Prelude (The Rhapsody Quartet)
Read Prelude (The Rhapsody Quartet) Online
Authors: A.M. Hodgson
Tags: #Sirens, #magic, #series, #young adult fantasy, #Mermaids, #Elves
Contents
For Darin
CHAPTER ONE
Inheritance
Stop looking at me.
I slumped down in the seat at the attorney’s office, ducking my head. Mr Baker, the lawyer, continued to scrutinize me, peering over little half-moon glasses perched on his nose.
“I’m sure you’re aware this is an unusual case,” he began, tapping at the file in front of him.
“We are,” agreed my foster mom, Susan. I took a fleeting glance up at her. Blonde, pretty, young… too young to be the mother of a nearly sixteen-year-old girl. “The timing on it, in particular, is interesting.”
She said interesting, but she meant
weird
. I was receiving my inheritance today, but there seemed to be no rhyme or reason as to why. My birthday was soon, true, but it wasn’t like I was turning eighteen— when trust funds or other assets were typically released.
“Well, the Millses were unusual clients,” the attorney said carefully, pulling his glasses from his face and folding them. He narrowed his eyes, studying me again.
I felt my face flush, and I had the urge to run out of the room. I hated this kind of scrutiny.
“You look nothing like your parents, young lady,” he said with a frown, “but I’ve reviewed your documentation from the state. The social security number matches up, among other things…”
I knitted my brows, looking up at him. “What were they like?” I asked him with a small voice.
My parents died when I was so young, not quite three years old. I didn’t really remember them. I’ve always pictured them as young, and good looking, but the details were foggy to me. I didn’t even have a photo of them.
“Very attractive,” he said, “and magnetic. Charismatic.”
I felt a little insulted at first. He had, after all, just told me I looked nothing like them. Then again…
I glanced to the window, where the rain was pouring down in torrents outside. I caught my reflection in the dull glass and sighed.
I wasn’t anything special. While I was so close to having my sweet sixteen, I looked hopelessly underage. I was all angles, and bony, scrawny. For some girls, that might have been an opportunity to start modeling. Unfortunately, my face was round and had a thick layer of baby fat. My skin was sallow, my hair dark and stringy and limp. I looked incredibly young, and I was short enough that people usually assumed I was eleven or twelve at most.
I chewed on my lip nervously, “Did they mention a reason for the timing?”
Mr Baker shook his head, “No. I remember thinking I should ask them, but for some reason I never did.” He appeared uncomfortable, “I was younger then, and they were generous, and
very
specific.” He rapped his hands on the file, “You were to be approached between seven to ten days before your sixteenth birthday.”
Susan studied our copy of the file. “This is unlike any contract I’ve seen for this sort of thing…” She would know. Susan may have been young, but she was a lawyer herself, ambitiously finishing her schooling early, graduating with honors.
“I’m fully aware of it,” Mr Baker said dismissively, “but I’m a busy man, and we need to get down to business.”
I sat up a little straighter, my heart beginning to pound in my ears. For the first time I could remember, I’d have something from my parents. My palms were sweating. I wiped them hastily on my blue jeans.
He leaned down beneath his desk and pulled out a dusty cardboard box about the size of a filing cabinet drawer. The markings on the side of it read:
Mills, 24081989
. He opened it up and set the lid on his desk. Consulting one of the pages in the file, he said, “First, one dulcimer.” He pulled out a bundle wrapped in black canvas.
“A dulcimer?” Susan asked.
“It’s a musical instrument,” Mr Baker explained.
“I
know
what it is. It just seems… unusual.”
It
was
unusual. Who gets a dulcimer from dead relatives in the twenty-first century?
“It is, but it’s listed as an heirloom. It had a lot of sentimental value to the Millses.”
I grabbed the canvas from his outstretched hands. It had a long shape to it, and a few clasps along the side to keep it closed. I carefully opened it. The inside appeared to be a silver lamé. Nestled within was a long, vaguely rectangular, string instrument. I gently ran my hand along the side. Every square inch of it was carved: flowers, strange scrolling designs, a couple of birds along the neck near the tuning pegs. I gingerly lifted it from the case. On the back was another bird with open wings and a crescent moon behind it.
I brushed my fingers across the strings and was surprised to find the music was sweet and clear. “It’s still in tune?” I asked.
Mr Baker shrugged, “It’s been in the case for over thirteen years, and no one has disturbed it, so
maybe.
It’s possible.”
It didn’t seem very possible to me, though. The elements alone would probably knock it out of tune— humidity, being jostled around, dust… but the sound had seemed perfectly in pitch. Maybe it was just my ears. I’d never been musically inclined.
Mr Baker consulted the sheet, “It’s a scrolled dulcimer, which makes it portable,” he declared, although that much was obvious to me. “Its value is mostly sentimental.” He looked up at me, “It says you probably wouldn’t get much money for it if you tried to sell it.”
