Whispers of the Heart (15 page)

“But I'd be good,” he said, his eyes beseeching. “I'd sit by the door and listen to the music.”

Brent carefully set his mug on the table. Catherine
turned from where she stood at the opened refrigerator, almost dropping the cream she was replacing.

“Music?” she squeaked. Her glance flew to Brent's. “Could he have overheard…?”

Brent gave his mother a quelling look. “You hear the music, Tim?” Brent asked carefully.

“Uh-huh.”

“Tell me about it, son.”

The child shrugged his shoulder.

“What does it sound like?” Catherine asked, sitting down next to Tim.

“Music.” Tim gave his grandmother a well-duh! expression.

“Yeah. Well, does it sound like…” Brent named a couple of popular characters from a children's television program.

Tim shook his head. “Nuh-uh.”

“Does it sound like some of the CDs I play at home?”

“No.”

“Does it sound like Grandma's music? You know, hers sounds different than mine.”

“No. It sounds like Autumn. It's her music.”

“Oh,” Catherine said with relief. “Autumn plays a radio, probably, while she paints.”

“Nuh-uh,” Timmy said, shaking his head. “She don't have one.”

“Then…” Catherine's puzzled gaze came his way. He shook his head, signaling her not to interrupt.

“It's from the door,” Timmy insisted. “You know, Daddy. Down at the end of Autumn's hall where she paints. Me'n Kyle heard it one day when
we went up to visit Autumn while we were s'posed to be in the nursery.”

Timmy laughed with glee. “We scared Mrs. Davis. She had to hunt for us. But me'n Kyle was real good for Autumn. She said we were the best boys she knows to stay quiet.”

Brent pursed his mouth as he listened. Kyle was younger than Timmy by nearly a year. Too young to question. But Tim spoke with authority over what he'd heard. And done. He believed him.

He'd have to deal with his son's misbehavior of running away from the nursery teacher later. But for now, he could only accept the truth. Tim and Autumn had both heard the music.

Oh, Lord, I don't understand what's going on at the church or if the music Autumn and Timmy hears is from men or from You….

All of a sudden he felt struck dumb. Who was to say the two of them hadn't heard heavenly music?

But did it matter? He loved Autumn and he loved Timmy. And wanting to comfort her, he'd told Autumn he believed her without really knowing whether he did or not. Now he was very glad he had.

He started to smile. “Tim, you just made my day. I can't promise you'll see Autumn today, because she's really busy. But I'll ask her if you can visit her again in a couple of days, okay?”

A
utumn dangled her legs from the scaffold and stretched to reach the mural's far corner above her head, filling it with blue sky. The face just below wasn't complete; while emotional joy filled the angel faces around it, this one needed something…more.

Folding her lips, she studied it, then sighed. She hadn't quite captured what was missing and couldn't even guess what it might be. The cloudy morning shadowed the upper wall in spite of additional lighting; perhaps she'd have a better handle on it another day.

Letting it rest, she dipped her brush with blue, tipping it with white, and gently stroked the last few corner inches.

Except for herself, the church was empty.

The silence around her felt particularly pronounced this morning. It rose up to enclose her in stifling isolation. Not even outside traffic noises had
permeated her concentration, giving her the feeling of lonely emptiness.

Well, she supposed that could come from the gloomy sky, as well. Up until this morning, she hadn't felt lonely or isolated in the church while working alone.

Still, she was going to miss coming every day when the work was complete. She was going to miss the occasional company. Wendy, certainly, and Ashley. Even the old women from the Bible study, who now came by once or twice a week to see her progress and make good-natured, encouraging remarks, gave her a feeling of connectedness.

No one had made an appearance yet this morning. Even her brush sounded loud.

Then from the far door, the music began, a low and mellow woodwind at first, then picked up and increased with a violin. The sound played along her nerve endings, soothing and lifting. As before, it lightened her heart as it increased in a joyous refrain.

She wasn't alone…. Only that door divided her from other people.

Abruptly, she laid down her brush. She scrambled off the scaffold and crept closer to listen. This music was lovely, filling her from head to toe with a desire to hear more of it. It wasn't the wind blowing through windows and doors. It wasn't the noise of working tools, buzzing and humming, either. And it wasn't her imagination!

She tested the heavy door handle; it didn't budge. Of course it was locked; it always was locked.

Turning, she hurried through her corridor and down the second hall of the education building to
ward the church office. Surely she could find a key to the door somewhere. Unless the office was firmly closed up, too, until Pastor David came in, or his part-time office help.

Yet it wasn't seven-thirty. They usually didn't come in until eight or after.

Finding the door ajar, she breathed a sigh of relief. Someone had arrived. She skidded to a stop and pushed the door wide to find only Wendy, speaking into the phone. Autumn gave a tentative smile and wave.

