The Famoux

Chapter 4

emilee

My room is just as dark in the morning. Without power, thanks to the Darkening, I'm forced to throw on whatever pants and shirt I can find on the floor and proceed down my almost disturbingly dark hallway. I try my best not to slip and fall down the stairs. As my foot carefully feels for the next lower step, however, a part of me wonders if I really should fall. I remind myself how morbid a thought like that is, and feel a wave of confusion and slight fear--I didn't even register what I was wondering until the notion long since slipped from my mind.

I'm still trying to shake off that somber thought when I walk into the living room. I have no idea what time it is, but I gather it must be pretty early, because when I click the big red POWER button on the remote, the screen shows me various shots of Famoux members snug in their beds. They look even more beautiful asleep, if that's possible.

I walk off to the kitchen and fetch a handful of cereal. When I'm back inside the living room, I make myself comfortable on the couch. No one else is awake yet. I live for mornings like this in the house--Darkening mornings. Without working alarms, or the brightness of the sun, my family members could stay asleep until the afternoon.

I barely get a wink every night, so I'm always up before sunrise anyway.

Sometimes I wish my siblings were as heavy sleepers as my father. That way I'd be able to turn on the volume and hear the Famoux's voices. I assume they must sound like silk, or honey, or maybe something even better.

It takes hours and hours of sitting in silence before someone finally wakes. First, it's Dalton, rubbing the salt from his eyes and wondering how long I've been up this time. I choose to lie, and tell him only a few minutes. Maybe it'll make him think that I'm making an effort to be more normal. He always tells me I could benefit from that.

Brandyce comes next, feverish and commanding she get the couch so she can relax and hopefully cure her incoming sickness. I relocate to the floor.

The day is dreary, as most Darkening days are. Dalton and Brandyce play cards by the television, and I pretend to watch, my eyes on Kaytee McKarrington as she does her makeup, on Foster Farrand as he fixes himself a warm breakfast with the only power usable in the country. Chapter and Race tell jokes to Till. I don't hear any of it, but I find myself smiling all the same. Till has an attractive-looking laugh, and even if you don't catch the joke, the look on her face is enough to make you want to join in.

Father doesn't appear until we're well into the afternoon, and he grumbles about how hungry he is until Brandyce decides dinner will be served early. It's leftovers from the night before--the turkey sandwiches. I notice that the mustard doesn't seem to find its way to the table.

xxx

As I'm trying to sleep later tonight, I find an interruption. Perhaps I'm just becoming delusional, but there's this curious sound coming from every which way, and I don't know how it got here, and I don't know how I can be so sure of what it is. It's . . .

. . . the sound of a piano.

I must be delusional. We don't even own a piano, and even if one of the Famoux members were playing it, the TV is off, and the volume isn't up anyway. Besides, I've never really heard a piano in my life.

But I still hear it, and somehow I'm sure of what instrument it is.

The melody goes through constant flux--slow, light, sorrowful, and then, so suddenly, crescendo. It's a foreign word; I overheard it once when I listened in on a conversation between a few orchestra kids at school. Means something along the lines of an increase in tempo, in volume. I hear the little black and white keys do just that.