Midnight Sun (The Twilight Saga #5) - Stephenie Meyer Page 0,67

pausing. I could hear her trying to decide whether or not to go out to the garage and tune her BMW again.

Esme was upstairs, humming over a set of blueprints. She was always designing something new. Perhaps she would build this one for our next home, or the one after that.

Alice leaned her head around the wall after a moment and started mouthing Emmett’s next moves—Emmett sat on the floor with his back to her—to Jasper, who kept his expression very smooth as he cut off Emmett’s favorite knight.

And, for the first time in so long that I felt ashamed, I went to sit at the exquisite grand piano stationed just off the entryway.

I ran my hand gently up the scales, testing the pitch. The tuning was still perfect.

Upstairs, Esme’s pencil paused and she cocked her head to the side.

I began the first line of the tune that had suggested itself to me in the car today, pleased that it sounded even better than I’d imagined.

Edward is playing again, Esme thought joyously, a smile breaking across her face. She got up from her drafting desk and flitted silently to the head of the stairs.

I added a harmonizing line, letting the central melody weave through it.

Esme sighed with contentment, sat down on the top step, and leaned her head against a baluster. A new song. It’s been so long. What a lovely tune.

I let the melody lead in a new direction, following it with the bass line.

Edward is composing again? Rosalie thought, and her teeth clenched together in fierce resentment.

In that moment, she slipped, and I could read all her underlying outrage. I saw why she was in such a poor temper with me. Why killing Isabella Swan had not bothered her conscience at all.

With Rosalie, it was always about vanity.

The music came to an abrupt halt, and I laughed before I could help myself, a sharp bark of amusement that broke off quickly as I threw my hand over my mouth.

Rosalie turned to glare at me, her eyes sparking with mortified fury.

Emmett and Jasper turned to stare, too, and I heard Esme’s confusion. She was downstairs in a flash, pausing to glance between Rosalie and me.

“Don’t stop, Edward,” Esme encouraged after a strained moment.

I started playing again, turning my back on Rosalie while trying very hard to control the grin stretching across my face. She got to her feet and stalked out of the room, more angry than embarrassed. But certainly quite embarrassed.

If you say one word, I will put you down like a dog.

I smothered another laugh.

“What’s wrong, Rose?” Emmett called after her. Rosalie didn’t turn. Back ramrod straight, she continued to the garage and then squirmed under her car as if she could bury herself there.

“What’s that about?” Emmett asked me.

“I don’t have the faintest idea,” I lied.

Emmett grumbled, frustrated.

“Keep playing,” Esme urged. My fingers had paused again.

I did as she asked, and she came to stand behind me, putting her hands on my shoulders.

The song was compelling, but incomplete. I toyed with a bridge, but it didn’t seem right somehow.

“It’s charming. Does it have a name?” Esme asked.

“Not yet.”

“Is there a story to it?” she asked, a smile in her voice. This gave her very great pleasure, and I felt guilty for having neglected my music for so long. It had been selfish.

“It’s… a lullaby, I suppose.” I got the bridge right then. It led easily to the next movement, taking on a life of its own.

“A lullaby,” she repeated to herself.

There was a story to this melody, and once I saw that, the pieces fell into place effortlessly. The story was a sleeping girl in a narrow bed, dark hair thick and wild and twisted like seaweed across the pillow.…

Alice left Jasper to his own skill and came to sit next to me on the bench. In her trilling, wind-chime voice, she sketched out a wordless descant two octaves above the melody.

“I like it,” I murmured. “But how about this?”

I added her line to the harmony—my hands flying across the keys to work all the pieces together—modifying it a bit, taking it in a new direction.

She caught the mood and sang along.

“Yes. Perfect,” I said.

Esme squeezed my shoulder.

But I could see the conclusion now, with Alice’s voice rising above the tune and taking it to another place. I could see how the song must end, because the sleeping girl was perfect just the way she was, and any change at all would be wrong, a sadness.