Read Online The Crickhowell School for the Muses by Rachel Waxman - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Rachel Waxman
Ads: Link
lines, separated by white gaps. The little black music notes on this sheet were more organized than the ones on “A Rainbow,” spaced evenly, rising up on one line and descending on the other.
“As you can see,” Mr. Whitewood said quietly, “there are five lines on a staff.” He pointed. “This note, here, is C.” He hit a white key on the piano. “The next, D.” He pressed the next white key. Mr. Whitewood worked across the page, pressing each corresponding key, and then moved on to the black ones, explaining the funny little sharp and flat signs that caused a note to shift up or down in pitch.
Awen watched eagerly, completely still except for her eyes, which moved feverishly from the keyboard to the sheet of music, up and down, right and left across the page. She repeated his every word in her head, memorizing the names of the notes, the different values—note-heads empty or filled; numbers of flags on the stems; the shapes of the rests and the signs; curved lines and straight pointy ones; triangles and dots; letters: p , m , f , the symbols of another language.…
She thought it was too much to remember—that it should have been too much to remember. But Awen’s mind was working like a dreamcatcher, the language of music passing through and sliding down the feathers, while everything else caught in the web.
When Mr. Whitewood, who had sat down on the piano bench midway through the lesson, finished his explanation of the music, he fished out his golden pocket watch from the depths of his coat. “Well, it has been much more than an hour,” he said in his quiet yet faintly gravelly voice. “I don’t expect you to remember all of this.” He waved toward the music. “It is impossible to learn a new language in a day—yes, music is just that, another language. But, ah, it would not surprise me if you have indeed retained it all.” He smiled, shaking his head slightly. “Tomorrow, I suppose we can start on that song you have there.”
Awen looked at him, wondering what it was he referred to. Her eyes did a quick survey of the room, as if the answer lay somewhere outside her. She spotted her sheet of music on the floor, upside down, having fallen out of her hand sometime during the lesson. She felt a warm blush in her cheeks and leaned over to pick it up, trying to hide her face. Now that the little dots made sense, she felt guilty for letting the music fall—as if she had dropped a bible.
When Awen left her lesson this time, pulling open the heavy door with the different wood on each side, there were no surprises. No Rosaline falling into the room. Nobody listening at the wall.
As Awen turned the corner into the hallway, the same swell of unexplained emotion—that mixture of excitement and anticipation—swirled about her stomach. But this time, there was another feeling, a more tangible one. Awen felt the closest thing to pride that she had since…well, this might have been the first time. Her life before Crickhowell had been fading away like grains of sand pouring out between dirty fingers, as if that life had never existed. Every sensation from those days had been erased by the white walls of the castle. Had she felt pride then, it would mean nothing now.
A weird tingling sensation filled Awen’s chest, and for a moment she wondered if maybe she were walking in somebody else’s body—or, perhaps, in no body at all. She just floated along, moving so slowly that it seemed it could take half an hour to reach her room.
As she drifted through the hallway, Awen looked down at the sheet of music just to make sure it all still made sense. The notes were in the same places, arranged in the same patterns—but they were different now. They held an answer to an unasked question, the solution to an undefined equation. She could understand their whisperings.
Awen moved past the white doors and mysterious, unlabeled rooms, head still bent forward, eyes foggy with the music.
“I see you are done with
“As you can see,” Mr. Whitewood said quietly, “there are five lines on a staff.” He pointed. “This note, here, is C.” He hit a white key on the piano. “The next, D.” He pressed the next white key. Mr. Whitewood worked across the page, pressing each corresponding key, and then moved on to the black ones, explaining the funny little sharp and flat signs that caused a note to shift up or down in pitch.
Awen watched eagerly, completely still except for her eyes, which moved feverishly from the keyboard to the sheet of music, up and down, right and left across the page. She repeated his every word in her head, memorizing the names of the notes, the different values—note-heads empty or filled; numbers of flags on the stems; the shapes of the rests and the signs; curved lines and straight pointy ones; triangles and dots; letters: p , m , f , the symbols of another language.…
She thought it was too much to remember—that it should have been too much to remember. But Awen’s mind was working like a dreamcatcher, the language of music passing through and sliding down the feathers, while everything else caught in the web.
When Mr. Whitewood, who had sat down on the piano bench midway through the lesson, finished his explanation of the music, he fished out his golden pocket watch from the depths of his coat. “Well, it has been much more than an hour,” he said in his quiet yet faintly gravelly voice. “I don’t expect you to remember all of this.” He waved toward the music. “It is impossible to learn a new language in a day—yes, music is just that, another language. But, ah, it would not surprise me if you have indeed retained it all.” He smiled, shaking his head slightly. “Tomorrow, I suppose we can start on that song you have there.”
Awen looked at him, wondering what it was he referred to. Her eyes did a quick survey of the room, as if the answer lay somewhere outside her. She spotted her sheet of music on the floor, upside down, having fallen out of her hand sometime during the lesson. She felt a warm blush in her cheeks and leaned over to pick it up, trying to hide her face. Now that the little dots made sense, she felt guilty for letting the music fall—as if she had dropped a bible.
When Awen left her lesson this time, pulling open the heavy door with the different wood on each side, there were no surprises. No Rosaline falling into the room. Nobody listening at the wall.
As Awen turned the corner into the hallway, the same swell of unexplained emotion—that mixture of excitement and anticipation—swirled about her stomach. But this time, there was another feeling, a more tangible one. Awen felt the closest thing to pride that she had since…well, this might have been the first time. Her life before Crickhowell had been fading away like grains of sand pouring out between dirty fingers, as if that life had never existed. Every sensation from those days had been erased by the white walls of the castle. Had she felt pride then, it would mean nothing now.
A weird tingling sensation filled Awen’s chest, and for a moment she wondered if maybe she were walking in somebody else’s body—or, perhaps, in no body at all. She just floated along, moving so slowly that it seemed it could take half an hour to reach her room.
As she drifted through the hallway, Awen looked down at the sheet of music just to make sure it all still made sense. The notes were in the same places, arranged in the same patterns—but they were different now. They held an answer to an unasked question, the solution to an undefined equation. She could understand their whisperings.
Awen moved past the white doors and mysterious, unlabeled rooms, head still bent forward, eyes foggy with the music.
“I see you are done with
Similar Books
