The Ghost Sonata

by Allison, Jennifer

  “Ming Fong Chen!” Professor Heslop announced.

  Ming Fong skipped to the front of the room and squeezed her eyes shut tightly as she reached into the hat, reminding Gilda of a child playing a silly game at a birthday party. She opened the piece of paper with extreme seriousness and walked slowly back to her seat.

  “Maybe she drew number one,” Gilda whispered.

  “Wendy Choy!”

  Wendy sauntered to the front of the room and drew her number. She didn’t look at the folded piece of paper until she returned to the back of the room and stood next to Gilda. When she opened it, her face wore the same pale, pinched expression Gilda had observed earlier that day.

  “What’s the matter?”

  Again, Wendy had a very disturbing feeling of recognition, as if she were being pulled toward something she couldn’t resist.

  Gilda elbowed Wendy. “Let’s see it!”

  Wendy handed Gilda the piece of paper. The number 9 was clearly written in black ink.

  Gilda stared at Wendy. “You’ve got that feeling again.”

  Wendy nodded. “But I have no idea why.”

  Gilda squinted at the number and noticed a distinct tickle in her left ear. Something about the number nine is significant, she thought. But what is it?

  Closing her eyes, Gilda concentrated on the number nine. An image entered her mind—a door with a number on it. Gilda visualized herself walking toward the door and opening it. Her eyes flew open when she realized she was picturing Wendy’s room in Wyntle House.

  “Hey!” Gilda declared, a bit too loudly, causing several teachers and students to shush her. “It’s your room number, Wendy!” she whispered excitedly. “Your room in Wyntle House is also number nine!”

  Wendy pulled her room key from her pocket and realized that Gilda was absolutely right; her room was number nine.

  “Are you impressed? My psychic skills are really improving.”

  “Maybe it’s just your memory that’s improving. Anyway, that’s not such a huge coincidence, is it?”

  Gilda suddenly remembered something else: Wendy drew the Nine of Swords during her tarot card reading. Gilda was about to share this revelation but then decided to keep this piece of information to herself; the tarot card reading was still a sore subject. “It’s probably just a coincidence,” said Gilda. “Unless—”

  “Unless what?”

  “What if there’s something weird about your room in Wyntle House?”

  “Like what?”

  “I have no idea. Just let me know if you notice anything odd, okay? And make sure you lock your door at night.”

  “Thanks for being so reassuring.”

  “Jenny Pickles!” Professor Heslop called from the front of the room.

  For a brief moment, bad omens were forgotten. Gilda and Wendy gaped at each other with bug-eyed glee at one of the most hilarious names they had ever encountered in real life.

  “Jenny Pickles!” Gilda whispered. “Can you believe it?”

  Gilda and Wendy craned their necks to catch a glimpse of Jenny Pickles, and were both disappointed when a perfectly normal-looking red-haired girl walked briskly to the front of the room, her long curls bouncing. She was actually quite pretty. She also looked distinctly familiar.

  “Hey, she was on the plane with us,” said Wendy. “And I think that’s her mom over there.” Wendy pointed to a plump woman whose carrot-colored hair exactly matched her daughter’s. With a flash of annoyance, Wendy remembered how the two of them had stared at her as they waited for their flight.

  “There’s no way that girl can win the competition,” Gilda whispered. “Can you imagine how the concert announcements would look? ‘Come see the London Symphony Orchestra—featuring Jenny Pickles!’”

  “Thank you very much indeed,” said Professor Heslop, after the last numbers had been drawn. “Please don’t forget to check the performance time for your number, which is posted in the lobby here in the Music Faculty Building. Remember—please arrive early at the Holywell Music Room for your performance tomorrow. Finally, very best of luck to all of you in the first round of the competition!”

  As the musicians mingled and gathered their belongings, Ming Fong bounded toward Gilda and Wendy.

  “What number did you get, Wendy?”

  Wendy showed her the number nine.

  “Hey, I have number eight!”

  Gilda and Wendy both wondered the same thing: was the close proximity of Ming Fong’s and Wendy’s numbers an eerie omen, or was this simply a meaningless coincidence?

