Final Fugue: Hotel Between Worlds, #2

By Ithaka O.

Previously published as 'Final Fugue' by Noct Moll.

 

Murder means the end of the world for the murdered person...
...except when they enter another world.

Zacharias Steele dreams of making it big as a professional pianist. In the 1920s, the most dazzling place in which to accomplish that dream is New York City.

Once there, Zach auditions, interviews, tries out, you name it. But mysteriously, something always goes wrong.

Ten years later, he ends up dejected and unsuccessful in a small town. There, one night, unexpectedly, he has the opportunity to perform to a full house.

Problem? His girlfriend stops by his dressing room and gives him a mysterious warning: don't wear the new suit.

Zach should have listened to her.

This will be the last time he'll play in this world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Imaginarium Kim
• Release date: Jun 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9781637930816

Ithaka O.

https://ithakaonmymind.com/

Book preview

PRELUDE

People tend to assume that when working in pairs, it helps to have a partner who shares one’s personality traits. For example, a pair that likes to listen to heavy metal music surely gets along better than a pair that consists of one person who enjoys heavy metal and another who’d rather listen to Vivaldi concertos, no?

Sure, if getting along is limited to downtimes. But work, by definition, isn’t about breaks. Work involves getting things done, no matter what.

That was why Flip sometimes wished that either she or her reaper partner, Flop (frequently mistaken as Flip’s husband), were a heavy-metal fan who applied the aggressive spirit of that musical style to the workday. Instead, they were both Vivaldi types. They liked their workday smooth and stressfree, much like a drowsy spring afternoon spent in the sitting room of a well-off, but not too powerful or ambitious baroness.

Flip liked to ponder about that imaginary afternoon. She liked to wonder if she’d been a baroness in her beforelife. Or maybe she’d been a sexy, cunning duchess who from time to time visited the sitting room of a less ambitious baroness to take a break from the treachery of the court. Sometime during the Habsburg era, say. That would’ve been a fitting time to live for Flip. (The question for Flip was always limited to what kind of a nobility she’d been, not whether she’d been a nobility or not. By the way, she didn’t think she could have been a royal; those people accomplished nothing on their own and their too-exalted position almost guaranteed their cluelessness as to what kinds of schemes happened around them.)

After having lived six or so wonderful decades as a baroness or a duchess, Flip conjectured, she’d died. Then came the eternity of work. As a reaper, she worked 24/7, aside from the short breaks during which she could contemplate her hypothetical baroness beforelife and her love for Vivaldi concertos.

Not to say that she didn’t enjoy being a reaper. It entailed a lot more power and control than being a Habsburg era woman (or man, for that matter), whether a peasant or the queen of the Austrian Empire. It was also lovely to cross spacetime (people died everywhere, all the time, requiring Flip’s presence) to visit coordinates in history at which people, in general, were a lot freer than in the time when the royals used to rule the world.

For example, here, now: Flip sat on top of a storm cloud that smelled of rain, near the huge hub that was New York City of early 1929.

Though Flip liked to conjure up Habsburg-era cutting-edge-relative-to-that-time French-style dresses, she did appreciate the fashion and tastes of the 1920s. From time to time, she’d even thought that black—a color that all reapers were required to wear—looked a lot better with modern dresses than for anything from the 19 th century or earlier.

Flip knew that the more grandiose her black dress, the more it looked like mourning attire. A sixty-year-old corpse bride, she looked like, either a bride of a corpse or a bride who was a corpse. It didn’t matter whichever way.

But there was good reason Flip maintained her fashion style. She, a reaper, was a being whom no one could cage as long as she didn’t allow that to happen.

She didn’t need to breathe, so tight corsets were no problem.

Her joints didn’t hurt, so she could wear the highest of high chopines without worrying about falling and breaking bones.

She could cross spacetime, so walking around with an immense crinoline under her dress posed no difficulty, even when passing through doorways that were narrower than the width of the crinoline.

As long as Flip firmly grounded herself in her reaperdom (which, ironically, required that she grounded herself less in any one particular spacetime), physical limits were mere concepts remembered from beforelife. Technically, even her age was a mere illusion. But that one was harder to shake off than clothes, which people tended to change even in beforelife.

Occasionally, Flip forgot who she was and what she was capable of. It could be a particularly fragrant flower, the sight of an old couple still in love, or a fabulous musical performance. Such things compelled Flip to concentrate too hard—made her want to be in the here and now. They required her to zoom in on one particular spacetime, excluding all else.

That was when she found it difficult to breathe, to balance herself, to walk through doorways. That was when she became a slave to three-dimensional constraints.

