The next day Lockwood and I walked across the well-kept school grounds of Lanfort College for Talented Youngsters. We were both fully kitted out, carrying iron chains, our belts filled with salt bombs and satchels of salt and iron filings, iron chains wrapped around our shoulders and of course our rapiers. Lockwood was also carrying one of our kitbags filled with extra fillings, and a set of silver seals in varying sizes. In short, we were prepared for a standard case. The only thing missing from my equipment was the skull in the jar. I had decided to leave it at home as we were relatively sure it would be an easy case.
Our destination for the evening was the studio hidden behind the large main building of the school. It was a small brick thing, and obviously a recent addition judging by the modern design when compared to the baroque style of the main building. The white bricks hadn't been dulled by London's exhaust fumes yet, the paint of the window and door frames looked like it had just finished drying yesterday, and even from a distance I could see the shine of the iron charms dangling from the windows.
"Doesn't look like a typical Haunt," I remarked as Lockwood and I reached the door. I could hear faint music coming from inside, melodious and playful, but it sounded surprisingly far off.
"It doesn't," Lockwood agreed, "but we both know how deceiving appearances can be. I'm sure I don't have to remind you of Guppy's house."
He was right of course. The house of the Ealing Cannibal had been incredibly well kept, but inside we had faced one of the most daunting jobs we'd ever had. Still, this modern building did not give of the feeling of menace I had come to expect from the places I worked in.
A thin rectangular window in the green painted door, allowed us to see into the studio. Mrs Jefferson and a teenage boy holding a reddish brown violin stood behind a black stand at the far end of the room. They were facing us, but both of them were engrossed in whatever was on the stand. Mrs Jefferson was pointing at something with the back of the pencil she was holding, but then Lockwood knocked on the glass pane with a gloved hand, and she looked up. She straightened her back and made a beckoning gesture with her hand, so Lockwood opened the door.
"Mr Lockwood, Miss Carlyle, thank you for coming," she said as we entered. Lockwood returned the greeting politely, but I only gave a small nod before concentrating and opening my inner ear. There were a lot of sounds in the room of course – The soft tick of the clock on the wall, the squeak of the linoleum as the boy shuffled his feet about 20 feet away, Lockwood quietly speaking with Mrs Jefferson – but psychically everything was silent.
It was a strange silence, not like the one I had felt in Combe Carey Hall where it had been unnatural and pressing, as if somebody had stuffed my ears with cotton wads, or the empty silence of a place that was simply ghost free, like the one that reigned in the little flat in Tooting I had lived in for a few months. I could feel there was something slumbering under the surface here, as if the building itself was holding its breath, waiting for something to start.
"I'm afraid we haven't quite finished Thomas's lesson," Mrs Jefferson said as I let go of my concentration.
"No problem, we arrived early," Lockwood replied, even though we really hadn't. He shot me a quick, questioning glance, and I shook my head to let him know I hadn't heard anything.
"Please take a seat, we'll be done soon," Mrs Jefferson continued.
I did as Mrs Jefferson said and sat down at one of the chairs. The room was rather large but its contents somehow made it feel both spacious and cluttered. The first half of the space from the door had been taken up by two sections of chairs with swivelling desk arms, probably used when students needed to take notes during their classes. Lockwood sat down in the chair to my right and let his eyes scan our surroundings. If the furrowing of his brow was anything to go by, he was using his talent.
I took a look around as well. It had been a long time since I last been in a classroom (and even longer since I had been in one as a student instead of as an agent on a case), but I could still easily see that this wasn't a traditional classroom. The rows of chairs faced two whiteboards mounted on the wall furthest from the door. One was a regular whiteboard; the other one had multiple bars of 5 lines printed on it. In the left corner there was a small desk with a comfortable chair, leaving an open space in front of the whiteboards. A grand piano stood to the right of the open space, a few feet away from a set of two oaken bookcases, filled to the brim with all kinds of leaflets and thin books. Sheet music, I realised. There was a floor-length mirror on the left wall, and it gave the room an even more spacious feel. Right next to it was an inconspicuous door. The posts were lined with iron, and underneath the handle was a heavy-duty lock. I exchanged a look with Lockwood; we'd have to ask Mrs Jefferson for the key later.
