by Julie Sykes
‘It’s beautiful.’ The building seemed familiar and I immediately connected with it. Tingles raced down my spine. Had I been here before? I didn’t recognise the woods or the stunning backdrop of Loch Calness. Maybe I’d seen pictures of the building in a brochure or something. My mind ticked over so fast I almost could hear it processing. Was it possible that I’d been on my way to Waterside when I’d had the accident? I shook my head, checking my thoughts before they ran away with me.
Mia was watching me. ‘Are you feeling all right?’ She patted my arm. ‘Do you need to sit down? I almost forgot that you were only discharged from the hospital this morning.’
I pulled myself together. ‘I’m fine. Can we go inside?’
‘Yes, of course, it’s this way.’
We walked round the back of the concert stage to double-fronted glass and wood doors. Mia pulled one open and as she ushered me inside I was met with a refreshing blast of chilled air.
‘There are state-of-the-art rehearsal rooms, ensemble practice rooms, a function room and a recording studio.’
We walked down a bright corridor with doors leading off to both sides.
‘These are the practice rooms.’ As she passed each door Mia glanced in through the glass window. She stopped outside a room numbered ‘5’ and gestured for me to look too.
I leaned forward and saw Dan blowing into a gold-coloured instrument with a long curved neck. His blonde hair was rumpled. The muscles in his tanned arms tensed as his long fingers worked a shiny set of keys and his body swayed to the music. He looked up suddenly and raised an eyebrow at me in a friendly gesture. My heart flipped as I smiled shyly back. Did he realise how attractive he was? But I was staring! I pulled away from the door quickly.
‘What is that instrument?’ I asked, glad that my voice sounded normal even though my heart was thumping.
‘Saxophone. Want to go in and give it a try?’
‘N-no,’ I stuttered. How awkward would that be?
Luckily the door to Room 7 opened and a girl about my age, with shoulder length strawberry blonde hair and wide green eyes, came out.
‘Hi, I’m Lucy,’ she said with a smile. ‘I’ve been keeping an eye out for you. It’s Amber, right? Mia’s told me a bit about you. She said we were going to be neighbours. Mine’s the single room next to yours in Chopin. I live locally, but I’m staying for the whole of the summer holidays. My parents are musicians. They left me here when they went on tour. So if there’s anything you need then give me a call.’
‘Thanks,’ I said. I liked Lucy immediately and racked my brains for something friendly to say back. ‘What instrument do you play?’
‘Flute.’ She pointed into the practice room.
I followed her line of direction to a chair, next to a music stand. A silver instrument lay on the seat. It was long and sleek with a mouthpiece at one end and a set of raised keys. My fingers suddenly itched to pick it up. I entered the room, unaware that I’d moved.
‘You play?’ asked Lucy. ‘Do you want a go?’
I reached the instrument and lifted it reverently, holding it with both hands. The metal was cold and very shiny but it wasn’t pure. Somehow I could tell it was an alloy, probably silver nickel. The keys weren’t quite right either. They were slightly closer together than was normal. Then I realised the whole instrument was shorter than it should be, so maybe that was why.
‘Fluetto,’ the word popped into my head and was out of my mouth before I could stop it.
‘Flute,’ corrected Lucy. ‘Or fluetto, I guess. What language is that? It sounds Italian.’
I jerked my head round in confusion. ‘Sorry, I… flute,’ I had no idea where that word had come from.
‘Play something,’ said Lucy. She gave me an encouraging nod.
Even as I was shaking my head, the words forming on my lips to tell her I didn’t know how to, my hands were behaving independently and raising the fluetto, no flute, to my mouth. It felt like I was out of my body and watching from afar. The metal mouthpiece reached my lips. I took a deep breath and exhaled softly across it. The note resonated around the room, low and clear. Lucy’s grin almost reached her ears. I launched into a series of scales hitting several bum notes as my fingers adjusted to the slightly cramped spacing. It didn’t take long to get the hang of it and then I moved on to a simple tune that repeated itself. When I finished Lucy clapped and Mia called out, ‘Don’t stop.’
