Turquoise Puppet

Chapter 3

But blinded by my fears, I never could see.

When you arrive at last, you find that it isn't only your home that is waiting for you, but numerous flashing cameras and microphones as well. For a moment, you freeze on the spot. Even though you expected this, as a behind-the-scenes composer, it isn't often that you come into contact with the press. Have they been waiting since morning for you to leave the police station? Now is not a good time for you to be answering their questions—which you assume will be piercing, although you cannot make out what they are shouting at you when they are trying so desperately to be louder than their rival reporters.

"I have nothing to say," you mumble, certain that you will not have to speak any louder than that to be heard. You try to make your way to your door, but the path from the car to the front door seems impossibly far today, and you get swarmed with those gathered at the front of your house.

Trapped in the circle now, you hear some of the questions.

"Why are you wearing an eyepatch? Is that where Alec Warrensword shot you?"

"Probably." You find yourself answering the questions after all, having no other choice. Meanwhile, you make your best efforts to get to your door.

"Did he attack you because you were dating his love interest Esmae Faix?"

"That was his reason, but Esmae and I were not dating."

"Were you close with Alec Warrensword in any way? What about your relationship with Esmae Faix?"

"We..."

You pause there. These are not questions that you can answer within single sentences, and because of that, you decide to not answer them at all. Fortunately, the door is now within your reach, and with a little more difficulty, you manage to unlock the door and enter.

☆☆☆

You and Alec were indeed very close back in the day. You grew up together, you went to the same schools, and although your after-school activities differed—with him being on the basketball team and you immersing yourself in your musical instruments—you spent most of your time together. Esmae, in fact, was not in the picture until much later, when you entered high school.

She had moved in from another town, which made her a new face to the neighborhood and school despite the school itself being new to all the teens in the area. It was your freshman year, and while everyone already knew everyone else, Esmae began the year by sitting alone everywhere she went—she had no siblings, and everything was new to her. Esmae was the only new face aside from the teachers, and she grew popular quite quickly.

The first time you and Alec actually met her was during a concert in school—an event initiated by the student council. You had been invited, again and again, to be one of the performers, but you declined each and every time. In the end, you managed to evade having to sign up for the concert. That day, as you sat in the audience with Alec, he gave you a nudge of the elbow, which to him was a light nudge, but to you was actually quite rough. You staggered to the side, steadying yourself on your seat before throwing him an incredulous glance.

Alec laughed. "Sorry, sorry. I keep forgetting you're not one of the dudes." By the dudes, he meant his basketball team.

"Impossible," you retorted, shaking your head with a smile. "What'd you do that for anyway?"

"I was just going to say, look at that," Alec said, nodding toward the performer onstage. "You could totally beat that."

"This isn't a competition, Alec," you said.

"But it is," he said, "Even if it isn't. See, we're judging anyway, and you could totally beat that. Why didn't you sign up?"

"Not interested."

And so he sighed, and the two of you watched till nearly the end, when the host announced that there would be a surprise section. Your heart began sinking even before she announced what it would be. Sure enough, you were right: the crowd could choose an extra performer to end the evening's events with, right there from the audience. As soon as that was announced, everyone around you began to shout names and point at their desired candidate, and you buried your head in your hands, groaning—even if the name they shouted couldn't be heard, it was quite obvious who they were pointing at.

"Come on," Alec urged, nudging you again, this time a little lighter.

You lifted your head and sighed in exasperation, gesturing towards yourself. "In this getup? Onstage?"

Alec looked you over: at your dark blue jeans, black blazer, the white shirt under the blazer, and the Chuck Taylors on your feet. He grinned then, his lopsided grin, and even gave you a playful wink.

"You actually look quite good, musician. Go on up!" he encouraged.

As the shouting grew louder and more impatient, you stood from your seat, half-coerced by the urgency of your peers to step up onstage, unprepared. Except...to say you were unprepared would do the word injustice. While it was true that you hadn't made preparations to go onstage and perform, you always had music up your sleeve. All you needed was a cello or piano, and you would be able to pull it off.

As a form of your last struggle, you told the host that you could only play the cello (that evening), but without accompaniment, it may sound dry. The host, whom you have never met before, was probably informed, for she beamed confidently at you and claimed that it was fine even without accompaniment.

You made your way onstage, where a cello was being brought out. Then you sat down on a chair and played. The first song that came to your mind—and the song you played—was Le cygne. Amidst the pop music performances, the singing and dancing that took place before you, the tone of the concert was suddenly changed.

There were two reasons why you originally declined to sign up for the concert: the first being that the type of music you played and the type everyone else was more familiar with differed too much, the second being that it felt...naked, to play in front of so many strangers. A musician's soul can be felt through his notes, and you were anything but ready to bare yourself before everyone.

They knew nothing.

Two phrases in, a piano joined in the background. From where you sat, you couldn't see the pianist, but it didn't matter who it was—you played your part, they played theirs, and the person who joined seemed to be able to accommodate you perfectly. The crowd was silent, perhaps affected by the mood set by the music. Either way, you'd rather not guess.

When the song ended, it ended in perfect synchrony. It was only then that you turned around, curious to see who it was that joined.

Light caramel brown waves falling slightly past her shoulders, a pair of inquisitive amethyst eyes. It was a smiling Esmae Faix, the talk of the town.

And your first thought was: could my luck get any worse?