Theo turned it toward her.
PLAY WHEN YOU’RE AFRAID.
Her breath stopped.
She knew the handwriting.
Her handwriting.
Avery looked at Marcus.
“You said I never taught children privately.”
“I said you occasionally met scholarship students. You’ve met hundreds.”
Theo shook his head.
“It wasn’t occasional.”
Marcus’s jaw tightened.
The boy took another step toward the stage.
“You came every Thursday.”
Avery felt pressure behind her eyes.
“Where?”
“The old rehearsal room under Saint Catherine Station.”
She heard herself whisper the name.
“Saint Catherine…”
A flash appeared in her mind.
Not a memory.
A fragment.
A yellow door.
A piano missing two ivory keys.
Children laughing somewhere behind her.
Then it vanished.
Avery pressed her fingers against her temple.
Marcus noticed.
“This is enough.”
He signaled to security.
Theo shouted before the guards could reach him.
“Four notes!”
Avery looked up.
“What?”
“You told me if you ever forgot everything, I should play four notes.”
The theater went completely silent.
Marcus stepped toward him.
“Remove him.”
“Don’t touch him,” Avery said.
Her voice was different now.
Marcus turned.
“Avery.”
“I said don’t touch him.”
The guards stopped.
Theo climbed the three small steps leading onto the stage.
The old metronome trembled in his hands.
When he reached Avery, he placed it carefully on her lap.
“Do you remember what you taught me?”
She looked at him.
“No.”
His eyes filled with tears.
“You said hands remember things the brain is scared to remember.”
Avery felt something tighten inside her chest.
Theo moved toward the grand piano waiting behind them.
Marcus stepped in his way.
“The performance is over.”
Theo stared at him.
“You’re afraid she’ll remember.”
Several guests reacted.
Marcus gave a short laugh.
“This is absurd.”
Avery watched him carefully.
“What does he mean?”
Marcus turned toward her.
“He’s a confused child who has somehow managed to get into a private event.”
Theo reached inside his jacket.
Marcus’s face changed again.
This time Avery didn’t miss it.
The boy removed a small brass key.
“Your piano bench,” he said.
Avery stared at it.
“I don’t understand.”
“You told my mother to keep it.”
Marcus moved quickly.
“Give me that.”
Theo pulled his hand back.
Avery’s voice cut through the theater.
“Marcus.”
He stopped.
She had known Marcus for twelve years.
She knew the relaxed version of him.
The charming version.
The angry version.
The exhausted version.
The protective version.
But she had never seen the look in his eyes now.
Fear.
“Why do you want that key?”
“I don’t.”
“You just tried to take it.”
“Because this spectacle has gone far enough.”
Avery turned to Theo.
“What does it open?”
“The bench in rehearsal room seven.”
Another flash.
A basement corridor.
A red EXIT sign.
Her own hands closing the lid of an old piano bench.
Marcus arguing behind her.
Avery sucked in a breath.
The audience blurred.
“Avery?”
Marcus reached toward her.
She pulled away.
“Don’t.”
Theo stood beside the concert grand.
“Can I play the notes?”
Avery nodded.
The boy sat at the piano.
His feet didn’t quite reach the pedals.
He placed two fingers on the keys.
One note.
Pause.
A second.
Then a third.
Then the fourth.
The melody was painfully simple.
Only four notes.
But something inside Avery broke open.
A small rehearsal room appeared in her mind.
Theo was sitting at a battered upright piano.
He was younger.
His hands were shaking.
“I can’t play in front of people,” he had whispered.
Avery was beside him.
“Then don’t play for people.”
“Who do I play for?”
“For the person you were yesterday.”
She remembered placing his hand against the piano.
“Four notes, Theo. That’s all courage is sometimes. Four notes before you decide whether you can play the fifth.”
The memory disappeared.
Avery gasped.
Theo looked over his shoulder.
“You remember.”
“I remember the room.”
Marcus stepped forward.
“Traumatic memory can be unreliable.”
Avery ignored him.
“The yellow door.”
Theo nodded.
“Yes.”
“The broken radiator.”
“Yes.”
“The piano had…”
She closed her eyes.
“Two missing keys.”
Theo began crying.
“Yes.”
The audience erupted in whispers.
Avery’s heart hammered.
More images came.
Children sitting on the floor.
Cheap music stands.
A woman serving soup from paper cups.
Avery arriving through the back entrance so reporters wouldn’t discover she had been anonymously funding the program.
Then Marcus.
Standing inside rehearsal room seven.
Angry.
A stack of documents on the piano.
Avery remembered her own voice.
“Where did the scholarship money go?”