Fermata (A pause, or held)

In the theme of music-titled short stories, this is a decidedly non-Gothic attempt. I'm not sure what I could use it for, but it was a good excersise in imagery and all the stuff English teachers love, so I'm posting it here for your enjoyment. This one is dedicated to Bella, my violin virtuoso, and inspired by a fermata, my instense fear of snapping my wrist and never playing clarinet again, and Bella herself.

Fermata

As a child, she’d wanted to be a bird.

Before the accident, the idea had slipped into the back of her mind now and again, remnants of a distant and foolish past. She was no longer one for wishing of birds and immortality in the air – she had important things, like shallow materialism and cold human indifference, to focus her mind upon. The birds would bring a slight smile, maybe even a laugh, but sometimes a slight longing, a wish to return to the innocent days, because everything is far more beautiful in retrospect.

Now, immobilised and strapped to the cold hospital slab, she wishes for nothing more than the ability to crane and twist her neck so that she can stare longingly at the birds once again.

There was no denying she had been beautiful. But the medics had not cared for beautiful as they worked tirelessly to conserve something far more precious. The scars were misshapen and ugly, running far deeper than her skin. One annoys her more than the others, just under and through her eyebrow, twisting the shape and permanently disfiguring the flesh. The fine hairs will never grow back there, changing the shape of her simple face forever.

They don’t give her mirrors very often, but whenever they do she focuses on the eyebrow, as if to drown out the rest of the scars. She even begins to obsess over it, mutely signalling her terrified yet determined younger sister to redraw the shape of the brow, as if it will repair all the other damage to her body.

Like it will return the arm which had been stolen.

Some of the nurses are confused by her silence. There had been no damage to her vocal chords when the car had wrapt itself lovingly around a telegraph pole. Yet she had not uttered so much as a syllable since her admission, except to groan in pain as nightmares pervaded her sleep each night. The hospital’s psychologist is called in, but can determine nothing from the empty air she gives as answers to his questions. Eventually, it is the boy who answers for her.

He’d visited her at least every second day, only because he could not afford the bus fare to see her more regularly. He knew her through school, and perhaps from something deeper, even though the question was never raised. At any rate, he always stood silently, communicating on some level other than the crass audible with her. Never sitting, never speaking. Never there for more than an hour.

She has been lying there for close to a month when the psychologist and the boy’s visits finally coincide. The boy is surprised at the lack of knowledge.

Don’t you understand what she’s lost? He asks in shock.

The physiologist is not in for a lecture. An arm, three toes, damage to her neck vertebrae and some of her motor communication. It could have been a lot worse – I’ve seen a lot worse. If it weren’t for the shock and this inexplicable depression, she’d have left the hospital weeks ago.

So you don’t know?

Know what?

He looked at her then, as if searching for confirmation or even approval to share her secret. She nodded with her eyes and let him finish.

She was a violinist. Sydney Youth Orchestra Concert Master. She’ll never play again.

Suddenly, everything makes sense to those too blind to see or ask before. She does not merely pity herself for the loss of an arm and some of her beauty, but grieves her aspirations and future as they slowly became less and less real, fading to blips in her past.

Lost aspirations and dreams.

Like the birds.

Even she can’t explain it, but somehow he finds out. Less than a week later, the boy convinces a younger, less sturdy nurse to help him adjust the television set so that she can see it. He’s found an old tape, some sort of nature documentary, with bad sound and flicking pictures. But she only has the strength to watch it muted, preferring the swooping and diving of the exotic birds it documents without the intrusion of a commentator. He sits and watches it with her, staying close to two hours in silence. As the credits roll, naming narrators they will never hear and cameramen they will never care about, he stands and prepares to leave. She makes a noise – something between a gargle and a plea, but the first sound she’s directed at a human being in close 

to 6 weeks.

He leans down to kiss her forehead, understanding fully. The tape only goes so far. The footage has its limitations. She cannot hear the wind and feel the dust as she watches the birds, but it’s close enough.

