Read Online Making Magic by Donna June Cooper - Free Book Online

distinctly from here, but it was there, blending in with the sounds of nature.
    “Good. I was afraid…” His voice sounded a bit hollow to his ears and he couldn’t finish the thought.
    “That she had given it up?” Grace spoke up. “I was too. It’s been too long since we’ve heard it.”
    “Yeah. It has.” Jake turned back towards the cemetery, listening.
    “How’re you feeling, by the way?” Grace asked.
    “Me? I’m fine,” Jake replied absently.
    “Your bullet wound?” Grace said.
    Jake ran his fingers over his side. “Good. I’m good.”
    Grace motioned with her fingers and the movement of the swing stopped. “Come.”
    “May as well give in,” Nick said. “She’ll keep chipping away at you if you don’t.”
    Jake frowned and walked over, lifting his shirt and tugging at his waistband to let Grace take a look. She squinted at the round scar, still red, but healing. He tensed as she reached out to touch it.
    “Spasms now and again?”
    “Not bad. I need to get in some PT, but I haven’t had time.”
    “Feel free to use my equipment down at the solar barn,” Nick said. “It needs to feel useful, like that saw.”
    “Thanks. I might.” Jake felt a warm tingle from Grace’s fingers and tried not to jump.
    “It looks good,” Grace said. “You need to stretch those muscles though. Warm up then stretch before you do any crunches or use that equipment.”
    “Yes, Dr. Grace,” Jake said, tucking his shirt back in.
    “I think I want to try something else,” Grace said. “All that did was make me seasick.”
    Nick grinned. “No problem.”
    “I’ll leave you folks alone then. Hope Lily decides to show up soon,” Jake backed down the steps and headed for his truck before he had to hear any more about inducing labor.
    As he drove across the meadow, he rolled down the window and listened for Thea’s flute. Nothing. Damn engine. He pulled off the road and turned off the ignition.
    There it was.
    Plaintive and perfect. And he knew the song she was playing. She had played it for him a long time ago, daring him to try and harmonize on his dulcimer. And he had, eventually. Not well, but that didn’t matter. With the voice of her flute soaring above it all, as it did now, the piece had still been breathtaking. For him, it evoked images of a solemn procession making its way across the mountain on a wet autumn day, with bright leaves drifting to the ground through the gray mist. There was a sense of ponderous and dramatic loss, but the flute gave it a bright flourish of hope.
    After his initial attempt, Jake had actually practiced it on the dulcimer for a while, hoping she would challenge him again, but she never had.
    He walked across the meadow toward that glorious sound without even thinking about it. She had told him that her Pops always coaxed her to play this piece. “ For my Lizzy, ” he would say. Thea’s grandmother had died when they were all very young. Now she played the tune for her Pops, who lay beside his Lizzy in the Woodruff family cemetery.
    It was called “The Enigma Variation IX,” though he could never remember the composer. The unusual name, back then, had sounded really cool. He finally caught sight of Thea standing in front of the great black stone that marked Logan and Elizabeth Woodruff’s graves, eyes closed, playing the Burkart flute.
    But the flute wasn’t playing harmony to the mountain’s melody. Instead, the mountain’s song seemed to change to accompany the sound soaring now through the trees.
    It was no longer a flute played by a teenager who was trying on emotions like clothes, unable to conceive of the depth of feeling conveyed in that piece. It was a flute played by a woman mourning those she had lost, and the notes drifted through the air like silver tears.
    He stopped and closed his eyes as she transitioned smoothly into another piece, just as beautiful and emotional. It was one Becca had played with her.
    Becca, who had played classical violin as