The Conductor's Intent

Note: This is an older piece, but I didn’t have the energy to spin a new one this week. Feedback is appreciated, and please pardon this one for not being as up to par. It very loosely fits the prompt.

[Please listen to Opening, by Craig Armstrong while reading]

It had just been this quiet, low melody following her. Through the market, through the alleys, along the canal, everywhere. It drove her mad, and just like anything else, she wouldn’t stop until she found the source, traipsing all around the foreign town, listening. She felt like she had been walking for hours and hours, past iron-wrought gates and through ivy-covered archways, feet making no sound on the cobbled, mossy street. 

Surely a place like this had magic set into each and every stone she stepped on, but that melody was maddening, drawing her closer and closer to… something. She just hoped it wasn’t an evil magic, though she knew it was an ancient one. People just seemed to glance knowingly at her, and she vaguely wondered if they’d followed the melody too. Part of her wanted to ask, but the other parts wanted this to herself- a harmless adventure through the prettiest place she’d been in a while. Whatever fate was meant to befall her, it was hers alone.

And then it stopped. It stopped just outside a garden gate, the iron bars twisting themselves into a symbol she couldn’t place, roses and feathers intricately guarding a small garden. Before she reached it, the gate swung open, creaking softly on rusted hinges, and when she stepped slowly past it, it swung shut behind her, the latch clicking almost in a friendly way. When she looked up, the scene surrounding her was something pulled straight out of a fairy tale, ink and paper tossed about and settled into reality. Her heart ached with an unknown nostalgia, her eyes struggling to take it in. Drooping blue flowers perfumed the air with their scent, and she swore she’d smelled it before, something between lillies and cotton. The sun was filtering gently through a tree, casting soft shadows and rays on the cobblestone, a calm and filling silence floating on the breeze. 

That was when she saw the statue. It was a tall, slender woman, her draped dress cascading as if blown by a stolen breeze. The statue’s hair was braided into elaborate coils and twists with a laurel wreath rested gently on her head, a hand gently outstretched to point to a nearby shed. She stopped, following the delicate curve of the statue’s arm. A direction at last. She found herself following the instructions, mesmerized and feeling as if she were in a trance, being strung along by some unseen magician’s hand. 

The door was unlocked. And as fate would have it, the melody called to her again, pulling her down the winding staircase, beckoning for her to follow the magic-filled nothingness deeper and deeper underground. The winding staircase stopped at a set of dark wooden doors, each detailed with minute carvings and gold accents. Here, the air felt sharper, charged with magic, charged with… longing. Was it her own? Everything was laced with the gold-green translucency of a cat’s eye, there, but not quite, as if her brain was still debating for her to see it or not. She longed for it, she needed it; she couldn’t even name it. This felt right. This felt like fate, like God, like… like love, if she dare say it. The golden carvings set in the mahogany wood shivered, trembled, and began to tick. It vaguely reminded her of a bomb. Or a piece of insanely intricate clockwork. With a soft creak and a bit of dust, the doors swung open, revealing…  nothing. Nothing but the blackness of the Abyss staring back at her, drowning her in ebony and steel until the light flooded the place. Light. Glorious, beautiful light. It scattered the terribly comforting darkness and left her alone in the room full of song and light. Suddenly everything was stone, the iron and wood changing to sculpted marble. Carvings of vines and roses traced their way across the ceiling, but that wasn’t what drew her- it was the music. It was light and dark at the same time, and it sent her head spinning, the way it rose and fell, the parts laughing and crying together. The harmony was soaked, dripping in the minor key, a twisted thorn just below the rose that was her maddening melody. It was floating, flying on a clear sky, caressing her cheek and grabbing her hand, pulling her deeper and deeper into this magical place. 

It felt like a dream, the harmony seeming feather-light, the melody pushing against it with its darker, glass-green water, deep and nameless. The music was as thick and rich as velvet, violins and piano conversing mournfully, a dark, almost dreary mood settling to every stone tile in what seemed to be an underground theatre. But then a harp, soft and hopeful, edged its way in, followed by a flute, and just like that, she was soaring, the troubles of the real world far and unimportant. She just wanted to drown in this, to bottle the sound and drink the glass dry. More than anything, she wanted to stay. To stay in this exquisite place, with its dark oak doors and gold handles, with its iron gate and elegant statue. Most of all, she wanted to let her heart free, away from everything she’d known, casting it into this deep well of pure magic. But then the melody stopped, not even an echo sounding back to her. And just as simply as if deciding what to wear, she found herself believing in magic again. How could she not? This was something made of the heart and hands, something born from more than the standard normality of life. Standing under the carved, arched ceiling, she made a promise. She would keep this splendor, this sliver of heaven, safe. But for now? Nobody had to know except her.