So, being conventionally-ladylike as a reaper felt strangely freeing and powerful. It meant that Flip hadn’t fallen victim to beforeworld ways, that she could freely cross spacetimes—that she was in control.

Hence her dress choice: old school.

Anyway, the nice thing about early 1929, specifically, was that so many people had been moderately freed so recently and were excited about it. Even considering Prohibition. Because, when was that ever properly enforced?

Moreover, those recently-freed people didn’t know that more freeing would occur in the next few decades. They were also oblivious to the fact that their decade was going to end with the Great Depression in a few months. Therefore, people thought that they were the smartest people ever and that everyone who came before them must have been stupid for not having accomplished the current state earlier.

This kind of arrogant faith, of course, tended to be the default state of beforeworlders no matter in what time period and what location they lived in, so that element alone didn’t characterize this spacetime coordinate fully. What Flip found exquisite about this particular coordinate was that unlike some others, the beforeworlders of this one had at least some valid reason to believe that their arrogant faith represented the truth. As in, they weren’t acting entirely foolish and unreasonable, at least not yet, not until the Great Depression hit and people realized that they’d been foolish and unreasonable to expect an eternity of abundance.

Look at that flapper with her boyishly short hair, short dress, and short everything, such as her temper and the amount of time she’s required to spend wasting on proper ladylike education. Also short? The time she has to wait until she can vote: eighteen years, instead of never. Look at her strolling down the icy streets overflowing with music so that she can frequent the basements brimming with illegal liquor. She barely notices that her legs are freezing because she’s constantly on the move.

And there, the shiny, honking, soon-to-be-classic motorcars that aren’t classic yet because they’re new. They’re fuming exhaust and nobody cares because nobody has seen or done proper research on the deadliness of exhaust fumes yet. In fact, some men in suits and fedoras (men of this era sure like their hats) linger behind the cars to feel a moment of warm comfort in the otherwise freezing night.

Lights, everywhere. In the theaters, in the speakeasies, in the shops. Jazz music everywhere. Skyscrapers.

A wonderful city, at the peak of city pride, just before the crash. Sophisticated yet sinful, immoral with undeniable virtues.

But enough of that. Flip wasn’t supposed to be looking at New York City. It was just that the City was so bright that she couldn’t help being distracted.

Flip’s true focus was on Carningsby, a much smaller cluster of light some distance from the City.

Which brings us back to Flip’s ideal workday: smooth, stressfree, drowsy, like a spring afternoon. Too much to ask from a workday? Not necessarily. Not if the partners naturally complement each other.

Since reaper personalities were as diverse as the personalities of beforeworlders, Flip could have been assigned to a partner who happened to interpret her stress-inducers as stress-relievers, and vice versa.

For example, Flip could have taken care of the interaction with the beforeworlders who’d just died relatively peacefully. You know, those who’d died of old age or long-term diseases so that they’d been expecting death. She liked consoling them and taking them to their lawyers to prepare for trial in afterworld. Answering trivial questions—Can I stay and watch my funeral? Can I turn off the gas that I turned on before I died? Can I be reborn as the same exact person?—presented no problems for Flip. None at all. She totally understood that dying could be confusing.

In the meantime, her hypothetical heavy-metal-fan partner could have taken care of the bloodier aspects of reaping, such as reviewing cases that involved murder and handing them over to the women in black.

But alas, Flop, bless his heart, liked and disliked exactly the same things as Flip, and with greater intensity. It was a shame, though Flip really didn’t want to accuse Flop of having feelings that she herself found only natural. You had to respect a man who could own up to his feelings, even when he came across as a bit cowardly.

Flop looked about the same age as Flip. When the two of them reaped a beforeworlder, that person’s reaction tended to be one of relief and quiet surrender because few people doubted the good intention of a smiling old couple. (That was what people thought Flip and Flop were—a couple.)

Because Flop didn’t have a style preference beyond one requirement—that the fabric look and feel expensive—he tried to conjure up a wardrobe that matched Flip’s in terms of the time period. Then Flip adjusted it little by little. If she was going to be mistaken as Flop’s wife, she was going to damn well try to make him look like the archduke and not some tenant farmer who’d stolen fancy clothes from his master.

All in all, a deceased who was reaped by Flip and Flop could count on being led to afterworld with pomp and circumstance—precisely because both Flip and Flop enjoyed pomp and circumstance as well as all the order, structure, and refinery that they required. And, for the record, many people liked it. People liked to believe that their death had meaning. Preferably, lots of meaning.

But the liking-the-same-things part—that was a problem. Flop generally let Flip do whatever she wanted to do because it was also what he would have done. Also, he generally did what she asked of him because that, too, was what he’d have done anyway. But generally didn’t apply anymore when it came to the unpleasant tasks that he was too sensitive to handle.

