Fifty Words for Rain(83)

She felt Akira’s hand on her shoulder as he leaned down to whisper in her ear. “If you need a break . . .”

“No.”

“It’s been nearly an hour. You look a little faint.”

“I want to finish this.”

If she stopped now, she would never be able to start again. The adrenaline was the only thing propping her up.

Unseen by the rest of the crowd, he lightly kissed the back of her head.

“Faith,” he whispered.

He went back to the piano. The murmuring from the crowd ceased. Nori could swear that some celestial being had actually frozen them.

Akira let the first note fall. Then the second. Then the third. Each lower and more ominous than the next.

She felt something shatter in her.

And then, without even thinking, she answered the call.

She was not behind him; she was not ahead of him. Her sound was entwined with his; they were two halves of a whole.

A tear slid down her cheek.

All of her fear, all of her pain, all of her hatred flowed out of her and into the sound.

The difficulty was forgotten; the audience was forgotten.

There were only two people here.

Faster and faster it went, until they were dancing in a delirious red haze.

And then, as the song slowed for the final time, a message clear as day:

The end.

She folded like a paper doll and covered her eyes. Her violin clattered to the floor.

She didn’t hear the applause.

All she felt was Akira taking her hand and whisking her through the hall, out the front door, and into the cold winter night.

She felt the air on her face and gasped.

“You’re fine,” he said simply. “Now, now.”

She continued to breathe in short, desperate spurts.

“I did it,” she wheezed.

Akira sat down, right there in the snow so that she could rest her face against his chest.

“You did,” and there was a quiet but powerful sense of satisfaction in his voice.

“Was it good?”

Akira snorted. “Sloppy on the trills. As usual.”

She knew better than to get upset. “But the rest?”

Akira was silent for a long moment. “I am . . . glad I came back.”

Nori tucked these words into her box of sacred things.

“I’ll get our belongings,” Akira said. “Pay our respects to Hiromoto. Unless you want to stay for the party and revel in your triumph?”

She shook her head.

“Let’s go home.”



* * *





The driver was the same man as before. He smiled at Nori as he opened her door. He gave Akira one brief, baffled glance before averting his gaze. Akira had taken a taxi straight from the airport and had only a small suitcase with him.

The night was perfectly still under a black, starless sky. There were no other cars on this winding back road.

Akira leaned against the window with his eyes half closed. Nori blew on her window and traced the characters of her name with her pinkie finger.

No-

Ri-

Ko . . .

Once that had been all she could spell.

She nudged Akira with her foot.

“Akira-san.”

He turned to face her. “Nani?”

“Do you think I could come with you, to Vienna? And we could play again? Together?”

She expected him to scoff or roll his eyes, but the look he gave her was clear and honest.

“You’re not ready for that yet.”

Nori bowed her head.

Akira lifted up her chin with two fingers and tugged on one of her curls. “But maybe next year.”

Nori started to smile but never got the chance.

Everything happened in an instant.

The car veered to the left so sharply that it knocked her back. Her skull hit the window. She thought, vaguely, that the trees were getting awfully close.

Akira’s face was frozen. She saw him mouth her name.

Nori.

Then the loudest sound she’d ever heard. His body came flying forwards. The last thing she felt was his arms closing around her.

Because in the next moment, she could feel nothing.

She knew the ground she was lying on must be cold, she knew that the flames around her must be hot, but she could feel neither.

She saw the driver twenty feet away. He was only a speck. His head was cracked open like an egg. She never knew people had so much blood inside them.

The light from the flames caught the shattered glass that lay all around her, covered in a layer of freshly fallen snow.

Her eyes found the large, jagged piece sticking straight out of her chest.

It blazed like a comet fallen from the sky.





CHAPTER FIFTEEN


    AURORA


I think I have gone deaf. And blind. And dumb.

Every day, all day, people come in and out of the room. They sit by the bed and ask me questions, but I can’t hear a single word. If I try to sleep, they wake me up and ask me more questions.

I think something very bad has happened. I have this deep sense, even here in this floating plane, that there is a huge piece of me missing. I need to find it. I need to find whatever that thing is.

But first, I really need to remember my name.