Melody Unchained by Christa Maurice

 
    Chapter 1
     
    Melody sat next to the bed where her elderly master lay dying. Occasionally, she mopped his brow, but otherwise she stared out the window, waiting. Her next master would probably be whoever came to clean out the apartment. Billy had no family so that duty would fall to the building super, Zubrowski, a greasy man who looked at her like she was naked even when she wasn’t. Being his servant would not be enjoyable, but she knew his type. He would squander his wishes quickly and pass her along to another who was much like him. It could be a century before she got away from his kind–who wanted lots of money, women and fame–and back to one like Billy. Sweet, gentle Billy who actually cared about her. They were few and far between. They always promised to free her and then, for whatever reason didn’t. Billy had held onto his last wish until now, but like so many others, he would die without making it.
    Getting revenge on the chieftain who murdered her husband had been very sweet, but might not have been worth the price.
    Billy stirred, reaching for her.
    “What is it, habibi ?” she asked, leaning over to hear his voice. His thick, dark hair had thinned and turned gray with the decades, but he was always handsome to her.
    “I am dying,” he told her for at least the thirtieth time.
    “Yes, Billy. You are dying.” She shifted to the bed and took his hand in both of hers. If she could cry, she would, but tears had been taken from her with a great many other things when she’d paid for her revenge. “Billy, you had promised to free me. Do you remember?”
    “Free you?” The cataracts filming his eyes made it hard to know if he understood.
    “Yes, Billy. Free me. Please. Just say the words.” How many times had she been here? Sitting beside a dying man, begging him to free her, only to have him die, leaving her in the possession of the next master. Disappointment shouldn’t surprise her, but she couldn’t not try.
    “My Melody. So loyal.” Billy touched her face with his withered hand. “With me until the end.”
    She clenched her teeth before she snapped that she’d had no choice. He was her master. She had to stay. But he had been so kind. For fifty years, he had been the best of masters. Treating her almost like a human. Never demanding anything horrible or demeaning. He had even helped her cook and keep the house when he could. “Yes, Billy, with you until the end. Now please free me before you die.”
    “Poor child, saddled with such an old man.”
    If she could cry, she would be sobbing now. That she should have spent so many years hoping again, only have him lose his mind and not free her as he had promised so long ago. “Billy, you must say the words. I wish you to be free. Just say the words.”
    “Say the words?”
    “Yes, Billy.” Melody clutched his hand between hers. “You want me to be free, don’t you? You don’t want me to have another master. You must say the words and believe them.”
    Billy’s eyes fell closed. “Say the words and believe them.” He stilled, his breathing shallow and even.
    Melody glanced at the dented brass lamp Billy had kept on the nightstand all these years. Her home. The moment Billy died, she would be sucked back into it and would stay there until some idiot who owned it uttered the fateful words “I wish I had a turkey sandwich.” Billy actually liked the thing. That was why he’d bought it in the first place.
    He stiffened and Melody braced herself. Any second now. “Melody,” he said in a clearer voice than she had heard in years, “I wish you free.” He reached out with his other hand in what was no doubt meant to be a dramatic move to throw the lamp across the room, but he didn’t have the strength to do more than push it an inch.
    Melody jerked backward, sucking a breath into her lungs. Her head buzzed with the flow of blood. “Billy!” she cried. She clapped her hands over her ears. It hurt. Had it always hurt? Had she