Passenger (Passenger, #1)(5)

“Of course,” Rose said, “they’re yours now. You can wear them whenever you like.”

“Who’d you steal these from?” Etta joked as she fastened them. She couldn’t think of a time in her mom’s forty-four years when she could have afforded something like this. Had she inherited them? Were they a gift?

Her mom stiffened, her shoulders curling in like the edges of the old scroll she displayed on her desk. Etta waited for a laugh that never came—a dry look that acknowledged her stupid attempt at humor. The silence between them stretched past the point of painful.

“Mom…” Etta said, feeling the stupidest urge to cry, like she’d ruined whatever moment they’d been having. “It was a joke.”

“I know.” Her mother lifted her chin. “It’s a bit of a sore spot—it’s been years since I had to live the way I did, but the looks I used to get from others…I want you to know, I have never stolen anything in my life. No matter how bad things got, or how much I wanted something. Someone tried to pull a fast one on me once, and I’ve never forgotten what that felt like. I almost lost something of your great-granddad’s.”

There was a hum of anger behind the words, and Etta was surprised that her first instinct wasn’t to back off. Her mother so rarely spoke about her family—less than she spoke about Etta’s father, which was next to never—that Etta found herself reaching for the loose thread and hoping that something else would unravel.

“Was it your foster father?” Etta asked. “The one who tried to steal from you?”

Her mother gave a humorless little smile. “Good guess.”

Both parents gone in one terrible Christmas car accident. Her guardian, her grandfather, gone after little more than a year. And the family that had fostered her…the father had never laid a finger on her, but from the few stories Etta had heard about him, his control over Rose’s life had been so rigid, so absolute, it was a choice between staying and suffocating, or the risk of running away on her own.

“What was it?” Etta asked, knowing she was pressing her luck. “The thing he tried to steal?”

“Oh, some old family heirloom. The truth is, I only kept it for one reason: I knew I could sell it and buy my ticket out of London, away from the foster family. I knew your great-granddad had bequeathed it to me so I could make a choice about my future. I’ve never regretted selling that old thing, because it brought me here. I want you to remember that—it’s our choices that matter in the end. Not wishes, not words, not promises.”

Etta turned her head back and forth, studying the earrings in the mirror.

“I bought these from a vendor at an old market—a souk—in Damascus when I was about your age. Her name was Samarah, and she convinced me to buy them when I told her it was my last trip, and I was finally going back to school. For the longest time, I saw them as the end of my journey, but now I think they were always meant to represent the beginning of yours.” Rose leaned down and kissed her cheek. “You’re going to be wonderful tonight. I’m so proud of you.”

Etta felt the sting of tears immediately, and wondered if it was possible to ever really capture a moment. Every bitter feeling of disappointment was washed out of her as happiness came rushing through her veins.

There was a knock at the door before Alice used her keys and announced her arrival with a cheerful “Hullo!”

“Now, get going,” Rose said, brushing a piece of lint off Etta’s shoulder. “I need a few minutes to change, but I’ll meet you over there.”

Etta stood, her throat still tight. She would have hugged her mom if Rose hadn’t stepped away and folded her hands behind her back. “I’ll see you there?”

“I’ll be right behind you, I promise.”


A ROLL OF FIRE BREATHED THROUGH THE NOTES, RATTLING THE breath in Etta’s chest, and sank down through her skin to shimmer in the marrow of her bones as she and Alice slipped inside the still-empty auditorium.

She could admit it; this violinist…Etta looked down at the program she had picked up. Evan Parker. Right. She’d heard him play at a few competitions. She could admit that he was decent enough. Maybe even a little good.

But, Etta thought, satisfaction slinking through her, not as good as me.

And not nearly good enough to do Bach’s Chaconne from Partita no. 2 in D Minor justice.

The lights dimmed and swept across the stage in bursts of shifting color as the technicians in the booth made last-minute adjustments to match the mood of the piece; Evan stood in the middle of it, dark hair gleaming, and went at the Chaconne like he was trying to set his violin on fire, completely oblivious to everything and everyone else. Etta knew that feeling. She might have doubted many things in her life, but Etta had never once doubted her talent, her love for the violin.

They had no choice which piece of music the museum’s board of directors had assigned each of them for that night’s fund-raising performance, but some small, sour part of her still stewed in envy that he’d been picked. The Chaconne was considered by most, including herself, to be one of the most difficult violin pieces to master—a single progression repeated in dozens of dizzying, complex variations. It was emotionally powerful, and structurally near perfect. At least, it was when played by her. It should have been played by her.