Unchained Melody (35 page)

‘I did.’ He nuzzled her nose again. ‘Though I don’t envy him now.’ He winced. ‘I knew what was going to happen when you said those words. Maybe even when you first looked into my eyes and I saw…’ he pressed his heart against her chest. ‘What I felt, reflected there at last.’ He smiled. ‘It took me by surprise though- the human version of myself was too overcome to process things fast enough to ask you to wait. In fact, it felt too perfect, too wonderful to be possible at all. I’d thought you were on the cusp of leaving us to avoid your feelings for him, for good.’

‘What would have happened to you if I had?’ She whispered.

He shrugged. ‘I would have lived out my human life. And when I died, I’d be gone.’

‘Then why are you…?’ Callie was so lost. ‘What did you do?’

‘A lot of pills. The lead singer of TFITR gave me a baggie of these little tablets so I acted all cool, like I knew what they were.’ He shrugged. ‘And when I knew you were gone, I walked backstage, locked the door, took them all and wrote a note to Hunter.’

Callie felt like a rope was being tightened around her neck. ‘If you were going to die anyway, why speed it up?’

‘To keep you from suffering in Oblivion.’ He shuddered. ‘For me it would have been like falling asleep, right here, and letting the fog swirl around me. But for you, it would have been like being lost in the fog without anyone left to pull you out.’ He touched her face. ‘But there are other reasons… pushing Hunter over the edge, guaranteeing that his heart will open in a way that will never close now. And it’s all very rock star isn’t it?’ He smiled weakly.

‘You better be kidding…’ Calliope growled.

‘I am. I died because I had somewhere else to be.’ He smiled timidly. ‘Overdosing is taking longer to kill my body than any other means, and as soon as I began to fade, I came here. And as long as my body holds out, we’re in limbo- together. Don’t you see? This was my way of steal just a few more moments with you from under The Harmony’s nose. When my human body dies, the exchange will be made, and you’ll end up in your sisters arms instead- and you’ll be magnificent. Calliope’s glory- with Callie Clay’s heart.’

His explanation didn’t take a cell of her pain away. ‘But it’s your arms I want, Ryan! I died because I couldn’t face life without you!’

‘You did.’ He pulled her face closer. ‘And I’m so grateful for that, that I can’t even-’ he smiled tearfully at her, looking like the darkest of angels, his thick black lashes fluttering against the choppy lengths of his black hair. ‘But the world needs you more than you need me. I didn’t have many alternatives, baby, so I chose the only one that had a chance of connecting us.’

Callie’s face contorted in pain. She kissed him, messily, passionately, mournfully, soaking up the last of the heat draining from his body. He moaned, she sobbed and Callie didn’t know what she was going to do when his lips faded away and so she kissed him harder, wanting to make love, wanting to fly, wanting to die and guilt-stricken to know that if she had made better choices, looked at him more clearly eons ago, that they might have had forever together! Or even if she’d only given him one more day back when she’d first returned to Helicon- maybe she would have chosen him, and let music take the fall for once.

‘Don’t torture yourself about the what ifs,’ Ryan rasped against her lips, reading her mind. ‘You don’t know what our child’s potential for music might have been Callie. There could have been a world without The Temptations, and National Anthems, a world without The Beatles, or Neil Diamond, or John Farnham, ACDC…’ his kisses were losing their fire, his body growing colder. ‘Without Christmas Carols…’ he whispered… and Calliope began to sob when his hands began to slide from her face. She eased him down into the fog, her lips following his, her tears falling onto his cheeks. ‘Without rowing boats, without …’ his eyes fluttered shut. ‘Without Melody…’

‘I love you Ryan.’ Calliope wept through the words, kissing the last of his tears from his lips as gently as fluttering butterfly wings. ‘Ardos… my angel…’ Her heart constricted in her chest as she bawled onto his ivory cheeks. Her throat was so tight that each word felt and sounded strangled. ‘My soul mate.’

‘Can you sing to me?’ His voice was paper. ‘Just for a little while?’

Callie began to laugh through her tears, hysterical with love for this man. ‘You and me... used to be-’ she croaked, her lyrical tears choking her, preventing Don’t Speak from being spoken. Imogen had been right- human’s didn’t know what it was to love if they could survive after it. Maybe she was being broken, but no one had ever been so complete before breaking before as she was then. ‘Always…’

Ryan’s head rolled to the side and when the final tear slid off his cheekbone and touched the fog, it vanished and suddenly, Calliope was kneeling on the summery-sweet grasses of Helicon surrounded by her sisters, and sobbing like she’d never stop. She felt Imogen kneel before her, enfold Callie into a suffocating and mournful embrace.

