When the Curtain Rises (9 page)

“Wait—” Chloe threw up her hands. “You have to understand. Just talking about this makes me feel sick. It's like there's this
thing
inside me, waiting to pounce when I even
think
about performing.”

“So do you want to do it or not?” asked Nyssa.

“I
want
to do it. I just need to take it in little steps.”

Nyssa shrugged. “All right, I'll get the form then.”

“Thanks,” Chloe said, letting out her breath. “Guess I'll have to start doing some serious practicing.”

“You'd better. You've only got a few weeks left. Sorry,” Nyssa added when she saw the pained expression on Chloe's face. “Little steps. I won't say another word.” Chloe and Nyssa worked their way through the storage room and two other rooms next to it, but they didn't find the lock that went with Chloe's tiny key.

They were on their way downstairs shortly before suppertime when Nyssa came to a halt on the first-floor landing. “Lake's still there,” she said as she peered at the painting of the carnival.

Chloe stepped forward to look. “The lake hasn't changed, but he's moved.” She pointed at the snake charmer crouched beside a cage full of snakes. “And so has he,” she said, moving her finger to the magician seated on a crate beside the snake charmer. “Plus the fiery balls he was juggling are gone.”

“Are you sure?” said Nyssa. “It looks the same to me. I didn't memorize all the details.”

Chloe shook her head in exasperation. “It's different, really! Can't you see that?”

“I don't know,” said Nyssa. “Is it possible that you're getting the details confused with something you dreamed about?”

Chloe folded her arms across her chest. “I didn't dream it, and I'm not making this up. I know what I saw.”

“Sorry, Chloe,” Nyssa said with a shrug. “When you said the lake was different, that's all I really paid attention to. I promise I'll check it more carefully next time. Tomorrow, okay?”

Chloe made her way to the sitting room after dinner that evening. “This is for real,” she told herself as she closed the door firmly behind her and took a seat at the piano.

She stretched her fingers and ran through her scales first. When she'd completed the scales, she played a passage from Debussy's
Clair de Lune
from memory. She worked at the passage until she was satisfied that her wrists and fingers were limber, and then she turned to the sheet music she'd discovered earlier inside the piano bench. Most of the music had proven to be too simple to hold her interest, but there were a few pieces that stood out from the rest. There was a Chopin nocturne and a handwritten arrangement called
The Ballad
of Petticoat Joe
that had a number of challenging passages.

Chloe carefully arranged the pages of
Petticoat Joe
on the ledge in front of her. She tackled the piece in parts, playing first the right-hand part and then the left. Slowly, note by note, the piece began to take shape under her fingers. She tried playing it through with both hands, but it was a fast piece and the rhythm was tricky in a few sections. “It'll come,” she told herself. She pushed a stray curl out of her eye and started again from the top.

Lying awake in bed later that night, Chloe thought about the story her great-aunts had shared with her. “Am I obsessed too?” Chloe asked herself. Dante had wanted the whole world to recognize him; she just wanted enough confidence to appear in front of an audience without humiliating herself. That wasn't so much to ask, was it?

“You're a perfectionist,” her piano teacher had told her. “Aiming high is good, but don't set the bar so high that you can never be satisfied with yourself.”

In the dark and silent bedroom, Chloe grimaced. She wasn't setting the bar very high this time. All she wanted was to get through the next recital without freezing up entirely. All she wanted was to survive it.

Outside on the landing, the grandfather clock struck the first hour of midnight. Chloe's thoughts turned to the painting of the carnival that hung beside the clock. “And what's
that
about? she whispered. She'd sounded like an idiot in front of Nyssa that afternoon, but the painting
had
changed, no matter what her friend thought.

Chloe felt a sudden overwhelming urge to check the painting before she fell asleep. She rose from her bed and crept down the hallway. A faint whispering sound made her pause at the foot of the stairs, but when she held her breath and strained to hear the sound again, it had stopped. Only the rhythmic ticking of the tall clock remained.

Chloe forced herself to continue up the stairs.

There was just enough moonlight coming through the windows on the second floor for Chloe to make out the rectangular shape of the painting on the landing. It was too dark to see details, but as she leaned in, she saw the silhouettes of tall trees—a forest that hadn't been there the last time she looked. And the sky…it was almost glowing with—Chloe drew her breath in sharply. There were tiny sparkling
stars
all over the painted sky. This morning the painting had displayed a daylight scene. Now it was unquestionably night.

C
hapter
N
ine

“I
t's changed,” Chloe insisted as she led Nyssa up to the landing the next morning. “I'm not imagining things, I'm not making it up. The painting is totally different. Just look!”

Nyssa stared at the painting, her eyebrows lifted. “Weird. It's got to be a different painting.” She shook her head. “All I can say is that someone sure is going to a lot of trouble to mess with your head.”

“I don't get it,” said Chloe. “Who would want to do that? And why—what's the point?”

Nyssa shrugged. “My dad said he's heard your great-aunts were real practical jokers when they were younger. Bess especially.”

“
Bess
?” said Chloe. “Maybe sixty or seventy years ago, but now? I don't think so. Even if she had a reason to, there's no way she could lift a painting this size off the wall.”

“Maybe your aunts' housekeeper is in on it. Or maybe the housekeeper is doing it all by herself.”

“Abigail?” said Chloe. “Okay, what's
her
motive supposed to be?”

“Maybe she's bored,” Nyssa said. “Maybe it's a prank she plays on every houseguest. You did say she was hinting about weird stuff going on in this house.”

Chloe shook her head. “It's not Abigail.”

