“CYPRESS, THANK GOD. No one will tell me what is going on.” Ash sits on his couch, head in his hands.
Cypress sets down her weapons and looks at Ash.
“You chose quite the lady.”
“Cedar? I know she was here. I heard her play.”
“Yeah, she was here.”
“There was a commotion. I couldn’t see a thing. What happened?”
“Her instrument was destroyed,” Cypress says.
“I don’t care about the instrument. Where is she?”
“She is safe. She has friends.”
“Next time start with that.” He springs to his feet. “Was she hurt?”
“I had my sights fixed on the guard. He never would have got that far.”
Ash exhales and looks at his friend. His sister. “None of us is immune.”
Cypress shrugs. “What makes you think I care?”
“I care, Cypress. I don’t have the authority, or the skills, to break you out from a jail cell.”
“I’m not going to jail. Not until your mother’s musician is finished.”
“What?” Ash shakes his head. “She not mother’s musician.” He paces, going between the couch and his desk. “I convinced Father to clear her of charges, but this is worse than before. She doesn’t need to do this.” He drags his fingers through his hair and stops at the desk. He brings Cypress an envelope.
“I need you to deliver a message to her from me. Try not to be too…you.”
She raises her brows. “Too…me?”
“You can be rather intimidating.”
“Cedar was far from intimidated during the many days she spent in my company.” She watches Ash absorb the shock from her words. “Now stop babbling. I have something to tell you.”
He collapses onto the couch, too weary with shock to keep standing.
“I have met with an old acquaintance of your mother’s,” Cypress begins. “When your father ordered all her books burnt after her death, I smuggled out her journals and read them.” When he says nothing, she continues. “She wrote about her attempts to find a cellist who was prophesied to fight for Danbarrah’s freedom. It was said the musician would be able to interpret some unique musical language. Your mother had a book written in this language, but I haven’t been able to find it. She found a cello, built by an extraordinary craftsman that lived long ago. She writes that it is the only one of its kind.” Cypress’s voice is absent of her usual biting scorn. It makes everything more believable to hear someone like Cypress tell this as truth rather than myth.
“She found the cellist too,” Cypress says.
“Then Cedar can’t be – ”
Cypress dismisses with a wave Ash’s attempts to interrupt. “I met with Sister Nettle and confirmed the existence of this instrument. She admitted to being the cellist found by your mother years ago. She would not divulge the story of her disappearance, or where the cello is now, and your mother wrote nothing more of the matter. Sister Nettle hinted that it had found its way to one who would fulfill the prophecy.”
Ash sorts through his thoughts until his frantic brain settles on one. The first time this had occurred to him was in the cavern where he had taken Cedar before he left the cabin. He has avoided giving the suggestion close consideration. “Cedar. She thinks it is Cedar.” He looks at Cypress with haunted eyes. “The cello, what could it have done?”
Cypress rises, but not given to pacing, she simply stands, her face pensive. “I am not sure. Sister Nettle wouldn’t answer me. And now we may never know.” Cypress shrugs. “My father’s stone has something to do with Danbarrah’s old magic too, but I haven’t figured out what.”
It is a lot to unravel, yet it feels like a truth he has always known.
“The instrument, can it be repaired?”
“No,” Cypress says.
“So what now?”
“I don’t know.”
Ash is used to seeing indifference on Cypress’s face. Despair makes her look like a different person.
~ . ~ . ~
CEDAR STARES AT the wall of tools. It is a day of rest, and no other staff will come today. She hears the door open and close but hardly cares whether it is Linden or not.
“I swung by the guest house and collected your things.” Linden tosses a sack onto the table.
“I ran,” she says, not looking at him.
“What else could you have done? You’d be on your way to Koshluk by now if you hadn’t.”
Cedar eyes the small bag. “I can’t leave.”
“I’m not asking you to. But you can’t stay there. You are a fugitive now.”
Cedar shrugs, uncaring. “I was a fugitive before.”
Linden shakes his head. “No, the guard who arrested you had some personal reason for doing so. The King spread the word that you were not to be taken in. Prince Ash requested your warrant be lifted.”
The reminder of Ash pierces through the fog of her misery.
“That’s why they let me go so easily,” she says.
“Most likely.”
She drops from the table and walks closer to Linden. “Are you okay? I thought the guard…did he hurt you?”
“I’m pretty quick on my feet. And you’re a fast runner.”
