The Piano in the Tree by Jo Havens EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Authors: Jo Havens
- Language: English
- Genre: contemporary romance
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 8.4 MB
- Price: Free
A FORTUNE TELLER ONCE gave Polly three devastating predictions.
They would shape her life, the woman told her. Undeniable and
inescapable.
The woman hadn’t used those exact words, but that was how Polly
remembered it. The fortune teller was an immigrant from Korovinja,
recently arrived too, if her accent and grasp of English were any indication.
She’d said the predictions were written in the stars, maybe because she
thought that sounded romantic. It was a cliche that crossed most cultural
boundaries, in any case. She’d taken a long drag on one of her smelly
European cigarettes and gazed into an actual crystal ball. She’d muttered
incantations in her native language.
Toks had been there too. They were seventeen and walking around the
fair sneaking sips from the hip flask Toks had swiped from her dad and
filled with his slivovitz. It wrinkled Polly’s nose with every sip and Toks
had laughed at her. She’d also snorted with laughter at whatever the woman
had said in Korovinjan. “You’re a witch,” she’d sneered, but Polly had
shushed her. Something in the woman’s manner made her want to hear
these dire prophecies.
Music – specifically the piano – would feature in Polly’s future. The
crystal ball decreed it. Probably wasn’t hard for the woman to guess. Polly
wore a necklace that Toks had given her with three charms on it: musical
notes, a treble clef and a tiny, silver baby grand.
The second part of the prophecy was firearms. Rifles, the fortune teller
had clarified, reaching for the right word. They’d gotten there via the term
‘sniper fire’ and that sobered things up for a moment. Anyone escaping the
conflict in Korovinja would know all about that.
And, thirdly, Ksenia Tokarycz.
(Toks had loved that bit.)
One would be Polly’s passion. One would be her salvation. One would be
her ruin.
It was total bullshit, of course, but on days like this the prophecy always
slipped back into Polly’s mind and swirled around like it was something.
Right now, she was combining all three undeniable and inescapable
prophecies into one.
She was shooting Toks’ piano.
“Think that’s enough, Mum?”
Tilda stood just behind her on the slight rise at the edge of the dam. Polly
felt her there and sighed. She was being self-indulgent. She knew that. It
shouldn’t take her sixteen-year-old daughter to gently come and tell her so.
Tilda was wise beyond her years. Wiser than her mum, that was for sure.
Polly aimed one more shot across the water and into the remains of the
Steinway as it hung from the massive, ancient eucalypt at the edge of the
dam.
She blocked her daughter out for just another moment. A grounding
breath, the slow tip of her head to the scope, the gentle caress of her finger
on the trigger. Something low this time, she thought. She’d obliterated good
chunks of the upper register over the last few months – certain notes in
particular – but there were enough low wires still left in the frame. She eyed
them through the scope and counted up from the left of the cast iron plate.
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