A drawn out tone cutting through the silence shook me out of my reverie. The boy, Thomas I supposed, had put his violin back under his chin and was playing a melody. He was focussed on the sheet music on his stand, but I could see the soft shaking of his hands. Mrs Jefferson had sat down on the piano stool and was listening attentively, occasionally glancing up from the sheet music on her lap to take in Thomas's posture.
"Hang on," she said suddenly and Thomas started, his bow drawing across the strings in a screech. Mrs Jefferson didn't comment on it, but stood up and walked back to him.
"You're playing the piece perfectly," She assured him, "but I'm missing something. You did so well before, tell me what music is again?"
"Emotion," Thomas answered dutifully; as if this was a conversation they'd had multiple times before.
"Exactly, music is emotion. You are telling a story with your violin, Thomas. The Polish Dance is a cheerful piece, it should invite people to have fun. If playing well, I am personally of the opinion that musicians can evoke as strong an emotion as Visitors can."
"I know Iris, but-"
"Our audience is making you nervous?"
She'd hit the nail right on the head. Thomas flushed and looked down at his sheet music, but after a terse moment he gave a short nod.
Mrs Jefferson smiled. "In general, the audience doesn't have a clue what the piece you are playing is supposed to be like. You know the notes and the rhythm, so play with confidence! If you keep your posture confident, even obvious mistakes won't go noticed."
After Thomas had played the piece again (markedly more lively this time), packed his stuff and left, Mrs Jefferson turned her attention to us.
"Thank you, for coming," she said again. She walked over to her desk and picked up a small key rings from which two silver keys dangled, which she handed to Lockwood. "These are the keys to the front door and the storage room," she explained, pointing to the door I had noticed earlier. "I must ask that you are careful in the storage room, there are several delicate instruments in there, and replacing them would cost a fortune…"
"Of course, Mrs Jefferson," Lockwood replied. He stuffed the keys into one of the pockets of his long coat.
"Well, good luck then, I suppose…" Mrs Jefferson said. She tried to give us a smile, but it wasn't quite convincing. She made her way to the door and with a final glance over her shoulder she left us alone.
We waited patiently for her to be well and truly gone before getting to work. First, we lay out an iron circle in the open space between the piano and the desk and hauled our equipment inside it. Then we took a quick look in the storage room, but between the iron-lined door and the various silver-plated instruments on the shelves it was unlikely that a visitor would manifest there. Lockwood re-locked the door, and we focused our investigation on the main room.
About half an hour later, we had finished our first round of measurements. We had been very thorough, but didn't find anything out of the ordinary, except for a minor cold spot near the piano. The temperature difference was so minimal it may as well have been draughty spot.
Lockwood and I sat down in the first row of chairs again. While cases like this weren't difficult, they often involved a lot of waiting, and we both had our own ways to stave off the boredom and unease.
Lockwood got out the newest issue of London Society and started flicking through the pages of the gossip magazine while I rifled through my kitbag for my sketchbook and a pencil. The little desktop connected to the chair was just large enough for me to draw comfortably, and soon I was doodling things I saw around the room.
Time passed slowly, but eventually nightfall crept up on us. We had turned on the gas lantern and eaten some sandwiches, but besides another drop in temperature nothing in the atmosphere had really changed yet, so we went back to our own devices. I turned the page of my sketchbook and started sketching the piano. It was quite a challenge to draw it. In the light of our lantern, the lacquered wood shone, and its shape cast odd shadows. I found myself caught up in the challenge, but grew more and more frustrated. After multiple attempts to show the fall of the light in the outline I'd drawn, I had to admit to myself that I just couldn't manage to capture the image. I was about to start another drawing when Lockwood suddenly sat up straight.