‘I’m sorry Calliope!’ Her sister brayed, coming apart as easily as everything else in Calliope’s life. ‘If I could take it back-’

‘I couldn’t,’ Callie kissed her sister’s wet cheek, allowed her own face to contort and then fell into Imogen’s lap and croaked: ‘That would take back everything wonderful in my life.’

*

Dear Hunter

I am so sorry for doing this to you. For any ounce of pain I’ve ever caused you. But I am not a rock star. I learned to play the guitar to impress a girl and for all the times she’s run from us, this is probably my one chance to follow her, to catch her somewhere between life and death and then take her memory with me into oblivion where I can stay with her forever.

Callie Clay wasn’t the only love of my life. You are the best friend a guy could ever have. Your smile made my life bright when it should have been dark. I didn’t need a mother and father to be my family- because I had a brother like you.

Please Hunter, I know this is selfish and making your life that much harder, but I also know that it’s your job to survive us and make that music- to write those songs, to give everyone else a reason to get up in the morning. Always let the music in to fill the darkest voids and feel us with you when you do, front and centre, screaming your name. She’ll be wearing your hat in her dreams. You will be dominating the world in mine.

And Hunter, keep your eye out for your Melody. She’ll need a soul mate in time, she’s just got a bit of work to do first. That might sound weird but trust me one day, you’ll be standing by a waterfall in a meadow with a goddess in your arms, and you’ll understand exactly what I mean. And when you know what I do, you’ll know you’ll have my complete blessing in giving your heart away to someone other than me.

Love always,

Your biggest fan,

Ry.

February, 2008.

34.

When the bell over the diner door rang at precisely four p. m. Calliope almost spilled the latte she was taking to table three in her rush to greet the newest customers.

‘Here you go sir,’ she said, hastily putting the cup down on his table with an unceremonious splash, hoping he wouldn’t complain. This was the third waitressing job she’d had in two years, and she was sick of having to re-learn the ropes somewhere else every time she was fired for, well, sucking. She darted a glance over to the table in the corner, reminding herself that she needed to hold this job, to stick close to her protégé. But still she hurried over to the large table on the opposite side of the room where a bevy of beautiful creatures were sliding into chairs and muttering about the tacky, cotton-candy pink walls. Though every pair of eyes in the room had already swerved over to check out the ten women, they were careful to keep their own gazes rooted to the décor, or one another.

Calliope’s heart fluttered when she spotted the two faces she was the most anxious to see, the eldest and the youngest members of the party.

‘Hello!’ She chirped, removing her pencil from behind her ear and holding it poised above the pad in her hand. ‘Welcome to The Saloon. I’ll be your waitress for the day. Our specials are-’

‘Oh shut the fuck up.’ Imogen drawled, resting her arm behind Renee’s headrest and smiling at Calliope with merry blue. ‘I got your specials right here.’

Calliope laughed and bent to kiss Memoria’s crown of black hair, and then Rya’s. ‘Hello darling,’ she knelt before her daughter, swiping at a streak of ketchup staining Rya’s perfect little cheek. ‘Did you have fun with Nanny and your aunties at Disneyland?’

Rya nodded eagerly, her midnight ringlets bobbing. ‘But mommy- Aunt Renee almost threw up in the spinning cups!’ She giggled musically and her striking blue eyes, Ryan’s eyes, were gleeful. ‘It was so funny! Grandma and I didn’t even get sick!’

‘Hey those things were fast,’ Renee muttered, sticking her tongue out at her niece. ‘Just wait until you feel three thousand years old.’

‘Or four,’ Calliope’s gaze shifted to her mother, concerned that she had attempted one of the rides at the amusement park. Memoria was still so weak given that only three years had lapsed since she’d returned from Oblivion. But her mother smiled at her, a rare flush staining her cheeks. Her skin was almost vibrant compared to the last time Calliope had seen her, and her dark hair was regaining some of its former lustre, though it would take decades yet to get her close to where she had once been. Unless of course, Jesus fell out of fashion and Mythology became the new cool religion to follow. Which wasn’t likely, though Clio and Imogen were working on it. ‘Did you enjoy yourself?’

Memoria smiled. ‘It was lovely… and crowded.’ She inclined her head towards Hendra. ‘And there were a few scuffles...’

‘It wasn’t quite the happiest place in the world...’ Raina drawled from across the table and everyone laughed as Hendra flushed.

‘If you don’t want to stimulate a war Muse… then don’t tease the war Muse.’ Hendra winked at Calliope. ‘How are you hon? I’m not allowed to do anything exciting so I’m living vicariously through the sisterhood.’

