<div class="floatleft">(http://blogilmoregirls.b.l.pic.centerblog.net/1xvd2wyl.jpg)</div><br/><br/><br/><strong>"Your room is just down the hall, Miss Green."</strong>That was her father's personal assistant.  Well, his personal assistant's assistant in charge of seeing after Mary.  He had several, all for different roles, but this one had been working with Mary for the last three months or so.  They didn't tend to last very long, moved up quickly in the hierarchy of the company or sent off to do more important jobs once they'd gotten their feet wet with babysitting.  More important meaning more important than taking care of his only daughter.  If she wasn't used to it, Mary would have cried over it.  Instead, she'd long ago let it turn into anger.<br/><br/>She'd worn a simple black dress with an open top ringed with a strand of pearl buttons to meet the Head and the Dean.  First impressions were important.  She was a little overdressed for the other girls walking around campus, but no one said anything or looked at her funny.<br/><br/><strong>"Thank you.  I'll get it from here.  Just go talk to the campus staff and have them bring my trunk and such up.  Thank you, Alexa."<br/><br/>"Yes, Miss Green.  And it's Alice." </strong>She had the nerve to sound upset.  Well, to Hell with her.  She wasn't the one being shuffled off to another new school on short notice yet again.  And she'd just started to really make friends at The Hockaday School in Dallas.<br/><strong><br/>"Whatever.  Just do it,"</strong>Mary said irritably and waved the older woman off.  She waited until the assistant's footsteps faded, then looked at the paper in her hand to confirm the room number.  It was like checking in another hotel, only without a bellboy to tip and tell to go away.  Like she hadn't stayed in so many hotels she didn't know where everything was and how to open the closet and that room service would bring anything she ordered up to the suite.<br/><br/>The music finally registered now that Alexa or Alice or whomever it was had stopped talking and trying to tell her how wonderful it was and how lucky she was to have a father who provided so well for her.  It wasn't a recording.  It was too rich, too full and too here and now to be reproduced by mere electronic speakers.  It was like being at the symphony, only without people around and it was closer.  Intrigued despite her bad mood, Mary walked closer, following the sound, and found it coming from inside what seemed to be her room.  She placed her hand on the door, heavy antique oak, and felt the vibrations carried by the wood.  Her fingertips grew cold from the door, but she kept them pressed there, feeling and hearing the music with all of her body.  It was beautiful.<br/><br/>Slowly, so as not to disturb, Mary opened the door and stood in the doorway.  There was a girl, dark and lovely with beautiful skin, holding a violin under her chin and stroking the music from its soul.  Her eyes were closed and she didn't immediately notice her company.  Eventually the plangent notes drew to a close and Mary sighed deeply.  The music was just that moving.<br/><strong><br/>"Who wrote that?"</strong>she asked from the doorway.