Read Online The Gathering Dark by Christine Johnson - Free Book Online Page A

what my mother’s going to put you through when she gets here.”
    “Mostly?”
    Keira paused. “Yeah. The rest of it is that I don’t get exactly what’s going on here.” With her finger, she drew an oval in the air between herself and Walker. “I don’t like that feeling. It makes me grumpy.”
    Walker stretched his hand toward her, slow enough that she had time to back away if she wanted to. But she didn’t want to move away from his touch. She stayed where she was and let him brush back a strand of hair that had escaped her ponytail.
    “If it makes you feel any better, I don’t know exactly what’s going on here either. You’re not the only one whose plans this ”—he drew the same oval in the air that Keira had—“might be messing with.”
    Keira cocked her head to the side. “Really? What are your ‘plans,’ anyway?”
    “You know, get a degree in music engineering, total domination of the human race—the usual sort of stuff.” With the same devilish smile he gave her every time they shared a joke—the smile Keira was already starting to think of as her smile—Walker swung open his door and stepped out of the car.
    Things looked even worse inside the house. Her father’s breakfast dishes were congealing on the kitchen counter, and a pile of laundry was strewn across the dining room table. A pair of her underwear, decorated with hot-pink polka dots, lay draped across the top like the flag at the summit of a mountain. She shoved the pile onto one of the chairs, burying the underwear beneath a couple of T-shirts.
    “Sorry—it’s not usually this messy in here. My parents have both been working a lot.” She was babbling.
    She hated babbling.
    She shut her mouth and turned to Walker. There was a twinkle in his eyes that made her wonder if she hadn’t been fast enough with the laundry.
    “So. This is the wonder that is my house,” she said. “We can wait for my mom in the living room, or sit at the kitchen table . . . ”
    “I want to hear you play.”
    “You—really?”
    Walker stepped close to her. The tips of his black boots brushed against her shoes and he took her hand. Her fingers curled around his, and she let him lead her toward the gleaming piano.
    “This is gorgeous,” he said, running his finger around the curve at the back of the piano.
    “Thanks. My uncle left it to us when he died. It’s pretty much the only nice thing in our house.”
    Walker peered at the rows of strings and hammers beneath the open top. “It’s so . . . complicated.”
    “Not really.” Keira slid onto the bench, feeling more comfortable than she had all afternoon. “But wait until you hear how it sounds.”
    She positioned her hands above the keyboard, hesitating for a moment while she decided what to play. She’d beenpracticing the new Beethoven piece so often that it was waiting in the tips of her fingers, but it didn’t fit what she was feeling right then, and it wasn’t 100 percent perfect yet. She didn’t play anything for anyone unless it was perfect.
    Finally, something came to mind. She hadn’t practiced the piece in ages, but it would be exactly right. Rachmaninoff. The Prelude in C-sharp minor. With her fingers poised on the keys and her feet on the pedals, she started to play, her left hand reaching way down the keyboard for the low notes that marked the first lines. The music flowed through the piano, filling the room with its dark, sweet sound. Her eyes closed for a moment as the tempo built, rising in intensity until the room crackled with it. Her fingers flew over the keys, and the rhythmic thrum of her foot against the pedal was as natural as breathing. The music carried her up, sweeping her into the crescendo, washing away all her tension and uncertainty.
    The final, rising chord sang in the room even after she’d taken her hands from the ivory keys and dropped them into her lap. With a satisfied sigh, she looked up, flipping a strand of hair out of her eyes.
    Walker