Calliope smiled, inclining her head towards the furthest corner of the room, where her current protégé was sitting in front of her MacBook and typing furiously. Blythe was a wisp of a thing with a velveteen voice, a shock of hot-pink hair and to Calliope’s delight, ever-present Doc Martens. ‘It’s not that exciting. She’s living off the fumes of my sparkle, mixing away on that... that thing.’

‘D. J?’

Calliope rolled her eyes. ‘They prefer to be called Mix-Masters now.’

Renee giggled. ‘Music is so vain! You don’t see sculptors trying to call themselves flesh-rockers or something.’

‘Just like you don’t see Mix-Masters trying to sell a dot and a wavy line for ninety k.’ The goddess grumbled, eyeing her redheaded daughter disapprovingly and they all laughed.

Calliope smiled down at her mother again, once again saying a silent prayer of gratitude to Marnie, whose young adult series about the Greek Olympian with superpowers and athletic grace enough to challenge men had stimulated young adult imaginations worldwide. The girl’s mother, Mnemosyne, was loosely based on Memoria’s original persona. Though a lot of the things Marnie had written about her were wrong, Imogen had steered her as close to the facts as she could and thanks to the interest in Marnie’s career when it was revealed that she was a close friend of The Hunter Marks, her book sales had skyrocketed and now, via the power of imagination, Calliope had a mother again.

She had a very smug sister too. Imogen never passed up the opportunity to brag about how the sheer power of her aura during her brief interactions with Marnie had brought their mother back from the dead. And she had a point. Not that Callie would argue otherwise-Hunter’s success was so supreme that she didn’t need to brag about it. It was implicit.

‘How’s dad?’ She asked her mother softly, wrestling a sugar sachet from Rya’s tiny little fingers. Her four year old was already too vibrant for sugar.

‘Little more than energy, like Lania.’ Memoria said softly. ‘But their presence grows stronger every day… I think, in a year or so… ’ She stroked Calliope’s blonde hair and laughed. ‘I’m sorry honey of all of your get-ups over time, this is the hardest to get used to.’

Calliope flushed and straightened again, adjusting her fake spectacles on the bridge of her nose. ‘I know.’ Thanks to Raina’s friend’s viral Youtube video, Calliope was now at risk of being recognised after centuries of keeping a low profile. She wasn’t Callie Clay anymore, but the human face, like every other face she could glamour in her still-weakened state, had been similar enough to her true form to warrant a disguise. Her eyes would forever be a rich, wood-grain amber, and her Grecian skin and blood-flushed lips were so much more striking now that her powers had returned. So she’d dyed her hair blonde, taken to wearing glasses and started spending more time in the sun, trying to bronze her olive skin, and blend in with the other Californian girls. Human mens heads turned more now than they ever had when she’d been one of them, but since she’d dyed her hair blonde, they’d stopped muttering: ‘Do I know you...?’

But Calliope was having as hard a time getting used to her face and hair, and her family teased her constantly, especially Imogen who assumed Calliope was trying to steal her bombshell persona. But that just wasn’t true. Calliope was just trying to live, and the Doc Martens on her feet proved that she’d never be the Barbie-Doll type.

‘I’m sorry.’ Calliope went on. ‘But the uh, lady I work for stares at me all the time. I need to keep her off balance.’

Her mother smiled sadly. ‘How is Lauryenne? And the little girl you’re looking after?’

‘Wonderful.’ Calliope grinned, just thinking about her infant step-sister, who was only a few weeks old but had completely stolen Calliope’s heart, or whatever heart she had left under Rya’s clutch. ‘She seems to like the blonde hair- she pulls it constantly.’

‘I don’t know how you do it.’ Imogen shuddered. ‘Once I’m done with them now, I’m done with them. It hurts too much to hang around.’ She wagged a finger at Calliope. ‘But you make sure that Harley-Rose gets to meet her step-aunty Imogen so I can put stories in her mind.’

‘Of course.’ Calliope didn’t doubt that Harley-Rose would take after her biological mother as far as writing was concerned. It was another reason why she wore the spectacles-the glass stopped her from influencing the newborn baby against the destiny Imogen had already glimpsed in her dreams, and kept Lauryenne wedged firmly in the eighties on the Times bestseller rankings.

Calliope thought of her adopted parents, who she had moved to California to be with. They did not know that the live-in nanny they’d hired for their infant daughter had once been their adopted daughter, and yet they were bonding almost as well as when she’d been Callie Clay, and their only child. It hurt her to see how they still grieved the loss of her- so many times Calliope just wanted to wrap her arms around her mother and whisper: ‘I’m here mummy. I came back as soon I was strong enough!’ But their newborn daughter was beginning to take the edge off their pain.

