Read Online The Ghost Sonata by JENNIFER ALLISON - Free Book Online

Southern accent.
    â€œGrotty?”
    â€œThat the English way of saying ‘gross.’ I’m Gilda, by the way.” Gilda extended her hand with a businesslike friendliness, and Jenny raised her eyebrows with amusement.
    â€œNice to meet you, Gilda. I’m Jenny.”
    â€œYou’re Jenny Pickles. ” Gilda couldn’t resist an opportunity to say the name Jenny Pickles. “I remember you from the drawing of numbers.”
    â€œMy mom wants me to start using a stage name.”
    â€œI think Jenny Pickles is a great name. It’s very unique.”
    â€œAnd damn silly, too. You’re from Michigan, right?”
    Gilda nodded. “I think we saw you at the Detroit airport.”
    â€œYeah, my mom and I just moved up to Detroit this year.” Jenny squinted at Gilda. “I think I saw your friend—that Asian girl—at a piano contest in Grand Rapids this year.”
    â€œYou saw Wendy Choy at a competition?”
    â€œThat’s right—Wendy Choy. She was awesome! Well, I’d better go make myself purdy if I’m going to turn up on time for my performance.”
    â€œJenny—”
    â€œYes?” Jenny paused on the steps.
    â€œThis sounds weird—but have you noticed anything strange in this house since you’ve been here?” Gilda decided she might as well find out whether any other ghosts had been spotted in the guesthouse.
    â€œHell, yeah.”
    Jenny counted items on her fingers as she spoke: “Creepy bath and shower, weird button to flush the toilet, breakfast of eggs and sausages that look like they’re going to crawl off your plate—”
    â€œI mean, have you noticed any other strange things?” Gilda decided it was best not to tell Jenny about the vision of a boy she had seen—at least not yet. She had learned during the past year that once people expect to see ghosts, they often start seeing them everywhere.
    â€œWhat sort of strange things?”
    â€œJenny! What the hell are you doing piddlin’ around up there? Your hair rollers are hot!”
    â€œComing, Mummy!” Jenny rolled her eyes and tried to fake an English accent at the sound of her mother’s loud, twangy voice from the floor below. “Sorry, Gilda; I’d better get moving before my hair dries looking like the Bride of Frankenstein or my mother has a coronary fit. She believes that ‘ hair is the key to success.’”
    â€œYour mother is absolutely right. In fact, I was just about to give myself a quick perm before I head down to the competition.”
    Jenny snorted with laughter and bounded down the steps to fix her hair.
    Gilda entered the grotty bathroom and found that the floor was cold and wet. A sheer, flimsy curtain fluttered over a drafty window, forcing bathers to expose their naked bodies to the walled gardens below as they climbed into the shower.
    Gilda normally wasn’t the squeamish type, but the combination of slimy white lime scale, black grout, and a crumbly rusty-brown substance that surrounded the edges of an ancient tub perched on porcelain feet made her feel a new kinship with people who rarely bathed.
    If you can face a ghost, you can face a dirty bathtub , Gilda told herself.
    She turned on the shower pump and discovered that the handheld shower head attached to the bathtub didn’t work. There was no way around it; she would have to take a bath. Gilda took a deep breath, climbed into the tub, and stuck her head under the running water. She gasped, realizing that the water flowed from a single spout in two separate streams—one boiling hot and the other freezing cold. She shampooed hastily, braced herself for the simultaneous onslaught of hot and cold water as she rinsed, then hurriedly wrapped herself in a towel, shivering in the chilly air.
    Gilda scurried back to her room and hastily grabbed her “London mod” outfit, pulling on the white tights and boots and the