Free The Ghost Sonata by JENNIFER ALLISON

was too late because Wendy was already peering over her shoulder.
    â€œWhere did that come from?”
    â€œI just found it here on your floor. It seems like someone slipped it under the door.”
    Gilda and Wendy contemplated the mysterious card. Worse than the gloomy picture on the Nine of Swords was the realization that someone had purposefully placed it under Wendy’s door with the hope that she would discover it on the first morning of the competition.
    â€œIt seems like a warning of some kind,” said Gilda.
    Wendy nodded and grew very pale, remembering the music she had heard in the middle of the night. For some reason, she didn’t want to tell Gilda about it yet. She still hoped it had all been an unusually vivid dream.
    â€œDon’t worry about this now, Wendy.”
    â€œEasy for you to say.”
    â€œI’ll figure out what this means. You just finish getting dressed, and I’ll run downstairs and grab a couple muffins or something to take with us.”
    Â 
    Outside the door to Wendy’s room, Gilda pulled out her journal and quickly scribbled some notes to herself:

12

    The Holywell Music Room
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    Holding their umbrellas to shield themselves from a steady, monotonous drizzle, Gilda and Wendy walked quickly through Gloucester Green, past rows of buses, an assortment of pizza and kebab shops, and a handful of touristy pubs. They made their way to Broad Street, where Gilda felt compelled to pause and peer up at a row of giant sculpted heads that perched on the semicircular gate surrounding the Sheldonian Theater. With square beards and wide eyes shaped like giant olives, they seemed to gaze above the street as if they were gods who could see some distant future event.
    â€œI think they’re supposed to be Roman emperors,” Wendy said, remembering something she had read in a guidebook.
    â€œThey kind of look like those guys we used to see when my dad took us to the Harley-Davidson convention in Detroit.”
    â€œGilda, come on! I’m late enough as it is!”
    The girls hurried on to Holywell Street, where the narrow road was lined with terraced houses painted a variety of pastel colors—white, blue, lime green, pale pink. Just ahead were the high, stone walls of New College. Weary-looking students emerged from an arched doorway that reminded Gilda of the entrance to a castle. They pulled on backpacks, jumped on bicycles, and sped down the street, presumably in search of coffee at one of the cafés.
    Gilda and Wendy stood on the sidewalk in front of the Holywell Music Room—a simple white building with two arched windows that seemed to peer at the girls with a surprised expression.
    Wendy suddenly wished she could make herself much smaller—the size of a mouse that could scurry away in the gutter or hide in a corner of the building until the competition was over.
    â€œWe made it!” Gilda glanced at her watch, relieved that Wendy still had fifteen minutes before her performance time. Then she realized that Wendy seemed paralyzed by the sight of the Holywell Music Room.
    â€œI can’t do it,” Wendy whispered.
    â€œWendy, what is your deal? This isn’t like you at all.”
    â€œDid you know this place is like one of the oldest concert halls in the whole world?”
    â€œIt is?” To Gilda’s eye, the building looked less antiquated than the medieval architecture of many of the college buildings.
    â€œI mean, it’s one of the first places ever built just for performing music—with no other purpose.”
    â€œWell, your purpose is to play music. So let’s go, okay?”
    â€œWhat business do I have playing in the Holywell Music Room, where so many great musicians have performed? I’m just a kid from Detroit who can’t even wake up on time.”
    â€œShould I get out my violin, or do you want to have your self-pity party without music?”
    â€œWithout music.”
    â€œWendy,