  “Gary drew seven, and I told him I want to follow him. So funny I get the number I want! We get to wait backstage together!”

  “Great.” Wendy didn’t attempt to feign enthusiasm.

  “So glad I didn’t draw number ten, Wendy. Then I would play after you, and that would be bad because you are always so perfect.” Ming Fong fixed Wendy with an intense stare. “I know you will be the best player tomorrow.”

  “I’m not perfect,” said Wendy, once again feeling that she had somehow been jinxed even though Ming Fong’s words had been a compliment.

  10

  The Apparition

  I can switch rooms with you, if you want.” Gilda and Wendy sat on Wendy’s bed, watching a singing contest for couples who performed amateur duet versions of rock and pop songs.

  “Why? What’s wrong with your room?”

  “Nothing. I just thought you might feel safer if you weren’t staying in room number nine.”

  Wendy sighed as she picked up the remote and clicked off the television. “I can’t let these superstitions get to me, Gilda. I’m supposed to be a rational person.”

  “Just because you have a gut feeling you can’t easily explain doesn’t mean you aren’t a rational person, Wendy.”

  “It just bugs me that I have no idea what this feeling means.” Wendy clutched her knees to her chest and chewed on a lock of hair. “Maybe it’s all just performance anxiety or culture shock or something.”

  “That’s possible. I mean, your parents are from China, but you’ve never been out of the States.”

  “Neither have you.”

  “I went to Canada with my dad once, so I was more prepared for this experience.”

  “Canada doesn’t count. You can drive there in your car from Detroit.”

  “That’s such a stereotypical American attitude. You don’t even recognize Canada as a separate foreign country.”

  “You know what I mean,” said Wendy, twisting another lock of her hair and pausing to gnaw on it as if she were a small animal attempting to chew through a rope. “Going to Canada isn’t like going overseas.”

  “Stop chewing your hair, Wendy. Didn’t you ever hear about the girl who died from doing that?”

  “Here comes one of your urban legends.”

  “When they did the autopsy, there was a hair ball the size of a meteorite in her stomach.”

  “Thank you for the disgusting image. Anyway, my point was that there must be some reasonable explanation for this weird feeling I keep having.”

  Wendy was used to participating in Gilda’s investigations from a distance, from which she could offer objective advice while remaining slightly skeptical of the whole project. She hated the notion that she was now becoming an irrational, weak person. She certainly never expected to be in the role of someone who needed Gilda’s help—the kind of person who needed protection from some invisible, potentially sinister force. This feeling I keep having isn’t based on anything real, Wendy reminded herself. The tarot cards don’t mean anything, and drawing the number nine was just a little coincidence. “Look, I’d better get some sleep,” she said, determined to finally put an end to her first day in England. “The competition starts really early tomorrow.”

  “Okay,” said Gilda. “Knock on my door if I’m not up by eight, okay? I want to get up early so I can walk with you to the competition. Don’t forget—I’m right across the hall if you need me.”

  Wendy
stood up and picked up her toothbrush. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Gary is right next door, too,” Gilda added. “I’m sure he’d be up for a slumber party. Maybe he’d even let you play with his Luke Skywalker action figure if you ask nicely.”

  “Good night, Gilda.” Wendy gave Gilda a little shove out the door. “Don’t oversleep, because I’m leaving early tomorrow.”

  When she returned to her room, Gilda felt as if she had crashed into a wall of fatigue. She knew she should put on her pajamas and brush her teeth, but she suddenly felt too chilled to function, as if she were fighting a case of the flu. I’ll just lie down and get warm for a minute, she told herself. Without turning out the dim overhead light or changing into her pajamas, she kicked off her shoes and crawled under the thin duvet cover.

  Gilda huddled under the covers and listened to the gurgling and rumbling of pipes and the hissing of radiators in the old house. It’s like being trapped inside the digestive system of an old, gassy person, she thought. Through the thin walls, she heard Gary blowing his nose, followed by water running noisily into the bathtub. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to block out the sound of splashing, trickling water.

