Waiting For Sunrise - The Books Of Beginning AU

57. Midnight Serenade

Rafe relished the feeling of the bow in his hand, sawing expertly across the violin strings. He had to be precise with his movements, since the bow was battered, and older than he was. (He was not going to risk damaging it, not when it was the only thing he had left of his mother.) After all these years of playing, such carefulness came naturally to him.

The song he played was slow and drawling, not one of the upbeat tunes that the Savages enjoyed so much, but not necessarily a sad one, either. He had already played the mournful song, the lament he knew like the back of his own hand, a bit earlier, but had soon moved on to something more complex; a ballad he'd been learning to perform for the past several months. He could complete most of it by now, though it sounded slightly off, and he wasn't sure if it was due to an error on his part or the wear-and-tear of the violin itself. Even when he'd played the song through twice in a row, he still couldn't identify what the problem was.

With a sigh, Rafe lowered the bow and set it on the bench beside him. He placed his violin there too, before running his fingers gently over the wooden neck. Checking to make sure nothing had been damaged while he was lost in his musical revelry.

He was about to pack up his things and leave - a glance out the grimy window into the dark night sky told him it was getting late - when there was a quick, quiet knock at the door.

"Come in," he called, and he was not particularly surprised when Kate slipped into the room. (It was the only upstairs classroom, with three long benches stretching across one side and a handmade cabinet pressed in the corner, full of English and Arithmetic books that Miss B had somehow acquired. It wasn't the sort of room the children came in during their leisure time, especially not this late at night, and besides, only a handful of them knocked.)

"Hi," she said, closing the door behind her with a gentle click. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything."

"Not at all. I hope I'm not disturbing you," he replied, glancing at her face for any sign of discomfort and relaxing when he realized she looked wholly at ease.

"Of course you're not. And if you want to get back to playing, I can leave-"

"No, no, I just finished up. What's going on?" 

"Nothing, really. Well, there's a card game going downstairs - Michael and Abigail are both playing for caramels, Emma, to no one's surprise, has chosen sides, and Jake and Beetles are trying to pilfer the prizes. That's all well and good, but I'm not in the mood to watch everyone squabble over poker."

"Understandable," Rafe said with a nod. "Especially since I'm not sure any of those kids actually know the proper rules. I wouldn't be surprised if they're making it up as they go."

Kate shrugged. "Could be. I don't know anything about poker, so it's not like I'd notice. But anyways, I wasn't interested in their game, and so I came upstairs to check on Vi - she fell asleep, by the way-

(Rafe chuckled fondly at that. An hour or two ago, he and Kate had got the girl ready for bed, and when they left the room, she was still awake, flipping through the pages of a storybook. Her eyelids had been drooping, then, and Rafe knew it was only a matter of time before she drifted into slumberland with her book beside her.)

"-and I heard your music. It sounded lovely, by the way."

"Thanks," he said, sliding himself and his things over to the side so she could sit on the bench with him. She sat right beside him, knee bumping against his, and her smile was warm. "It's not perfect, but it's getting better."

"Oh. Is it a new song or something?" 

"Sort of. I started learning it back in June, but I haven't had a ton of time to practice. Miss B got me two pieces of sheet music for my birthday in May, see, and this is one of 'em," Rafe explained with a slight smile. (Since he was eleven, Miss B had gifted him at least one piece of sheet music for his birthday, and occasionally he'd get one for Christmas, too. One of her friends ran a popular theater in the Bowery, she'd told him when he first asked, awestruck, how she'd got her hands on these songs, written out so professionally, and he usually had extra copies lying around.)