“How do you know it's not her?” Nyssa asked. “Have you got a webcam hidden in her room?”

“I just don't believe it's her.”

“C'mon, Chloe,” said Nyssa. “It's like you
want
this painting to be magic.”

“Close your eyes,” said Chloe.

“What?”

“Just close your eyes. There
is
something going on in this house. If you close your eyes and stay quiet, you can feel it. It's like there are strange vibrations in the air.”

“Oooh, I think I can feel them,” said Nyssa, pretending to shiver.

Chloe opened her eyes and punched her friend lightly in the shoulder. “I'm serious.”

“Ouch,” said Nyssa. “I'm serious too, Chloe. I'm seriously concerned that you seem to have a thing about ghosts and magic paintings.”

“So what if I do believe in them? It's not like anyone has proved they don't exist.”

“That's not true,” said Nyssa. “There's a rational explanation for every single supernatural phenomenon that's ever been investigated by real scientists. Sometimes they're products of weather or geography, but mostly they're hoaxes. I'm just finishing a book about Harry Houdini. Do you have any idea how much time and energy he spent going after all the spiritualists who were around back then?”

“Spiritualists?”

Nyssa nodded. “You know, mediums. People who claimed they could talk to the dead and make tables levitate and all that stuff. The spirit cabinet trick is a classic example. That's the one where the magician is gagged and tied up tight inside a narrow wooden wardrobe-thing.”

“I know the one you mean,” said Chloe. “I read about it in Dante's memoir.”

“Right. Well, when a spiritualist performed that trick, people actually believed they saw a ghost's hands and heard spirits knocking and playing musical instruments. Of course it was really the man inside doing everything. He didn't have any supernatural powers—he was just very good at slipping in and out of the ropes that were supposed to be securing him. It was what he knew about knots, not spirits, that counted.”

“And your point is?” said Chloe.

“My point is that everything they did was a hoax. They were scam artists, going after people's money.”

“No one's going after my money here,” Chloe pointed out. “Not that I have any.”

“I'm just saying there has to be an explanation for this painting. How about this? Maybe someone's trying to distract you from this stage fright thing you've been going through.”

“That is truly the lamest explanation you've come up with so far,” Chloe said as she turned away from the painting.

Nyssa followed Chloe back down the stairs. “So how
is
the stage fright thing going? Have you started practicing for the talent show yet?”

“
Yes
, I've been practicing. I practiced for three hours last night. And I practiced for an hour before you showed up, and I'll practice again when you're gone, thank you very much.”

“Don't let me keep you then,” Nyssa said cheerfully as they reached the front door.

“Seriously,” Chloe said, taking a deep breath. “In a few days I'd like to do a mini-recital for you and my aunts and Abigail.”

“Really?” asked Nyssa. “You're that close?”

“I will be—I hope.” Chloe bit down on her lip. “Here's how I'm looking at it—I'll either get through it and be fine, or I'll have a heart attack and die. In which case it will all be over and I won't have to do the talent show.”

“Cool. So can I bring my dad's digital camcorder?”

Chloe smiled at her friend. “If you don't mind me feeding it to you, you can.”

“All right,” Nyssa said, putting her hands up. “I'll come unarmed.”

A few afternoons later, Chloe's guests assembled in the sitting room.

“This is quite an honor,” Kitty said as she took a seat in one of the two armchairs. Bess was already seated in the other chair. Abigail and Nyssa were perched on the chintz-covered love seat across from the elderly sisters. All four faces were turned toward Chloe.

Chloe took a deep breath and tried to will her pounding heart to slow down. “Tide in, tide out,” she whispered to herself. She inhaled and exhaled slowly. Then she lifted her hands to her thighs to wipe her sweaty palms on her shorts. Her voice broke on the first word of her introduction, and she had to clear her throat and start again. “My first piece is one I found inside the piano bench. It's called
The Ballad
of Petticoat Joe
.”

Kitty clapped her hands. “That's one of my favorites! I haven't heard it for decades. It was arranged by a friend of ours who used to play at St. Mark's, you know. The rhythm's a bit tricky, as I recall.”

Chloe nodded weakly. “Well,” she breathed, “here goes.”

The first notes sounded awkward to Chloe. Her arms felt like wood. “I'm sorry. I messed that up,” Chloe said as she came to an abrupt stop just seconds after she'd started.

“It was sounding good to me,” said Abigail.

Kitty waved her hand in the air. “Just start over, dear. We don't mind.”

Chloe had to fight to catch her breath again. Her stomach was churning, but she ignored it and raised her hands to the keyboard. She started again, forcing her fingers to travel across the keys and her eyes to find the notes written on the pages in front of her. She was almost halfway through
Petticoat Joe
before the music began to feel natural. Gradually her body relaxed and she grew more confident. By the final page, Chloe's fingers were flying.

When she finished, her small audience broke into applause immediately. “That was
wonderful
,” Kitty cried, her hands clasped in delight.

“Bravo!” said Abigail. Even Bess was nodding.

“You
have
to play at the festival,” said Nyssa. “That's
exactly
what the judges are looking for.”

Chloe's body was still tense, and her face was hot. “I'm not finished yet,” she said anxiously. “I still have two pieces to get through.”

Kitty raised her hands for silence. “All right. We'll save our adulation for the end.”

With the first piece out of the way, the remaining pieces were a little less agonizing. Chloe continued her short program with a ragtime melody she'd modified called
Sticks
and Bones.
She finished with her favorite piece, Chopin's Nocturne in F-sharp Major.