Castles Made of Sand Read Online Free Page B

on earth’s going on?
    She hid behind her book, wishing she hadn’t tied up her hair, depriving herself of her usual retreat… They played the song through, then they stopped and discussed the chords, the key-changes, the melody: bitching gently about the time last year, when ‘Stonecold’, along with Fiorinda’s solo album, Friction , had wiped the floor with the opposition, Ax and Sage included.
    Weird how people keep buying music, in the midst of catastrophes.
    Fucking babystars, they said, grinning sweetly. Makes yer sick. Thank God she never did that aerobics video. Then the song again, word perfect, note perfect, and ‘Stonecold’ is a good song, not a forced rhyme or an off syllable: her own music that still gave her goosebumps, the shivering feeling of power running through her—
    ‘Is this okay?’ said Sage, as if suddenly realising they had an audience.
    Fiorinda nodded, keeping her nose in her book.
    When they’d finished with ‘Stonecold’, they did ‘Rest Harrow’. Fiorinda gets ecological (and she’d never realised how much of Sage there was in that song, hayseed, plough boy, until she heard him sing it). Then another, less familiar track from Friction , and another, each song getting the same loving attention. Ax adding to the guitar part, how could he not, but never taking over, always staying close to what she’d written. The oxy must be good stuff. They didn’t steal her wine, or light a spliff, they just went on playing and singing Fiorinda’s music. She’d had no idea they could do this. She forgot to be embarrassed and simply listened; and watched. So beautiful together, locked into each other, her tiger and her wolf. A longer pause. What next?
    It was ‘Pain’, the original Fiorinda-song, with the stupid monochrome tune and the ridiculous teen-angst words; that she had never released, and never would, though fans yelled for it at gigs and sometimes got it. That she had scribbled in the middle of the night, under a 40-watt bulb in a hostel dormitory, when she was a lost, desperate, bitter little kid: wanting to tell the world what it’s like when pain is all there is (as if the world didn’t know). That she’d screeched out like a crazy prayer from the stage, all through Dissolution Summer. And put behind her, and been ashamed of—and here it was restored to her, by their art, the way it had felt when she wrote it, but different; but made beautiful.
Live in the pain, deep inside the pain…
    Live for this moment…
    Tears stung her eyes. She turned a page with shaking fingers: invaded, heartwrung, staring at the print and seeing nothing, until the music ended. Ax put his guitar aside. Sage said he thought he’d go to bed. He’d sleep in the music room, as usual when he stayed. They had a spare bedroom, but it was unfurnished (they’d only moved into this place last May) and full of junk.
    ‘You want me to sort you out a duvet and stuff?’ said Ax.
    ‘S’okay. I know where to find things.’
    Sage prowled halfway to the door, big and graceful but undecided, as if he’d forgotten something but couldn’t remember what it was: not an unusual state for the perfect master of short-term memory loss. He came back, dropped on one knee beside the couch and kissed Ax gently on the lips. ‘G’night…’ He started to get up again, then changed his mind. The mask vanished. Sage’s natural face appeared, blue eyes wide and dreamy, that big soft beautiful mouth between solemn and smiling—
    ‘Thanks,’ said Ax. ‘I needed that.’
    ‘Yeah,’ said Sage, and kissed him again, a deep kiss, a soul kiss, both of them getting into it, Ax’s fingers locked in Sage’s close-cropped yellow curls.
    Sage stood up.
    ‘G’night Fee,’ he said, and left them.
    ‘ God ,’ said Fiorinda, fascinated. ‘Why don’t you go after him?’
    Ax laughed, leaned back on the couch and stretched his arms.
    ‘Because, little cat, in the morning I’ll be sober, and so will he.’
    ‘Perhaps