I couldn’t have stopped playing, even if my life depended on it. My fingers had taken on a will of their own and they danced along the keys, playing songs I didn’t know. It was fantastic. The tunes stirred something deep inside me that lifted me so high it felt like I was flying. I played on, tunes that were fun and light, until I realised I was warming up to play something much bigger. Soon my fingers felt supple and my breathing controlled. I knew I was pitch perfect. Then, with the briefest of pauses, I began to play a special piece. It started with three low, mellow notes. The notes hung in the air, hooking the audience and forcing it to listen. As the last opening note faded, my fingers quickened and I blew faster. The tune skipped around the room. It was light and captivating and filled me with a wild happiness. Images flittered through my mind so rapidly they blurred together. The tune danced on until finally it soared to a pitch that made me think of crystal. I held the note and then let it go quickly. As it tumbled down I imagined water splashing over rocks, a breeze fresh on my face and my body floating gently towards the sweet-smelling grass. I knew I was playing the last few low notes of the music. They were the same ones that I’d started with.
I lowered the flute slowly and, smiling at my audience, I dipped my head in a modest bow. Inside I was singing. For the first time since I’d woken up in hospital, I felt truly alive. On a total high I fixed my mind on the flute, grasped it firmly and asked it to rise from my hands.
What was I doing?
The thought slammed me like a punch in the stomach. They didn’t do that here. I swallowed my panic as I dropped the flute back into my trembling hands. My eyes flew first to Mia and then to Lucy. Incredibly, neither of them had noticed me trying to pass the instrument back to Lucy with my mind. Lucy was staring at Mia with her mouth open as if she’d lost the power of speech.
‘Wow!’ she said, at last. ‘That was brilliant. She hit C8. Only a professional flautist can get C8 on a standard flute.’
‘Amazing,’ breathed Mia. ‘The music was beautiful…fun, yet haunting. I can still hear it playing in my head. Did you compose it? It’s not something that I recognise.’
‘Me neither,’ Lucy gave a low chuckle. ‘It’s not a piece you’re likely to forget.’
‘I-I don’t know.’ I was dizzy with pleasure. The music was still inside me; it had touched parts of my consciousness that I wasn’t aware existed. I felt like I’d been to a faraway place. I had no idea where but it was so good that I wasn’t ready to come back. I swallowed and quenched the longing before it devoured me. I handed the flute, as Lucy had called it, back to her.
Five
That afternoon Mia took me to Kirkgreen, the local town just a fifteen-minute drive away. She treated me like a surrogate daughter and bought me everything I would ever need – and a few more things for good measure. After a few shops, though, my enthusiasm waned and my smiles became fake. I hated the enclosed feeling of the town, with its narrow streets and grey stone buildings, and longed to be back at Waterside. Shopping depressed me. The boutiques were full of the same clothes, just all in different sizes. Why anyone would want to dress the same way as someone else was beyond me. Clearly it was the norm here though. So, was this a clue to my previous lifestyle? Were my clothes tailor-made? Or had the accident left me with a whole new personality?
Most of the clothes I chose were casual, but Mia suggested I got a straight black skirt, a simple open-necked blouse and a pair of low-heeled shoes, just in case I was still there for
the first concert night.
‘We stage one mini-concert, to enable some of the short-term students to play for their parents. There’s no pressure. It’s generally a fun evening. At the end of the summer we hold a larger, formal concert. It’s a prestigious event and open to the public by ticket. Many of the local dignitaries come along. The chairs are fixed, and there’s a lot of competition for the principal seats. At the formal concert everyone dresses in evening wear. There’s also a dinner dance afterwards.’
‘Chairs?’ I asked.
Mia smiled apologetically.
‘Sorry, I just assumed that since you can play the flute your musical knowledge must have returned. Chair order is a kind of hierarchy. First chair goes to our best player, chair two to the second best, chair three to the third best.’ Mia started to say something else then laughing lightly she said, ‘But I mustn’t run away with myself.’