Calliope knew she was setting herself up for another heartbreak; her human mother had hired her to watch Harley-Rose in the mornings and at night so she could continue to write, but once Harley-Rose started school, Calliope would probably become useless to them. But she would take every moment she could living under her parent’s roof without them realizing who she was, and hope that Rya and Harley grew to be the best of friends, despite their three year age gap. It was important to Calliope that Rya have as much family as possible growing up, that she learned how to love in moderation, so when she was old enough to take Calliope’s place as the Muse of music, she would never make the same mistakes: the mistakes that had robbed Calliope of an eternity with Ryan. That had robbed Rya of her father.

And just as her heart turned in a slow, longing thump, the song on the jukebox changed to Girl I’m Gonna Miss You by Milli Vanilli and Calliope’s eyes watered behind her spectacles. She looked heavenward thinking: Thanks Ry. But I’d like my mascara to stay where it is until I clock off for the day!

Ryan- or Ardos- was always reminding her of their love like that. Sometimes in dreams, but almost always through music; turning the T. V on when her favorite video clips came onto MTV, making the cherry blossoms grow in her parents backyard. Sometimes he was just the crisp scent of rainforest leaves wafting through the breeze on a beach where that scent did not belong. She didn’t know if he was a ghost or a guardian angel or what, but Ryan had not allowed Oblivion to sever their connection completely. He’d never return to her, but he’d never completely left her either.

‘Imogen you don’t need to point out how easy it is for you to walk away from people,’ a low male voice grumbled, sounding odd, like something displaced by the atmosphere. Calliope blinked back her tears and smiled to see the man materialize between Hendra and Imogen on the seat. He was breathtakingly handsome; cocoa powder skin, eyes the color of sharp piano keys. He reached across the table and plucked the sugar packet from Calliope’s fingers, turning it over with wide, curious eyes. ‘What is this?’

Imogen groaned. ‘This is a girls day out- who invited you?’

‘You did. By thinking of me,’ Nikolaos said, tearing open the sachet, pouring some sugar on his finger and then touching the white granules to his tongue. His eyes closed blissfully, and then he turned and looked at Imogen. ‘I imagine that your lips taste just as this does.’

Imogen flushed scarlet and her family giggled around her. As much as she bemoaned the fact that her soul mate had managed to wriggle his way into being by her provoked curiosity, she never ceased to blush in his presence, even when she was flipping him off. Calliope wanted to take her sister by the hand and tell her to run to his arms, but love could not be rushed and theirs was inevitable.

‘Imagine away…’ Imogen flapped her hand dismissively. ‘That’s all you’re gonna get, buddy.’

‘You’re so mean, Aunt Imogen.’ Rya complained, smiling at her would-be uncle. ‘In fairy tales, the princess is nice to the prince and that’s how you get to be happy ever after. You’re going to be cranky ever after if you don’t start being kind.’

Imogen blinked at her niece as everyone laughed again. ‘What if I don’t want to be happy ever after?’ She challenged, a teasing lilt to her voice.

‘Then books would be sad for always.’ Rya smiled, her eyes an earnest blue.

Calliope squeezed her daughter tightly. ‘You’re such a clever little thing.’

‘Humph.’ Imogen flipped her hair over her shoulder. ‘I am responsible for Shakespeare, little miss. When you’re old enough to know who that is, you’ll see that I don’t need romantic advice.’

Beside her, Nikolaos sighed. ‘Really, darling, Shakespeare again? You cannot milk that forever more.’

‘I can and will.’ Imogen snapped. ‘He is my greatest triumph and no one here will ever be able to deny that, or top it.’

‘Just like no one here will ever be able to get through Ulysses without falling asleep.’ he muttered under his breath and as they all cracked up laughing, Imogen’s eyes widened in indignation.

‘Hey-’ She slapped his arm and Calliope’s breath caught to see the way Imogen’s soul mate seemed to solidify and then beam at the touch. ‘James Joyce was brilliant! Ulysses was brilliant!’

Oh now you’ve done it! Callie thought, winking at Hendra across the table.

Imogen’s soul mate lifted her blonde locks from her ear and loudly whispered: ‘He was boring! So overwritten, that I started to miss Oblivion by the third paragraph, and contemplated staying there.’ He elbowed Imogen. ‘Though if you would like to come read one of your more sensual inspirations aloud to me, I might decide to hang around for a while longer…’

Raina hooted with laughter, Renee’s face went pink and Imogen looked like she was going to become a tornado. Calliope closed her eyes, throwing a sound barrier around their table in case their squabbling gave their entire game away. Imogen continued to stare at Nikolaos in shock for a few beats, but then she chuckled, actually laughed at herself and held her finger up to his face. ‘That sass mouth will be sexy once, and once only, my illiterate little friend.’

He kissed her finger and whispered. ‘We’ll see, you grandiloquent hussy.’