Free Aria in Ice by Flo Fitzpatrick

magic flute—isn’t that
worth more shattered bones?) would not look good on my
insurance records.
    I reached the top of the rickety stairway.
Five doors; all closed. The hallway was silent in a way that
suggested no living person had filled the space with sound in two
centuries. I shrugged away the chill attacking me between my
shoulder blades, marched to Door Number One and flung it open.
    Empty. No furniture. No murals, no window
seats. If my Ignatz hung out here, he’d be bored in ten seconds. I
turned around to face Door Number Two right across the hall. I
peeked inside and was instantly disappointed. I could see furniture
but the assortment was definitely Twenty-first century. No
self-respecting spook would take up residence in this space. I
headed down the hall toward Door Number Three.
    I stopped. Music. Definitely. And not just
any music—the instrument I heard was a flute. I closed my eyes and
listened until I could make out the melody. Mozart. The Magic
Flute . The Papageno/Papagena duet, which is the frothiest,
lightest piece in the opera. My head began bobbing to the tune even
as I quietly opened Door Number Three.
    “Oh yeah.” Any ghost would be proud to call
this home. It wasn’t luxuriant; it was the comfortable residence of
a gifted musician.
    Two identical floral damask-covered divans
faced one another from the east and west sides of the room. A large
instrument that looked like a cross between a harpsichord and a
glockenspiel sat smack in the center. Diagonally across from the
instrument was a music stand looming above a heavy, dark, carved
wooden chair. A leather-bound book lay on the seat as though the
reader had just plopped it down to take a quick break for a
look-see outside. A window seat with a tapestry far less violent
than the scene from the Duskova parlor took up at least eight feet
under three side-by-side windows. The shape of the moon had been
etched into each piece of glass. The walls were decorated with two
huge gilt-edged mirrors and several pieces of artwork bearing the
name Boucher. I’m no art historian, but even I recognized Boucher.
This was not a poster print, but an original work. Or a forgery,
but a damn good one. Johnny doing more than murals?
    The music that had drawn me to Door Number
Three had faded to an almost imperceptible level while I’d been
taking my survey of the furnishings, but I could still make out the
melody. What the heck. I opened my mouth and sang about four bars.
The acoustics in this place made the Metropolitan Opera House in
New York sound like a garage. I began hunting for any tape players,
pods, Cd’s run by remotes or anything else that could explain where
the music was coming from even though I was convinced I was correct
in my first hypothesis—Ignatz Jezek was haunting the place and
giving concerts—at least to ghost listeners with second sight.
    A different piece of music began to play. I
strained but the song stayed tantalizingly out of reach. Not
classical, that was for sure. It sounded like a show tune. I closed
my eyes and let the sound drift over me—and it clicked. “ Night
and Day.” Cole Porter. Written in the Nineteen-Thirties.
Interesting. Could ghosts play tunes that hadn’t even been composed
until the ghost had been dead two hundred years or so?
    Sheet music had been left on the music stand.
I leaned down to check any fun titles and instead found a flute
rested calmly in the crevice of the stand. I nearly screamed,
“ Magic flute! I’ve found it!” On closer inspection, it was
clear this wasn’t the Jezek flute. If the metal material hadn’t
convinced me, then the date of 1981 and the inscription,
“ Michna’s Music Shoppe” sealed the non-magical and clearly
modern nature of the instrument.
    I turned my attention to the leather-bound
book I’d seen resting in a chair. I was in the process of lifting
it so I could at least check out the title when voices sounded from
the hall. I’m not normally into kleptomania but