Wendy looked up with a smile, then observing Autumn's face, she raised a hand. Impatient, Autumn half turned to reenter the hall as Wendy wound down her conversation.

But that was no good. She'd still have to wait until someone could open the door.

She wondered about the chapel's front and side doors; she'd assumed all this time that the working crews had used them. Would they be unlocked already this morning? She hadn't seen any of the usual trucks drive by, but that didn't mean they hadn't.

“Hi, Autumn,” Wendy said as soon as she hung up. “Do you have time for a coffee break? I've wanted to talk more about that nursery mural I have in mind.”

“Yes, I'd love to see the space, but I… Wendy—” she paused to take a deep breath “—do you have a key to the door between the old chapel and my corridor?”

“Oh, sure, it's here somewhere. But I think it's bolted from the chapel side. Why? Do you need to open it?”

“Yes, I…actually, Wendy, I heard the music again and I thought—”

“You heard music? When? This morning?”

“Yes, just now. I'd like to open the door and simply peek through.”

“Heavens, yes!” Wendy stared at her a moment with wide eyes, then turned and opened the secretarial desk, rummaging through the top drawer. “Good thing I came in early. David had to make a hospital run and I promised to make a couple of calls for him. But I don't—” she paused, jangling a set of keys “—ah, here we are.”

“Do you know which key?” Autumn asked, staring uncertainly at the multiple jumble.

“They should be marked.” Wendy looked from one to the next swiftly, shoving them along the ring. “When did the music start?”

“About fifteen minutes ago, now, I suppose. It took me a minute to climb down from the scaffold, and then a few minutes to decide—”

“Never mind.” Wendy held one of the keys up victoriously. “Let's go. We might have to go out and around, but we'll get in one way or another. Then we can put this mystery to light without further ado.”

Wendy took off at a run, Autumn sprinting alongside. They dodged around the scaffold and skidded to a stop at the same time near the door in question. While Wendy fumbled with the key, Autumn put her ear to the panel. She could no longer hear a thing. Only silence greeted them.

“Oh
why now…?
” she uttered, looking at Wendy with total frustration. She listened again. “I don't hear a
thing.
”

Wendy pursed her lips. “Never mind. We're just…going to look around…anyway.”

She turned the key. The door wouldn't open or even rattle. It remained as solidly closed as though cemented.

“Oh, bother!” Wendy said through her teeth. “As I feared, it's bolted from the other side. Well, come on. We'll go in through the front door.”

They hurriedly retraced their steps and left the building by the opposite door Autumn usually came through. Light rain sprinkled down, but neither of them paid it a second glance as they raced around to the main street. Wendy took the shallow concrete steps leading to the old double entry doors two at a time, Autumn in her wake.

This time the key slid into its slot smoothly and clicked. The two of them slipped through the front foyer and into a dark, slightly musty, cavernous
empty
room.

Autumn stood absolutely still, shivering in the cool temperature, her shoulders and back damp from the rain. The disappointment welled high. Nothing. Not a single note or a single movement.

Wendy found the lights, the sudden illumination chasing away the gloom, but nothing about the room gave Autumn any sense of having movement or sound. Slowly she turned in a circle, glancing to every corner.

She
had
heard music coming from here. Thirty minutes ago.

Her letdown felt as big as the room. Her step dragging, she walked down the center aisle toward the raised platform, the sound muffled by the threadbare
carpet. In places, the old carpet showed only warp, huge holes among the red nap. Autumn wondered how many feet had trod here. Thousands, surely.

She stepped up onto the platform, deep enough to hold three bare pews for the choir. Not even old hymn books decorated them, nor a scrap of paper, like an old program. A light-oak podium sat to one side, but there wasn't a hint of a musical instrument.

Where had the music originated? Where were the instruments from past use? Not an organ or piano graced the area. Had they been moved into other sections of the church when they ceased use of the chapel?

Slowly turning, she gazed at all of it. The place looked as undisturbed as time had left it.

“When was the last time anyone used the chapel for a service?” she asked Wendy as she ran a finger along a dusty front rail.

“Only heaven knows,” Wendy responded. She stood still, gazing around her, then moving into the center of the room, gazed up into the empty balcony. “I think it mostly served for small weddings and funerals in the seventies, but I'm not too sure if anyone has asked for it since.”

“I thought work was being done in here,” Autumn murmured. “I've heard movement in here from time to time.”

“Oh, there has been, but below stairs, mostly. Electrical improvements above stairs, of course, and new plumbing down, and a new furnace. But upstairs cosmetics have had to wait. We've been waiting on finances to come in to put in new carpeting. But I
think it's coming next week. Hopefully in time for the rededication.”

