The words had haunted her following her crossroads with Adriel. There was something cryptic and strange about the way he'd been looking at the piano and something unsettling about the words which had followed. Though just as quickly as he'd spoken the words, Adriel had shaken out of his daze and apologised for startling the woman, turning on his heel and leaving her alone in the basement.
Yanire had wanted to question him. To figure out what the hell was wrong with him and where he got off stalking people without their knowledge. Still, she didn't feel that she knew the man well enough to embarge on any sort of voyage into his personal life.
They had spoken casually over dinner and she was essentially another one of his employees on the island by now, but they'd never developed any sort of close or personal relationship. Yanire doubted either of them saw any reason to. She didn't need any friendship surpassing Miss Polson. Not to mention, any romantic voyage was downright outlandish by her perspective, having only just escaped her ordeal with Martien. No, she wanted nothing from Adriel.
Though now she had what seemed an only fair curiosity as to why he would do such a thing. Why would he creep down into the basement at early hours to watch a roommate play the piano? She couldn't make any sense of it. It was obvious that his mother wasn't around, surely if the woman lived there they'd have met by now. What had happened to her? An uneasiness befell her when she thought about the matter and eventually she got the itch to ask someone about it.
The opportunity hadn't presented itself until one morning, when it had just been her and Secoiya in the kitchen with both of the men tucked away in the office, a pretty decent distance away from them. They were cleaning the dishes from last night's dinner, having left them to soak in the sink til morning.
Yanire rinsed the soap from them over the right side of the sink and handed them to Secoiya. The older woman then took the dishes and hand-dried them before setting them down on the empty part of the counter. The walkman on this particular morning was playing a song unfamiliar to Yanire entirely, one of the songs she suspected Miss Polson carried with her from Jamaica.
Yanire pushed herself to just ask outright, unsure of what would happen.
"Miss Secoiya?"
"Yes, love?"
"Did you ever know Adriel's mother?"
The glass cup in her hand slipped out from between the towel and shattered around the woman's bare feet as she turned, scanning Yanire's face nervously. Yanire quickly began to pick up the large pieces of glass around Secoiya's feet, telling her not to move. Miss Polson waved her off and stepped carefully around the glass, grabbing the broom to dispose of the smaller glass shards.
When the glass-tastrophe was resolved, Miss Polson sucked in a deep breath, shutting her walkman off and setting the device atop the counter. She turned to Yanire, a hand on her hip. The feeling of being scolded by a mother hen was inescapable then. Miss Polson had a naturally nurturing way about her and her expertise in virtually everything exposed her wisdom from years of life.
Secoiya linked Yanire's arm on her own and pulled the woman out of the kitchen.
"Let's take a walk, child."
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It was surprisingly not as cold out on the shore as Yanire had grown used to. She had grabbed her pullover jacket off the back of the kitchen chair before they moved through the front door and out onto the beach. It was still early morning, creating a whimsical but foreboding look in the air as fluffy and light clouds contrasted the naturally black sand of the shores.
When they'd gotten a bit down the shoreline, Secoiya had let go of the woman's arm and slipped her own hands into the pockets of her hippie skirt. It struck Yanire then that the older woman's outfit was actually particularly nice that evening. She was clad in a flowing skirt, paired with a crocheted crop top, and finished with a button-up grandma sweater. Further, she'd opted to wear her hair naturally, in a fro around her shoulders. It was quite nice.
The hum of silence had settled a nervousness in Yanire as Miss Polson had looked off to the crashing waves with an almost melancholic sort of look.
"Well love, I've worked for the Alvarsson's for a very long time."
Yanire watched her face closely, not wanting to miss anything if she could avoid it.
"Twenty years in fact, but not all of that time was spent on the island."
"I worked for Adriel's father, leading one of his teams in their business estate in Italy. Eight years I worked for that man, never knowing anything personal about him."
"What sort of business was it?"
Secoiya shot her a look which spoke a thousand words and Yanire fell quiet again, listening.
"Anyhow, in the eighth year he assigned me a personal project, saying it was of the utmost importance and secrecy, flying me out to Alvarsson island. I was not to have any access to the outside world, and if I stepped out of line even slightly, I would be executed."
The younger woman shot her a look of disbelief, Secoiya smiled a little and shrugged.
"It wasn't until we landed that he fully explained what was happening. I was to live alongside his own family and help out with a number of different tasks. To this day, I'm still unsure what led the man to trust me for something so crucial…"
Secoiya had trailed off a little, eyes cloudy with memory.
"Anyhow, when I got here it was not the same collection of people. There was Adriel's father, a young Adriel, Miss Alvarsson, a bodyguard named Leon, and Adriel's younger sister."
Yanire's brows furrowed as she tried to ponder if these things had ever come up over dinner and she realised, a bit sorely, that they had not. Adriel had never spoken of family, nor had Miss Polson. It was obviously a sore topic for most people on Alvarsson island and Yanire was a bit perplexed that she hadn't noticed until now.
"Yanire…"
She turned to the older woman nervously.
"There were a lot of things that happened on this island in those times. Things which I believe were very necessary, but not things which were okay by any means."
Yanire wasn't sure why, but her eyes got wet.
"If you want to know specifics about that time, Adriel's mother, or any of his personal experiences, you will have to ask him directly. For me to disclose any such things would be a complete betrayal and I would never do that to the boy."
There was a very sombre and firm way to the declaration. It was a complete finality in Miss Polson's eyes and Yanire found that respectable in its own right.
"Thank you. I uhm, I'll think about it."
Secoiya nodded, stretching her toned arms before shaking the seriousness away.
"Now then, we ought to finish up with the dishes."
Despite the curiosity bubbling inside of her, Yanire really wasn't sure that she wanted to ask. So for the time being, she decided to leave the matter alone and continue on as she had. At some point, counting the days became tedious, so she would write the seasons at the top of her entries instead. They had stuck the coldest part of the year on Alvarsson island, which was January.
A new system was developed between Adriel and Yanire, she supposed, for the betterment of their working relationship. His watching her play piano didn't stop, but rather he made sure to knock on the doorframe at the bottom of the basement stairs so she knew that he was there. Knowing when he was and was not there, Yanire felt very much less intruded upon, though she couldn't help feeling a little awkward whenever he was watching her.
It's not as though her performances shook and became more filled with error, it was rather she felt less able to be vulnerable with someone else around. She felt that if she held Joeri in her mind with someone else in the room, they might pick up on it and somehow harm him. It was a paranoia she knew to be borderline insane, but she would not risk it.
Eventually his visits became routine and neither of them thought much of them. One such morning, Yanire had been strewing together randomised melodies when the knock sounded at the bottom of the stairs. She didn't look up, continuing to play around with different sets of keys and arrangements.
Eventually though, she had become bored with trying to make her own melody and she sought something specific to play.
"Adriel?"
He had already been looking her direction when she called him.
"What song is your favourite?"
The man looked a little perplexed, racking his brains for different tunes. Finally he had settled on the one and he answered her.
"Hall of the Mountain King."
Yanire blinked twice. She believed it was a story-based composition written by a Scottsman, though she had not heard it on very many occasions. She shrugged and began to strum the starting keys to its melody. The first few verses were easy, being simple enough, but as the song progressed she realised she was out of her depth. She had never seen the sheet music, leaving her with quite little to go on. Still, Adriel looked on with a small smile and nodded, thanking her. After she'd abandoned the song, she stopped to stretch and looked up to see the man had left. Yanire thought nothing of it.
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