Green Book Of Meditations Volume 6 The Books of Songs - Student ...

would forget to pay attention and just sit remembering the music,
smiling. I told my father once when he asked what was so funny.
He got so mad he hit me. He doesn’t understand.”
“Do you still dream like that?”
“All the time. It’s what keeps me sane, even if it is
maddening. I used to think that all I needed was a harp and that
then I could play like that. Then I got one at last and realized it
was harder than I’d imagined. After six months I realized it
would take my whole life to play the way I wanted to, even if I
did nothing but practice. After a year and a half I figured even
that wouldn’t be long enough. I finally decided it was impossible,
and that God was just torturing me with the dreams. I nearly
killed myself, it hurt so much. Sam is the only reason I didn’t.
Then we heard about you, and I thought… I’m almost afraid to
hope.”
“Where was your mother in all this,” I asked when she fell
silent.
“She left.” Her face was masked. “When I was ten.”
I digested that without expression.
“What made you think of selling your soul?”
“I thought of it a long time ago, actually, but I didn’t really
believe it was possible. I also had no idea how to do it. It’s not
exactly the sort of thing you advertise for.”
My head was swimming. I glanced down at the tea in my
hands. It was cold.
“Even if you did, there would be no quick fix. You would
still have to practice, live in the world, pay bills, deal with your
father.”
Juliana tossed her head impatiently.
“I know… But I want this.”
“It’s your soul, girl! Can’t you think of anything less
drastic?”
“I came to you for help, sir. Are you going to help me, or
are you going to try and talk me out of it?”
There was steel in those hazel eyes. I saw suddenly why it
was Sam loved her.
“I just want you to know what you are getting into.
Otherwise there can be no bargain.”
“I know what I am getting into.”
“Are you certain?”
She glared back defiantly.
I swirled my cold tea.
“You, Juliana Spring, want to sell your soul to me in
exchange for the chance to play the music you hear in your
dreams, here on earth, alive, and to be the best harpist in the
world?”
“Yes.”
“Are you willing to do whatever I deem necessary to make
that happen, however difficult or painful it happens to be, to live
your life by my word so far as regards the playing of the harp?”
“I am.”
“And do you undertake this obligation freely, without
mental reservations, and in full knowledge of the consequences?”
She bit her lip.
“I do.”
“Then give me your hands and open your mind to me.
Close your eyes when you are ready.”
I leaned forward and took her long white hands in mine. I
wondered suddenly if anyone was listening.
Her eyes closed, and I spoke a very few, swift, syllabant
words.
Her hands clenched in mine. Her eyes flickered open.
421
Juliana Spring shuddered.
“Is that it?” She gasped.
“That is it.”
Juliana shifted her eyes cautiously about the café, her gaze
darting to the diners, the window, the sky, the trees outside, and
me. There was a peculiar intensity to her study, as though she had
never seen a world like this before. She flexed her long boned
fingers, fascinated by their supple movement.
“What happens now?” She asked me.
“Go back to Sam and get some sleep. Tomorrow morning
at ten meet me in the park behind campus, on the bench beneath
the bur oaks. Bring your harp.”
She nodded.
“What about… What about my soul?”
“Do not worry about it,” I smiled gently. “That is my
concern now.”
I stood, smiling down at her trembling eyes. There was a
light in them that I had not observed before. I wondered what she
was thinking.
“Lunch is on me,” I said.
Chapter Three
And so it began. We met beneath the oaks the next day on a
hillside overlooking fields and meadows creeping slowly back to
wild. A brook danced its nearly inaudible way along the foot of
the hill. Too far away to really be a presence the red brick
buildings of the university dorms glowed in the morning light.
Juliana wore long tan pants that made her look even taller, and a
dark light sweater against the chill of the wind. She looked
willow thin against the trees, and strode along with the cased harp
as if it weighed nothing. She sat down on the end of the bench. I
folded my coat across my knees. For a long time there was
silence.
“I love this place,” she remarked at length. “Sam and I used
to come out here on walks before things got so busy.”
“What does Sam have to say about all this?”
“I told him everything. He said that he couldn’t quite
believe it had happened, but that he thought it was very brave of
me. He also said it was me that he loved, soulless or not, and that
he’d stay with me through everything.”
Far away I watched the movement of students to and from
the dorms, smaller than ants and twice as aimless.
“He is a remarkable man if he means that. I hope he
follows through.”
“What do we do now?”
“I do not know yet. Play for me.”
The harp case looked homemade. Juliana unzipped it and
set the leather carefully aside. The harp stood shoulder high as
we sat before it, darkly gleaming chestnut, unadorned. She
screwed in its legs and settled the instrument back into her arms.
“What should I play?” She asked, brushing the strings. It
was already tuned.
“Anything you wish.”
She brushed the chords again and bent her long dark hair.
So softly it seemed that she was still warming up, Juliana began to
play.
In the middle air before us a cloud of insects danced beside
a small yew tree. From its branches darted forth a small brown
bird, flickering and flitting into the swarm, matching its mindless,
eye-defying movements with its own. It tumbled about immune
to gravity with no discernible wing beats, but a twisting, fluttering,