The Ghost Sonata (28 page)

“You and Julian were ‘rolling around in a graveyard'?”

“Not exactly. We were actually standing up, and there was this tombstone between us.”

“That better not have been Charles Drummond's tombstone.”

“What if it was?”

“You kissed a boy over the grave of the ghost who wants to murder me?!”

“Wendy, we don't have any evidence that the ghost wants to
murder
you. Besides, you make it sound so cheap and sordid.”

“It does sound a little tasteless.”

“Well, it wasn't. It was really romantic, with the rain falling and old mossy tombstones around us everywhere.”

“The worms, the corpses . . .”

“It was very Gothic.” Gilda watched as Wendy twisted her long hair into a tight, angry ponytail. “Hey, maybe I could ask Julian if he has a friend you could meet. Then we could go on a double date! I also think Julian could really help us with this investigation. I mean, this ritual I was telling you about seemed to really work—”

“I'm not
jealous
, Gilda. The last thing I have time for right now is a boyfriend.”

“I didn't say you were jealous.”

Wendy sighed. In truth, she was a little jealous: she was weary of the competition pressure, and she couldn't help envying Gilda's freedom to do something as zany and adventurous as kissing an English boy in a graveyard. “I guess I just don't feel like talking now. I'd probably better get some sleep,” she said. “I have a ton of practicing in front of me tomorrow if I'm going to be in shape for the final round.”

“Okay.” Gilda stood up but hesitated before leaving. “Are you sure you're okay, Wendy?”

“I'll be better if I can just get some rest tonight for a change.”

“Just knock on my door if you want to talk.”

“I'm fine.”

But Wendy wasn't okay. After Gilda left, she walked across the room to find her pajamas, and for an instant, she glimpsed someone
else's
reflection in the mirror.

37

The Accident

 

In the middle of the night, Wendy awoke with a feeling that there was something important she needed to do—as if she had left something vital somewhere. She stood up, pulled on her boots, grabbed her coat, then quietly left her room without having the faintest idea where she was heading.

As she tiptoed down the stairs, Wendy had the sense that she was a mere observer of her own actions. Her body had suddenly become a vehicle that some unknown driver controlled, and she herself had become a passenger along for the ride. The stranger had a plan—something he or she wanted very badly, and Wendy did not feel that she could protest.

This is a weird dream,
Wendy thought to herself,
because it feels so real.

She made her way down the flights of steps, then out the front door and into the cold night.

 

At the same moment, Gilda awoke from a light, fitful sleep to the sound of soft footsteps padding quickly down the old staircase. She opened her door to peek into the hallway and was alarmed to see Wendy's door left ajar.

Gilda hurriedly stuck her feet into slippers and jogged down the long flights of stairs just in time to glimpse Wendy swiftly disappearing through the front door of the house.

Shivering in her pajamas without a coat, Gilda stepped into the cold night air. She heard the
clop, clop, clop
of Wendy's footsteps echoing down the dark street as steadily as a loud metronome.

“Wendy!” Gilda's voice was lonely in the empty street.

Slender in the long, unbuttoned coat that billowed loosely behind her, Wendy moved with unwavering purpose, as if propelled by a little engine set on autopilot. This wasn't Wendy's usual slouching shuffle. For a moment, Gilda had a palpable feeling of unreality, as if she had suddenly awakened to find herself following a stranger she had mistaken for Wendy—as if she herself were dreaming.

“Hey! Wendy!” Gilda yelled. “WEN-DEE! WHERE ARE YOU GOING?”

It was as if Wendy were completely deaf. Was she sleepwalking? Gilda followed her along the curving row of Victorian houses that gazed down at the two girls with darkened, hollow eyes.

Wendy began to walk even faster through Jericho, nearing the entrance to Port Meadow. The sound of a fast-approaching car broke the silence, and Gilda suddenly started sprinting. She knew she must catch up to Wendy before it was too late.

As a car sped toward the two girls, Wendy calmly stepped into the street, directly in its path.

38

Dr. Cudlip and the Baffling Case

 

The car squealed to a halt just as Gilda grabbed Wendy's coat and pulled her back onto the sidewalk without a split second to spare. The two toppled onto the pavement.

“Bloody students!” the driver yelled. “Get off the road, you daft cows!”

“Daft cow yourself!” Gilda retorted, gasping for breath and wishing she could think up a more original comeback.

“Go home and stop loiterin' about on the streets!”

“We will after you go take some driving lessons!”

The driver abruptly revved her car's engine and sped away, muttering something about “irresponsible American kids.”

The impact of hitting the sidewalk and the angry exchange between Gilda and the driver seemed to shake Wendy from her trance.

“Gilda,” she said, “I think there's something terribly wrong with me.”