This was why in the here and now, only Flip glanced down on Carningsby, near New York City, from on top of a storm cloud. Meanwhile, Flop sat next to her and rubbed his aching, chubby belly wrapped in a black velvet cape.

Are the blood clouds still multiplying? was all Flop said occasionally, as he did now.

Yes, Flip answered once again. That entire town is murderous.

Blood clouds represented murder intent. They were only visible to reapers and the women in black, as far as Flip knew. You know, the sort of people who were aware of both beforeworld and afterworld, and were allowed to cross over as they pleased.

Often, blood clouds simply ended as that—blood clouds. Murder intent never materialized; a misunderstanding resolved. That was why reapers usually didn’t waste time sitting around and monitoring blood clouds, waiting for someone to be killed. There were too many to die for certain and always a shortage of reapers.

At other times, however, blood clouds were highly likely to lead to an actual murder. Flip feared that this was one of those times. A thick layer of crimson clouds hung over the entire town of Carningsby in the state of New York.

Similar cloud layers appeared over battlefields, occasionally, but not always, and not always in these quantities. That was because some soldiers went to battle with the intent of killing the other party, while others went to battle with the intent of protecting something or someone.

But in the case of Carningsby? Phew. This blood cloud layer contained every shade of red, from deep crimson to bright scarlet, like the fresh gore of a slaughtered baby lamb. Cruel intent, definitely cruel intent. If that wasn’t going to lead to a real murder, nothing was.

We might as well request the presence of the women in black now, said Flop. Then he retched.

Please don’t vomit again, said Flip. You’ve sent too many chills down there.

That was what beforeworlders felt when a reaper vomited on them.

Who cares? Flop said. It’s January. It’s supposed to be chilly.

Be quiet if you aren’t going to help me spot the victim.

But it’s not like we’re going to stop the murder.

Of course not.

There was an old saying in afterworld, which was: Whatever happens, happens. It is not right, it is not wrong, but it is what happens.

Flip hated that saying.

We can’t stop anything, she said, but we can appear at his or her side straightaway when it happens.

I don’t think it’ll be only one person dying tonight.

But the Carningsby residents and visitors who ambled on the dimly lit streets didn’t seem particularly hostile toward each other. They moved slowly. Discussed things in whispers. Stopped and eyed the street corners…

As if they knew they were safe and knew who wasn’t.

I think only one person will die tonight, said Flip.

PART I

THAT DAY IN BEFOREWORLD

1

Glamor and glitz, women with short hair in brimless hats and Chanel coats, and gold, lots of gold, and fame, lots of fame—such were the glories that Zacharias Steele had vowed to be surrounded by once he left his home in the middle of a never-ending cornfield and moved to New York. Because back home, the twenty-something Zacharias had thoroughly believed that he’d succeed, he’d expressed his convictions to his father in a rather insulting manner during their last big fight. In fact, when his father had offered to take this matter outside and fight with boxing gloves and all, like real men, Zach had indignantly refused.

Don’t think that hands mean the same thing to everyone, or that the phrase ‘real men’ means the same thing either.

Those had been the exact words Zach had used.

God forbid that Zach endangered his calling just because his father had a primitive definition of real men.

God forbid that Zach injured his precious hands—the hands with long, beautiful fingers, ideal for playing the likes of Liszt and Rachmaninoff, but also perfectly suitable for one of those brand-new pieces, called jazz, or jass, something like that, people couldn’t seem to decide which was which.

As his father shouted curses sprinkled with the dogmatic belief in the sanctity of physical labor, Zach had packed the few disintegrating, old piano scores that he owned, bought himself a train ticket, and traveled across half the country.

That had been ten years ago.

Presently, Zacharias was thirty-two years old. It was the first month of the year 1929. His hands, which he’d so ardently protected all his life, were bandaged from a recent injury. And he was in New York all right. Except, not in New York City.

Instead, he sat in the shabby dressing room in the quiet basement of the Luminary Theater, a small venue in Carningsby, New York. It was an insignificant town, located as far away from the City as Mississippi or Kentucky, practically speaking. Everything outside the City was just that: the outside, the non-City, the rest.

But even if the Luminary were moved to the heart of the City, no amount of the honking traffic, the theatergoers’ rambunctious laughter on the streets, and the reek of tobacco smell would have made Zach feel like he was in the center of art and culture. Mainly, because none of that could have pierced through the thick walls of the Luminary, and especially not through the ceiling and walls of this basement dressing room.