  Despite the noisiness of the house, Gilda quickly drifted into sleep and dreamed that she was turning pages as Wendy performed her piano music. The odd thing was that the two girls were in motion, as if they were riding on the back of a truck—as if the piano itself were a kind of vehicle. As Wendy played faster, the piano moved faster, until Gilda had a giddy sense of terror; they were in danger of losing control.

  “Slow down,” said Gilda.

  “You missed the turn!” Wendy snapped angrily.

  Gilda turned the page, but it was too late. They suddenly lurched forward into a deep ditch and crashed down into what seemed to be a bottomless pit.

  Gilda awoke to the unpleasant sound of water trickling through a pipe in the wall. She peered at her surroundings through half-opened eyes and found herself gazing into a face. It was a boy’s face, and it seemed to be watching her from a few feet above the ground. Then, the face gradually dissolved like an image being erased from a strip of film.

  As if hypnotized, Gilda watched the spot where the face had been. Did I just see a ghost?

  Despite her many experiences receiving messages through dreams, séances, and automatic writing, Gilda had never actually seen a ghost before.

  Gilda sat bolt upright in bed. “Who’s there?” she whispered aloud. There was no answer. She squinted into the dim light, but the face did not reappear.

  Gilda was about to run to Wendy’s room to tell her what she had seen, but then she reminded herself that the first round of the competition was the next morning. She knew Wendy hated being awakened in the middle of the night.

  Gilda stood up and decided to type a report of her experience instead:

  Gilda stopped typing and listened. The house was perpetually noisy in the night: every few seconds she heard sighing, creaking, and gurgling sounds that might be old pipes or shingles loosening in the wind—or something far stranger. Now more fully awake, she felt her heart beating faster and a prickling sensation in her limbs.

  Leaving the dim light on, Gilda practically dove back into her sagging bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. Again, she thought of running to Wendy’s room but resolved to let her best friend get some sleep the night before her competition.

  Wendy sat down, adjusted the piano bench, and placed her hands on the keys. Something was wrong: she couldn’t remember the opening notes of her first piece—the “Gigue” of the Bach French Suite in G Major. She glanced into the audience and saw her parents sitting at her mother’s manicure table, surrounded by tiny bottles of blood-red nail polish and watching with hopeful, fearful anticipation. Wendy closed her eyes and tried to concentrate, but something blocked her memory of the first measures of her music. Instead, she could only remember a single musical phrase—a simple melody in A minor.

  Play it, someone urged her. She began to play the notes she heard in her mind, and when she looked up again, she saw her parents’ crestfallen faces.

  Wendy suddenly awoke to the sound of real piano music—a simple, sad melody that reminded her of a folk song. The music came from somewhere in the house, possibly in a room right next to hers. Or was it coming from a floor below?

  Who’s practicing at this time of night? Wendy wondered, still half asleep and feeling lulled by the lyrical, melancholy mood of the music. Maybe that’s why I incorporated that music into my dream.

  Then, as she became more lucid, Wendy felt a shiver of fear. Hadn’t Mrs. Luard mentioned there was no piano in Wyntle House?

  She pulled the covers over her head and hugged her knees to her chest. Abruptly, the music stopped.

  Wendy lay in the darkness with her heart pounding, listening to a thick silence punctuated by the eerie hissing of the radiator. She wanted to run across the hallway to ask whether Gilda had also heard the music, but she somehow couldn’t make herself throw off the covers, expose herself to the chilly air, and step into the darkness of the hallway by herself. She had no idea what, exactly, she was afraid of, but she had the distinct feeling that somebody might be waiting for her in the hallway.

  Wendy lay awake long into the night, listening to every groan and creak of the house, wishing that she could somehow forget her fears and drift into sleep.

  11

  The Ritual

  Rain drummed upon the windowpanes and wind whistled across the roofs of terraced houses. Gilda glanced at her travel alarm clock and thought she must still be dreaming. How could it already be 8:15 A.M.? Why hadn’t her alarm gone off, and why hadn’t Wendy knocked on her door? Maybe Wendy decided to leave extra-early to practice before her performance, Gilda reasoned. Still, she could have at least tried to wake me up.