 

The next morning, Gilda and Wendy sat in a dreary National Health Service waiting room. The surroundings vaguely reminded Gilda of the experience of waiting with her brother to get his driver's license at the Department of Motor Vehicles. A weary-looking woman sat across from the two girls with a baby who cried weakly; a toddler solemnly observed Gilda and Wendy while picking his nose. Most interestingly, two elderly women who appeared to be identical twins sat dressed in matching white overcoats and furry white hats, their hands folded and their crinkled mouths set in thin lines of pink lipstick.
I wonder if they both have the same illness,
Gilda thought. The room was devoid of magazines, but posters on the wall reminded patients that AIDS IS STILL REAL! and PRENATAL HEALTH BEGINS WITH YOU!

“Wendy,” Gilda whispered, “are you sure you want to see a doctor?”

“Gilda, I stepped in front of a car last night without even knowing what I was doing. What if I do that again—or something worse?”

“I know. I'm worried, too. I just don't know if a regular doctor will be able to help you with problems caused by a ghost.”

“But what if it
isn't
a ghost? What if I have a medical condition, like . . . a brain tumor or something awful like that?”

Gilda felt an unpleasant cold sensation in her stomach. “Even if you did have something like that—and I'm sure you
don't
—you wouldn't walk out of here knowing it today. Believe me, you'd only leave a little more worried than you are now.” Gilda remembered how her father had been sent from specialist to specialist, each of whom ordered multiple tests—a wearying dance between hope and despair—until finally, a diagnosis was given, and everyone settled into the bleak certainty of bad news.

No,
Gilda thought,
this cannot happen to Wendy.
At the moment, even a “substitute ghost” seemed preferable.

“You're saying I shouldn't even go to the doctor?”

“No, you should. I guess I just don't like doctors' offices much.”

Wendy's face softened as she remembered why Gilda hated waiting around in hospitals. “Sorry—I forgot. And I know what you mean.”

Finally, someone called Wendy's name. The two girls followed a weary-looking nurse into an examination room.

“I haven't been feeling like myself,” Wendy explained to the nurse, who regarded her with a level stare.
Why are you wasting our time?
her gaze seemed to suggest.
We don't feel like ourselves either.

“She might have a brain tumor,” Gilda blurted. “She needs to see a doctor urgently.” Based on memories of her father's ordeal, Gilda believed that it was necessary to convey hyperbolic urgency if one wanted to be taken at all seriously by the medical profession.

The nurse raised an eyebrow. “You've been having headaches? Dizziness?”

“Some.”

“Tell her how you've been hearing things, Wendy.”

Wendy shot Gilda an irritated glance. “I—I've been hearing things that aren't there.”

The nurse frowned and scribbled a note on her clipboard.

“She almost got hit by a car last night,” Gilda added. “She's a potential danger to herself and others.”

“I'm not a danger to
others
, Gilda.”

“The doctor will see you in a few minutes,” said the nurse, deciding to let the doctor get to the bottom of this case.

 

While she and Wendy waited for the doctor, Gilda passed the time by testing tongue depressors to determine whether they were different from the ones in America. She was sticking a tongue depressor in Wendy's mouth when a young, curly-haired doctor entered the room.

“Best not to play with the medical supplies, if you please,” said the doctor, snatching the tongue depressors from Gilda's hand and dropping them in the trash.

“I'm Doctor Cudlip. You must be Wendy Choy, then.” Dr. Cudlip quickly shook Wendy's hand. He eyed the notes the nurse had left and glanced at his watch.

Gilda wondered what the nurse had written on the chart. She always found it frustrating that you never got to
see
the notes doctors and nurses left for each other. What if the nurse had written something like,
Annoying kids—move them out quickly!
or
Probable insanity; institutionalize pronto!
?

“Here from the States, are you?”

Gilda and Wendy nodded. “I'm here for a piano competition,” Wendy explained.

At this, Dr. Cudlip's face brightened and he looked at Wendy directly for the first time. In an instant, she became a person of interest for him. “You're competing in the Young Virtuosos Competition?”

“Yes.”

“Brilliant!” Dr. Cudlip sat down on a stool as if he suddenly found himself with time to kill. “I studied piano myself, but I never quite stayed with it long enough to qualify for one of the big competitions. Now I wish I could still play more than anything; you're very lucky to have that talent.”

Wendy was familiar with people like Dr. Cudlip—professionals who had studied the piano as children but quit due to lack of interest or talent—doctors, lawyers, and dentists who had abandoned music for something more lucrative and practical, but who still harbored nostalgia for their dreams of concert-stage glory. As adults, they either wished that someone had
forced
them to continue or wholly rejected all artistic pursuits as ridiculous and impractical.

“I'm Gilda Joyce, Wendy's page-turner and official manager.” Gilda extended her hand.

“Pleased to meet you, Gilda,” Dr. Cudlip replied, with considerably less interest than he had shown toward Wendy. He reviewed his chart and observed Wendy quizzically. “You've been having some headaches?”

Wendy did her best to describe her sleeplessness, the music that continually interrupted her concentration, the experience of awakening in the middle of the night and feeling compelled to search for some object she had lost.

Dr. Cudlip stood up and placed his stethoscope on Wendy's back to listen to her heartbeat.

“And when did all of this start?”

“Mostly since I've been here in Oxford.”

“Is jet lag a problem?”