Free The Year of Shadows by Claire Legrand Page A

Maestro didn’t cry. The Maestro was made of stone and numbers and anger, and mostly he was made of music—cold, unfeeling, metal-tubed music.
    But I could hear him crying. As I stood there, a sick feeling growing in my throat, I heard him say: “Cara.”
    Cara. Mom’s name.
    “Cara, please .”
    I hurried back to bed. I couldn’t banish the sounds of the Maestro crying, no matter how hard I pressed my ears to my head. Eventually, Igor found me and crawled into my arms, and I plucked a single black hair from his tail. It would have to do.

    At midnight, I heard a knock on the parking lot door. I pushed it open and moonlight poured in.
    Henry and Joan rushed inside. Behind them, their cab pulled away from the curb. The city was dark and quiet, except for windows in the high-up office buildings, where no one ever slept.
    “You snuck out okay?” I said.
    “Yeah,” said Henry. “No problems here.”
    “Oh, yes,” Joan whispered. “Daddy sleeps like the dead. And did you see? It’s a full moon. Full moons are the absolute best for séances, they make everything more potent.”
    I shut the door behind them and turned the latch. “This way.”
    “I hope you have all your materials,” Joan said from behind me in the dark. The light of my flashlight bobbed ahead of us.
    “Candles, incense, matches,” I said.
    “Feather, bowl,” said Henry.
    “And I’ve got the Ouija board,” said Joan. Her voice hushed on the words Ouija board . “And the hairs.”
    “Yeah, me too,” said Henry quickly.
    Joan had decided to hold our séance onstage. She said the pipe organ would provide ambiance . I led them there using an indirect route, so neither of them could see too much of where I lived.
    When we entered the Hall, Joan grabbed my flashlight.
    “Oh my gosh,” she whispered, “this is marvelous .” She ran around the Hall, pointing the flashlight up into the balconies, across the gleaming pipes of the organ.
    We set up in a circle in the middle of the stage. Joan lit the candles and set up the incense burner. She whipped out a water bottle from her bag, filled up Henry’s bowl, and drew a cross above the water with her finger.
    I tried not to laugh. Joan wasn’t a priest or anything; I doubted that cross would do much good, if we ever needed it.
    A queasy feeling turned over in my stomach. Would spirits come for us? And would they be good or bad? Or was it even that simple, with spirits? I looked around at the dimly lit Hall. Shadows stretched everywhere. When Joan lit the candles, the shadows danced too.
    Henry had started to sweat. I hoped I didn’t look as nervous as he did.
    “We’ll sit in a circle,” Joan said. “You right there, Olivia, and Henry, right next to her. Close enough to hold hands. I’ll sit on Henry’s other side.”
    I sat down, scowling at the floor. Maybe if I spat on my palms, we could skip the whole hand-holding thing.
    “Hairs,” Joan said, holding out her hand.
    She dumped them into the bowl of water.
    “Feather.”
    Henry handed Joan a ratty pigeon feather. Then she sat down beside me and set the bowl and feather in the middle of our circle.
    “Place your personal artifacts in the circle,” Joan said, spreading her arms, “and tell us why you chose them. I will go first.”
    She placed a tiny rag doll next to the feather. “This is Magda. My grandma made her when I was little. She reminds me of family and togetherness, and those are strong positive emotions, and positive emotions keep the evil spirits away.” She patted Magda on the head, smiling. “Now you, Olivia.”
    Igor crept forward out of the darkness of stage left, his eyes wide. Olivia, what are you doing? What is all this?
    His expression made me nervous, but I slid my sketchpad forward anyway. “This is my sketchpad. It’s where I keep all my drawings. I take it everywhere I go.”
    “And?”
    And Mom gave it to me and told me it was important to dream. Dreaming tells us who we are and scrubs away the bad