The canal had its own way of waking a man. Theo was still learning it. He sat cross-legged on the roof of his narrowboat, feeling the cool damp seep through the denim of his jeans, the violin balanced against his knee. Around him, the world was undecided, half caught in the tatters of mist, half revealed by the sun’s gold intrusion. Every sound felt close here: the plink of water against steel, the caw of a crow staking territory, even the faint tick of his instrument’s peg as the morning chill shifted the wood.

He drew a slow breath. Mornings on the cut were too honest. No crowds, no distortion, no lights or amplifiers to dress up the truth. Out here, every note landed bare, stripped of decoration. If you played carelessly, the canal threw the carelessness back at you. If you played fiercely, the water remembered.

He lifted the violin into place, the chin rest cool against his jaw. The first stroke of the bow rasped a complaint rather than a greeting. He grimaced and tried again, dragging the tune forward, willing his fingers to find the shape. What came out was neither polished nor broken, but something in between, like a voice cracking on a confession. It was the kind of sound he had fled the city to uncover again, the one that lay beneath noise and applause. Yet hearing it made him restless.

Theo told himself he had wanted this: an escape from the band’s suffocating rehearsals, the dressing-room arguments that never quite erupted but never quite settled. But quiet was its own tyrant. It left him alone with the ache of wondering whether the fire inside him was dwindling. The last gig’s applause had sounded obligatory. Even his bandmates had stopped meeting his eyes.

The bow slipped, screeching against the string. Theo swore softly and lowered the instrument. He rubbed his face with the heel of his hand, hair falling into his eyes. You asked for space, he reminded himself. You begged for silence. Now here it is. So, what’s your excuse?

A crunch of footsteps on the towpath pulled him back. He turned his head, and there she was, the woman from the boat down the line. Yesterday, he had seen her fumbling with her mooring lines, tying and retying with the anxious energy of someone who wanted mastery but had only muscle memory to show for it. He had noticed the raw line burns on her palms, the way she stared at the water as though waiting for permission. Today, in the clear light, he noticed more.

Chestnut hair pulled hastily back, a jacket that seemed chosen for memory rather than warmth, boots that were still learning the towpath. She carried herself like someone who had inherited both a vessel and a burden.

Theo felt a flick of recognition, as unwelcome as it was undeniable. She carried weight in her shoulders the way he carried it in his chest. Different stories, same gravity.

“You always sneak up on people like that?” he asked, because humour was easier than truth.

Her apology came quickly, cheeks colouring. And when she said she had grown up on the boat, her chin lifted in that way people do when they’re daring you to contradict them. Theo studied her, letting the silence lengthen. The line marks. The stubborn glint. The grief she tried to swallow.

“Doesn’t mean you belong to it yet,” he said. The words had sharper edges than he intended, but the truth was like that. Boats didn’t reward sentiment. They respected patience, rhythm, and respect. Bloodlines didn’t make the knots hold.

Her eyes flashed, defensive, then shuttered. He almost regretted it. Almost. He had lived too long with false applause; better to give her honesty, even if it stung. When she asked if he belonged, he laughed quietly. Did he belong anywhere? Not really. Only to the violin, and even that relationship felt precarious these days.

“For now,” he said, and played again, letting the notes dismiss her and protect him both. Yet when she walked away, the sound of her footsteps lingered, a rhythm his bow tried to echo without meaning to. He watched her disappear into the mist and, against his better judgment, felt that he would notice her absence more than he should.

By midmorning, he was restless. The boat’s cabin was too small, the silence too loud. He slung the violin into its case and set out toward the village. The towpath underfoot had its own percussion: the crunch of gravel, the soft give of damp earth at the edges. Crows stalked the furrows of nearby fields, and the smell of tilled soil carried on the breeze.

Theo’s reflection in a window caught him as he passed. Tall and lean from a life of touring, shoulders slightly stooped from too many nights carrying gear and too many mornings waking up in borrowed beds. His hair dark, unkempt, brushing the collar of his jacket—framed a face that wore its fatigue honestly. Eyes a shade between green and grey, depending on the light, always seemed older than the grin he could still summon when he wanted to charm. He had the hands of a musician: long-fingered, calloused, restless even when idle.

The bridge appeared around a bend, stone arched and moss-flecked. Just beyond, the day widened into a market square. Theo paused at the edge, taking it in. Stalls spilled colour against the grey stone: oranges stacked in pyramids, jars of honey glowing like captured sunlight, loaves dusted white with flour. Voices tangled in the air, vendors calling prices, children laughing, the occasional bark of a dog tied to a post.

It should have been ordinary. To Theo, it felt theatrical, like a stage set designed to remind him what community looked like. He drifted among the stalls, hands in pockets, the violin case bumping against his leg. A baker offered him a heel of bread, warm from the oven; he bit into it and tasted both kindness and salt. At another stall, a woman sold coal by the sack, her arms corded with strength from lifting more than her share. Theo bought a small bag, the weight digging into his shoulder, grounding him.

At the far end of the square, music rose: another fiddle, but not his. Rough, rustic, joined by a squeezebox and a whistle. A group of locals had gathered, tapping feet, laughing when the rhythm wobbled and then righted itself.

Theo felt his chest tighten with recognition. The fiddler was an older man, late sixties, hair silver but still thick, posture steady despite the years. His violin bore the marks of long service: varnish worn pale where fingers had pressed thousands of tunes into it. He played with a simplicity that carried weight. No flash, no showmanship, just melody drawn clean, like a well-cut stone.

Theo lingered at the edge, listening. The old man’s bowing was economical, each stroke purposeful. It was music shaped by tradition, by nights in pubs and mornings at fairs, by repetition until the tunes lived in muscle and marrow. Theo’s own style had always been fire and edge, leaning on speed, bending notes until they broke. This man’s style was river water: steady, patient, inevitable.

Their eyes met briefly across the crowd. The old fiddler’s gaze was sharp but not unkind, as if measuring Theo without judgment. Theo inclined his head in acknowledgment, and the man answered with the barest nod before slipping back into the tune.

Theo’s fingers twitched at his side, itching for the bow. Yet he stayed still. This wasn’t his stage. Not yet. He let the melody wash over him, feeling both humbled and provoked, aware of how much he had to learn and how different their paths had been.

As the crowd clapped and coins rattled into a cap, Theo turned away. He had come here to disappear, not to measure himself against tradition. Yet he carried the sound with him down the row of stalls, a counterpoint to his own restless fire.

And through it all, he found his thoughts circling back to Ivy, the raw hands, the stubborn lift of her chin. Belonging was something they were both wrestling with, though in very different arenas. He adjusted the coal sack on his shoulder and walked back toward the canal, violin case knocking against his hip, the echo of two very different fiddles playing in his mind.