Drummer Boy
i.
“This spinet is from your mother's dowry.”
I know what the word “dowry” means. I read it in a novel last week and then I found it in the dictionary. But I'm not sure what a spinet is. It's probably just another name for a piano. That's just what Eva and Philip call it.
“Since I think you're old enough to learn how to put some new life in this thing, it's high time someone put some music in this house again.”
The wooden cover for the ivory keys slides into the piano. Uncle Friedrich lifts me onto the bench. I stare at the black and white blocks that fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, rubbing my hands on the bench's soft velvet. It's threadbare already. I read that word in the same novel where I found “dowry.” It's a nice word to say. Threadbare.
This belonged to Mama and it belongs to her ghost now. The only person that touches the piano is Eva, and that's when she dusts the sitting room. There must be a reason for that. Maybe Mama's ghost really is here. I don't think I should be doing this. But Uncle Friedrich is a doctor, and doctors are smart. Or Mama wants me to do this. I stare at her picture sitting in its pretty little frame on top of the spinet. Or piano. I don't think it matters what it's called. She was a very beautiful woman and she looks very happy in the picture.
“Go on, Wilhelm. Press one of the keys.” He points at the little blocks. “It's not going to bite you.”
Of course it won't. It doesn't have teeth. That was a silly thing for Uncle Friedrich to say. I put a finger on one of the white keys and press down.
I blink. I stop pressing and do it again. And then harder, and then faster. I've never heard anything like this before. The sound is... vibrating. Like a harmonica or a violin, but different from a person that's singing. No, that's kind of vibrating, too. Actually, if I think about it, all sounds seem to vibrate. In my body, in my mind. They all do. But it feels like different kinds of vibrating. I'll think harder about it later. Maybe I need to learn new words for this. But the piano, harmonica, violin, and singing are nice sounds. Not like the sounds that are made when Philip drops a pan of bread or when I fell off the roof and broke my arm. All I know is that I'm supposed to be making music right now and I'm not. I need to try harder.
I try some of the other white keys. The sounds are different the way everyone's voices are different.
“Go ahead and get a feel for all the different pitches.” Uncle Friedrich is looking at the bookshelf by the door to the kitchen.
Pitches. So that's what the different sounds are called. And the vibrating is like the pitches going back and forth, ever so slightly higher and lower, but each still having their own distinct voice. The black keys are like bridges between the pitches of the white keys, and the white keys that don't have black keys between them are so close that they don't need bridges.
I find a white key that sounds like the beginning of the song Eva sings when she's happy and kneading dough. If I can find more, and put them in the right order, maybe I can make the spinet sing the same song.
“Here's a book that your mother had.” There's a long piece of wood with hinges that's stuck on the spinet, right above the keys and right under the big gold letters that I can't read because they're too fancy. Uncle Friedrich flips it down so he can put the book on it.
The book explains that the curly shaped S is called a treble clef, the curve with the colon after it is a bass clef, and the lines that they sit on are called staffs. A curly thing at the left of the staffs makes the two sets a grand staff.
And then the notes, which are represented by different black shapes that are either hollow or solid and sometimes with lines sticking out, and the sharps and flats that are the black keys and the names of all the notes. The names are not names like Maria or Johnathan, they are just letters. The name of the first note of the song that Eva likes to sing is called A. And the next one is B which is one black key away from A. And the next....
I close my eyes.
Birds, the river flowing under this bridge, me tapping my fingers on the wooden rails and pretending to be playing the piano again, but not the same songs I practiced. I'm trying to match what the birds and the river are doing.
The music fills my head until I can't even think anymore but it's such a nice feeling. At least I know what to call all those different confusing vibrations now, when they work together.
Music.
The last battle's curtains will open on stage!
read
You know quite a bit about music. Is it your passion as well? —watches—
oddly
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I got that impression as well. Also, your skill in describing auditory sensations makes me jealous.
Drummer Boy
^^ Yep. Since I completely suck at verbally expressing myself, I have utilized music and writing. And hugging, but... yeah, it's the Internet.
^ o#o' Thankees
edited 28th Dec '11 8:51:17 AM by SnowyFoxes
The last battle's curtains will open on stage!
The Puzzler
I really enjoy how you portray Wilhelm learning to play the piano. It shows how magical a moment it can be when you discover something new, and find out that you enjoy it.
Beautiful work. I'm looking forward to reading more from you. 
Drummer Boy
^ #owo# Thanks.
This one isn't as powerful, I think. Just an old man reflecting on memories and wondering what has become of his love. It's always hinted that Uncle Friedrich knew more about Vespers than he let on.
ii.
It is rare when Friedrich Ritter opens a curtain in his house. It is even rarer when he does it without a visitor telling him that the darkened parlor is uncomfortable.