“Wendy, there's no sign anyone at all has been here,” Autumn muttered, letting her disappointment surface. “If I'd only been able to come through when I first heard the music…”

Then jumping off the platform, she took a purposeful left turn over to the side door that divided this building from her corridor. The heavy bolt gave a satisfactory clang as she threw it. At least when she heard the music again, she'd have the ability to enter into the chapel quickly.

“Let's just check the whole auditorium,” Wendy insisted.

“Fine with me,” Autumn returned, privately thinking there weren't many places to yield a clue.

They did just that. Autumn followed Wendy into the shallow balcony and down again. They checked along each pew and the shallow storage space under the front platform. They found nothing that would tell them who—if anyone—had been making music in the chapel.

Or anything at all to tell them someone even had.

Several days later, Autumn pulled out a light-blue cardigan to wear against the evening chill on her way home from Mirror Images. Buttons danced at her feet, begging to go along.

“I'm sorry, Buttons. I can't take you with me this time. You'd get into too much trouble and put Curtis out of sorts.”

Curtis'd nearly gushed with delight to have Autumn's help in dealing with his art classes when
she'd called him. He'd thrown out the invitation weeks ago, but she hadn't made up her mind about it until she'd needed to give Brent an excuse for being busy.

The classes gave her a new focus, and they were placed in an environment in which she felt safe. She could do it without worry and it would keep her too busy to see much of Brent.

If she worked hard enough at it, she'd be too busy to think about him, either, or imagine his smile that made her heart do cartwheels. Too busy to long for his arms around her. Too busy to miss Timmy, with his little boy's giggle that captivated her heart.

She let the shiver run down to her toes.

Perhaps it was a good thing, she mused as she jerked her thoughts back into place; besides her new church acquaintances, she hadn't spread her wings much since Spring had left town, and she should. And now after weeks of painting, when her mural was nearing completion, she wouldn't have built-in human contact so easily available every day as it was now. It would be a while before beginning the nursery mural.

Pushing herself to seek new acquaintances was a good thing. Wasn't it? At least she'd no longer face empty corridors or unseen musicians.

Buttons barked in protest as Autumn set her in the playpen. She hated leaving her little friend, but she needed to work for more than one reason. Brent wouldn't find her so vulnerable again.

He wouldn't find her at home so readily, an easy way of putting distance between them. After a while, he'd begin to lose interest in her and find another
love. One that could be the right kind of partner for him.

She peeked out of her building's front door window to make sure he wasn't in sight. Although the sun hung low in the western sky, the streets still sparkled with bright daylight. She couldn't tell if Brent's office was occupied or not, but at five of seven, everyone should have gone home.

She almost made it out of her parking lot. Brent pulled up beside her, open window to open window, as she waited to pull into the street.

“Hi, Autumn honey.” His gaze warmed her more than she'd like to allow, but at the moment she had no control over the heat that crept up her body. “I'm on my way home. Are you going to be home tomorrow evening?”

“Ah, I don't know, really.” She moistened her lips. This may prove harder than she thought, when all she wanted to do was suggest they plan a stroll together, or find Timmy for a ball game at the park. “Curtis…”

“Curtis isn't holding a class every night, is he?”

“No, of course not. But there's a couple of displays he wants to rearrange and I promised I'd help. He needs extra help in the summertime.”

“And this has to be done after gallery hours?”

“Uh-huh. It'll take most of the evening. Curtis wants to be ready for the Saturday trade, y'know.”

Brent let out a gusty breath, accepting her answer, but not happy with it, either. “All right. I'll call you Saturday morning.”

“Sure.”

She wondered what excuse she could find for Saturday.

“Why don't you just tell him the truth,” Curtis said later in the evening as they cleaned up after the class was over. She'd asked if she could work in his back room on Saturday morning. “Tell him you're too much of a coward to love him.”

“Curtis!” She turned to stare at him over the sink they used for washing up. What was wrong with him? As before, she found it inconceivable for her old friend to be rude. It was totally unlike him, so why was he so painfully blunt lately?

“Well, Autumn, isn't that it?” He moved some of the student paintings over to a drying rack. “You're gaga over the man and crazy about the kid. You even like Catherine, you said.”

Autumn acknowledged his questioning glance with a shrug and nod. She did like Catherine, but she wasn't sure Catherine would return the regard if she knew of Brent's close interest.

“Oh, for heaven's sake! Why can't you just be happy to fall in love like a normal young woman?” Curtis muttered.

She paused to let hot water flow over her hands, scrubbing a rag over the sink.

“I have fallen in love, Curtis,” she told him, feeling very raw about opening her feelings to anyone besides Spring. “I guess I love him too much to burden him with my problems.”