Free The Christmas Violin by Buffy Andrews

time to time, but never had anything serious. But this time, she knew she had something special. The music spilled from her head, coming so quickly at times that she couldn’t write down the notes fast enough.
    It was a concerto and she had titled the movements: Despair, Journey and Hope.
    She longed to play the music she heard in her head, longed to feel her fingertips tightrope up and down the violin strings.
    “So what do you want to do on your last day here?” Willow’s mother asked.
    “Be with you,” Willow said. “Just be with you.”
    The Old Woman
    The old woman was worried. She hadn’t seen the young woman at the teddy bear grave in weeks. Halloween was over, thank God. She had spent that night inside the shed and thought she was going to have a heart attack. Some kids, looking for a place to drink, had jiggled the doorknob. She shivered, remembering how frightened she had been.
    “We can break a window,” one of the kids had said. “Get in that way.”
    The old woman’s heart had pounded in her chest. Up until then, she hadn’t considered the possibility that kids would try to break into her home.
    “Cop just turned in,” a girl yelled. “We’d better get out of here.”
    After the kids left, the old woman exhaled. She hadn’t realized she had been holding her breath.
    The old woman’s thoughts slipped back to the young woman with the violin. She wheeled her metal cart past the dollar store and noticed all of the Christmas decorations in the window. Wreaths and red bows and plastic Santas. It was beginning to look a lot like Christmas in the town. Festive banners hung from lamp posts along Main Street and the community Christmas tree was being erected in the town square.
    The old woman had only missed watching the tree go up one year. She had awakened to voices screaming in her head. And they were determined to be heard.
    Slut.
    Bitch.
    Whore
    Worthless.
    Scum.
    Fucking ugly.
    No one likes you. You have no friends. You’d be better off dead.
    So, the old woman had stayed in the shed, trying to slay her demons.
    But she felt good today. And she made her way past the dollar store and headed toward the square.
    She sat on a wooden bench across from a flat-bed truck with a forty-foot blue spruce on top. She watched as a big crane lifted the tree off the truck.
    The crew used cables to tie the tree to a pair of nearby trees and a traffic pole. Then they strung the lights – two thousand of them. The old woman had never seen so many lights. Blue. Red. Purple. Orange. Green. Yellow.
    Sometimes at night, she’d sit on the bench and stare at the dancing lights and imagine it was Christmas morning and there was a gift for her under the tree. But there never was. People with demons never got gifts.
    Peter
    Peter whispered to Camilla, updating her on his latest plans. He had decided to rent space in the strip mall near the newspaper where she worked.
    “You always said I should try,” Peter said. “Guess there’s no turning back now.”
    Just as he was getting ready to leave, he heard the sweet notes. Willow had returned. He headed in her direction. As he approached, he noticed an old woman listening from a cluster of nearby bushes. She had her metal shopping cart and Peter recognized her as the homeless woman he had seen around town.
    Not wanting to interrupt Willow, Peter watched from where he had watched before. He wanted to get closer, but he didn’t want to scare her. She was lost in her music, swaying as it seeped from the deepest part of her soul.
    By now, the notes were familiar. Even though he had heard Willow play the lullaby only once at the cemetery, he had listened to it dozens of times on Camilla’s CD. He knew Willow was coming to the end. When her bow hit the last note and her hand quivered, Peter clapped. It sounded even more beautiful live.
    Willow jerked. When she saw it was Peter, her body relaxed. “I didn’t know I had company. Peter, right?”
    Peter nodded and walked over.