There they are. The children in the schoolyard, gathered around her as she tells those stories. She knows they aren't stories, but she doesn't know that Friedrich knows it, too.
She'll be the spitting image of her mother in just a few years, flat chest and sly eyes and short and slim figure and all. And maybe just as ruthless and powerful.
Friedrich scowls. It is nearly impossible for him to imagine Estela Rona as a doting mother, and yet the girl seems to have fond memories of that bitch. He wonders if she had handed off her children to a wet nurse so she could continue blasting disobedient Manifestations in the wilderness while her husband managed state affairs.
Then again, it's hard for Friedrich to judge. All he's done is run from Estela's retribution. When the time comes for his nephew to meet her, he hopes that she won't remember that fleeting glance she caught of him as he fled her sister-in-law's bedroom.
Darling Violet. What a lovely woman. She had spoiled him for life.
Maybe he could go back and see how she's doing now.
He imagines the route. The Sky Bridge is somewhere over the ocean. Finding it again might be a problem.
As far as he knows, Violet is still on the run. Where would she hide? Surely nowhere near her captor in Pallone, unless she thought that would be funny. But is it worth it?
Perhaps the endless evergreen forest in Fenrir, guarded by her family's beloved wolves? The sheer expanse of near-identical trees makes it a perfect hiding place. Friedrich closes his eyes. There she is, sitting cross-legged on the pelt of a wildcat on a cave floor, scratching a wolf's head as he brings her a dead buck for supper. Her black hair is matted and wilder than ever, but her gold-flecked eyes gleam in the moonlight.
Maybe she disguised herself as a common laborer and blended into Kartal's clockwork industry, serving as a much-needed runemaster. He can see her in a workshop, surrounded by spare parts and the walls lined with tools. She would be leaning back in her chair, her hair flowing over her shoulder, sucking on the tip of her quill as she thinks of the best way to combine the runes into a clear, direct command for the clockwork. But would that be too obvious for her, the greatest clockwork maker of the century? But sometimes the best place to hide is in plain sight, is it not?
Are the ruins of Geier too dangerous for Violet? Too dangerous for her pursuers, surely. But surely Violet, of all people, could tame the clockworks running wild in the overgrown city. Perhaps she has burrowed into the old castle.
Has she sought refuge with her fearsome sister-in-law in the citadel of white stone, surrounded by the Manifestations loyal to Estela? That seems more likely to Friedrich. Even Josef Pallone treads carefully around Lady Rona. That was what she was planning to do, after all, when Friedrich met her.
No, Friedrich. I don't want to bring trouble to anyone. Not my brother's family, not the wolves, no one. I must walk alone.
It would be silly of him to even try looking. His place is here now. A simple doctor in a tranquil country town, helping the people he grew up with.
No more magical tavern brawls and running from vigilantes— his bones and reflexes aren't what they used to be.
No more dealing with the remnants of ancient spells lingering in the forests— can he remember what to do?
No more climbing trees with one broken wrist and an unconscious friend over his shoulder to escape abandoned clockwork war machines trying to squash him— that was probably the worst thing that ever happened to him.
It's Wilhelm's turn to deal with that. If Violet doesn't want to be found, no one less resourceful than Estela herself could even have a chance.
Estela. As much as Friedrich hates and fears her, there is no denying her skill and power. Before she was married, they said, she could most often be found in the Glass Forest around the citadel, floating in the air with her dress billowing around her even if there was no wind, her entire body wreathed in flames, daring anyone to challenge her. Even after she was married, before she was pregnant, she would fly around like that. Friedrich saw that once, on his first night in Fleigen. And he never wants to see it again.
Or he could just ask the little girl if she's heard anything about Aunt Violet.
Maybe. Maybe later. Maybe tonight at supper.
Coward.
The boy looks up. He blinks in surprise. Uncle Friedrich hardly ever opens his curtains. Why is he watching them?
His uncle nods in greeting and leaves the window. The curtain drops into place.
edited 30th Dec '11 10:23:01 PM by SnowyFoxes
The last battle's curtains will open on stage!
I fear you've lost me — exactly who is the "she" with the children supposed to be?
Still, the description of Violet's possible fates are a good way of hinting at places thus far unseen. I wonder, is it for purposes of Narrative Filgree or Foreshadowing? (A rhetorical question — I wouldn't answer it if I were you.) That said, you might have dropped a few too many new names on us in a relatively short period.
Aside from these quibbles, however, you still have my interest, so don't take it too hard.
Drummer Boy
D'oh, I always forget whether or not I've expressed something clearly because when I go through it again, it's already in my head.
"She" will be the viewpoint character in the one I'm working on at the moment.
The last battle's curtains will open on stage!
