The Ghost Sonata

Table of Contents

 

Prepare Yourself

I
wasn't
prepared to feel helpless as I watched my best friend experience a disturbing change. Nothing in my
Master Psychic's Handbook
had prepared me to watch the most reliable person I know become the victim of the most unusual haunting I had yet encountered.

The Chinese have a saying: “If you believe it, there will be, but if you don't, there will not.” But what about people like Wendy, who do their best to remain rational--even a bit skeptical--and who nevertheless find themselves haunted by an unwelcome ghost?

The English have a saying when calamity strikes: “Put the kettle on; we'll have some tea.”

But I needed more than tea to help unravel a haunting on foreign soil. I needed every ounce of the expertise and psychic intuition I had developed in my career as Gilda Joyce, Psychic Investigator.

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Gilda Joyce,
Psychic Investigator

 

Gilda Joyce
The Ladies of the Lake

DUTTON CHILDREN'S BOOKS
A division of Penguin Young Readers Group

 

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the
author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2007 by Jennifer Allison

 

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Published in the United States by Dutton Children's Books,
a division of Penguin Young Readers Group
345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014
www.penguin.com/youngreaders

 

 

eISBN : 978-1-440-65276-9

—ALDOUS HUXLEY

I suppose none of this would have happened to us if we hadn't traveled to Oxford, England--to a land where eccentric scholars ponder the great questions of life while safely nestled within their Gothic walls and dreamy gardens, to a city of antiquity, where ghosts haunt the winding back streets, silent cloisters, and damp hallways of elite colleges.

My best friend, Wendy Choy, hoped to distinguish herself in an international piano competition. I simply dreamed of traveling overseas to escape a tedious week of school, a seemingly endless Michigan winter, and the humiliation of an unrequited ninth-grade crush. I pictured myself snacking on tea and scones while practicing my English accent. I would impress college dons and students alike with my penchant for using British sarcasm and slang, not to mention my lively collection of interesting hats. Together, Wendy and I would bask in the warm glow of applause following her piano performances.

Naturally, I was also prepared to test my psychic skills in a land where nearly every old hotel, pub, and college library has a ghost story--a tale of some lonely apparition appearing to the sleep-deprived student or drunken reveler in the wee hours of the morning.

I was prepared for all of these things.

I
wasn't
prepared to feel helpless as I watched my best friend experience a disturbing change. Nothing in my
Master Psychic's Handbook
had prepared me to watch the most reliable person I know become the victim of the most unusual haunting I had yet encountered.

The Chinese have a saying: “If you believe it, there will be, but if you don't, there will not.”

But what about people like Wendy, who do their best to remain rational--even a bit skeptical-- and who nevertheless find themselves haunted by an unwelcome ghost?

The English have a saying when calamity strikes: “Put the kettle on; we'll have some tea.”

But I needed more than tea to help unravel a haunting on foreign soil. I needed every ounce of the expertise and psychic intuition I had developed in my career as Gilda Joyce, Psychic Investigator.

1

The Nightmare

 

Wendy Choy saw two shadows in the room. She heard the clinking of knives—metal scraping against metal—then a tearing sound, as if someone were ripping cloth or gauze to make bandages.

“Hilp me wheel the tray over hiere. Make sure everything is sterile, okay? Good, good.” The familiar voice had a Russian accent. “How are you feeling, Windy?”

“I don't know. Sss—” For some reason, Wendy couldn't find the word she wanted to speak.

“Don't worry; it will be quick,” said the voice. “We need to make a few adjustments.”

Someone flipped a switch, and an overhead light revealed a grand piano on top of which shiny objects were spread upon a tablecloth. As Wendy looked more closely, she saw scissors, knives, scalpels—an assortment of surgical instruments lined up very symmetrically, like rows of piano keys.

“No—” Wendy breathed. “N—” Her brain screamed the word, but it seemed that her voice no longer worked. Her teeth clenched. She felt paralyzed. She couldn't articulate the word no. She couldn't move or speak.

In the light, she saw two faces peering over the table of instruments—a wrinkled, wizened face with raccoonlike eyeliner and next to her a round, moonlike face, the face of a little girl. Two hands picked up scalpels and began to cut.

 

Wendy awoke suddenly to discover a spiral notebook embedded in her cheek and a puddle of drool on top of her biology textbook. She had dozed off while studying in the school library, and she was late. It was after four o'clock, and her mother would already be sitting in the parking lot, waiting to drive her to her piano lesson.