Waltz for One

The demon finds the violin at the back of the wardrobe, wrapped in a cardigan that smells of trapped dust. When he eases his fingers under the wood and catches his nails on the strings, he grins.

“A violinist?” he says aloud, and he can almost hear Sam prickling to attention at the back of his mind. “How’s your muscle memory?”

Put it back, Sam says.

Iza twangs a string. The sound is brittle and clipped. “You’ve not looked after the chap very well.”

I said put it back.

Iza swings the violin round and props it against his neck, though there’s no rest to soften the edge. The ghostly scent of polish drifts from the slippery wood, shaking the dust from a few of Sam’s memories, bringing them close enough to the surface that Iza can see them too. It’s small things, mostly. Grooves bitten into fingertips after a long day of practice. Sweeping sounds and bubbling happiness. The jagged screech of wrong notes, then rage frothing through his chest.

“You were talented at it, then?” Iza says, testing the weight of the bow.

No.

“Oh, come on. You won competitions. I saw that much.”

I was a kid. It’s easy to win stuff when you’re a kid.

Iza drags the bow across the strings, and the noise is knives on metal, glass on slate. He swings it back and forth like he’s sawing through a shank of meat, rearranging his fingers haphazardly, swaying in time with the bow.

Stop it! The neighbours will hear!

“Oh, are the walls that thin? I like an audience. I’ll sing as well, shall I?” Iza says.

Don’t you da-

Iza laughs, laughs in a way that Sam never has, and it clips his thoughts short. It’s strange to feel that kind of lightness in his chest, to hear his voice tumble and explode like that, strange in a way that seeing his arms and legs move against his will is not. He forces the thought away.

The demon puts the violin down. “Do I live up to the stereotype?”

Of what?

“Musical demons. The devil and his fiddle. That’s not a euphemism.”

I’ve dropped pans and made better music than that.

“Oh, you wound me! It’s not as though you’ve given me much to work with.”

Iza leans back on the bed, curling his fingers in the linen. Through the walls comes the buzz of slurred arguments, the clank of crockery, the creak of floorboards, which fogs the silence without filling it. A single pair of ears listens, but two souls feel the weight of it pressing down on them.

Fine. Whatever. Pick it up.

The surprise brightens Iza’s face, like light lancing through mist. As he moves to sit up, brushing the creases from his shirt and bringing the violin back against his neck, he feels the haze lifting from Sam’s memories. Strings of notes grow clearer, melodies bounce against the rafters of their mind, and Iza moves his hands and fingers to where Sam’s instinct places them.

Arm. Lift it up. It makes it easier.

Iza obeys as readily as if Sam were there to sculpt him into position. When he draws the bow across the strings, the sound is tight at the edges, but tuneful. Like a living thing after years of slumber, flexing the ache from its muscles. Iza’s heard the melody somewhere before, through another set of ears.

“And it’s called…?”

Waltz for One. It used to like it.

The notes waver and sing, sometimes coming unstuck where Iza hits a bump in Sam’s memory. It’s like climbing down a ladder in the dark, the demon thinks, and feeling the rungs beneath your feet. Occasionally missing one, but catching the next before you fall.

“Nice choice,” Iza says, hovering on the last note.

Sam says nothing, but Iza feels their thoughts brush together. He’s listening.