The original purpose of the thick walls had been to keep the noise from going out rather than from getting in. But the barrier worked both ways. Someone had designed the theater with soundproofing as the only requirement, not paying attention to aesthetics or ambiance.

And no wonder. In the City, there was something called a theater district. The moderately wealthy people who frequented the nicer theaters lived elsewhere. In Carningsby, the Luminary was the only lonely theater venue that was mainly used for religious plays funded by the local church. There was no district for multiple theaters. From the outside, the Luminary looked as somber as the rest of the buildings in the tiny downtown area, populated by a barbershop, the town hall, and a doctor’s office.

And there were homes nearby. Too nearby. Stately homes, where monied people slept and hoped to have some peace and quiet. Everyone in Carningsby was more or less well-off (as far as Zach knew, he was the only person in town who worried about his next meal), and that meant that everyone more or less liked their peace and quiet, or at least liked pretending to like them.

Such monied people didn’t need the Luminary to do any actual illuminating, because they owned plenty of brilliant chandeliers. Besides, if there was ever to be any enlightenment, it’d come from God and the ethereal meanings that the church plays conveyed, not through some physically attractive theater.

And by God were they all proud that Carningsby had escaped the sins of the modern times! It was probably the only town in the United States of America that had adhered to the Volstead Act.

No jazz bars. Boring. Bland. Predictable. Same. Like a two-hour scale practice session without a purpose or a larger picture. Therefore, safe, trustworthy, pious. The ideal Protestant town. Spending extravagant money on prettifying a building was vain and un-Christian. So, the thick walls of the Luminary stayed.

Zach didn’t mind the thick walls and the aquarium-like quietness that made his ears hum. He also didn’t mind sharing a town, a street, a building, or a room with people who were into somberness. He used to sleep with his six brothers and sisters in one crammed little bedroom that had barely allowed them to stretch their legs by the time Zach had reached the age of nine. He was used to sharing and living with all sorts of preferences thrown at each other and colliding all around him.

But Zach did mind the cold in a situation like this, in which Donald Todd, the bearish middle-aged owner of this wretched establishment, had taken Zach’s coat, pants, and shirt for cleaning purposes.

What cleaning purposes? Zach had asked, confused that Mr. Todd had asked for Zach’s clothes as soon as he’d arrived at the dressing room to play that same night.

People’ve seen you go around in those shabby clothes of yours, Mr. Todd had said in his hoarse voice.

His head blocked the light from the ceiling lamp and dumped his face in shadow. That doubled his threatening impression. His breath reeked of whiskey, though he claimed he’d quit drinking. The lying, albeit cowardly, made total sense; his neighbors would never forgive him for ruining the good Christian reputation of Carningsby if he drank openly.

And they heard about the accident, Mr. Todd said, and just—all in all, it’s not good. Not good at all. And it’s just past Christmas, a time of sharing.

It’s been a month since Christmas, Zach said.

And only sharing when it’s Christmas is un-Christian.

What will I wear during the concert?

I have something prepared for you. Don’t worry.

Impatiently, Mr. Todd helped Zach take off the coat, because the bandages around Zach’s hands made him clumsy. But Mr. Todd only slowed down the process even more. His hands shook from decades-long drinking that was still secretly ongoing and his eyes never found focus for the same reason. At least Zach’s hands never shook and his eyes never lost focus.

Well, that’s very nice of you, Mr. Todd, Zach said, because Mr. Todd looked so embarrassed at his total failure at the removal of a coat. I’m fine on my own. I really appreciate it. I really do.

Yeah. Well, doesn’t look good to have our star player look so shabby and hurt and all.

Eventually, Zach took off the coat on his own. Mr. Todd watched—or his darting, restless, focusless eyes watched, seemingly operating independently from the commands of Mr. Todd’s brain.

Now it was the turn of Zach’s suit pants and shirt.

May I, eh, have a moment to myself? Zach asked.

The idea of a large, perpetually drunken man watching while he undressed made Zach real uncomfortable.

Oh, well, yes. I’ll turn around, and I’m going to take your clothes right away to the cleaners so…—here, Mr. Todd’s eyes rolled upward as if he had to recall something—so that you can go home in your own, clean clothes after the concert. If you want.

Wow, that quick?

That quick.

Then Mr. Todd turned around to give Zach a modicum of privacy.

A strange affair, really, to ask a pianist for his clothes right before the performance, and to offer to have it cleaned so quickly that by the end of the concert, it was to be ready for pickup. And on top of that, to have concert wardrobe ready—that was some A-class treatment that Zach had never experienced before.

Mr. Todd had promised to return in ten minutes with a new suit.

It had been thirty minutes now, according to the wall clock.

