Page 8 of One Last Regret

I feel a slight chill as I ascend the staircase. Attics have revealed their own secrets, but those secrets always trigger the darkest memories I have. I worry that I will find something in this attic that triggers a memory I’d rather leave forgotten.

But if I am to find out what happened to my sister, I must be brave. So, I take a deep breath and open the door.

Lights come on automatically when the door opens. I’m grateful for that. This attic is cluttered, and several of the shapesof old furniture, coatracks, clothing and stacks of keepsakes and decorative items could look rather sinister in darkness.

As it is, I find nothing immediately frightening, so I start to look around. As I do, the music lifting to my ears from the first floor brings more flashes of Annie with her saxophone. I see her practicing in her room, and in the backyard. I see her performing at our high school and then again at our university.

How is it that I don’t remember any of this? Most of my repressed memories are isolated incidents, usually moments of extreme danger or of violence or conflict. These memories seem rather ordinary.

And I can’t remember how she sounds. I can see her body moving, her hips swaying, her fingers pressing and releasing valves on the saxophone, but I can’t hear any noise but the noise of the children practicing downstairs. Could I have repressed the memory of how she sounded when she played, or has the memory faded to the point where I can’t remember what she sounded like?

I find a bookshelf on which are stacked hundreds of spiral bound notebooks. I open the first one and see that each book contains compositions written by Marcel Lacroix.

I peruse some of them, but I’m truly not skilled at music. I can read simple notes, but the complex pieces jotted in these books are beyond me. They look jumbled and erratic, and while I’m sure that’s not at all the case, I can’t hear what any of these are supposed to sound like by reading the notes.

I look through a few, then decide I won’t find anything interesting. Just before I turn to leave, though, I catch a glimpse of yellowing paper out of the corner of my eye. I turn back to the bookcase and see a sliver of the paper sticking out in between two notebooks.

I carefully remove the composition and hold it to the light. The papers are old and yellowing, but not yet cracking. The notes written on the page are faded but still readable.

And they’re complex. I don’t know how to read them well, but I know enough to see that this piece is extraordinarily technical and extremely demanding. I feel a touch of anxiety looking through it, funny since I can’t even play the Happy Birthday song on any musical instrument.

The title of the piece readsVie Apres a la Mort.Life after death.

Something stirs in my mind when I read that. The sound from downstairs fades. My hands begin to tremble, but though the composition vibrates in my hand, the words remain steady. Something about the handwriting lends a vicious animation to the letters, as though they would jump off of the page and force into my mind the understanding of a terrible secret not meant for the living.

“What’s that?”

I gasp and spin around to see the twins staring at me. Amelia’s smiling at me, her brow furrowed in curiosity. Gabriel is pale and when I turn to him, he quickly looks away.

“It’s a composition by your father,” I tell Amelia. “Aren’t you two supposed to be practicing?’

Amelia frowns. “It’s almost ten o’clock, Mary. We were looking for you to begin our lessons.”

“Ten? But that’s…”

My voice trails off as I check my phone and find that it is indeed almost ten. I’ve somehow spent over two hours in this room.

My blood chills. “Right. Well, let’s get to it then.”

“What were you looking for?” she asks.

“Nothing,” I reply, a little too crisply. She raises her eyebrow, and I soften my voice. “Nothing. Let’s get your lessons done, shall we?”

Amelia sets the composition down, and we head downstairs. I have to fight a powerful urge to look back at those papers.

I don’t yet know why, but that composition is central to the secrets of this house. I also am not sure if I still want to know that those secrets are.

Life After Death. To many, a promise of eternal rest. To some, a promise of eternal damnation.

But which does that piece promise? Rest or damnation?

CHAPTER FOUR

Just as I finish with the children’s lessons, Amelia says, “Oh yeah, I’m supposed to tell you that you’re invited tonight.”

I frown. “Invited? To what?”

“The party.”

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