Everything You Are(42)

“It is, and it isn’t.”

Another cryptic comment that answers nothing. Phee wraps the book in a towel and locks it back in the trunk. She rifles through folders in a desk drawer, draws out a single sheet of paper, and holds it out to him. Braden stares at it, his hands locked together in his lap.

“No point in resisting. Fate has caught us up.” She tries to laugh, but he reads only regret and sadness in her eyes.

Braden takes the paper.

The first thing he sees is his own name scrawled at the bottom. It barely looks like his signature, his twelve-year-old self still laborious at a task that has since become as automatic as breathing. Even with his numb fingers, his signature always comes out the same.

He reads:

I, Braden Healey, being of sound mind and purpose, do solemnly swear to enter into a forever bond with this Cello. I understand that the consequences of breaking my oath are unpredictable, and possibly dire. I will keep her, care for her, and play her, until such time as death parts us.

Braden Healey

“Your grandfather was a great luthier,” Braden says, “but a crazy one.”

“That’s the easy answer.” Phee walks away to look out a window.

“Surely you don’t believe this shit?” When she doesn’t answer, he presses on, stumbling over his own words. “Things happen. Musicians sell their instruments, acquire new ones.”

“Not this musician, not this instrument. Not any of the musicians on that list or their instruments, all the way back to 1822 and probably before that.”

The weight of what she’s saying crushes the air out of his lungs, raises a cold sweat on the back of his neck. “If there’s any truth to what you’re saying, then Lilian and Trey are dead, not because I was absent and drinking but because I wasn’t playing the cello.”

He waits for her to deny this, to admit that the whole idea is out of the question. Instead, she makes a strangled sound, half sob, and says nothing. She’s a strong woman, not given to dramatics, and her emotion shakes him more than anything she’s said so far.

“Oh, come on, Phee. There’s no logic to any of this! I blame myself for their deaths because I should have been there. Not because some magical curse befell them. You don’t really believe that. You can’t.”

Allie, he thinks. If a curse exists, then Allie is in danger.

Phee turns to face him, her back pressed against the window, a creature at bay. Tears track down her cheeks, and she lets them flow with no attempt to wipe them away.

“You stopped playing. I tried to warn you.”

Braden laughs, a wild, twisted sound. He holds up his hands. “The curse came before the not playing. What do you want from me? My fingers feel like there’s cotton between them and anything they touch. I can’t play.”

“Even so,” she whispers. “Even so.”

He tries to steady his heartbeat, his breathing.

“This is crazy! All that shit about Paganini selling his soul to the devil? The idea that Stradivari soaked his woods in blood or in a waterfall before crafting his instruments, all of it is bullshit! Science says the mystical Stradivari secret was probably all about the varnish made by a local chemist. There’s no curse, Phee.”

Her back stiffens, she moves away from the window. “We’re not talking about Paganini or Stradivari. We are talking about the MacPhee luthiers and you and the contract you signed for your cello.”

“And that your grandfather laid some sort of curse on me.”

“He never laid a curse on you. You broke the contract.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it?” She flings the words at him, a challenge.

He throws up both hands to deflect them.

Celestine rumbles a protest and goes to Phee’s side, protective now, the fur along his spine raised.

Grief and rage heat Braden’s skin. “Music was everything to me, do you hear? Everything I had, everything I was! I’m nothing without it. Nothing! And you have the nerve to stand there and tell me that I’m cursed because I don’t play?”

The room is too small. Braden stumbles toward the door, but Celestine intercepts him, a growl rumbling in his chest.

“Celestine,” Phee commands. “Come here.”

Celestine doesn’t come. He bares his teeth, still growling. Braden steps back, cautious. When the dog doesn’t move, he retreats another step, and then another.

Phee is weeping, and Braden feels like a brute. He can’t take back anything he’s said. There’s nothing he can do to fix any of this. “Listen. I know you’re just relaying some message from your grandfather—”

She shakes her head, denying, takes a steadying breath.

“I used to be like you. I loved the old man, but I thought it was all superstitious insanity. What difference did it make to an instrument who played it? As long as it was well cared for, how could it possibly matter?”

She stops. Takes a breath.

“And?”

“I was wrong. There was this other guy on my list who sold his violin—”

“People sell their instruments, Phee. Every day, for God’s sake. No great tragedy befalls them.”

“Out of all of the instruments he made and sold, my grandfather left me six to take care of. Your cello, and five violins. And the guy who sold his violin—”