Presently, all Zach was left with was his yellowing worn undershirt, his gray boxer shorts, and the bandages around his injured hands. And his socks and worn leather shoes, of course. They made his appearance doubly awkward.

And because Mr. Donald Todd liked to cut corners, heating remained a foreign concept at the Luminary despite the freezing temperature. If there’d been functioning lightbulbs around the square mirror on the dressing table, Zach would have held his bandaged hands at it, hoping that those devices were inefficient enough to emit more heat than light. But none of the dozen lightbulbs around the mirror were lit. None of them had been removed from their sockets either. Basically, no one had bothered in any shape or form to make this dressing room cozy.

The sole source of light was the dim ceiling lamp. That hung too high up even for Zach, who was tall enough for his eyes to hover above everyone else’s heads whenever he sat in the audience to watch someone else’s performance. (Not at the Luminary. But he occasionally visited the City to further his education in the performing arts.)

Zach sighed. A white breath cloud dispersed and the cobweb hanging on the bottom corner of the mirror quivered.

Normally, none of the cold or lack of coziness dispirited Zach. Breath clouds, dusty air that irritated his nostrils, even the general idea of mistreatment toward artists or art venues could have a certain picturesque charm, if temporary. But recovering from injury and the fear of losing one’s dream certainly did push a person to depressing corners of thought.

Grimacing, Zach undid the bandages around his fingers and examined both hands.

A clear straight line of purple bruises stretched from his left pinky to right pinky. When the piano lid had fallen on his hands mid-performance yesterday, the entire audience (ten people in a hundred-person hall at the Luminary) had gasped in delight. Add that experience to this forlorn dressing room and the ridiculousness of sitting in the cold in boxer shorts and undershirt, plus socks and worn leather shoes—what kind of a person wouldn’t be a bit dejected?

And Zach was a pianist. He played Chopin, Schumann, and Beethoven. And, unlike so many stuck-up, formally educated pianists, he also played—used to play, and was willing to play again, should the opportunity arise—relatively newborn music that made him want to dance and hum and made him feel all hot and passionate.

Ah, the days when he’d thought he’d play them all!

Anything and everything that could be done with the piano, he’d been willing to do. He’d never understood the segregation of music, as much as he hadn’t understood the segregation of people. Never had he cared about the skin color of the person who’d discover him, because no matter what that hypothetical person looked like, he or she was going to be a brilliant visionary. (In the early days of Zach’s independence, to be precise. Back then, he’d been so very sure that someone was bound to discover him. Now, Zach didn’t care about the skin color of that imaginary person because he’d given up on the discovery.)

The point was: Zach had loved uncertainty and undefinability. He’d thought them necessities for expressing every ecstasy, every tragedy. But with each additional year away from home, his liking for those necessities had dwindled. He’d hated himself for it, for becoming a more cowardly person.

Nevertheless, that gradual change didn’t mean that he’d completely lost his natural inclination for achingly strong feelings. He was a pianist. The player of every kind of music that could be played on the piano. So, it was inevitable that even now, in this dressing room, after ten years and lots of failures, Zach felt all ups and downs with greater clarity than the average person.

Just looking at his wounds pained him all over again. Physically, as well as psychologically. That delighted reaction of the audience, more than the bruises themselves, had made him wonder: What the hell am I doing in Carningsby when I’m not a twenty-something boy anymore? I’m thirty-two, for heaven’s sake.

That audience reaction had proved that the residents of Carningsby weren’t interested in Zach’s piano play, or anyone else’s music, for that matter. The only reason they attended a concert was that they were so thoroughly bored.

What happened? they’d whispered. How is it possible that the lid just fell on his hands? Who did it? Did someone do it? Intentionally, I mean? How exciting. Phew, I was almost falling asleep, I only came here because Mother thinks it’s a lot more befitting for a lady to go to a proper piano concert than to one of those jazz clubs. She doesn’t like me leaving Carningsby. So much filth elsewhere. And the immigrants. Then the lid just fell on his hand, and…

Yes, they were pious like that, the people of Carningsby.

The taste of excess whiskey that Zach had consumed in the past twenty-four hours revitalized in his mouth at this memory. He’d had to get a bottle from the City, because there were none to be found in Carningsby, the perfect little Prohibitionist town. (Mr. Todd probably kept his bottles hidden somewhere nearby, but Zach hadn’t wanted to be the one who broke the unpleasant news: I’ve always suspected that you were secretly drinking, Mr. Todd, and everyone else thinks that too. Do you have a spare bottle for me?)

With liquor, Zach had tried to erase the pain in his fingers, the fear of never playing again, and the words of those people in the audience. But he’d failed to forget their words, wasn’t sure if he could play at the level he’d done before the injury, and the pain still lingered.