Drummer Boy
Even though the words are coming naturally, there's a je ne sais quoi about the first that I can't stumble on again. Maybe it's because I definitely get Wilhelm's voice more than any of the other ones. Rawr. Me frustrated.
Please bear with me :|
iii.
My cousin Conchetta's wedding should have been more than enough preparation.
I was nine years old. I wasn't supposed to be there.
“Mama, I want to watch them make Connie look pretty.”
She bit her lip. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Bianca...” Mama shook her head and sighed. “They won't be saying nice things. They'll be making jokes about your cousin. You shouldn't hear.”
“Why are they bad for me to hear?”
“You'll see, in a few years.”
So when she told me to go play in the garden, I went to beat them up.
That didn't go quite the way I planned. Instead, I got a few pieces of rock sugar, my cheeks pinched by cooing maids, and the privilege of sitting on her bed and watching. Mama didn't find out.
And I wasn't supposed to skip the ceremony. I wasn't supposed to stay there to wait for her and tell her all about the things I did between then and my last visit and hear about what she did. Besides, ceremonies are stupid. I don't want to sit there while Mama pinches me to remind me not to fidget when all I want to do is straighten out my skirt. I hid in her wardrobe so I could jump out and scare her like last time.
I was surprised when her husband was with her. So surprised that I forgot to jump out and yell something scary. In a few minutes, they were scaring me more than I ever could have scared them.
They are Lord and Lady Kartal now.
To this day, I can't meet their eyes without turning red.
But I'm jaded now. Until today, I would not have seen that as something positive. It is positive, isn't it?
I will not scream when the maids pull on the corset strings. I will not snap at them when they titter about my figure as if I can't hear and put rouge and powder and eyeliner on my face as if they were public property. I will not complain when they rake my hair with a brush and pull on it to braid it and stuff it inside a pearled net. I will walk down the ancient hall where other future Lady Pallones walked to claim their new power, their new position, and their husband.
Am I the first to end the ceremony diminished, instead?
Surely, others before me came as spoils of war.
I am eating medicine. But instead of going through a brief inconvenience to help myself, I am binding myself to the lifelong inconvenience that is the supplying of heirs, and helping the people that I left behind by making a treaty that they did not agree to.
I close my eyes and pretend it doesn't hurt. This is a business practice, after all. It will become routine. Just as a man rises every day to go out and make a living, I must go to this bed every night and do my duty to the state.
See, Mama? I know how to make sacrifices now. But when you decided to stop flying around the forest like a wicked witch and showing the world how silly it would be to challenge you, it was of your own free will. You loved my father. You did it for me. It's my turn, and then my daughter's turn after that, and then hers....
I have been married for three hours. It feels like three hundred years.
The last battle's curtains will open on stage!
read
This was the only line that made me go "eh..."
Everything else is quite...lyrical, I suppose, but still very readable. Which is good.
oddly
Yeesh — I've always been squicked by the Arranged Marriage, but you've done a wondrous job of reminding me why. While previous experience suggests Bianca's situation will improve — or at least change — I still can't help but worry for her.
Drummer Boy
^^ Yeah, I have noticed that these are more flowery than my regular prose without even meaning to be.
^ She escapes the castle, but -insert summary of cheesy Love Triangle-
It might be a little while before the next one. Picking the right moments for these pieces is a more involving process than I originally believed.
The last battle's curtains will open on stage!
ಠ_ృ You called?
Snowy! Are you still doing these?
And I think you're right, first one is best. The third one is my second favorite. Maybe stick with first-person? It seems a lot easier for you.
Why are our conversations always knee-deep in Republican politics and Internet gifs?
For the first section, what a vivid rendering of playing the piano. Like capturing the feeling of birds and the river to sound. Right from his personage.
edited 4th Jan '12 6:05:14 PM by QQQQQ
Now the second section with Friedrich seems more jarring to me. While reading it, I felt as if I were trying to read something in near-darkness, and you aren't really sure if it really says that. Ambiguity problems. Such as:
Who is she (Estela as you tell later) at the start?
The bitch being who? Estela's mother? Or Violet as you abruptly introduce later:
Darling Violet. What a lovely woman. She had spoiled him for life.
I'm aware in thought, things can suddenly pop into your head at inopportune moments. But this part comes off rather jarring for me, like "I did not hit her! It's bullshit! I did not hit her— I did NAWWWT. Oh hi Mark.
" I suppose you can better segue to where Violet comes in, like a few transitory words:
You do have a nice and vivid description, Snowy. I like the "gold-flecked eyes gleaming in the moonlight" and "She would be leaning back in her chair, her hair flowing over her shoulder, sucking on the tip of her quill as she thinks of the best way to combine the runes into a clear, direct command for the clockwork."
