Light From Uncommon Stars(117)

But now the sky was dark, and so was the store. Waiting on her workbench? Her next project. Using the wood her grandfather had seasoned, Lucy Matía was completing her first original violin.

Finally, she would be able to work in peace.

But, of course, there was one last customer.

The doorbell jingled as a demon walked into the shop.

“Hello, Tremon.”

“Lucía.” The old man bowed slightly. “Is everything complete?”

She brought out an old and battered case. It was long and thin, perhaps for a flute, or a violin bow.

“Dogwood is quite an unusual material work to with. But I think you’ll be satisfied. However, the repair was not easy. Nor cheap.”

Tremon chuckled. “It never is.”

He opened the case and retrieved the dogwood bow. At once, the air around it grew thin and hungry.

“Ah, superb! It pleases me immensely to know that your shop is back in business.”

“Would you like to try it?”

“No, no. But I have in mind someone who would. And she lives very close by.” He patted his jacket, then frowned.

“Ah, but I don’t have my wallet with me.”

“Mr. Philippe…”

The demon walked past her with the bow.

“Is this your own work?” He gestured to the violin on her workbench.

“Mr. Philippe.”

“Lucía, let me propose a deal. I will tell you the story of your family. If you like it, we will consider this bow paid for.”

“I already know the story of my family,” Lucy said.

“Not the whole story. And there’s no risk to you. For if you don’t like it…”

He placed a violin case on the counter.

“I will pay for the bow with this.”

Tremon opened the case. “This violin is mine own, made by Nicolò Amati, in classic Grand Pattern.”

Nicolò Amati had been the last and greatest patriarch of the Amati, eldest of the three great violin families. His grandfather, Andrea Amati, invented the modern violin.

In fact, Andrea Guarneri and Antonio Stradivari were trained in Amati’s workshop.

Lucy gasped. Even when compared with Stradivariuses and Guarneris, Amatis were rare. And this violin was not merely authentic—it was gorgeous, nearly pristine.

“Deal,” she said weakly.

Tremon smiled. Lucy shuddered slightly at his teeth. And then the demon spoke.

“The story opens in Cremona. The Amati are the most renowned violin makers in the world. The current master is Nicolò, whose work some say might even surpass his grandfather’s. And training to follow Nicolò are his three sons.

“Yet the true genius of the family is the daughter. The Amati know this, yet because she is a daughter, they forbid her to use the Amati name. Her brilliant work is ascribed to her brothers, her uncles, even Nicolò himself, while her name and existence are erased.

“Years go by, and the Amati flourish. But then the Black Death ravages Cremona. The Amati are decimated. Yet while others in her family pray to live, this daughter’s only wish, even as she lies dying, is that God preserve the skills and the brilliance of the Amati.

“Heaven takes pity on her, and tells her that no matter what fortune may bring, a single line of the great Amati—the line through this woman—will forever survive. However, since the Amati had treated their faithful daughter so poorly, Heaven decrees that this one undying line would leave Cremona and Italy behind, never to be aware of its name again.

“Of course, such a story is too fantastic to be believed. Still.”

Tremon walked to Lucy’s violin, and next to it placed his own.

Lucy could have compared the instruments.

She could have traced the carvings of the scroll, measured the notches in the f-holes, the heights of the arching, the placements of the dorsal pin.

But there was no need. She already knew.

“T-they match,” she managed to say.

“Don’t they?” Tremon Philippe said.

And with that, the demon packed his violin and his bow, and was gone.

Lucía Amati looked at her violin, then at all the other violins, the other instruments that her hands had touched. Her hands, her father’s hands, her grandfather’s before, and before them generations of sons … and at least one other daughter?

Amati?

Yes. Of course they were. Of course! In fact, why hadn’t she noticed this before?

She grabbed her phone and called her son.

“Andrea! I have something tell you!”

“Yes?” Why was she using his Italian name?

“I just found out—I just…”

“Mom?”

What had she wanted to say?

It must not have been that important. “Um—I forgot. Well, I’m coming home in a couple of hours, so could you reheat the lasagna? In the oven this time, not the microwave?”

“Sure thing!”

Tremon Philippe chuckled. He had told this story to the Matías for generations, and each time was as entertaining as the last.

Hell gets too much credit. The greatest curses come from the Other Place.

The demon walked toward Starrgate Donut. And then he kept walking. It was good to walk once in a while. Even a demon needed to mind his health. Besides, he was going to be teaching again very soon, and it had been nearly fifty years since he last had a student of his own.