By a silent agreement, he never brings anything with music. He screens the tapes beforehand and they watch them either in silence or with the sound on low so the main sound is the static keening of the video, which he eventually mutes anyway. They sit closer each day, until he watches with his fingers gently resting on her few remaining. Heavy, protruding violin calluses on her hand slowly recede to the uglier marks of a milliseconds misjudgement on a sleeting road.

When the doctor says she is ready to go home, she knows she isn’t. She still hasn’t spoken, and has no intention to. The doctor suggests she return to school, with additional tutoring, to try and pick up the tattered fragments of her old life and glue them back together. She wonders silently when he thinks he is fooling. Trying to piece her life back together is like solving a jigsaw that has half the parts missing. She might get a vague idea of what the image should look like, but will never get back all she has lost.

He’s waiting for her when she arrives home. Her room is clean and smells sharply of disinfectant. It’s like being back at the hospital.

They say nothing, their relationship on built on something far more than words. When he holds open his arms, she steps forward on broken feet and into his embrace. He runs gentle fingers along what was once her bow arm, making her wish for nothing more than a set of wings to escape. There’s a long, slow pause and he holds her, reassuring yet invoking questions of the future.

And with this fermata, she realises that maybe, just maybe, there is something left.

Olivia

This is another Gothic story, written in preparation for my upcoming yearlies. The inspiration came while playing a game with my friend Olivia in Ancient History - she would write down three random, unrelated things and I had to link them into a sentence. A few Gothic critera later and here it is:

Olivia

“That’s a very beautiful necklace, Miss Stanmore.”

Olivia Stanmore raised a slender hand to toy with the large red jewel that hung on heavy silver chain from her neck.

“Thank you. It was given to me by my… by Tristian.”

The man sitting opposite her paused slightly, embarrassed.

“Yes… I’m sorry,” he said awkwardly, staring intently at his wine glass. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Do not worry, Mr Kingstone – you meant no harm. And please… call me Olivia.”

Kingstone cursed himself for the awkward situation. There was no denying that his dinner companion, Olivia Stanmore, was one of the most beautiful – and desirable – women in London. Her father was rich, her family blue blooded and her appearance stunning. Long, perfect ringlets of gold hair fell onto narrow shoulders and a fashionably low cut dress showed off the red pendant against her pale white skin. The red backlight of a cavernous fireplace only added to her mysterious beauty. She’d spent some time in Africa with her father, it was said, when she was ill as a child, and come back as a changed, radiant young woman.

The light within the plush room flickered and dimmed as candle flames ate away at their wax housings. It was late, and both of them knew it, but neither moved to leave.

Olivia took a slow sip of rich, scarlet Tokay, the glass hovering by her lips far longer than necessary. Her face was a mask of careful consideration. Then, with swift purpose, she set down the glass and faced Kingstone directly.

“I imagine you’re wondering why I asked you here tonight, Mr Kingstone.”

“The question had crossed my mind, Miss… Olivia.”

“I wish for you to know a little more about me before our marriage. You know, of course, of Tristian,” and again, her fingers reached for the red jewel, “but I fear there is much more to my character which you should know before committing yourself fully to the engagement.”

Ah. The engagement. Kingstone had thought it might be about that.

“Olivia, if it is too soon, simply say so and I will delay our marriage or even end the engagement. Just know that I will always be willing to –“

She held up a single finger to silence him, then smiled slightly. “No, it is not that. While I still grieve for Tristian each day, no amount of grief or self denial shall return him to me. And I am sure that, were he able to speak to me, he would encourage both of us with happiness. No, what I wish to speak to you of is something which has burdened me for quite some time – my whole life, one may even say.”

“If there is a burden to your soul, then it is my duty to bear it for you, Olivia. Tell me.”

Instead of speaking immediately, she took a moment to stand and step carefully over to the fireplace, examining the swords over the mantle, even though they’d been there her entire life. Then, her skin dancing with scraps of coloured light, she spoke.

“You must know that, before Tristian, I was engaged more than once. After all, a woman hardly reaches the age of twenty one without a suitor, and I had many. Do not look so worried – none of my engagements led to marriage or consummation. But only for a single reason – I have been cursed since my birth.”

