Nebula's Music Read Online Free PDF

playing Beethoven’s most famous composition, she felt a weighty lamentation and wistful echo of a misunderstood person and an unrequited love.
    * * * *
    The piano remained the same, but her surroundings changed. She was in a great gilded hall with a painted ceiling and Roman columns. Water trickled from the mouth of a marble dolphin-shaped fountain and the tones of the piano were subdued by an ancient, Oriental carpet underfoot.
    A rhinestone-encrusted, silver evening dress hugged the curves of her slender body. The hands touching the piano were undeniably her own, yet lacked the precision and technique. The notes were unevenly spaced by a fraction of a second. She tried to correct it but her hands felt clumsy and slow. To her astonishment, the music sounded more beautiful despite their inaccuracy. The phrases had a sense of depth and urgency to them she could not engineer before, with heightened swells and poignant releases.
    Sensing movement out of the corner of her eye, she glanced up to see Radian, dressed in a tuxedo, holding a velvet box in his hand. He walked toward her and his face brightened, releasing a smile more radiant than the surface of the sun. His face no longer had the hard lines and edge to it and his hair fell in soft, ebony waves around his ears. The locks shone without the frazzled, painted tips of blue.
    Radian gestured to the people seated at tables in the adjoining room. “You should be mingling with the guests, not entertaining them.”
    Nebula did not know what to say. She feared if she voiced the wrong response, the vision would disperse and she would no longer have access to the rest of the memory. To her surprise, her lips moved of another’s accord. “Tsk, tsk, you know I love to play. I’m not one for chatter at parties such as these.”
    “Come now, please, join us, for me. My father expects the entire family to be present in the audience to hear his speech.”
    “But I’m not in your family, you know that.”
    He held out the box. “Open it, Mirilee.”
    The velvet of the box crushed underneath her fingertips, soft and delicate. She unlatched the silver clasp and it popped open. Diamonds of all sizes and shapes glimmered back at her. There were so many she thought she’d drop the box and they’d scatter all over the Oriental carpet, the tiny ones never to be found again.
    “Go ahead, pick it up.”
    In doing so, she realized all the glittering jewels were strung together in an ornate necklace of intersecting circles—all except one. In the center, underneath the necklace, nestled a single diamond ring.
    “Marry me,” Radian pleaded as if his existence balanced on her reply. He took the necklace from her hands and reached around her face to secure it underneath her blond curls. His fingers brushed and tickled her neck, eliciting a flurry of excitement deep inside her, a primal urge.
    “I don’t know what to say.” Nebula was shocked at the coldness of her tone. Did Mirilee not care for Radian as much as he did for her?
    He took her chin in his hands, his gaze bright and unwavering in the golden light. “Say yes. Please.”
    Mirilee looked away, as if considering whether to have tea. “All right. Yes.”
    Radian beamed. “My father has offered to loan us his lake cottage for the weekend. We can go right after the ceremony and spend some time alone.” He moved to kiss her, but she turned away, only offering her cheek.
    “What about my sister?”
    Radian nodded and smiled, although he seemed disappointed. “Yes, yes, tell Mora she can come as well.”
    “Wonderful.”
    “Now will you please join us for the presentation?”
    Nebula wanted to tear her hands away from the piano and put them around Radian, but Mirilee was controlling this memory and she continued to play. “After this song is finished.”
    Radian took in a breath and held it in his chest as if his lungs would burst before speaking again. “Honestly, Mirilee, sometimes I wonder if you love your music more