Counterpoint

By John Biglands

She had always been imprisoned inside the stone walls of the tower. She did not know why. It was just how it was—the way it had always been. The darkness of the place was part of her now.

Her favorite place was the windowsill. She loved to sit with her back pressed against the stone frame. She craved the warmth of the sun on her face, as though her skin could absorb the light and pull it back into the tower’s darkness after the evening sun fell behind the castle walls. She would listen to the voices of the children in the courtyard. She had never seen those children, but she knew all their games, and each night, as the sun set, she would listen to their laughter fading away as they ran to their homes. Then, she would leave the window, sit by the fire, and sing her soft songs to the glowing embers.

One evening, as the last voice dwindled, and the heat bled from the stones, the notes of a piano echoed across the courtyard. The girl closed her eyes and let the sounds enfold her. The music lulled her into a place of forgetting. The world, the tower, her imprisonment. All these things passed away, and as she slipped deeper into the music’s spell, she heard a new sound among the notes—a voice.

The music stopped, and the girl opened her eyes. The voice had risen out of her unconsciously. Had the musician heard her? The thought filled her with shame, as if she had been eavesdropping. Invading the pianist’s world, uninvited. But the soft piano notes drifted across the courtyard again. A simple phrase played only once. The girl smiled, recognizing her own song. Slowly, she stood up on the stone windowsill and faced the empty space beyond. She hesitated, then she raised her head and echoed the tune into the night air, her voice timid and fragile. Immediately, the piano caught up the theme, introducing new layers behind it. First, twinkling arpeggios, then full-throated descending chords giving body to the music. Enchanted, the girl joined in.

At first, she simply repeated her own fledgling tune more confidently. But, as the piano responded, her courage grew. As a bird seeks out thermals to stay aloft, she found new melodies that the pianist would work into the texture of the music. And so it evolved: chords shifting, major and minor, tones changing, warm then melancholy. She never felt so free. Then, as the tempo slowed and the music relaxed into a gentle, pulsing rhythm, the girl perceived a question in the notes.

“Who are you?”

There were no words breaking the magic with their precision. It was the shape—the feel of the music—that asked the question. She closed her eyes and answered in kind, conjuring a new motif that simply said, “I don’t know!”

They continued for a while, the voice and the piano, sharing the simple truth of the sounds between them. Then, a new theme emerged in the music. “What do you want?” the piano asked.

The answering tune came to her as though she had sung it all her life. “Freedom.”

The music stopped.

The silence lingered, more poignant than any note they had yet shared. It filled the space between them and calmed her like a friend. Then, a different theme began: bolder, stronger, defiant. The meaning of it travelling along her bones.

“Fly upon the music,” it said.

The girl trembled. She sat on the stone windowsill and hugged her knees. It wasn’t possible. She had sensed a lightness as she sang, yes, and she’d felt the pull of some ancient magic trying to lift her into the air. But surely that was just a feeling. Could a song carry her safely from the dark loneliness of the tower? Had she really heard meaning in the music? Her mind told her if she stepped from the window, she would fall. But for a moment, her heart believed what the music had spoken to her. That after all these years, she might be free. Now, in the silent space that remained, she leaned against the familiar stones and wept.

Dawn—the twilight before sunrise. The cold, fresh smell of the air pushing through the window comforted her. Standing on the cold ledge, she closed her eyes. She knew the song was there. It had to be. Hadn’t it always been there? Her mind wandered through memories like a lost songbird. Then she began, her voice quiet, tremulous. It was an old strain of one of her childhood songs. The music was true, connecting her past to a future she was beginning to believe in, a seed that the pianist’s music had birthed inside of her. She raised her head and sang out into the darkness. A song of her loneliness. The music of her solitary days playing in the dark tower, her evenings listening to other children’s games.

Across the courtyard, the piano notes flew. A rising arpeggio mingling with her voice. She smiled. Another soul had heard her song. Now, as before, the music grew. The pianist’s playing complemented her own, molding her song into something new, something living. Chords changed, key and time altering, until the music became a web of interwoven melodies. There was laughter in the girl’s voice as the music defeated the fear inside of her. The same laughter she had lost somewhere along the path of her solitary childhood. She welcomed it home now—this sound long ago buried inside her. She greeted it like an old friend.

And so it was laughter—that strange, eternal music—that the girl first used to fly.  No longer afraid, and singing all the while, she stepped from the stone window into the night air and left the darkness of the tower forever.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Biglands is a writer of short stories, shorter folk songs and long ‘to do’ lists. He has worked as a physicist, music teacher and lecturer. He lives in Yorkshire, England with his wife, two children and cat. His favorite time of day is 6am when he can be found sitting by the fire drinking strong black coffee and creating things. You can find him on Facebook.

---

Facebook