But another ambiguity issue here:
I know you (most likely) intend the wolf bringing her dinner, but I also get the other feeling of another guy off-screen doing the bringing. Gee.
I like Friedrich's brief hesitation here:
Coward.
But then, who is the "little girl" and "the boy looking up" by the page breaks? The ones who were with Estela?
I suspect you intend these pieces to be read as side stories, once the reader's done with the main body of work - I'm somewhat piqued by Friedrich's prior adventures and his attitude towards Estola. I suppose your muse prefers working with first-person narration, right in the heads of the characters. The previous piece feels much more smoother than this one. It is very sketchy here. If you can fix your tendency for Ambiguity, I might feel more involved reading your piece.
Overall though, I wasn't really engaged.. there's this mishandled Ernest Hemingway minimalism I get from you, where the lingering emotions are supposedly left understated, and are submerged under the surface like an iceberg in the ocean. His Iceberg principle. Hemingway said (paraphrased), "If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about, he may omit things which he and the reader both knows, and if the writer is writing truly enough, the reader will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. But a writer who omits things clumsily only makes hollow places in his writing."
edited 4th Jan '12 7:09:11 PM by QQQQQ
No. 3: Bianca's marriage must be very satisfying. Caught in the generations' endless cycle of forced nappy time with whoever husband she makes a binding contract with. Oh my. You're very eloquent in your first-person.
edited 4th Jan '12 7:25:13 PM by QQQQQ
Drummer Boy
Of course I am, John.
Most of the problems seem born from the fact I was using third-person for the first time outside of the CDTs in like... uh...
Several years?
I'll probably be doing a reworking of that in first-person and name the kids (Bianca and Wilhelm). Not even sure why I did it in third-person in the first place. All comments will be considered during the rewrite process. Thanks!
Yeah, if I get this project published these would be on a section of my website or something.
Do a happy dance, John. Someone agrees with you.
Also:
Achievement Unlocked!
Having someone reference The Room while talking about your work.
I couldn't resist.
edited 4th Jan '12 8:29:30 PM by SnowyFoxes
The last battle's curtains will open on stage!
ಠ_ృ You called?
Of course QQQQQ agrees with me. I'm always right.
You sound suspiciously like a customer service representative, honey.
edited 4th Jan '12 8:31:48 PM by TerminalOptimist
Why are our conversations always knee-deep in Republican politics and Internet gifs?
Drummer Boy
^ oh u
No coldness intended, QQQQQ, just so you know :P
The last battle's curtains will open on stage!
I knowies.
ಠ_ృ You called?
-bumps to remind Snowy to do this-
Why are our conversations always knee-deep in Republican politics and Internet gifs?
Ahr river
The longer people go without updating, the more likely you're going to get a response, due to how little material people have to read.
/pointless post
edited 8th Jan '12 10:27:10 AM by MrAHR
Read my stories!
Another bump. The fear that nobody is listening to the words you put such effort into writing is a horrible one indeed, but I tell you this: I, at least am listening.
Drummer Boy
^^^ YOU AH TEARING ME APAHT, JOHNNY
I'm not mad. I just wanted an opportunity to say that.
^ Aw, thanks.
The last battle's curtains will open on stage!
I shamelessly pulled the title of this thread from the “Lantern Slides” in my edition of His Dark Materials because the name is quite suited to the concept and I'm not witty enough to come up with another one.
And because Philip Pullman did it so much better than I could, I will shamelessly paste his introduction to these lantern slides to explain what these are all about.
As for why I call these little pieces lantern slides, it's because I remember the wooden boxes my grandfather used to have, each one packed neatly with painted glass slides showing scenes from Bible stories or fairy tales or ghost stories or comic little plays with absurd-looking figures. From time to time he would get out the heavy old magic lantern and project some of these pictures on to a screen as we sat in the darkened room with the smell of hot metal and watched one scene succeed another, trying to make sense of the narrative and wondering what St. Paul was doing in the story of Little Red Riding Hood—because they never came out of the box in quite the right order.
If you happen to have the same edition that I have (because apparently these little snippets are found in no other,) you will notice that my slides are longer, are usually in first person, and have more dialogue. But I think the same concept is there.
A big, gray horizontal line indicates a new slide that is related to the one before it. New stories get their own posts unless I feel like continuing them later. The new segment will be in a new post.
Also, I try my best not to edit these, aside from typos and such.
The Magical List for Easy Navigation
i. In which a little boy is introduced to a piano
ii. In which a doctor is overcome with nostalgia and I use unsubtle symbolism
iii. In which a bride recalls some painful memories
iv. A really long one in which there is a stressful performance
v. In which a mother speaks to her daughter
vi. In which there is an affair and drama (hopefully) ensues
edited 24th May '12 12:32:19 AM by SnowyFoxes
The last battle's curtains will open on stage!