Chapter 21 – Dresses and Drama

Wherein Rose looks forward to the holiday, until tragedy befalls her.

There were several visits to the dressmaker and the antiquarians in the last week before the holidays. This left Rose with barely any time to play for coin. She couldn’t wait to have two blessed weeks without attendance. 

Valentina shared nothing about the jewellery her friends had been gifted by her father. Instead, she took her friends around town in search of something classy and chic that was timeless and didn’t have value equal to a small fiefdom in the countryside.

The first of the parties Valentina had chosen for them would fall on a Lawday night. They would have to start to get ready in the late afternoon, but Rose knew where she was going to go on Winter Wake morning.

She looked forward to visiting with the old men gang, and enjoying their company. She was going to play music. Wonderful music that would lift her soul up from the dredges of awful sludge it was in now. Because truly the only lessons at Bardic she found worthwhile up until now had been that one course in arcane arts.

Since those seminars, she had been carefully experimenting with putting intention behind her music. Seeing how she could get people to calm down considerably, or get them in a dreamy mood.

That Thaumday morn, exactly nine days before Winter Wake, as she played at Paragon's Cup, she thought of Valentina. The woman had said little before Rose had gone out, but it had been clear her mind had been preoccupied. As Rose played for the early afternoon clientele, to pass time between classes, she prayed her friend found peace.

Rose ignored Brittany as much as possible, while the spoiled princess and her court went on another drama bender. The people she hung out with at college - friends for lack of a better word - did the same. At some point in time they had all borne the brunt of Brittany’s ire. 

Thankfully, this week’s drama was about a teacher. Rose didn’t even know what exactly happened for Brittany to pick on the guy, all she knew was he was handed his resignation and had to leave campus immediately.

Rose wasn’t the only student looking forward to the holidays. Only two people of the group Rose kept company with were going home, both living within travelling distance of Splendor. Another two had grown up in the city and would spend the holidays with their families anyway.

Walking to class on Paladay, they made plans to meet up in the middle of their free weeks, to catch up, hang out, and play together. Close friends and siblings would be welcome. It wouldn't be a party. Not in the classical sense. It would be a casual occasion.

After a little deliberation, because the weather had turned nastier, Rose offered that they could gather at the Redemption Era house, her house, on Stygian Way. She envisioned something like the get-together she had witnessed at the old men's house. Friends, family, laughter, food. Good times.

She would have to consult with Bosra and Tina, to make sure they didn’t mind the intrusion, but she was pretty sure they would enjoy a party like that as well. And if they didn’t like the idea... a community space could be arranged here at college, even if it was then likely to turn into a frat-party.

On Lawday, with only two more days of classes to go until the reprieve, as the students filed into the classroom to sit through another practicum on modern classics - i.e. atonal drivel that nobody in their right mind should have to listen to, much less play in front of an audience of peers - Brittany bumped into Rose. The entire bitch-club proceeded to do the same. 

Rose struggled to get out of the throng, but somehow she was stuck in the middle. One arm dangled in the hallway, her cheek pressed to the doorjamb, the pressure of other bodies pressing past keeping her there. Just as she managed to move forward, someone banged the door shut with tremendous force, her violin case stuck between steel enforced jamb and a solid maple pane.

The crunch was deafening.

Gasps of horror went through the room. Rose turned. She stared at the pieces of the case, still holding the handle and nothing else. She stared at the sesters that spilled on the floor and the strings that sprung up from the wreckage.

Tears leaked down her face as a terrible feeling settled in her chest.

Every microscopic little detail was enhanced. The sounds in the classroom. The beating of her heart. The smell of cheap floor wax and the perfumes that had stuck to her clothing. The exact angle of the strings and the shape of the shards of the lacquered casing.

A hand on her arm as she was pulled aside by a friend. Another who kneeled and gathered the pieces in her skirt.

She was taken to her seat. The pieces of her shattered heart shifted from skirt to linen shopping tote. Silent hands on her arms, her shoulders. Shows of support whilst the teacher pretended it was business as usual.

He cleared his throat with a raspy, discomfited cough. He made a note on his attendance pad. “Alright, Miss Cerdos, you shall be relegated to score-keeper today.”

Protests went up behind her. The teacher’s burning look shot to somewhere over Rose’s left shoulder. “Unless all of you want to be marked down for today’s practicum,” he said in a concise, toneless way.

 The room became deadly silent. Not even Brittany made a sound, though she looked as smug as a pug in a rug. One of her worshippers giggled, an oddly high-pitched sound, coming from a young man with more gleeful malice than sense.

The teacher shot him a deadly stare, too.

“Hand Miss Cerdos your scores. She will mark every note you play differently than indicated.”

People passed on their bits of paper, stacks were assembled and put in front of Rose on her empty desk.

She sat, stunned. The terrible feeling in her chest had grown to the point where she could no longer feel her fingers and toes.

Whispers passed her by. Voices warped somewhere between her ears and her brain. Hallways stretched endlessly. Every fiddle squawk pierced the fog, shooting straight to her heart, spreading tendrils of pain through her otherwise numb limbs.

Her notebook entries for the day were devoid of words. No doodles illuminated the sidelines. No words crossed her lips.

All day, the linen tote over her shoulder added debilitating weight to her already sluggish movements. It seemed to weigh more than the millstones used to crush grains to flour, it was the anchor that drowned her in the stream.  

She got home.

She didn't know how.

She had no recollection of how she got to the front door. Of opening the heavy gleaming wood panel with its brass knobs, with the knocker that mocked her with its grotesque face.  

She closed the door. Her shoes left muddy footprints on clean white tile.

"Rose?" Tina's voice sounded from the upstairs landing. Music in a disharmonious world. "Rose? Is everything alright.”

Silence.

"Rose... what happened?" Compassion. A gentle touch. "Where's your violin? You didn't leave it on the tube, did you?"

Shaking her head was a conscious effort. "It broke." Her voice broke, too.

The bag slipped off her shoulder. Clattered to the floor and spilled forth the remains.

A horrified gasp pierced through the cotton clouds in her head – Valentina’s gasp.

"Rose..." her name that was breathed with misplaced awe. Shock. "What...? What happened?"

Rose had no control over the tears that streamed down her face, nor over the sob that wrecked her, wrenching her chest inside out.

"Oh darling..." Valentina's arm wrapped around her as she was guided to the music room. To Bosra's oversized fauteuil. Involuntarily, she curled up in the leather chair that smelled of hay, of leather soap, of horses; the smells of home.  

A cookie, perfect and sweet, found its way into her hand. A large mug of tea followed.

"Can you tell me what happened?"

~

This was the last episode to appear on Arkhaven for the coming months. Seashell Bear will be focussing on the publication of the completed ebook.
Posting of chapters will resume in March.
Visit seashellbear.com for the lastest information on where to buy the book.

If you enjoy reading Three of Cups, why not sign up to be an ARC reader? Click this link and fill out the form:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ASbiS0gVyzZvbJxNhhw_OhyvcSt_tjK1bHK7v-TgM3U
First come, first serve.