Chapter 15 - The Ghost Behind the Curtain
The air in the ballroom felt heavy with anticipation. Anaëlle sat at the Imperial Steinway. The keys were smooth, cold, and flawless under her trembling fingers.
She closed her eyes for a single second, hearing Julian’s voice in her head: You have played in the dark your whole life.
She placed her hands on the keys and began to play.
The notes of the modified Nocturne flowed into the room, haunting, precise, and breathtakingly fast. The complex chromatic shifts resonated through the soundboard, causing the gold inlays to vibrate faintly.
Clack.
Deep within the body of the piano, the first internal tumbler unlocked.
Suddenly, a voice joined the performance.
From behind the heavy velvet curtains of the private VIP balcony above, a woman began to sing the exact counter-melody—the lost refrain that Anaëlle’s mother used to sing to her every night.
Anaëlle’s fingers almost slipped. The voice was rich, melancholic, and undeniably real.
She looked up toward the balcony. Standing behind the gold railing was a woman in a sweeping silver gown, wearing a crystal mask. When the woman lifted her hand to adjust her mask, Anaëlle saw a faint burn scar on her left wrist—the exact mark her mother had received from a kitchen accident when Anaëlle was five years old.
Her breath hitched in her throat.
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"Mama?" Anaëlle whispered into the music, her hands continuing to play on pure muscle memory.
Her mother was alive.