I stroked the carved sides of the instrument delicately, “I wouldn’t sell this,” I said, “it’s… special.”
He nodded as if satisfied and moved on, dipping his hands into the box again. “Now then.” He withdrew a small velvet pouch and emptied it into his palm, “One ring, made of opal.”
The ring lay flat on his hand, and I stared at it. I had always loved opals, the way the colors flashed in the light. I plucked the simple band from his palm and studied it, turning it about in my fingers. It looked like it had been carved out of one large opal, then inlaid in silver. The inside was metallic, but outside it was all gemstone. It wasn’t something I’d wear. It was much too large for my hands, and the design was masculine. I turned it a few more times, smiling as I saw all the colors of the rainbow.
Mr Baker cleared his throat impatiently. I reluctantly placed the ring on his desk. He quickly picked it up, returned it to the pouch, and slid the whole thing towards me. I placed the bundle in my lap on top of the dulcimer.
“And finally, a music box.”
He retrieved it, placing the heirloom before me. It was small, octagonal, and made of wood, carved in the same style as the dulcimer. The most prominent design was upon the lid: two birds, wings open as if in flight. Behind them was a crescent moon and a sun. The borders featured more unusual scrolling symbols. I unhooked the delicate golden clasp. As I opened the box, I noticed that the inside was smooth except for two small circular indentations near the lid.
I looked up at Mr Baker, surprised, “There’s no music.”
He nodded, “It’s broken.”
Susan sat up straighter, “If it broke in your care…” she began.
He shook his head, and tapped his index finger to the paper, “It says here that it doesn’t play. But it’s still a family keepsake. Everything here was.”
I wasn’t too disappointed that the musical mechanism didn’t work anymore. I was happy enough to have it. I closed the lid and drew the box towards myself, studying the patterns, yet finding no clues to my parents’ lives.
“With that, we nearly conclude our business. You also have one letter, still sealed, from your parents.” He handed me the yellowed envelope with a smile, and I took it with trembling hands.
Susan patted my shoulder, sensing I was nervous. I tore it open, and read silently and quickly.
Our dearest daughter,
If you are reading this letter, it means you have just received your inheritance and are turning sixteen soon. In our family, this birthday is a rite of passage: the transition from child to adult.
We’re sorry that we can’t be there with you now. We can only offer you these words of encouragement and a few precious gifts. We hope you cherish them and that you find them useful in the coming days.
With deepest love,
Your Parents
Beneath the signature was more of that scrolling pattern that decorated my new dulcimer and music box. It must have been a family design, or a heritage thing. I re-read the letter three times, memorizing every word. It felt fairly generic, but I was still shaking all over. This was from
my parents
!
The only part that seemed strange to me was the wish that the items would be useful. All of them were beautiful, certainly, but they weren’t especially
useful
to me. The dulcimer, perhaps the most stunning object I’d received, was a complete mystery. I was sure it would take years to learn to play the instrument with any real aptitude.
“That’s it?” Susan asked, incredulous.
Mr Baker nodded, “That’s it.” He stacked the papers, sliding a new document across the table, “We just need both you and Sarah to sign this. It states that I’ve turned the items over to you, etcetera. Pretty standard.”
Susan frowned, “You’re telling me they didn’t leave Sarah
anything
financially?”
He shrugged. “Yes, that’s the case, at least as far as I’ve been instructed.” He raised a single eyebrow, as if suggesting that she had ulterior motives to ask. I knew she didn’t, but Susan took offense to it anyway.
“I’m not worried about
me
! But she’s fifteen— almost sixteen— and will be eighteen before she knows it, out of the system. I was hoping,” she added, “that her parents would have left her something of substance to help her survive out in the real world.”
Mr Baker tapped his pen on the desk, “I’m just doing what they wanted me to do. I assure you, I’m not cheating you. I was surprised myself, but I told you before we began the process that they were unusual clients.”
She pursed her lips into a thin line, and I could see her nostrils flaring, “I’m sorry, Mr Baker. I’m not angry at you. I’m just upset for her.”
“Understandable,” his eyes flicked to the clock, “but my time is nearly up. Can we just get on with it?”
She nodded and quickly read through the papers before we signed.
CHAPTER TWO
Shift
The drive home was rainy and miserable. Then again, we were in Whitecrest. It was rare that we had a day without at least some sort of drizzle.
I’d been here for almost three years now, from before I started high school. Since my parents’ deaths, I’d been shuttled from place to place, starting in Seattle. When it was obvious I wasn’t going to be adopted, Social Services felt more comfortable shipping me off from one distance to another within the state. A few years in Seattle, a year and a half in Bellevue, a year in Tacoma, two in Aberdeen, two more in Vancouver, finally landing here, in Whitecrest, with Susan and Rick Casey.