Chapter 20

CHAPTER 20

“Noah? What are you doing here?”

It was Joel’s voice.

I opened my eyes to find I was not in the oppressive heat of Clara’s Crossing, with storm clouds bearing down on me and sweat running down my neck.

I was, in fact, in a forest.

A forest filled with ancient spruces, snow falling all around.

“Joel. Is that you? Where are you?”

At first, I couldn’t see him, then I wondered how I could possibly not see him because he was standing right in front of me, holding my hands in his.

“Noah, what are you doing here?” he asked again, a curious and amused look on his face, like he’d found me lost and wandering in a place I shouldn’t be.

“I don’t know,” I said quite honestly, but perhaps not as confused as I should have been. “I’m not really sure where ‘here’ is.”

“It’s the Pacific Northwest. These are the trees they use to make the Steinways. If you listen, you can hear the notes every time a snowflake lands on one of the branches. Close your eyes. Listen.”

I did as he said and closed my eyes, not even wanting to question him, or question why we were there. My heart was swelling at the realization he was simply there .

With me.

My eyelids shut out the light, and all around I could hear the silvery sound of snowflakes dancing on the keys of a piano.

A pretty pitter-patter.

A fairy-like melody.

A dream.

“I hear it,” I whispered.

“Now you know,” he said.

I opened my eyes, the snow-covered trees looming large around us, as though they could protect us from anything.

“Now I know what?”

“Now you know where I want to be,” he smiled. “Where the pianos are born.”

Suddenly, reality seemed to be returning to me.

Chet.

Cybil’s pickup.

The letter.

The Bible.

Lovesong.

Joel’s urn.

The world came flooding back too fast.

A world in which Joel no longer belonged.

I started to panic.

“Joel, don’t leave me. I don’t want you to go. I want you back.”

I was crying and he held me close, whispering in my ear, “Shhh. It’s all right, my darling. You have to go back to the start of the song now. It’s time to begin again. It’s time to learn a new melody, one we don’t know the steps to. But if your heart keeps beating in time with the music… you’ll learn to dance again.” He cradled my head against his shoulder and said, “Now… close your eyes. And when you open them again, you’ll be—”