“Cursed?” Kingstone could hardly hold the incredulity from his voice. She turned to face him, her expression one of grave seriousness.

“Yes, Mr Kingstone – cursed. You know my father had spent considerable time in Africa?”

Kingstone nodded – it was common knowledge that the Stanmore fortune had been built on African diamond mines.

“Many years ago, while he was there, he had something of an affair with one of the locals – quite a 

tempestuous affair too, by all accounts. She was the daughter of the village shaman, who already disapproved of my father – he said Father was ‘robbing the earth’. So, when the shaman learnt of my father’s… actions, he demanded that Father marry the woman and become part of the tribe, lest his family line be cursed forever.”

Kingstone shifted in his seat slightly – he felt uncomfortable and just a little bit sympathetic for the girl, who so clearly believed in this story.

“Of course, my father refused – he soon returned to London and married my mother. The curse, however, had been no empty threat – my mother died in childbirth. Father was in Dublin on business at the time. He learnt of her death weeks later, and of my birth – the useless daughter. I could never carry on the line – I have been treated all my life as an object of contempt, to be sold to the highest bidder when the time comes.”

“Didn’t your father ever marry again? Why, I met your step mother two years ago, just before her death!”

“Yes, I have had step mothers – she was my third. My first one died, again, in childbirth, giving life to a still born boy. The second drowned near our house in the Lakes District. The third was, as it turned out, infertile – she never had any children. And thus, the family line is only to be continued by me, leaving me with this wretched curse when my father has left this earth for peace!”

Kingstone stood and walked over to her, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. She was becoming distressed.

“But surely, Olivia, this ‘curse’ shall die with your father. Once we are married you shall take my name, and leave this cursed linage.”

“If only it were that simple. The Africans recognised blood, not name, as family. I am still my father’s daughter, the victim and carrier of this curse.”

“Olivia,” he said gently, careful not to startle her, “if you wish not to have children, you can say it plainly. I already have a nephew I would gladly name as my heir –“

“NO! You do not understand! I said Tristian was not my first betrothal – I must tell you of the others!”

Her direct, almost violent speech shocked him. He kept his hand on her shoulder, should she faint or leap into a rage, and listened.

“The first one was my father’s choice – almost three times my own age, not just old enough to be my father but older than Father himself! Frail, white haired and scholarly. I was seventeen. We’d been engaged for three months when he was robbed on the streets – the shock was so immense that his heart stopped beating. The second one was much the same. Chosen by Father, too old and boring. He died too – in his sleep he simply stopped breathing. Once again, my engagement was parted by death. And then -”

“Tristian.”

Kingstone knew the next part. Tristian had spoken of it almost every day at the offices since the day he’d first been reunited with Olivia, running into her (literally) at the post office. Childhood friends quickly became social acquaintances. They began to appear together at parties, dances, dinners. She the radiant, mysterious beauty, he the smiling, grateful fiancé, unable to believe his luck.

“My father did not approve at first,” she said, hand once again on the jewel, “but I’d earned something of a reputation as a ‘cursed bride’. He bought home countless men, each once wishing to court me. I paid them no attention – why should I? I had Tristian. At last Father relented and allowed the marriage. But then, of course…”

She trailed off, grasping the pendant tight. The unspoken words hung heavy in the air.

There had been rumours, of course, that she had been there. And in that moment, Kingstone had to know.

“Were you there? Did you see him?”

She looked up at him, the burgundy firelight from the embers glistening on silent tears and transforming them into rubies. Her grip on the pendant only grew tighter.

“I went to see him – at night, while my father slept. I was at the foot of the stairs – he was at the top. He was almost halfway when I stepped up to meet him, then –“

She looked directly at him, a confused yet furious countenance playing for dominance in her gaze. She stepped back slowly, forcing him to release his grip on her shoulder.

“I told you there was something about me that you had to know. I am not merely the cursed bride – I am the curse!”

