She wasn’t the only survivor who had crept out from their hidey-hole this morning to take a look around. Sunday had been the first quiet day in the city for as long as she could remember. No more pounding of artillery or staccato crackling gunfire echoing loudly down into the basement from the streets nearby. There were still occasional pops of bullets in the distance, but Belinda imagined that in a city full of broken buildings and shattered streets there were plenty of reasons for people to shoot each other besides a war.

And early this morning, Tuesday, her father had told her that she needed to go up and take a look around. It was a request so far removed from his previous obsession of the past year or so—keeping her home and “safe”—that she had laughed at him when he had said it.
“I can’t protect you anymore,” he told her. It had made her feel sad and suddenly grown up all at the same time.

The family still had a bit of water, and a few scraps of food. It was enough to last them a few more days—possibly. More if grandma finally succumbed to her worsening sickness. But it wasn’t enough to last forever.

She had crawled up from the old basement to find this Tuesday was cold and clear, a strong wind blowing away the smoky haze that had hovered over everything since the enemy had come. It was good to see the sun on her face again despite the chill, but the fresh breezes were tainted by the acrid stink of burning buildings (and worse).

Their old home was now was mostly rubble, torn apart by artillery. It had been smart to hide, but Belinda couldn’t bear to pick through the ruins of that old life. Not yet.

Instead she began to walk down the debris strewn street, ambling toward the tallest building she could see: The royal palace in the center of town. The golden dome was scorched and pitted, but amazingly it was also still mostly intact, and the sunlight glinted off of it as brightly as it ever had.

She saw her first fellow survivors in the streets as she left her old neighborhood behind and headed into what her father called “the city proper”. Most of them looked the same—older men with long beards and a lost look in their eyes. They were people too old, sick, or well-connected to be conscripted into the army. Her father was just a bit of all three, and it had been just enough to keep his at home. All the able-bodied men and boys had been sent out to die in wave after wave, fighting in hopeless battles against poison gas and the mechanical guns.

A small crowd of the men stumbled around in front of the palace steps, obviously drawn by the same comforting familiarity that had brought Belinda there. They seemed unwilling to move closer, held back by tradition, belief, and superstition. There was clearly no royalty left in the castle, and no soldiers to guard them. There weren’t even enemies to threaten them, for that matter.

Belinda, not as sure about the divinity of the emperor, and feeling a surge of youthful bravado brought on by her sudden freedom, sprinted up the steps to the battered metal doors. The crowd seemed content to ignore her.

She reached into the hole where a metal handle had been rudely torn away. The door swung open easily and smoothly, the heavy, almost somber, weight of it spoke to a permanence, opulence, and power that was now lost forever.

She stepped inside and gasped. The palace had been utterly ransacked, but it was the size of it that took Belinda’s breath away. Crossing the atrium, she entered a long hallway filled with shards of shattered pottery, mirror glass, and gilt covered wood. The debris littered the floors, climbing shin deep in some places. But the building’s structure hadn’t been burned or broken, and compared to the rest of the city it seemed almost untouched.

She felt a mischievous tightness in her chest as she tried to navigate a safe path. She was actually walking around inside the palace! She was sure that was not where her father had intended for her to end up this morning, and Belinda couldn’t help but feeling a forbidden thrill as she realized that she was walking down the same corridors that were, until recently, the exclusive domain of the Emperor, his queen, and his servants!

Coming to the end of the long hallway she faced a set of opulent oak doors, the wood stained a lustrous golden shade of brown. When she reached out to push them open Belinda realized that she was pressing her fingers against a carved image of the queen’s face. “Sorry milady,” she muttered, only half mockingly, and pressed harder.

The door opened, and she gasped at what she saw inside. The space inside the Ballroom was bigger than her entire house. It seemed untouched. Clearly soldiers had no interest or time to grab the hanging bolts of golden gossamer fabric or the crystal chandeliers that they hung from…
Sunlight streamed in through the tall windows, filling the room with brilliant shafts so bright they almost seemed solid.

Neither, it seemed, had anyone taken the time destroy or steal the piano. It was a massive old thing, sitting in the far corner by the musician’s circle. She walked across the floor towards it, realizing the sudden spring in her step came from corking that was hidden under the floorboards. She took a quick pirouette.

Reaching the instrument she lifted up the cover and revealed a set of ivory keys that were the most gorgeous she had ever seen. Her hands pressed into them without thinking, releasing a single chord that echoed across the room, ringing sweetly in the perfect acoustics of the empty hall.

For a moment Belinda simply sat there and listened. The she realized what she had done and jerked back her hands. But it was too late—the note hung loudly in the air, fading slowly back into the strings. She looked around, expecting someone to burst through the doors, but no one did.

She calmed herself and awkwardly picked up the velvet covered stool from the floor where it had been knocked over in a single act of either violence or haste. Sitting down this time, she plunged her hands into the keys again, playing the first few notes of the concerto she had been learning before the war had come to the capital city.

Belinda closed her eyes and just let her fingers do the work, warming up her hands by playing the simple tune over and over again. She knew it was dangerous to do it. She knew her father would have screamed at her and called her a silly child. But the notes sounded so sweet, and for a moment it transported her back to a life that was now as demolished as her home.

When she opened her eyes again she let out a shocked yelp. Two figures stood by the door. “No, please, don’t stop for us.” It was clearly a female voice, although like her, this woman was wearing men’s clothes. But her strong curves made her femininity impossible to hide.

The man next to her nodded his vigorous assent. “That was real nice.”
Belinda suddenly felt terribly vulnerable. She couldn’t protect herself, not really. And she had never performed for anyone besides her family. She scrunched her face up in a grimace, and thought about what to do next. Or even what to play. The concerto was a grim eulogy, and the world was already sad enough without her adding to it.

A simple waltz, one of the first pieces she had ever been taught, leapt into her mind, and her fingers reacted, dancing across the keys. It was a happy tune, and the room seemed grow brighter as she played. Belinda muttered the time signature to herself over and over, “ONE, two three… ONE, two, three…” It was habit that her teacher had promised her would help break before he had vanished into the war, like so many others.

From the corner of her eye Belinda saw movement, and it caused her to stumble over a note. But when she looked up she saw the couple was dancing, swooping across the floor to the music—her music. She could feel tears welling up inside of her even as the smile grew across her face.