  Shivering, Gilda sprang out of bed, grabbed a towel, and hurried into the hallway. She discovered Jenny Pickles exiting the bathroom, her wet, red hair wrapped in a towel turban.

  “That bathtub in there is totally deesgustin’,” Jenny declared. “I’d rather be hosed down in the backyard.”

  “I thought it looked pretty grotty,” said Gilda, who was surprised to hear Jenny speak with a slight Southern accent.

  “Grotty?”

  “That the English way of saying ‘gross.’ I’m Gilda, by the way.” Gilda extended her hand with a businesslike friendliness, and Jenny raised her eyebrows with amusement.

  “Nice to meet you, Gilda. I’m Jenny.”

  “You’re Jenny Pickles.” Gilda couldn’t resist an opportunity to say the name Jenny Pickles. “I remember you from the drawing of numbers.”

  “My mom wants me to start using a stage name.”

  “I think Jenny Pickles is a great name. It’s very unique.”

  “And damn silly, too. You’re from Michigan, right?”

  Gilda nodded. “I think we saw you at the Detroit airport.”

  “Yeah, my mom and I just moved up to Detroit this year.” Jenny squinted at Gilda. “I think I saw your friend—that Asian girl—at a piano contest in Grand Rapids this year.”

  “You saw Wendy Choy at a competition?”

  “That’s right—Wendy Choy. She was awesome! Well, I’d better go make myself purdy if I’m going to turn up on time for my performance.”

  “Jenny—”

  “Yes?” Jenny paused on the steps.

  “This sounds weird—but have you noticed anything strange in this house since you’ve been here?” Gilda decided she might as well find out whether any other ghosts had been spotted in the guesthouse.

  “Hell, yeah.”

  Jenny counted items on her fingers as she spoke: “Creepy bath and shower, weird button to flush the toilet, breakfast of eggs and sausages that look like they’re going to crawl off your plate—”

  “I mean, have you noticed any other strange things?” Gilda decided it was best not to tell Jenny about the vision of a boy she had seen—at least not yet. She had learned dur
ing the past year that once people expect to see ghosts, they often start seeing them everywhere.

  “What sort of strange things?”

  “Jenny! What the hell are you doing piddlin’ around up there? Your hair rollers are hot!”

  “Coming, Mummy!” Jenny rolled her eyes and tried to fake an English accent at the sound of her mother’s loud, twangy voice from the floor below. “Sorry, Gilda; I’d better get moving before my hair dries looking like the Bride of Frankenstein or my mother has a coronary fit. She believes that ‘hair is the key to success.’”

  “Your mother is absolutely right. In fact, I was just about to give myself a quick perm before I head down to the competition.”

  Jenny snorted with laughter and bounded down the steps to fix her hair.

  Gilda entered the grotty bathroom and found that the floor was cold and wet. A sheer, flimsy curtain fluttered over a drafty window, forcing bathers to expose their naked bodies to the walled gardens below as they climbed into the shower.

  Gilda normally wasn’t the squeamish type, but the combination of slimy white lime scale, black grout, and a crumbly rusty-brown substance that surrounded the edges of an ancient tub perched on porcelain feet made her feel a new kinship with people who rarely bathed.

  If you can face a ghost, you can face a dirty bathtub, Gilda told herself.

  She turned on the shower pump and discovered that the handheld shower head attached to the bathtub didn’t work. There was no way around it; she would have to take a bath. Gilda took a deep breath, climbed into the tub, and stuck her head under the running water. She gasped, realizing that the water flowed from a single spout in two separate streams—one boiling hot and the other freezing cold. She shampooed hastily, braced herself for the simultaneous onslaught of hot and cold water as she rinsed, then hurriedly wrapped herself in a towel, shivering in the chilly air.

  Gilda scurried back to her room and hastily grabbed her “London mod” outfit, pulling on the white tights and boots and the checked wool minidress. She didn’t have time to dry her wet hair, so she quickly pulled her hair back in a ponytail and stuck the large, plumed hat on her head instead. She grabbed her coat, umbrella, and shoulder bag and ran out the door.