Page 24 of Inescapable Gravity

Heather.

She was calling herself Heather again.

Through the years that she'd been building her career as a violinist, she'd kept that name to herself, choosing to be called Nix all the time.

Using the wide make-up brush to dust powder across her features, she closed her eyes and when she was done she laid the long-handled brush on the desktop.

Her mask was next.

The lace cut-out mask was fashioned for each performance from the same bolt of lace. Ordered from Brussels, it cost a fortune, much of an improvement from her original masks that she created from a plastic tablecloth that she'd found in a dollar store.

Using her own creativity, she'd cut and glued the corner of the tablecloth until it fit across her face hiding most of her features from her forehead to her cheeks.

The hardest part was her nose.

Trying to get the plastic to fit over the slope of her nose was a battle, but it had to be worn before she set foot on a stage, or in those early days out on the sidewalk before the general public.

A soft knock at the door turned her head. "Who is it?"

She was expecting Marius. He was going to walk her to the side of the stage and stay with her until she went on stage.

"My dear..."

She turned her gaze toward the dressing room door as she stood. Reaching out her hand to pick up the mask from her make-up table.

"Could I come in and wish you good luck?"

Heather cringed, glad for the door between them. "Perhaps later?"

She heard the sadness in Bart’s voice, and she didn’t blame him. "When this is over, Bart, I’ll show you who I really am."

She took a few steps, treading softly across the hard tiled floor. There was no window to see out or a peephole to peer through.

Instead, she just had to make the decision for herself.

Before too much time had passed, she lifted her mask and placed it over her eyes and nose before tying the satin ribbons through the waves of her hair.

With that done, she opened the door.

"I’m glad you came to hear me play."

His gaze was fixed on her face and his eyes shown with a melancholy light. "I guess it’s my bad luck,” he explained. “When we first met, I could barely see."

She drew back slightly, concerned at the strange downturn of his mood. "Bart…"

He chuckled and waved off her worry. “Back then, my eyes were failing me and I was wallowing in my own self-pity.”

Heather swallowed at the lump in her throat. She remembered that time all too well.

“And I would wander in the darkness through the gardens of my home, navigating with my nose and sometimes the pain in my shins.”

She smiled, but she wasn't quite sure what to make of his darker sense of humor.

“And I heard an angel in the darkness.”

He reached out a hand and she took it, wondering why he’d initiated the contact now of all the times that he’d attended one of her performances.

“You’re too kind,” she shook her head, “back then I was playing on the secondhand violin that the Marshal’s picked up for me to keep me busy.“

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