‘Sounds fun,’ I answered, even though my chest had tightened. I didn’t want to be here at the end of the summer and still not know who I was.
We finished our shopping with the purchase of a dark blue holdall, to pack my new things in when I finally left Waterside. Then Mia took me to a small café for a drink. I sipped thoughtfully at an ice-cold Sprite. It seemed a mighty big coincidence that I’d been travelling in the area of the music school before my accident when, as Mia embarrassingly kept repeating, I was a maestro on the flute. There was also the sense of connection that I’d experienced when I’d first seen the Margaret Becker Memorial Building and Stage. Why did I think I knew it? I’d almost finished my drink before I plucked up the courage to ask Mia a question that had set me on fire.
‘Have all the new students arrived?’
Mia looked up sharply. She raised her coffee cup to her face and viewed me over the rim. ‘We’re still waiting for a couple more. Tom Cooper’s parents called to say he’s going to be late and will arrive tomorrow. We haven’t heard from Erin McKeever yet.’
I was about to ask what instrument Erin played, but Mia swiftly turned the conversation to something else.
Erin McKeever. On the way home I silently repeated the name to see if it rang any bells. It meant nothing. Erin McKeever’s life was as big a mystery to me as Amber’s.
The accident must have taken more out of me than I’d realised; I was exhausted after the shopping spree. I went to my room, intending to chill out with one of the novels Mia had bought me. Only I couldn’t settle. One thing I was learning about myself was that I was a tidy, organised person. It was impossible for me to relax with a heap of carrier bags waiting to be unpacked. I checked the door was locked before I used mind control to put my new things away. I took childish delight in watching my outfits swoop ghost-like across the room. I made each new shoe hop under my bed, to join the yetis I’d been given by Kirsty at the hospital. I could chuck those out now; I wasn’t ever going to wear them again. One at a time I made each yeti walk to the bin, giggling at how silly it looked. It amused me so much that I made one slipper tap out a mad yeti dance on the floor. That had me in hysterics. But when it came to it I couldn’t throw the slippers away. Call me sentimental, but the yetis were a part of my new history. They could sit on the windowsill, like ornaments. My eyes flicked between the slippers as I decided which one to move first. Before I could choose I felt a weird sensation in my head. My right hand flew to my temple. It felt like my mind was splitting. It didn’t hurt. The sensation was more of a tugging, like the feeling you get when you tear wet paper in half. Then suddenly the two sides of my mind began to work independently and I found I could control both slippers at the same time. I lifted them up and made them glide slowly across the room to the window, where I brought them down to the sill. It was incredible.
I had to lean over the desk to arrange the slippers. The view from the window was amazing. I hadn’t realised that I could see the loch from here. It looked so peaceful that I had a sudden longing to walk around it. I glanced at my new watch. There was still plenty of time before dinner to go out and get some fresh air. As I came out of my room, Dan and a giggling Lucy came towards me along the corridor. They both had their arms full. Dan carried a rectangular-shaped metal box and a bundle of wires, and Lucy was holding a screen. Dan looked uncomfortable, but Lucy was clearly enjoying herself.
‘Hi,’ she said, her green eyes sparkling impishly.
‘Hi,’ I replied. I wondered if Lucy and Dan were going out. Lucky her if she was! Dan was lovely. There was something about him that made me feel as if we’d been friends forever.
‘We’ve brought you a present. We’ve got to be quick, though. Boys are forbidden in the girls’ cabin. Dan’s got special permission to be here, but he has to be gone before everyone returns from the welcome meeting.’
‘It’s a PC,’ said Dan. ‘It’s mine. It’s an old one, so you can borrow it for as long as you like. I thought it might be useful for, well you know, surfing the internet.’
Internet… I racked my brains until suddenly I had it. The internet was a global system for carrying a vast range of information and services. It also provided electronic mail. Wow! Add techno geek to music maestro. I was turning into a real nerd. No wonder my friends weren’t queuing up to find me. Maybe I didn’t have any!
‘Thanks,’ I said, flushing a little.