With lightening speed she drew a sword from it’s housing above the mantle and thrust it forwards, aimed at Kingstone’s heart. He twisted aside, shocked and confused, an inch from the blade, and threw himself at Olivia, grabbing her wrist and squeezing. Forced to drop the blade into his waiting hand, Olivia jumped back and out of his reach, pulling the other sword from its scabbard above the mantle with a fluid, practised motion.

With an animalistic snarl, she faced him – just out of reach, each with a sword in hand – the beautiful Olivia Stanmore, in all her fury.

“What happened to Tristian?”

Again, the free hand flew to the necklace.

“I demand to know!”

She snarled once again, sword extended, eyes dancing demonic hues in the firelight. “What will happen to you soon enough!” The voice came from Olivia’s body but was not of her soul – deep and demonic with anger and hate.

“Did you kill him?” Kingstone kept his balance perfect, trying to distract her.

“He sealed his own fate.” With that, she made another attempt at a wild stab – Kingstone barely parried and 

maintained his distance.

“You threw him down the stairs, didn’t you?”

Olivia cocked her head, like a jackal, and answered. “Threw him, yes. And made sure he was dead. Yes, I bashed his head against the corner of those stairs until my hands were red with the blood. I keep the memory close to me heart.”

She had killed all three of them. The realisation came to him in a moment of horrific clarity. She had killed all of her fiancés and she was going to kill him!

“Why?” Stall her, distract her, anything to stop this thing which had taken over Olivia. “You loved him – why did you kill him?”

The creature in Olivia’s form narrowed its eyes. “I had to kill him. I have to kill all of them. You have no concept or even measurement, for the amount of torture I undergo each day as I wear this ring. This line cannot continue. It was cursed for this generation and the curse cannot go on. The curse cannot go on-"

With speed of light and surprise on his side, Kingstone suddenly leapt forward, grabbed the necklace, pulled it so hard the clasp snapped and jumped out of her range once again.

Now the creature was angry – it hissed and scowled at him, then pointed an accusing finger.

“Do you have any idea what that is?”

“No,” he answered honestly, “but I know what to do with it.”

And with than, he dropped the jewel to the ground and stamped on it with all his strength.

The glass casing of t he pendant shattered, leaving only the red within to ooze, slowly, from the dead casing. Kingstone suddenly had a graphic thought that this must have been what Tristian looked like when Olivia was finished with him.

But suddenly, Olivia calmed. The red flicking left her eyes as they focused on the glass ‘jewel’, staring intently, fearfully and almost reverently.

“Tristian.”

Her voice was just a whisper, barely audible, but more powerful than a shriek.

“Tristian. Oh, Tristian…”

Her voice, once again the soft spoken voice of Olivia, choked with a sob, staring at the crushed pendant, at the red liquid oozing into the plush carpet –

The red liquid.

Tristian’s blood.

Then, fearfully but with entire conviction, Kingstone leapt forward, sword before him, and plunged it through her body.

They were as close as they had ever been. Breathing in choked sobs edged with finality, she slowly raised her beautiful face to look up at him.

“Thank you,” she sobbed.

Her grip on his arm slacked. Her body became limp.

Olivia Stanmore, and her beautiful necklace, were dead.

Arco (Bowed)

So, this is my first story, the one that sort of got me started on posting short stories. Written as Gothic short story practise, the main inspirations were the cello (my favourite string instrument), Karl Jenkin's Requim and Porphyria's Lover

Arco 

“Southwell Minster really would be the most beautiful place to die.”

The resonating acoustics carry my voice to where she is sitting on a pew near the front of the church. Her delicate neck twists, her long shimmering hair moving with millisecond delay, her face disapproving.

“You shouldn’t say such things Oscar,” she admonishes, but her voice is far from harsh. Her voice could never be harsh – low and smooth, every decibel the contralto.

“Think about it – have you ever seen a more beautiful church?”

She shakes her head slowly, still seated. “I still wouldn’t think of it as the perfect place to die. Such a macabre thought!”

I pace forward, each step echoing back off high vaulted ceilings and lavishly decorated stone columns. “This is the first place I met you. I cannot think of anything more satisfactory than to leave this world the very place I first felt alive.”