Linden walks into the showroom. He returns with arms loaded with bedding.
“You’ll stay here. I have an old camping mat tucked away in my office. It won’t be very comfortable.”
Tears gather in Cedar’s eyes. “Thank you.”
“We’ll figure out something more long-term. This place is still in Dad’s name. He carries a lot of impunity, being from Koshluk and all that.”
Linden looks towards the showroom door. “I’ll be in my workshop. I have some granola bars in my office. I’ll leave it unlocked.”
Her work is not finished. Ash remains in the palace. Her resilience rebuilds under Linden’s kindness.
Cedar hesitates, but she sees no other option. “Can I borrow some tools? And materials? You can take payment from my wage.”
He replies easily. “Yeah. What do you need?”
Cedar rattles off a few tools. When she asks for the wood the size of the cello blanks she knows he has in his workshop, he raises a brow but says nothing. He brings her what she needs, then leaves her alone.
~ . ~ . ~
CEDAR LIFTS HER head from the table at the sound of a door slamming. Startled, she springs to her feet, remembering her activities from the night before. She reaches for pieces on the table but stops at the sound of the door from the showroom opening.
“Morning, Cedar. Getting to work early now, are you? You’ll make supervisor before me.” Her coworker, Bark, jokes as he moves to his workbench. He begins pulling out tools for the day’s jobs.
Cedar looks at her table. Her random assortment of materials is nowhere near the shape she needs them in. They do little to reveal her illegal activities.
Linden appears beside her. He studies the table with an odd look on his face. Cedar raises her cool hands to her warm face.
Linden does not meet her eyes. “Best to get to the assigned work now,” he says. He pivots back towards the showroom, but pauses long enough to add, “You can continue this after work hours.”
Cedar tidies her worktable, leaving out the tools she will need for the day. Linden makes no appearance in the shop. When the last employee leaves, Cedar returns to the pieces of wood for the cello. She glues and clamps the wood together, hoping this time it will hold.
Hours later, Linden appears.
“I brought you lunch.” He sets the meal down on the work table and is gone before Cedar can thank him.
~ . ~ . ~
CEDAR CONTINUES WORKING on the instrument as work days turn into another day of rest and then another stretch of workdays. It looks like a cello now. She is more careful to hide it before her coworkers appear in the mornings.
They are seemingly indifferent to Cedar’s near-constant presence in the shop. She does what she can in the staff washroom and no one comments on her declining personal hygiene. She has not stepped outside since the day she lost her cello.
The one thing they have noticed they speak of over lunch break.
“Where has Linden been?” asks one of the newer hires.
“No one knows. He has done this before, only never this long,” Bark says.
The conversation changes to the coffee. Everyone has an opinion about that.
~ . ~ . ~
CEDAR STANDS BACK to evaluate the finished instrument. The smell of freshly applied varnish fills her nostrils. Her hands are sore from slivers and cuts.
The pathetic shape of the cello on her worktable taunts her.
She tilts her head and studies the instrument. In her desperation, she can almost pretend it is how it ought to be, but the memory of the curves of her prior cello is too ingrained to forget. How will she ever coax the sound from this one that she had from the other?
Cedar sighs and turns away from the table. She slips out onto the dimly lit street. It is busy with traffic even at this late hour. She takes paths that lead her to the ocean and goes down to the surf. She walks far enough that there is no one else around. Cedar removes her clothes down to her underwear. She walks into the tumbling, salty water.
She dives into the surf and swims for a time. Then she turns onto her back and floats. She pictures the cello, in pieces on the courtyard stones. She thinks of the scroll, the strings, and the sound. Sister Nettle had said that the cello was crafted by a master maker. How could she have thought she had a chance of building anything comparable?
A splash of briny water on her face returns her to the present. The current is stronger than she had anticipated, pulling at her with alarming force and speed. She treads water and glances about. The darkness disorients her. She turns in complete circles, trying to identify the shore.
Life cannot end in this way. Not now, with her work unfinished. How she is to finish her work, she cannot say. She only knows that she would rather die trying than perish here.
She catches the light of the moon reflected in the water and looks up at the sky. The stars offer to guide her, as they had in her northern woods. She orientates herself toward what she thinks is the shore. She dives under the water and swims like she never has before. She comes up for a rest. The current carries her further out while she rests. She dives under again and pulls until her muscles burn.
A childhood memory surfaces. She has been in this situation before, in the largest of the three lakes in the north.