‘Do you want me to set it up? I bet you could do it, but it might be quicker if you let me as it’s my machine.’
‘Yes, please,’ I said, pushing open my bedroom door.
There wasn’t much space with the three of us in the room. I stood watching from the doorway while Dan arranged the metal box, or tower as he called it, under the desk and the monitor and a keyboard on top. When he had connected everything together he plugged it in.
‘There’s no spare printer,’ he apologised, as the monitor blinked to life. ‘But I’ll lend you a memory stick to transfer data and then you can print from my mine.’
‘Thanks,’ I was itching to get started and couldn’t wait for the computer to warm up. It took forever, but at last a picture of an incredible building set alongside a river appeared on screen. Over the picture, on the left, was a block of icons arranged in a column.
‘What is that place?’ I asked, hardly able to take my eyes from the picture as I moved closer. The building was like nothing I’d seen before. It was several storeys high with hundreds of tall windows arranged in lines with geometric precision. The stonework was old and intricate and the building had castle-like turrets and a huge clock tower.
‘It’s the Houses of Parliament, in London,’ said Dan sheepishly. ‘And that’s the Eiffel Tower, in Paris,’ he added as the picture changed to a weird metal tower. ‘I set my screen saver to places of interest around the world.’ He hesitated before adding quietly, ‘They’re all places that I want to visit.’
‘Are you taking a gap year to travel?’ Lucy grimaced and then added, ‘Good for you, even though I’m done with travelling forever. My parents have carted me around the world at least six times.’
Something inside me went click and a shiver of excitement coursed through my veins. It was like a small part of me had woken up. I liked to travel too. I was sure of it.
‘That sounds great. How long until your gap year?’ I smiled at Dan.
Dan seemed almost shifty when he replied. ‘I’m seventeen. I’ve just finished my first year at sixth form, so I’ve got another year left. If I defer university, I could take a gap year next summer. You can change the screen saver if you want,’ he added.
‘I like this one,’ I said. ‘Remind me, which icon for the internet?’ My hand hovered over the screen.
Dan leaned over me and his arm lightly brushed mine as he reached for a smooth, plastic object with two buttons alongside the keyboard. The contact made my arm tingle. I swallowed and forced myself to concentrate on what he was saying.
‘Nothing as flash as touch screen. It’s a good old-
fashioned mouse.’ Dan moved the mouse and an arrow appeared on screen. He held it over a symbol in the shape of a large blue ‘e’ then clicked the left-hand button twice.
‘Double click,’ I whispered as my knowledge of PCs flooded back.
‘You know what you’re doing then?’
‘Yes, I’m fine now.’
‘Well, just yell if you want help. Or ring me. Have you got a mobile? What’s your number? I’ll ring you and put my number on your phone.’
I hesitated. Should I show Dan and Lucy my mobile and ask if either of them knew how to work it? But that would delay Dan even further and I didn’t want to get him into trouble if the girls came back. Now I had a computer I could work out the phone by myself.
‘I don’t know my number.’
Dan stared at me sympathetically. ‘I’ll lend you one. We’ve a spare kicking around at home. It’s not high spec. You can’t get the internet on it, or apps, but it works all right as a phone.’
Dan and Lucy left and I sat down at my desk. My hand curled round the plastic mouse. Now I had a whole virtual world at my fingertips there was so much that I wanted to explore. First though, I would research my mobile phone. There had to be some kind of online technical support for it, or maybe a forum where I could ask questions about it. Of course, it might not even be a mobile phone. If that was the case, I fully intended to find out what it was. I dug it out of my pocket and held it in my hand. I examined every centimetre of its smooth, black surface. It struck me that unlike the computer my phone had no manufacturer’s name or identifying logo. One side was noticeably lighter. It had to be a screen, and the button beneath it an on-off switch. But when I pushed the button nothing happened. I experimented with different types of touch. Jabbing didn’t work, nor did depressing the button slowly. I tried pushing it in and holding it down for several seconds, but that had no effect either. A combination of short jabs and slow pushes also drew a blank.