"Do you feel it?" he asked. I didn't need to ask what he meant. During our companionable silence, a heavy feeling had snuck up on me. It was pressing down on my chest as if trying to push away my positive emotions, and now that I was aware of it, I could hardly believe I had missed its presence.
"Malaise," I concluded, and Lockwood nodded in agreement. I used my inner ear to listen for psychic disturbances, but still came up short. "I don't hear anything yet, are there any traces you can see?"
"No…" Lockwood replied. "No Death-glows, no traces… Then again, George did say nobody died on campus."
We ran another round of measurements, with similar results as the first time. Nothing came up. Still, we were both on edge.
"Let's move into the circle Luce, I don't want to be caught off guard," Lockwood decided. He gathered the few pieces of our equipment we hadn't placed inside the chains yet while I gathered my sketchbook and pencil from the chair before sitting down next to the lantern in our circle.
For a while we waited, alert and ready to pull our rapiers if necessary, but ten minutes passed without change and we slowly relaxed. Lockwood pulled his thermos from his belt and poured tea into the cap. I reopened my sketchbook.
"More measurements in half an hour?" I suggested as I leafed through my sketches until I found an empty page.
"Sure," Lockwood replied, before focussing on his magazine again.
Deciding what to draw next didn't take long; I had a fine subject sitting right in front of me. People are fun to draw although it's also difficult because they don't tend to stay still for long periods of time. Lockwood was usually full of energy and movement too, but if he felt like it, he could also sit still for ages. I had used him to practise my skills on more than once before I left to become a freelancer, and I was happy to have the opportunity to do it again. I glanced up to where he was sitting a few feet away from me, his back to the piano with his magazine opened in his lap and his cup of tea in hand, and started sketching.
It had been some time since I came back with Lockwood and Co, but only now – sitting in a chain circle in a haunted studio with him – did I realise how much he had changed since I left the agency. I didn't mean in character, although he had learnt to open up a bit more, but his physical appearance. His fashion style hadn't changed, and he was still as slender as ever, all long limbs and expressive smiles, but in the time I was gone, his features had become a little sharper, more mature.
He seemed to have grown into his height more. While he'd never been gangly or awkward, he now moved with a grace that had previously been reserved for rapier play. His face had lost some the boyish charm, replaced by a stronger jawline and more pronounced cheekbones.
They were subtle changes, the kind that happen over months and in a way that probably went unnoticed to him and the people that saw him every day, until they looked back at old photos. If I hadn't been gone for so long, I doubt I would have noticed them in the first place. Looking at him like that while I sketched, familiarising myself with the new nuances of his features, made me wonder if I had changed like that.
"Something wrong, Luce? You're staring," Lockwood said suddenly. My cheeks flared with heat at being caught staring at him like that and I lowered my gaze. I was ready to stammer out an apology when my eyes fell on my drawing.
I had made a quick sketch of the piano to fill the background of the drawing (not nearly as detailed as my earlier attempt), and there was something off about it. Without a word I leafed back to the other drawing of the piano and looked back up. My suspicions were confirmed.
"The haunting is starting," I whispered, and offered Lockwood my sketchbook. He set down his tea and looked at my drawing before slowly turning around to see the real thing.
It had been a while since we had looked around the room, counting on the change in atmosphere or psychic interference with the lantern to alert us to the start of the haunting, and therefore we had completely missed the way the lid of the grant piano had propped itself up into a half open position.
As we watched, the piano bench slid backwards and the keyboard cover lifted, as if moved by an invisible hand. There was a beat of silence in which nothing seemed to happen at all, and I was reminded of the thought that had flitted through my mind when we first entered the studio. The silence had been anticipating then, and even more so now. It was like the silence that fell over an audience when the curtains were drawn.
One of the white keys moved down on its own, and a single tone rang through the studio.
"It's a poltergeist," Lockwood concluded.
A/N: And the second chapter is done! I'm afraid I can't promise when I publish the last chapter, but I do hope you enjoy this one in the mean time!