Excerpt: Summerland

A boy sat on a green velvet stool, running his long and elegant fingers across unmoving black and white keys - soundlessly. After a moment of hesitation, he relaxed, and dropped his fingers into them - slowly at first, but soon picking up speed and urgency. It was an angry and loud composition, reverberating against the walls and through the grand house. It was a piece that he had written in England. It was also extremely complex, but Arthur Wright had never had any trouble with learning new music, and had been writing his own for more than five years. He could feel the pulse of blood in his fingers, and hear each note in his head seconds before he touched the corresponding key. He rocked slightly as he played, his jaw set and his eyes fierce with passion.

“Art?” And then suddenly it all came to a halt on A sharp. But, it wasn't the voice of little Alice that brought him to stop, and had him pressing down unknowingly hard on the final key so that it reverberated through the room. No, it wasn't Alice. Across the piano, through the tall windows and beyond, hidden by the shadow of the thick bush outside, were a pair of staring eyes. Art stared back, for a moment paralyzed.

“Art?” Alice repeated, and in a blink, the eyes vanished. For just a second, Art stared at the shadowy spot beneath the trees and between the flax, but was quickly reminded of space and time, and turned around to face his younger sister. He knew that he ought, by now, to not get distracted by the presence of the Angel. But it was difficult to ignore such a stalker, and harder yet to pretend that he didn't exist.

Alice stood in the doorway, tiny in contrast, holding an apple by the stem and looking at Art with the captivated expression that she always wore when he played. Apparently, she hadn't noticed his momentary panic, from which he had now recovered, or seen the figure outside.

“Don't stop,” she whispered, so quietly that he shouldn't have been able to hear it.

“It's alright,” said Art, resting back and giving her a rare smile. “What did you want?”

“I'd like to listen to you play,” she replied.

“Play what?”

“My song.”