𝕊𝕖𝕖 𝕐𝕠𝕦 𝕆𝕟 𝕋𝕙𝕖 🌸𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕣 𝕊𝕚𝕕𝕖

Part 4: Panpipe

I walked out into my backyard, my violin in my hand.

I breathed in the fresh air, memories floating around me.

I used to love playing the violin with my father when I was a small child. I don't really play anymore since he left.

I can't remember his face, but I do remember the music we used to play together. He would dance around in the living room in our old house in Sweden while I played songs on my much-too-big-for-me- violin and he'd still clap along even if the music was terrible. Those are the moments I want to remember about him. Not the fact that he left his family, that left his child and wife alone who later died because of a disease the doctors didn't know how to cure. I know why she really died. It was the grief of living without her husband in the same house, the grief that looking at her daughter every day just reminded her of him and the pain that brought those memories with it.

I stood on the old stump in our plain backyard.

Most of the grass was dead, and there was just a large tree stump in the middle of it all.

I held the instrument in one hand while reaching into my pocket to take out a piece of paper.

It was a music sheet, and one of the last ones I owned.

I finished reading the book the Maens for the seventh time. But two of the pages had been stuck together by something unidentifiable and moldy. When I carefully tugged at the paper and pulled each of them away, I discovered a music sheet of a song that the Maens apparently used to play.

Since I was free, and bored out of my mind, I thought I might as well try it out. I had scanned the page the night before, so I knew most of the song off by heart.

I faced the forest in front of me. Grandma said she bought this house near the forest because it might be good for me to be near nature. So, I have an easy way to find an escape, a place to clear my head. I hadn't entered the woods yet, and I don't plan to. Nothing good ever came out of those kinds of forests, and I certainly am not going to risk my life just to get some fresh air.

I look at the music sheet, remembering everything that I had memorized the night before. I nod, folding the paper and tucking it back into my pocket.

I raised my violin to my chin and hold the bow over the strings.

I close my eyes, imagining the notes in my head and play.

The music is sweet and melodic. Its angelic almost.

I twirl around, lost in the song. If these Maens were ever real, they sure had a talent for music writing.

I was so surrounded by this strange feeling of home that I didn't hear the second instrument joining in.

I stopped, my arms dropping to my side. Everything around me was quiet for a few seconds. I turn my head, looking for the person who had been playing the same song with me moments before.

Had I imagined it? I hold up the violin again, about to resume the song when I hear a beautiful tune.

It's the same song I was playing.

But how? I was only able to play the song because I found it in my father's old book. And I'm not sure many people in my town would own the same book about these ancient creatures that no one's ever heard of.

It's a high sound, like a flute almost.

But where was it coming from?

With my violin still in my hand I run to the back of my yard, and climb over the high fence, landing on my feet when I jump. It seemed that the music was coming from the forest.