Zach felt ashamed. Because, to Zach, the one and only reason a human was born in this world was to do something. Abstract and imprecise, yes, but of course there was no way for Zach to determine what specifically a person had to do.

But, so long as a person did something, wasn’t that life well-lived? If not to accomplish something, why toil? Why sleep? Why eat at all to keep going forward?

But then, forward to where? What was the point of all this?

Zach had amounted to nothing.

Perhaps he should have stayed with his father. Zach had never been angry at his father for doing what he did. Not at all. What his father did was, in fact, admirable.

That man had every right to say, I was surrounded by a cornfield and that was all there was, therefore I did my damned best to tend to that cornfield and feed the United States of America, so don’t blame me for failing to make a mark beyond feeding those who made more distinct marks in this world.

That had been the take of Zach’s father, a man who’d worked the field day in day out without complaint until he’d realized that Zach, one of his sons, thought that certain precious hands with long beautiful fingers had more impractical things to partake in than physical labor.

The reason Zach had nevertheless been furious was that his father simply couldn’t see that Zach wasn’t meant to do the same thing. The idea that everyone had to prefer the practical feeding of the masses over the impractical making of music had been so suffocatingly bizarre that Zach had had to leave.

At any rate… Now, here.

Carningsby, New York.

Not New York City. So close to NYC and yet so very far because of that very locational proximity. Now, Zach could physically get to the busiest intersection of that city in several hours. But that still couldn’t bring him to its heart. Moving physically had its limits. Zach had reached those limits long ago.

And it had taken ten years and a piano lid falling on his hands for him to realize that.

There’d been a few times early in his career in which he could have made it big. Back then, he’d actually been in the City of New York. He’d been willing to do anything. He’d gone to bars, clubs, concert halls, theaters—truly anywhere, including a speakeasy masquerading as a bookstore—and showcased his skills and offered his services. Owners had loved him. At least they’d said they loved him.

Then, nothing.

For a while, Zach had simply thought that there were other piano players for the owners to love more. The city abounded with artists, after all, and Zach was from the middle of nowhere. The fault must lie in him, being so utterly unable to keep up with the speed of the city dwellers.

Then the lack of follow-through became more mysterious. Deals fell apart all the time because Zach didn’t receive a message or didn’t send a message that he was supposed to send but hadn’t known that he was supposed to. When he showed up to play, someone else was there, and it was as if the owner and everyone who’d seen Zach audition didn’t remember him anymore.

Such a turn of events had confused and frustrated Zach greatly. It was as if someone was working against him very deliberately. As in, intercepting-messages-and-bribing-venue-owners-not-to-hire-Zach level of deliberateness.

But who would do such a thing? Zach was just an insignificant little prawn in the magnificent ocean that was New York City. And if someone were sabotaging Zach and evidently succeeding at it, how was Zach to find out who was behind it? Must be a damn powerful person to pull that off, and stealthy too.

Better to think that he just wasn’t good enough. Better keep playing. Otherwise, the feeling of lacking control would be too much to bear. Wise decision, no?

No. That humble but shortsighted strategy in his first month in New York had created lasting impacts: it had steadily pushed Zach out of the core of the City’s music scene. He’d built a reputation for being tardy and irresponsible. By the time Zach thought he had to correct the misunderstanding by explaining in granular detail what exactly had happened, it was too late.

Which eventually brought him to Carningsby. To this dusty dressing room with cobwebs and poor lighting. To this state of having bruised fingers and having the audience be delighted by his accident. Being suitless. Being in boxer shorts and an undershirt. Cold.

He’d lost all his connections from the first weeks of his City life, except for one lady friend whom he’d not invited to tonight’s concert: his Angeline.

She was a city girl from a good family. The embodiment of glamor and glitz in a tiny, energetic person. She alone represented the kernel of his original dream, the one he’d harbored since the nights spent squeezed between his dear brothers and sisters.

Though Zach’s heart ached from loneliness as much as his fingers ached from the bruises, bringing Angeline to the theater had always been out of the question. Zach used to be hopeful, yes, but delusional? Never. And he wasn’t going to start that now. He knew that his situation wasn’t likely to improve. So, he hoped to separate Angeline as much as possible from his artistic misery.

She, the place he could return to.

She, a home for his dead dreams.

Too melancholy? Melodramatic? Pathetic, because unsuccessful people didn’t have the right to love?

But Zach couldn’t let go of this one last beautiful aspect of his life.

