The Rose of Anthacena

Chapter 12

          The next morning, Violet woke up and lay staring up at the ceiling of the bed, wondering where in the world she was. She turned onto her right side and saw a large window. At the sight of the balcony outside the window, it all came rushing back. She remembered where she was, and why she was there.

Although she didn't know what would happen now that it was a new day, Violet thought she may as well get up and make whatever use she could of the daylight. She climbed out of bed and stretched slowly. After washing her face (mostly to wake herself up), she pulled on her dark blue jeans, a random shirt, and her purple hoodie, as it was a stone house in the dead of winter.

When she was finished with that, she left her room to go find breakfast. However, she couldn't remember how WIll had gotten to her room from the stairs, and so got terribly lost. After several minutes of wandering around, Violet found herself standing outside the door to her room.

She went it and found that the bed had been made, the clothes she had left on the floor were put away, and-best of all-there was food on the table in the corner. She ate it gratefully, and when she was finished, decided to explore the mansion.

Violet turned right after leaving her room. She opened every door she found, but there were so many she got dizzy just thinking about it. She finally got the bright idea to make a map that she could carry around until she knew the place better. When she got back to her room (and it took a great deal of searching on her part), she looked for paper and a pencil in the desk there, and sat down to begin her map by drawing her room.

Once that part was done, she grabbed a bunch of papers and headed out. This time, she went left instead of right, as she thought it was a dead-end hall in that direction. When she got to the last door on the right, however, she found the stairs.

Well, it's about time, she thought. Then she went back and did everything in the hall to the right of her room. Although the end of that hallway led to more, Violet decided to go downstairs and see what was there. (Not only was she curious, but it was after eleven, she was hungry, and she wanted to see if there would be lunch down there.)

About half an hour after she went downstairs, however, she forgot all about lunch, because she had found a music room in which there was a piano. Violet had started playing when she was four years old, and had only stopped when they moved from Anthacena. Elated that she had come across this room, she sat down at the piano, and, pushing back the cover, ran her fingers lightly over the keys.

Since it had been months since she'd played, her hands and fingers were very much out of practice. But once she had gone through some scales to get the feeling of playing back into her fingers, it was a lot easier. Violet stood and started looking through the music on top of the piano. She was hoping to find something she was familiar with, but it was all composers she had never heard of, and they all had the strangest names-Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Schumann, Massanet, etc.

She finally gave up any further searching and chose a book of Beethoven, deciding to see what his music was like. Violet opened the book randomly and started playing the first song she saw. It was something called Moonlight Sonata, and looked like it might turn out to be something that sounded good. Soon after she began, however, she knew that this was one of the most beautiful pieces she had ever heard, and after playing several more songs in the bok, Violet fell in love with the music of Beethoven. (Who, she had discovered in the short biography at the back of the book, had lived several hundred years before.)

* * *

Arin sat in his chair, staring moodily at the fire in front of him. Ever since the night before, he hadn't been able to stop thinking about the girl-Violet. Coincidentally, she had the sweet delicacy implied by her name. She was short, slender, and yet--she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. And that's why he felt so hopeless. A girl like her could never fall in love with someone like him, and-