She turns perpendicular to the pushing current. She swims until the force of the current dissipates. She surfaces and treads water, trying to recover her strength.
She checks the sky, orientates herself, and swims again toward shore. With no idea of how far she has been carried out into the ocean, she sets a careful pace. Every few strokes, she turns her mouth to the side for air. The ocean air fills her body with strength. The water tastes of salt, and her heartbeat takes on a steady rhythm.
When she feels her hand brush against sand, she scrambles to a stand. She revels in the feel of land beneath her feet and walks the remaining distance to the shore.
She collapses, the sand cool against her. She curls her toes. The ocean sand reminds her of the sandy lakeshores in the north. Will she ever swim in those lakes again? Out in the ocean, she had not cared. Her only thought had been to find a way to play in the palace courtyard again. The urgency to see her work through to the end had fueled her efforts to reach the shore.
The question that remains, is how? The cello she built is little better than a child’s toy. It carries none of the properties of the one she had been given by Mother Rosemary. Even her mother’s cello would be preferable.
The thought of her mother’s cello makes her think of Ash. Ash had not hesitated to ask her to come to his side to help. He had given her space to make her own decision, yet his daring to ask had first sparked her courage. Since coming to Danbarrah’s aid, her danger has intensified. Her courage, likewise, has grown. For the first time, her courage surpasses the danger. She would not trade that courage for the safest place in the world.
She cannot save Danbarrah alone. She, too, must dare to ask for help.
She rises from the sand and brushes herself off. She finds her clothes and returns to the workshop.
~ . ~ . ~
CEDAR FINDS LINDEN examining her cello.
“It sounds even worse than it looks,” she says.
He plucks a string and cringes.
“I warned you.”
Linden chuckles. “Yes, you did.” He returns the cello to the table. “Where were you?”
“Swimming. And thinking.”
He scrutinizes her. “You seem, I don’t know, lighter.”
“I have to ask you something.”
Linden leans against the work table.
Cedar takes a deep breath and lets it out in words. “Will you build me a cello?”
Linden grins from ear to ear. Cedar tilts her head, trying to read his expression.
He grabs her hand. “Come with me.” He leads her to the showroom.
Cedar wonders if he heard her. She had expected a simple yes or no. More likely a no. He has told her already that Danbarrah’s freedom is not his fight.
He pauses in front of the wardrobe door to his hidden shop and smiles like a boy about to give a gift for the first time.
“For Danbarrah.” He makes a sweeping bow and opens the door.
~ . ~ . ~
CEDAR PAUSES AT the entrance to the courtyard. Only a few hours earlier, she had swum with all she had for her life, without an idea of how to carry on with her plan. She knew only that she had to survive to try.
Now, she is here. She steps under the archway into the wide, nearly empty courtyard.
At the doors of the palace, the same guard who smashed her cello smiles at her with something like gleeful anticipation. Basil is here as well. The first guard moves towards her, but Basil restrains him. They speak in angry whispers. They will arrest her for illegal activities today. It will come to an end. She sets her stool in the center of the courtyard.
The seconds move like minutes as she takes the cello from the case. Her hands caress the wood. She centers the cello between her legs and withdraws the bow from the case. The horsehair on the bow is startlingly white. The grip fits her hand perfectly. She guides the bow across a string. The vibrations resound off the courtyard walls.
The tone of this cello is richer. The sounds pull at her like the force of the ocean current. Her ears throb with the intensity. The strings transfer the vibration to every cell in her body. Her smashed cello had shared the history of all its prior musicians. She had heard their stories as she had played.
This cello, this young wood, shares with her only the story of the forest of its origin. In turn, she gives it a story to absorb. She forms it into what she needs it to be. It grows into a glorious instrument by the daring trial she faces in this singular moment.
She closes her eyes, a single tear marking a path down her cheek. The cello makes the most beautiful music. In mere moments, it will be destroyed. Her fingers reflexively move in the pattern of her song while she waits for an iron grip to close around her. She braces herself to watch Linden’s cello, labored over unceasingly for days, be smashed against the stones.
Her eyes fly open at the sound of accompanying strings. The guards stand closer, their expressions flummoxed. Basil is smiling. She steals a look to her side and fumbles her music. Linden is there, holding a violin, his attention on his task.
Cedar’s spirit soars and she returns her attention to the cello. The music envelops her in its cocoon, and she is transported to a world where she cannot be touched without her consent.