After the concert, he’d take the train to the City, no matter how long the trip, no matter how tired he was, and how cold. He’d buy a single rose as pink as Angeline’s cheeks, no matter how expensive. She’d smile in surprise. He’d kiss her. And for a few hours, he could forget all about his misery.

After this. After he was done doing what he’d left the cornfields for.

2

By now, Zacharias was supposed to be on stage for the final rehearsal but instead, he still sat in the dusty dressing room in his shabby underwear. Not that anyone but he cared much whether he actually played well or not. Still, that final run helped him keep calm during the performance. It was important to him.

But Mr. Todd hadn’t returned yet. Zach glanced at the many nonfunctioning lamps around the mirror and the one functioning lamp on the ceiling. He tried to listen for Mr. Todd’s footsteps—but nothing. Zach could hear nothing in this thick-walled basement room.

He’d placed the bandages that he’d undone from his hands on the table in front of the dressing mirror. Should he put them back on? Wasn’t Mr. Todd supposed to be here any minute?

Zach wasn’t going to go on stage with those bandages. In a sick way, he wondered what the reaction of the audience might be once they noticed the bruises from his left pinky to right pinky.

Maybe a similar curiosity was the reason that more people had bought tickets for tonight’s show. Usually, the hundred-person hall of the Luminary Theater only filled up a tenth. If lucky, half. But, as difficult as it was to believe, Mr. Todd had informed Zach this morning that the seats had sold out.

That was why they hadn’t canceled the concert despite Zach’s injury. To play in front of a full house—that was a first for Zach that he didn’t want to miss. And since no church orchestra was to join tonight’s performance, clearly, these people had bought the tickets for Zach and Zach only.

He wasn’t a particularly pushy person. He hadn’t actively tried to reclaim his honor when his career had gone south through a series of mysterious misunderstandings. But he also never refused a chance to play in front of an audience. Playing was what he was born to do. What he’d left the cornfields for. What he’d left the cramped but therefore warm room with all his siblings for.

Damn, did he miss that room now. The only potential company here was the pitiful spider that had spun the cobweb who knows how long ago and might still be wandering about in search of prey.

That insect must be as silly as Zach. As if there was anything in Carningsby, New York to survive on. Who knows? Maybe the spider had tried to fend for itself in New York City, too, only to be sabotaged by a series of inexplicable miscommunications that ruined its reputation as a proper spider. A disgrace to its species…

The quickly approaching click-clacking of high heels made Zach sit up, then get up.

That wasn’t the sound of Donald Todd. The owner of the Luminary didn’t wear high heels and even if he did, couldn’t possibly walk that fast with such purpose and in such a steady rhythm, like a march, in his perpetually drunken state.

That was the sound of a woman with purpose. And jeez, being exposed to a strange woman in this half-naked state just before a performance was not the type of excitement that Zach needed.

What if lies spread as if they were true? What if Angeline caught wind of such lies and thought him unfaithful? Not that they were married, but still, Zach had always thought that the least he could do for her was to stay true to her. He couldn’t ask for her hand in marriage for fear of dooming her to poverty, so he’d better prove in other ways that he meant it when he said he loved her—such as by not getting mixed up with other women.

Zach wildly looked for a hiding place. The only furniture in the room was the chair on which he’d sat on and the dressing table with the mirror. He jumped behind the mirror right when the door whipped open. How rude to just storm in here—

Angeline? he said, recognizing the woman.

Oh, darling, I’m so glad you’re all right. I’m so glad—

Angeline didn’t finish the sentence and swept in like a snowstorm. Before Zach comprehended the situation fully, he was buried in her fluffy white mink coat. The surface of the coat was icy cold from the wind outside so that Zach shuddered as her arms tightened around his waist. But since the front of the coat was open, he could wiggle his arms around her waist and there—oh, the joy of warmth. The air between Angeline’s silk dress and the interior of the coat had warmed with her body heat.

The smell that he associated with comfort enveloped him as his body warmed. Tree barks and leather. Quite manly and to be honest, odd for a lady to smell like this, but this was how Angeline smelled and Zach had no complaints. She’d told him once that she was very close to her father and brothers. They liked their cigars smelling of tree barks and leather, she’d said.

Presently, her head rested on his chest, and even though, as always, she wore quite substantially high high heels, he could see the crown of her blond head. A golden necklace sparkled on her nape, taking advantage of the little light in this depressing dressing room.

Then, when Angeline pushed him away to look him in the eyes, the front of the necklace was revealed. Green jewels that Zach couldn’t even name complemented her green eyes, the color of a fairy-tale forest, the kind that flourished with green life even when a layer of snow crystals covered the thick mossy roots of the trees. They—the jewels, as well as her eyes with uncharacteristically smudged, messy makeup—glowed so mercilessly that Zach became painfully aware of his shabby state.

