5TRACK 8: Segue
Play to your heart's content.
Ruben sits up, his shirt hanging open to reveal two ragged scars, pale and edged with pink. He runs a hand across them, vaguely impressed, then fixes his gaze on the horizon. Looking at Lilia's face is impossible now, and he would rather not embarrass June, whose face is splotchy with crying.
Lilia says his name, but he doesn't look at her. "Ruben," she says again, "I do care for you. Your song—was what I was waiting for. It was…"
He shakes his head. "Go. Just go." After a pause, Lilia's feet pound away across the sand. He knows to whom she runs. His head drops and he bangs the heels of his hands against his forehead as he starts to cry.
Almost immediately, arms encircle him and June says, "Ruben—don't."
"Leave me alone," he growls, swiping tears away. June doesn't relent; even as he tries to push her off, she throws her weight against him and knocks him sideways into the sand.
"Don't feel destroyed," she says into his ear as he lies numb. "Please don't feel you have failed. Because of you, my brother did not succeed. Because of you, Lilia has returned. Even your love was not forever black. You made your sacrifice—you gave her up."
"She was never mine!"
"Still—"
Ruben at last manages to pry June off himself. He gets up to walk away, but she seizes his wrist and stops him short. "Listen to me, would you?" she says, tears still welling up in her eyes. Feeling a little guilty, he doesn't resist. June gestures and he sits next to her. She taps him and he meets her eyes, which seem to hold a secret.
"What is it?"
"Lilia doesn't understand, but I do," she whispers, smiling though tears slick her face. Her voice is a tad hoarse. "Something Daniel will never understand, either. But you knew it all along, without even realizing it."
Intrigued despite himself, Ruben says, "What could that be?"
Yet at that moment, June leaps to her feet. Ruben follows her line of sight and sees Daniel approaching the ocean with Lilia at his heels.
With Avalon restored and the spirits finding themselves once more immortal, Daniel sees Lilia coming to meet him.
He staggers to his feet, uncomfortable now that the air has lost its chill. He finds his sword buried in the wet sand, and turns to meet Lilia. He raises the blade and she pauses beyond his range.
"Lilia," he says by way of greeting. His anger seeps into his voice and into the menace of the blade. "Is your pet to destroy me now?"
Lilia bites her lip. "No, Daniel." She tips her head forward as if in shame. "It is my turn to move you—even though we had to part, my love for you never—"
"—died, Lilia? Are those your choice words?" he spits acidly. "I think it did. Without you, my world became nothing, so I was left to abandon it—only to find you here with him. Why could he have you—"
"Daniel, you are mistaken. After the parting, I remained yours."
"—when I sacrificed everything for you? I sacrificed my world to search for you. Yes, Lilia, our world was the price of my journey. Only my sister survived with me, and she—" His look of disgust says enough. "I've lost everything for you. Including my music. I will never play again." Daniel points the sword's tip at her heart. "You will not follow me." He backs away toward the ocean. Lilia extends her hand.
"Please, Daniel." Ruben and June come up behind her, June breathless and tearful. "The apples of Avalon are singing," Lilia says. She extends her hand, ghostly and trembling. "Can't you hear it, Daniel? Can't you hear it—the music of the spheres?"
Her words flutter in the quiet, pleasant air. Daniel watches the shadows shifting on the beach, cast by the gliding clouds. He shakes his head.
He marches to the ocean that shimmers like crystal glass cut to reflect each individual star. The waters splashing around him, June calling his name from Ruben's side, he walks until the water swirls around his knees.
"You can't leave June," Ruben shouts as the pair of them reach Lilia's side, barely aware that he is calling his murderer back; June's nails are digging into his arm.
Daniel lowers his head. Ruben stands at the edge of the surf, yet he senses that they are separated by more than just the trailing water.
"Tell me," Daniel says, stepping further into the ocean. He is a silhouette on the glowing waves. "Have you ever heard the myth of the Apple of Discord?"
"There are many myths," Ruben calls back. June takes a step toward her brother.
"Yes, there are, and they are all bitter," he says wistfully. "I came here seeking the Apple of Discord to bring the worlds to ruin. I came here to make the Apple of Discord. But there is no apple that will sing for me. Not June, and not Lilia. And no, Lilia, I cannot hear the apples singing." Daniel closes his eyes. "I want to return to my garden."
"You can't."
"I must."
"Daniel!" June cries.
Ruben's anger flares, and he feels ready to take up the abandoned sword. "You can't leave Lilia! How can you be so cruel?"
Daniel opens his eyes. "Simple. I do not love her." He turns toward the horizon and spreads his arms.
"No!" Ruben scoops up the sword and splashes into the water, but Lilia catches his shoulder and hurl him backward into the sand with greater force than he had ever thought she possessed.
"Let him go," she snarls at him. "This is my punishment." Her eyes are red with withheld sorrow. She and Ruben look back at Daniel. June is wading toward him desperately—and then sunlight sparks across Ruben's vision. Rose petals burst into the air with the crash of the waves, and Daniel vanishes. June leaps into the wave that seems to have washed him away, only to come up sputtering and confused amid the floating petals.
Lilia walks away.
Ruben calls to her.
"Thank you for everything," she says without looking back.
Eventually, night comes again.
Ruben and June are sitting side-by-side on the shore, contemplating the waters. The rose petals have all sunk to the depths. Of Daniel, only the sword remains, planted in the sand like a tombstone.
They have been silent—at least Ruben has kept his peace, with June crying through the sunset. Lilia has gone Ruben knows not where; it pains him not to see her, but seeing June's grief keeps him from seeking Lilia out. And he knows that there is no use in that anymore. Lilia said this was her punishment, her sacrifice.
At last, he asks June, "Do you know where he's gone?"
June shakes her head. "He said he would return to his garden, yet I can sense he has not returned to the garden we shared. It may be that Zezelom is his garden. Perhaps silence is all he wants now."
"Wherever he is, he willed it," Ruben murmurs.
June nods. "Though I wish I had not betrayed him." Her breath catches. "No. I'm sorry to have hurt him, but I had no choice. I realized that I did not want the same things he did."
Ruben tries to offer her a smile of encouragement. Over the waves hangs a full orange moon. Even further away, the stars, now in harmony, glimmer cheerfully. A small spirit tumbles out of the waters. Then he remembers.
"June—I'm sorry. I never meant to forget… Thank you for keeping me sane, even in Zezelom."
She smiles, moonlight filling her watering eyes. She brushes a tear away. "One day I'll stop crying," she sighs. "And of course—you're welcome. Always."
Ruben senses the current of affection under her voice and wavers. "June…um…what you said earlier—what is it that neither Lilia nor Daniel understands?"
June manages a small, silvery laugh. "Ruben, it was your song."
His eyebrows rise in surprise. "How?"
She grins, wiping her eyes dry. "Lilia and Daniel are so different from each other. Harmony and Discord. How could they co-exist? But your song captured and held them both."
"When Lilia heard me play first, she said she had been waiting for me…"
A shadow steals across June's face. "Oh… Perhaps in your song she could hear my brother. And my brother—perhaps he was jealous of you because in your song, he could hear Lilia."
Ruben watches a pair of spirits wander toward the beach, and a third joins them at a run. They kick up some sand then wander along the edge of the water.
June's hand brushes his as she scoots closer. He realizes then that she is not a spirit. Although she remains solid, she has not chosen to leave this place. "What did you hear in it?"
"Just you," she whispers.
TRACK 8: END
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