Sara K. Parker - Undercurrent

Passersby seemed drawn to the woman as she took her seat on a leather-cushioned bench, the flowing fabric of her gown caressing the floor at her feet. She turned slightly toward the audience, speaking into the microphone at her side.

“Good evening,” she said. “I hope you’re all enjoying your sea voyage as much as I am.” Her voice carried clearly through the lobby, mellow and sweet. A few people clapped in agreement and she smiled.

She pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. A narrow streak of white appeared and disappeared so quickly Sam wasn’t sure he’d actually seen it.

“I’m often asked if music runs in the family. If my parents were here tonight, they’d laugh at the question. In church, my mother worked hard to master lip-synching to hymns, while the rest of the congregation wished my father would, too.”

Sam found himself smiling along with the rest of her captive audience. Magnetic was how he would describe her. And gorgeous.

“But my parents’ failure to carry a tune didn’t stand in their way of bringing music into our home,” she continued. “I recall many dinners with the CD player as background music. One night we might listen to Elvis, the next the latest Christian artist and another night an orchestral production. We would scour the thrift shops and clearance boxes at a little music store in town, always searching for something we hadn’t heard before.” She played a few sweet, slow notes and soft laughter rippled through the audience as they recognized “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”

“I suppose that’s where my love of music began, and I credit my mother for inspiring me. While I can lose myself in a Chopin nocturne or a Brahms lullaby, I’ve always craved the challenge of creating, taking something beautiful and...changing it up a little.”

She turned away from the microphone, made a swift key change and began an arrangement of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” unlike any Sam had ever heard before. Her hands flew over the keys, turning the lullaby into a jazzy rendition that brought cheers from her growing audience. It was a short piece, and it came to an abrupt stop, met with enthusiastic applause. The woman turned back to the microphone.

“Tonight I’ll be performing some pieces you’ll probably all be familiar with. I hope you’ll enjoy my interpretation. If not, I understand that there’s plenty to do on ship. Which is a good thing, considering we have three more days before we hit our next destination.”

Even the young children in the room sat quietly watching, captivated by her

“In honor of our grand adventure, I wonder if you’ll recognize this first tune.”

Sam did right away—“What a Wonderful World”—and he observed the faces of bystanders as they murmured to each other.

The pianist’s graceful movements drew Sam in, her eyes closing briefly at the most tender sounds in the piece. Simple notes strung together into tangible emotion beneath the movement of her hands. Her energy and passion for her music flowed through the room, which had suddenly grown more crowded.

The song was one of Grandma’s favorites, and Sam glanced to his right, expecting to spot her big red hat swaying to the rhythm.

She wasn’t there.

He bit back a sigh and stood up, gaze roaming the room. Even in a hall thick with passengers, locating his grandmother should be a cinch with that enormous hat of hers. He moved from his seat, and a young couple scooped up his small round table as he entered the throng of people.

There. The red hat. He caught a glimpse as his grandmother entered the art gallery.

He took a step toward her, but something in his periphery caught his attention. Not the crowds shuffling through, not the toddler getting restless in his stroller, but a sudden shift in the air. Something wasn’t right.

His eyes caught on a figure moving swiftly out of the atrium and into the coffee shop. Dark jeans, a black ball cap and a black jacket. He stood out in the atmosphere of leisure, where the only others rushing about were uniformed crew.

The man was probably just in a rush to meet up with someone. Still, a chill of foreboding kicked Sam’s pulse up a notch, and his gaze sharpened as it traveled over the sea of crew and passengers. He’d had this feeling many times before. Not a premonition. Just gut instinct. Grandma would say it was a nudge from God, and Sam wouldn’t argue with that. But this was more like being clubbed in the head. A very strong warning.

A few feet away, the pianist’s hands pulsed over the keys with precision and speed, the giant chandelier glimmering above the piano.

Adrenaline coursed through Sam, years of training kicking in as he mentally logged the technical details of his surroundings. The room easily held five hundred people with several dozen onlookers from above. Six points of entry, ten including the elevators.

He looked up, slowly scanned the faces of the people looking over the railings upstairs. The volume was intense, voices chattering, piano clamoring, china clinking from a nearby restaurant.

Pop!

That one sound carried over all the others. Sparks flew from the chandelier above the piano and smoke poured from the ceiling.

The music stopped.

Hundreds of people pushing, running. Screaming.

He saw her, the woman in the sapphire gown, right as her eyes drew upward, horror written on her face. Instinct and training carried him to the stage as the pianist fumbled to escape, tripped up by her gown. A loud crack. A burst of flame. The chandelier broke away from its mount two stories above the center stage just as Sam’s feet hit the marble.

* * *

Kat’s heel caught the hem of her gown. She fell to her knees, scrambling to get away. From the rocking chandelier, the raining sparks, the thick smoke.

Strong arms wrapped around her, everything a blur as she rolled from the stage. A deafening crash, and screams and chaos erupted all around. She was pinned, facedown, by a complete stranger, smoke stinging her nose and filling her lungs.

She needed to get out. Now. She jerked upward, the back of her head making contact with a hard jaw. Pain seared through her, and the man stood, dragging Kat to her feet.

His hand held firmly onto her arm, urgency etched in the taut lines of his face. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” she managed, willing her body to steady itself. A firm arm wrapped around her back.

“Come on!” The man tugged her away from the crowd of fleeing people and back toward the piano, the smoke, the shards of chandelier.

Fear paralyzed her, memories of another fire reeling her back, and Kat tried to yank away from his grip, but he wouldn’t let go. Smoke billowed through the cavernous room; flames licked the ceiling. And she was back in her bedroom months ago, trapped by fire scorching the walls, clawing for her, bright, hot, ravenous.

“The other way is too crowded!” the stranger shouted over the chaos in the atrium, and Kat forced herself to focus on him. “This is the safer route.”

He was right. Most people had run from the crash toward the stairwell and elevators. Hundreds clogged the exits behind them, shoving and pushing and panicking. They could more easily exit through the art gallery or one of the restaurants on the opposite side.

The stranger guided her carefully and quickly along the edge of the atrium, just yards away from the chandelier, broken into millions of shards of crystal and metal. It had obliterated the Steinway grand. The bench Kat had been sitting on moments before had simply disappeared into the rubble.

An alarm sounded. Loud, repetitive, painful. An announcement, urgent, echoed throughout the ship. She couldn’t hear the words over the alarm and the panicked voices ringing around her.