I’ve drawn level with her pew and she stands slowly, stepping along the aisle to meet me. Her hair whispers from side to side with each movement, and I can almost hear the waves of sound it creates bouncing from off every surface within the church.

She shivers, caught in the cold – the price the church pays for acoustic perfection – and I gather her into my arms. She doesn’t move for long moments, only breathing shallowly.

This was where I’d first met her – and first heard her. What better place for a choir recital than Southwell Minster? Even with a hundred others to mispitch and stumble, her voice had still rung clear and piercing through every note of Faure’s Requiem, like an oboe tuning their orchestra. Dressed in her choir whites with her hair worn out and her low, harrowing voice, I could have sworn she was an angel. I could still swear, holding her like this, that if I were to die here and now she would simply reach out a hand, like she did at our first introduction, and lead me to heaven.

“Sylvia,” she’d said simply, all those months ago, on that watery Easter night – offering a hand like a siren to a drowning sailor. I’d barely managed to splutter out my name, let alone hold an intelligent conversation – I’ve still no idea why she ever spoke to me again.

And here I am, holding her. It would almost be the perfect moment to die.

With a sigh, she shifts her head to look up at me.

“We should start. The Reverend said I could only practise until eight. Where have you been?”

I am halfway through an excuse when she cuts my mental train short.

“No matter – I left your cello by the pulpit.”

My cello. My Sylvia. Both so alike. We both meet in the church, to practise and perform and convince people of emotions which we have never felt, but a composer wrote so truly of. I tune each string to the crystal sound of Sylvia’s voice, her perfect pitch resonating through each arch and pillar. The very air seems to hum in harmony – and this is only tuning. When she and the cello perform, it send shivers down the strongest spine and makes you feel like the music is alive, and you could pluck each note from the air to take home for a loved one.

Sylvia. Perfection. I always knew she was.

It’s sad to think that, even though she is perfect, her voice is never truly appreciated. “You’re a woman,” she mimicked them once for me, “and your voice is too deep. You can be replaced by a tenor. Contraltos have no use.”

Those people could never appreciate her as I can.

She must have caught me staring at her with fierce intensity, because suddenly she cleared her throat, shivered and spoke.

“The Dies Irae?”

I nod, find the music, and play.

Dies irae, dies illa solvet saeclum in favilla: teste David cum Sibylla

With each arco sweep of the bow the cello emits a new quality of sound – some piercing, some rich and deep, other still slow and lethargic, only to accompany Sylvia’s crystal voice.

Quantus tremor est futurus, quando judex est venturus, cuncta stricte discussurus!

The cello and Sylvia in perfect harmony, fighting the encroaching shadows which pervade into the church. Both low, harrowing, sweeping, perfect – for if Sylvia was not, at that moment, an angel, then no man has even loved and never truly died!

Tuba mirum spargens sonum per sepulcra regionum, coget omnes ante thronum.

The music increases in intensity, Sylvia’s voice growing darker, deeper and more grating – I respond my increasing the pressure of each stroke, throwing precision aside for raw musical fervour– Sylvia and the cello, the cello and Sylvia, never to be parted once more, always to work in harmony until the Dies Irae, the Day of Wrath and Judgement, when all shall burn –

Mors stupebit et natura, cum resurget creatura, judicanti responsura-

CRASH!

Sylvia’s head flicks, the beautiful hair along with it, as I throw aside the cello, letting it crack and 

splinter against the cold stone floor, and dive at her, bow still in hand. Suddenly I am upon her and, without a pause or hesitation, taken only in the music and the raw energy of the moment, with one fluid arco sweep across her neck…

Sylvia collapses onto the cold stone floor, what little is left of her. No more can her hair whisper softly in the echoing church – now it will sing.

I leave her there, bald and silent, carefully collecting the cello, the soft gold locks already entwined into their new home. Tomorrow and forever she shall sing once more with the cello, and every day, with the hair she once wore so beautifully scraping in a slow, acro tune against the strings.

Southwell Minster really would be the most beautiful place to die.