(Magnus is 21, in college)
“Sorry, sorry,” Magnus mumbled angrily, for the third time, to the violin student next to him. He’d flubbed the piano melody on the second page again, and had messed up the violinist’s solo. She was a sweet girl—named Aria, of all things—but she was steadily getting more frustrated with him. “Can we go again?” he asked through his teeth, exasperated at himself.
“Sure. Just…what’s the matter with you today?” she asked in her southern Georgia accent. “You’re the best accompanist in the department, and I picked you because you can play this song in your sleep. So what’s up?”
He sighed to himself. He didn’t like opening up to people, especially after Daniel, but he was at his end today. “I just…nothing feels right today. I feel like…like…like I don’ t know. Just that something’s off.”
“You think you can get it together before Saturday? Because I’d really like to impress the judges,” Aria said quietly. She wasn’t really the kind of girl who raised her voice. She didn’t usually fit in with all the other self-driven, cutthroat juniors of the Florida State University School of Music, which is probably why she and Magnus got along so well.
“Yeah, I got it. Let’s go,” he said, cracking his knuckles one more time. He laid his fingers down over the ivory keys, took a deep breath, and played the first two bars before there was a sharp rap on the door. It was 9 pm on a Wednesday, and they were currently holed up in one of the practice rooms in the basement of the music building on campus. Suffice it say that to be bothered by anyone in this situation was extremely out of the ordinary. When Aria opened the door and discovered Dr. Placette, one of their professors, they were both doubly startled. Professors didn’t usually hang out on campus past class time.
“May I speak with Magnus, please?” she asked quietly. The look on her face resembled what had been going on inside Magnus all day—that sort of unidentified dread that hung over him. Except in Dr. Placette’s face, the dread seemed to have a name, even though Magnus didn’t know what it was yet.
“But Dr. Placette, we’re rehearsing for my contest on Saturday. We were just getting into the groove—“ Aria protested in her small voice, her violin still poised in her hand.
“Magnus will no longer be accompanying you on Saturday. I’ll fill in myself. Right now, I need to speak to Magnus.” The professor’s voice was firm and unyielding, but held an underlying note of anxiety.
Magnus, who’d been hitherto silent during the exchange, calmly lifted himself from the piano bench and followed his professor out into the hallway. He could hear other students in the practice rooms rehearsing for whatever concert they had coming up, and others who were also participating in the violin contest in Orlando on Saturday. But, for some reason, his ears felt clogged with cotton. He was only able to really focus on Dr. Placette’s face, her expression ripped wide open now that they were semi-alone in the hallway.
She placed a hand on his shoulder, and he just blinked at her. “Magnus, I have some bad news.” She paused, as if she expected him to know. And, in a way, looking back, he probably did. If not the exact message, he knew the general tone of the news he was about to receive. His body and mind had been yelling at him all day about it. Call it a sixth sense when it came to…
“It’s about your mother.”
Sorry! Posted this accidentally to my personal. But here it is for all you glamour fans :)
