The Serenader

Chapter 15

Atlas' POV
The gleam in Cal's eye said it all.

"Now?" She asked.

"Now." I answered. "We've got nothing better to do. I'm just about out of places to scan on the map." I set the steaming bowl of soup on the windowsill by her bed. It was about time I accepted we'd be here until our father sent for us. "And I brought you breakfast, if you're hungry. Thought you might still be asleep."

"Oh, thanks." Cal picked up the violin in a way that made me wince. She started to say something else, but I stopped her.

"Hang on," I cautioned. "You're holding it wrong."

"I am?" She twisted her left hand in a way that only made her grip worse. I adjusted her fingers so she could reach all the strings. Then I changed her hand placement on the bow so it wouldn't fall out of her hand.

"I didn't know you played," she said, more like a question than a statement.

I nodded. I hadn't played in a long time, though, so attempting to teach her was a bit of a stretch.

"Our mother taught me a lot of her instruments." I couldn't help but smile. "Only her favorites, though. She played way too many to teach me all of them."

"What were they?" Cal asked. "Her favorites, I mean."

"Oh gosh," I said, trying to recall. "Violin. Flute. Piccolo. Piano-"

"She liked piano?"

"Yeah, why?"

Cal shrugged. "I never did."

Piano was the first instrument I'd learned, too. I didn't realize Cal had tried to learn. That meant she knew more about music than she was letting on. Truthfully, that made my job easier; all I had to do was show her the instrument and she would know how to play.

"I heard you playing something," I started. "What was that?"

"Oh." She tensed. "Just something Blythe played for me."

"Relax your shoulders," I told her. She looked at me strangely. "It'll help you play."

She did as I suggested, and I showed her a few basic notes. I thought about how she had been playing a song before I got upstairs.

"How did you know the notes before I showed you?" I asked.

She shrugged. "I didn't. I just went looking for them."

Whether Cal realized it or not, the ear training - and patience - required to do something like that on a foreign instrument was beyond words. I wondered if she had perfect pitch like our mother had.

Slowly, one note at a time, she played a few bars of a song that mainly consisted of the few notes I'd taught her. Each time she played it, it went a little faster.

Then, after a moment, she hit her first wrong note. I couldn't believe it. I also couldn't believe what she was playing; that song meant something to me.

"How did you say you learned that song?" I asked.

"Blythe. Do you know it?"

I nodded. "That's my song. It's called The Serenade. How Blythe knows it is beyond me. Our mother wrote it for me when I was eight. It was supposed to be something easy I could learn on any instrument that still sounds like a complete song."

"The Serenade," Cal echoed in awe.

"It's a duet, you know," I added. "Our mom would take the melody and I'd take the baseline on violin - the part you're playing."