This woman, Angeline Conners, was the one person Zach still knew from his New York City days. This tiny yet energetic person had stood by Zach through good times and bad times, sometimes helping him out financially, in such a loving yet effortless way that he never failed to feel infinitely grateful and infinitely insignificant at the same time. If he’d thought that he could function as a proper husband, he’d have proposed to her years ago. But the contrast between their attires in this very moment symbolized just how wide a gap existed between their statuses, not just financially but also socially.

Frankly, Zach didn’t know details about Angeline’s family beyond the fact that it must be wealthy and refined. He and she had been lovers for ten years and they knew frightfully little about each other. Zach didn’t want to talk about his past (which contained fond memories of his family and therefore had to stay separate from his miserable present state, just like he liked to keep Angeline separate from his current career or lack thereof). Zach also didn’t want to know about her past, present, and any future plans her family had for her. This, because he feared—or rather, because he knew—that he wasn’t going to be part of it. A wealthy, refined family would most likely have a good marriage plan for Angeline. One that, if Angeline refused, would result in her being kicked out of her family, its will, inheritance, everything. How could Zach do such a thing to her? What would he do with a preknowledge of such a plan?

But Angeline’s family hadn’t proceeded with that hypothetical plan yet. Ten years, she and Zach had been lovers. Most girls her age—thirty—would have killed their lovers by now, for not making an honest woman out of them already. Most families would have killed their daughters by now, for being an unmarried disgrace. But no one had killed anyone yet.

That lack of conflict, bordering on disinterest, had unsettled and reassured Zach at different times. He’d asked her occasionally if she was sure she wasn’t married. (An insulting question to ask, Zach knew.) Angeline had laughed and said that of course she wasn’t married.

Why would she lie? Most importantly, how could she lie, if she had a home to tend to? If she had a husband and children, how could she spend the nights with Zach?

So he’d believed her and hadn’t asked further. Since he wasn’t going to propose to her anytime soon, it was for the best. He was lucky to have her in his life. Her, the embodiment of glamor and glitz in one tiny person, willing to spend time with him in extremely friendly ways—he needn’t destroy that relationship.

But tonight, it was Angeline who had broken their tacit agreement to keep parts of their lives out of reach from the other. She’d come to the Luminary.

What are you doing here? Zach asked. Is everything all right?

He meant her makeup, which wasn’t as impeccable as usual, but he thought it rude to mention it so openly. Besides, who cared if she looked a bit tired? Nothing that happened to her outward appearance could make him think lesser of her. He leaned in to peck her on one of her icy, rose-colored cheeks because albeit surprised, he was moved that she’d come here on a cold night.

But she retreated. Now, that surprised Zach and didn’t move him at all. She never ever declined a kiss from him. Their problem had always been that they couldn’t get enough of each other. This wasn’t like Angeline. Today, she was different from normal.

No, now that Zach thought about it, she’d been different from normal in the past few weeks. She was getting busier and busier, Meeting people, she said. Some doctor’s appointments too. Too many, actually. Was she ill? She couldn’t fall asleep. She looked pale most of the time. Her fashion style had changed, too, from slender-fitting clothes to empire dresses. She’d been so proud of her figure before. The new dresses had him wonder. But then again, what did he know about lady’s fashion?

What is going on? he asked. Is something wrong? Where is Seamus?

Seamus doesn’t work for me anymore.

Another sudden change. And this one greatly surprised Zach. Seamus hadn’t much liked Zach from the beginning and Zach hadn’t felt the need to change the man’s mind, but the relationship between Seamus and Angeline was a different story.

Seamus had been Angeline’s chauffeur for more than ten years. She herself had hired him. All that time and before that, since childhood, he’d been Angeline’s longtime friend. (Zach thought that friend was a kind description she used for the chauffeur, who was also the son of a longtime housemaid who worked for her father.)

Did he find another job? Zach asked.

I hope that’s what happened to him, Angeline said. Her voice shook slightly.

Are you all right?

I am perfectly fine.

But the focus of her forest-green eyes switched unsteadily from him to the open door to the dressing table.

You want me to close the door? he said, already on his way.

No, no, she said. "No one can see… If someone sees us, it can’t be with the door closed. Then she added in a mumble, Better I leave soon."

With an acute awareness of how ridiculous he looked in his underwear and old shoes, Zach stopped between the open door and Angeline.

Oh, no, she’s married. She’s married and she has kids and a husband and he knows and she lied to me for ten years and now she’s come to tell me that we can never see each other again. It’s all over. All over…

Mr. Todd is going to come soon,