know that…”
“I know that. Ifeelthis… heaviness… Thislethargy. Do you feel it, too?”
“I just feel cold,” I said. “And tired, I guess.”
“It’s the tear. It’s all the tear.”
