The Ragged Edge of Night

by Olivia Hawker

She is like the soft white core of wood exposed by a carver’s knife—hard outer layers stripped away, scars and weather-beaten crags gone for the moment. Inside, a tenderness, yielding and sweet.

When he can hear the music in a person’s soul, he can understand them. Music has been his mother tongue ever since,

Elisabeth leads him under the crisp, sweet branches of the apples. Calf-high grass whisks the hem of her skirt, and when she bends her neck to avoid a low-hanging branch, the movement is unconsciously graceful. The air around her is spiced with sun and dampness and the richness of ripe fruit. They approach the old house. Something heavy stirs in the shade among the house’s piers, and into

the sigh of breeze comes a slow, rhythmic grinding—the sound of animals at rest, animals chewing. He looks over the stone wall into cool blackness. Two white goats look back at him; they bleat in hope. The family’s dairy cow, soft-eyed and pale, reclines at her ease.

Anton wishes he had his rope belt swinging from his own waist. It was like an anchor chain, holding him fast during hours of storm. Of late, he has felt unmoored.

But music is a kind of magic, a miracle. It can reach into a person’s mind, even into his soul, and touch the places words never can. Music is the great key; it can open any lock.