Page 40 of Mistaken

Sarah peeked inside, her eyes widening. It was a simple enough space, with the same wide-plank oak floors and white plastered walls as the rest of the house…with one very important difference.

In the center of the room stood a black grand piano.

She turned toward the djinn. “Did you…?”

“Yes, I summoned the piano for you. I thought it might help you with your practice.”

Her feet propelled her forward, almost as though the piano was some kind of magnet rather than a large, handsome Steinway. She reached out with one hand to trace the inner curve of the cabinet, feeling the smooth, glossy finish beneath her fingertips.

How long had it been since she’d played?

Well, that was an easy enough question to answer. She’d sat down in the living room of the house she shared with her father and picked out the melody to “Twisted Every Way,” one of the songs fromPhantom,as she worked through the notes of the complicated, somehow sinuous melody. Back then, she’d been doing her best to distract herself from the shock of learning that her father was now in the hospital fighting a deadly disease no one had even known he had.

September twenty-fifth. Yes, that was the date. So…it had been four years, three months, and twenty-six days.

It seemed absolutely surreal that Abdul had brought this piano here so she could practice. Sure, djinn had the power to summon almost anything they wanted, but still…this was crazy, wasn’t it?

If for no other reason than she didn’t know if she could even allow herself to practice her singing when she knew he could overhear her.

“Th-thank you,” she stammered, not sure what else she should say. “This is incredible.”

His shoulders lifted. “I was not using this room. It seemed a good idea to provide you with some other way to occupy your time.”

Well, at least Sarah could understand his comment about having more space than he needed in this house. She had no idea what had been in here before he decided to snap his fingers and make a concert grand appear, but clearly, it hadn’t been anything terribly important to him.

She lifted the lid and touched several of the keys. As far as she could tell, the piano was perfectly in tune.

Because of course it was.

Still standing in front of the keyboard, she moved her right hand so the fourth finger rested on the high E above middle C. Almost unconsciously, she played the first few notes of Beethoven’s “Fur Elise,” then paused.

“What is that?” Abdul asked. He had approached from the side but still stood a few feet away, as if he knew he shouldn’t crowd her.

“It’s a piece by Beethoven,” she replied. “The story is that he wrote it for one of his music students…or maybe a woman he was interested in. My dad told me that my mother loved the song so much that they decided to have ‘Elise’ as my middle name.”

Abdul appeared to absorb that bit of information, then looked from her to the keyboard where her hands still rested. “Do you know the rest of it?”

The scary thing was, she probably did. “Fur Elise” was a piece she’d played over and over so many times when she was young, Sarah guessed it was still permanently engraved on her brain.

And somehow, playing piano in front of the djinn seemed easier than just standing here and trying to sing while he watched.

“Only one way to find out,” she said with a grin, then pulled out the piano bench and sat down.

A moment to gather her thoughts, to remind herself of all the twists and turns in the tricky middle section of the piece, and then she placed her fingers on the keyboard and began to play.

The tempo was a bit slower than it had been written, but Sarah thought it better to be somewhat measured rather than go at breakneck speed, only to trip all over herself at exactly the wrong moment. And while she knew she hit a clinker once or twice, she still couldn’t hold back the rush of pride as her fingers stilled on the final A, with the corresponding notes in the lower registers echoing against the blank walls of the room.

She had to admit the acoustics in here were fantastic.

“That was lovely,” Abdul said. “It seems you have not lost much of your skills as a pianist.”

“Oh, I used to be a lot better,” she replied, then rose from the piano bench. “I’m sure if I sat down to play some Chopin, I’d fail miserably. But the piano is gorgeous.”

“Then I will leave you to practice,” he told her, and Sarah experienced a flare of alarm.

“Oh, I’m kind of tired after riding all afternoon,” she said, a protest that sounded weak even to her.

He crossed his arms. Not for the first time, she thought of how his hands were the only thing she could truly see about him, the skin a warm golden brown, his fingers strong and long — better suited to playing the piano than hers, which, while slender, were on the small side and often had to strain to reach some of the more ambitious chords.

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