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golden plates. And I stopped just inside the chapel, and I looked at
their faces and they seemed as before to look directly at me. White, so
white I could not imagine them bronzed, and as hard, it seemed, as the
jewels they wore. Snake bracelet around her upper arm. Layered
necklace on her breast. Tiniest lip of flesh from his chest covering the
top of the clean linen shirt he wore. Her face was narrower than his
face, her nose just a little longer. His eyes were slightly longer, the
folds of flesh defining them a little thicker. Their long black hair was
very much the same. I was breathing uneasily. I felt suddenly weak
and let the scent of the flowers and the incense fill my lungs. The light
of the lamps danced in a thousand tiny specks of gold in the murals. I
looked down at the violin and tried to remember my idea, and I ran
my fingers along the wood and wondered what this thing looked like
to them. In a hushed voice I explained what it was, that I wanted them
to hear it, that I didn't really know how to play it but that I was going
to try. I wasn't speaking loud enough to hear myself, but surely they
could hear it if they chose to listen. And I lifted the violin to my
shoulder, braced it under my chin, and lifted the bow. I closed my
eyes and I remembered music, Nicki's music, the way that his body
had moved with it and his fingers came down with the pressure of
hammers and he let the message travel to his fingers from his soul. I
plunged into it, the music suddenly wailing upwards and rippling
down again as my fingers danced. It was a song, all right, I could make
a song. The tones were pure and rich as they echoed off the close walls
with a resounding volume, creating the wailing beseeching voice that
only the violin can make. I went madly on with it, rocking back and
forth, forgetting Nicki, forgetting everything but the feel of my fingers
stabbing at the soundboard and the realization that I was making this,
this was coming out of me, and it plummeted and climbed and
overflowed ever louder and louder as I bore down upon it with the
frantic sawing of the bow. I was singing with it, I was humming and
then singing loudly, and all the gold of the little room was a blur. And
suddenly it seemed my own voice became louder, inexplicably louder,
with a pure high note which I knew that I myself could not possibly
sing. Yet it was there, this beautiful note, steady and unchanging and
growing even louder until it was hurting my ears. I played harder,
more frantically, and I heard my own gasps coming, and I knew
suddenly that I was not the one making this strange high note! The
blood was going to come out of my ears if the note did not stop. And I
wasn't making the note! Without stopping the music, without giving
in to the pain that was splitting my head, I looked forward and I saw
Akasha had risen and her eyes were very wide and her mouth was a
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perfect O. The sound was coming from her, she was making it, and
she was moving off the steps of the tabernacle towards me with her
arms outstretched and the note pierced my eardrums as if it were a
blade of steel. I couldn't see. I heard the violin hit the stone floor. I
felt my hands on the sides of my head. I screamed and screamed, but
the note absorbed my screaming.
"Stop it! Stop it! " I was roaring. But all the light was there again
and she was right in front of me and she was reaching out.
"O God, Marius! " I turned and ran towards the doors. And the
doors flew shut against me, knocking my face so hard I fell down on
my knees. Under the high shrill continuum of the note I was sobbing.
"Marius, Marius, Marius! " And turning to see what was about to
happen to me, I saw her foot come down on the violin. It popped and
splintered under her heel. But the note she sang was dying. The note
was fading away. And I was left in silence, deafness, unable to hear my
own screams for Marius which were going on and on, as I scrambled
to my feet. Ringing silence, shimmering silence. She was right in front
of me, and her black eyebrows came together delicately, barely
creasing her white flesh, her eyes full of torment and questioning and
her pale pink lips opened to reveal her fang teeth. Help me, help me,
Marius, help me, I was stammering, unable to hear myself except in
the pure abstraction of intention in my mind. And then her arms
enclosed me, and she drew me closer, and I felt the hand as Marius
had described it, cupping my head gently, very gently, and I felt my
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