Page 55 of Sins (The Sins Trilogy 1)
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ivy
The quintet concert turns out to be a high school production with a donation box at the entrance to raise money for a local youth music program. We meet on Friday for a couple of hours to rehearse. The juniors and seniors are awestruck after hearing that I’ve been studying at Curtis for the last three years. It’s a little unnerving.
Surprisingly, no one is there to turn my music. It’s okay, though, since I have Dvorák’s Piano Quintet memorized from having played it before. I make it a habit to memorize the pieces I’m supposed to play. It gives me extra confidence that I’m really ready and prepared.
Saturday starts out ominously. The sky is dark pewter with rain-heavy clouds. The wind picks up, scattering leaves and tugging hard at the moss as it sweeps through the trees in the garden. Having spent five years in Louisiana, plus summer vacations and holidays from Curtis, rain and storms don’t freak me out like they do some of my friends who come from states like California. But goosebumps rise on my skin anyway. It stormed the day my parents died.
I wrap my arms around myself for a moment before driving out to the St. Agnellus Community Center. It isn’t raining yet, but the wind gets more vicious along the way, trying to push the car off the road. As I get out in the community center parking lot, it pulls at my blue dress—the informal uniform all the girls in the quintet are supposed to wear—and tangles my hair.
I dash into the community center and go to the practice room in the back. It’s large enough to accommodate about thirty people. An upright piano that hasn’t been tuned in ages stands in the corner, and all the members of the quintet are here—the two violinists, the violist and the cellist tuning their instruments and warming up. A lone strawberry blonde is hanging out in the back, her face stuck in a thick Harry Potter hardback. She’s also got the blue dress uniform on, so she must be the one designated to turn my music. The only boy in the group—the cellist—is in a suit with a neatly knotted sleet-gray tie.
“Awesome, you’re here now,” the violist says.
“I’m not late, am I?”
“You’re fine. Ready for the final run-through?”
I nod, and we start getting into position, taking our seats and arranging our music on the stands. The blonde comes over, pulling a chair up next to the piano, so she can flip music for me. Others are expected to deal with their own music, but not pianists.
I adjust the piano bench and toss my hair over my shoulders. Something snags it, and I wince. “Ow.” I tug, trying to free my hair. I can’t play with my neck bent the entire time.
There’s a snap and something metallic glides down my body and falls into my lap.
Crap. The medallion!
I twist around to look down on the floor. There’s a glint under the bench, and I grab it. This isn’t good.
I don’t consider myself especially superstitious, but I’m getting an uneasy feeling. Tony hasn’t called or texted even once since he left, and I can’t help but wonder if the broken chain is some kind of omen.
Don’t be ridiculous. It just got caught in your hair.
I put the medallion and chain in my purse under the piano bench. I’ll have them looked at later. I’m probably being oversensitive with Tony gone and the awful weather, and memories of the day when I lost the two people who mattered most to me.
