Demon Stories

Beau: The Music in You, 1901, New York City

Beau

The Music in You

1901, New York City

The other day by chance, I heard a sparrow on a windowsill which sounded like you. Your sweet voice descended to me as if by the heavens. Honestly, my head had a double-take that afternoon. Sweet bird, gentle lover. Where are you this afternoon, sugar? 

In my state of dreary sadness, I listen with all of myself, and I hear your voice ringing in my ears still. A pained softness, ejected when sung like a flowing river into the air all around us from your mouth. Your eyes are a mirror to your pain, those pools of blue reflect to us a sinking feeling which we can not place and yet is in all of our hearts. Not only is your sad song causing us tears, young one, also is your soul which we see from your eyes. Your soft pain makes me want to take your gloved hand and never let it go, dear one. I want to prevent you from receiving any more scars, yet I could not.

You hate me now because of this, I know. Yet please, child, let me into your heart. Don't run. The harm to you was not meant, but I can not explain my hurt to you. I can not go back to that night and take it all back. 

I want to tell you it was not me. I didn't take you from your dressing room that night. It wasn't me who tortured you for hours, dragging you from room to room by your precious fiery red hair. It wasn't I who shrouded my face from you and told you that you were beautiful. That your voice was enchanting and so were you. I could never touch you in harm. I could never cause your doe eyes to cry. Please believe me. Please believe that I was the one who saved you that night, a sleeping Princess and her Prince. Yet it is too late. I have told you a lie, so you will never believe me now. 

I want to tell you that when I heard what Violette had done to you, I wanted her dead. All of my love for her flew away like on sparrow wings. She did not kill you that day, darling, she killed me. If only you could know what you mean to me. 

That fateful night when I found you, I was lost, as you were lost. I was loveless, not caring who I met or where I was going. So recently, I had lost any love I had in this world and nothing at all mattered. Things which were once to me beautiful and captivating caused me pain. Everything reminded me of the love I had lost, and I could no longer see. Grief was a blindness which muted all feeling but the pain. 

I smelled you before I ever saw you. The wispy scent of your milky skin, the floating lilacs. Where does the lilac smell come from? Is it a memory on your skin? On that night, the theater was surrounded by your powerful lilac fragrance. The air was alight in your strong beauty, a dark, yet light purple glow of intensity. I knew there was something special to be had, yet I could barely see it in my own of grief. 

For over an hour, I waited for you to appear on stage. I wasn't aware of my desire, but my heart was making small impatient demands. It cared not of the story of the opera, nor of what the other singers were saying. All it wanted was to know to source of that smell. The source of the tantalizing beauty which surrounded the stage. 

In a burst of sound, the scent of you intensified, and like expanding fabric which wanted to reach up to me in that balcony and drag me to you, you appeared on that stage. Such joy in my soul could not be described, my sweet. When I saw you, it was as if two destined souls had met at last. My eyes could not believe what they beheld, for here was the answer to my dragging grievious wishes. My wish was to find a soul who could understand my sorrow, one who could feel what I felt. Yet, at the time I could not even understand what I wanted. I just knew we needed eachother. Your soul shattering display on the stage told me we needed eachother. And yet, I could not stand to give you more pain. Just seeing you was enough, knowing someone else like me existed was enough. I never dreamed we'd meet again.