Beautiful Musician Read Free Page A

she’d
just given me, but I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, so I kept
smiling, letting it become part of who I was.
    “ You’re sort of like him.”
She showed me an album cover and pointed to a picture of Nikki
Sixx. Her dead mother’s record collection was piled on the floor.
Some of them were CDs, some were cassettes, and some were
vinyl.
    Granted, it was odd for her to be
telling me who I was, but it felt right, too. She was treating me
as if I was important.
    I sat down next to her, and with a
boy’s cocky pride, I said, “Someday I’m going to be a musician. I’m
going to sing and play guitar and write songs and make it big.” I
gestured to the album cover. “Like them.” Already their music was
filling my young soul, shaping me into the pierced-and-tattooed man
I would become.
    Abby said, “You’re from Room 105. It’s
an otherworld created from people’s imaginations, and I just
created you.” She leaned forward. “When you’re here, no one but me
is going to be able to see you.”
    “ Have you ever been to
Room 105?”
    She shook her head. “The door to it is
in a secret location, and I don’t know where it is. You don’t know
where it is, either.”
    I was getting confused. “Then how did
I get here?”
    “ You just walked across
the border. People from 105 can do that.”
    I dragged a hand through my hair.
Walking across the border made me sound pretty cool.
    “ They have monsters
there,” she said.
    Holy crap. “Monsters?”
    “ That patrol the border.
Someday they’re going to try to hurt you, but it won’t happen until
you’re older. The monsters are mean and ugly and they like to scare
kids, but they aren’t allowed to kill them.”
    “ But they can kill me when
I’m grown up?”
    She nodded.
    I shrugged as if it didn’t matter. If
it was a ways off, then I wasn’t going to dwell on it, even if it
gave me the creeps. Besides, it was better to be tough and
brave.
    She tugged on her top. She was wearing
a Tinker Bell T-shirt and cut-off shorts.
    “ You kind of look like a
fairy,” I told her.
    “ My sister says that,
too.”
    “ What’s your name?” I
asked. She’d yet to introduce herself. For all I knew, she really
was a fairy. I imagined her with paper wings, decorated with
glue-clumped glitter.
    “ I’m Abby Winston.” She
tapped her chin. “And you know what I think?”
    “ What?”
    “ That your smile makes
your powers stronger.”
    “ I have
powers?”
    “ You’re a psychic, Seven.
But your abilities are just starting to develop.”
    “ Really? Damn.” I was
going to smile all the time. I liked the idea of knowing stuff
other people didn’t know.
    She sat up a little straighter. “I’m
going to use you as my private consultant.” Her pretentious
attitude intrigued me. I figured that she must have been smarter
than she looked. I was impressed with how bright she
was.
    We stayed like that for hours, sitting
on the floor, listening to music and becoming friends.
    When it was time for me to leave, I
promised her that I would come back and visit as often as I
could.
    After I disappeared and walked across
the border and into the land of 105, I was thrust into a peculiar
world. I quickly learned that 105 could be light and airy or dark
and ominous.
    My first experience was frazzled in
fear. I sensed the border monsters watching me. I couldn’t see
them, but I knew they were there, hiding under boulders, their red
eyes peering into the night. What Abby said was true: someday they
were going to try to hurt me.
    And now, all these years later, the
threat was getting closer, along with the ache of being separated
from Abby.

Chapter Four
     
    After breakfast, Abby and I put Dingo
back in her room. Then we went to the nurses’ station, where she
was given her meds. Some patients were permitted to take their
medication without supervision, but Abby wasn’t one of
them.
    I tagged around with her all day, but
she didn’t let on that I was there. At the