Bellweather Rhapsody by Kate Racculia Read Free Book Online

they do that?
    She blinks and her throat feels thick and achy, and then she remembers that she started packing for Statewide two weeks ago (she needed adequate time to determine how many and which costume changes would be required), and Jimmy Kopek broke up with her only last week. So
she
did this. She did this to herself. She cannot think about this for one second longer, so she dumps her socks and underwear and pajamas on her bed and shuts the suitcase, zips it closed, and drops it on the floor.
    The door opens.
    Alice doesn’t have time to compose herself before a striking girl with a high black ponytail enters. “Hey,” the girl says in instinctive greeting, and then, to herself, “Shit!” as she throws what looks like a flute case on the closer bed. It bounces and flies off the mattress to the floor.
    Alice has never met this girl, but she recognizes her immediately.
    It’s Jill Faccelli. She’s fourteen years old. She’s been studying the flute since she was four and has been playing as a soloist with professional symphonies since the age of eight. She has been profiled in magazines, in the
New York Times,
and all the Greater Syracuse newspapers when she and her mother first moved to the area. Alice had followed her for a while, had been fascinated by this dark-haired girl who now called the same part of the world home, who was sustained, presumably, by the same general environmental conditions as herself: the amount of fluoride in the water, nutrients in the soil, pollen and mold concentrations in the air. Her mother is Viola Fabian, whom Alice also knows by reputation as a brilliant musician and a horrendous bitch. Alice feels they ought to know each other, she and Jill, and now, standing less than five feet apart in the same hotel room, Alice thinks they
do
know each other.
    Jill shakes her head and her ponytail bobs cheerfully despite her grave expression. Her hair is so black it almost looks blue, and her face is red and patchy with white. “Sorry,” she says, her eyes tracing the thrown flute case’s trajectory, and Alice understands she is apologizing not to her but to the instrument. Alice shoves her underwear in the dresser and approaches, one palm out to—what? Wave hello? Shake her hand? Proximity to fame has stunned her silly.
    “Hi!” she says, too loud even by her own theatrical standards. Her pulse threads and she feels herself blushing. “My name is Alice Hatmaker. I’m your roommate.”
    “Jill.”
    “Welcome to Statewide!”
    Jill’s eyes shift from right to left and her brow creases. She is preternatural. Alice has never stood this close to someone like Jill Faccelli, someone touched by a talent so great it creates its own atmosphere. Her ability is a tangible thing, a crackling magnetic field searching for a route through which to pass electrons to the ground. Alice has a fleeting absurd thought that this strange magic will leach like radiation into her own greedy tissue and bone. She breathes in deeply.
    “You’re creeping me out,” Jill says. “Why aren’t you at rehearsal?”
    “I’m not stalking you, if that’s what you mean.” Alice is horrified these words are coming out of her mouth. She laughs nervously.
    “The thought hadn’t entered my mind until now.”
    “I’m sorry. We got off on a strange—I’m—I was running late. My chaperone got us here late, and I wanted to unpack before going to rehearsal.”
    “Us?” Jill brushes past Alice and picks up the flute.
    “My brother and I. He plays—he’s in the orchestra. Are you in the orchestra?” Alice shakes her head. Of course Jill’s in the orchestra; they say there isn’t a pecking order, but there is, and the best woodwinds and brass are in the orchestra, where there are fewer of them.
    Jill doesn’t answer. She hugs the flute case against her chest, propping her chin on one end. She looks younger than she is, as young as twelve, and Alice realizes that at the same age she was making faces in her