Kite Spirit by Sita Brahmachari Read Free Book Online

Grace, who was a fellow devotee. If she could pray for anything right now, she would ask for St Christopher to have
appeared to Dawn, like a miracle, lifted her in his arms and carried her out of the depths of her sadness.
    ‘I understand that this is not your church, but if you ever want to talk . . .’
    Kite felt a gentle hand on her shoulder and turned away from the priest with a mumbled, ‘Thanks.’
    ‘Are you Kite?’ she asked.
    Kite nodded.
    ‘I’m Esme!’ the girl said. ‘She talked about you all the time . . .’ She waited for a response, but no words came to Kite. ‘I wish she hadn’t been so
shaken by that last concert,’ Esme continued. ‘It was only temporary, you know, me replacing her on first oboe, just to take the pressure off for a bit. She was always so much better
than me.’
    Kite felt as if she was listening to Esme through a shroud of fog.
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘Didn’t she tell you?’ Esme looked shocked. ‘At the last concert we played she froze during the first solo. We told her it happens to everyone sometimes, you just have to
ignore it and carry on, but instead she laid her oboe on her knee and stopped, just stopped. Like she’d given up. My dad, he’s the conductor –’ she nodded over to the tall
man in the black coat – ‘he didn’t have a choice, I had to take her solos for the rest of the concert. I didn’t want to. I kept checking to see if she’d start playing
again.’ Esme’s shoulders were shaking and the tears streamed down her clear rosy cheeks. ‘It was torture – she just sat there for the whole concert. What made it even worse
was that there were some important people who’d come especially to hear her play.’
    Kite could almost feel the heat in her friend’s face as she sat exposed and humiliated, willing the concert to end. It had been nearly two years since she’d gone to watch Dawn at her
first full-blown recital, when she’d played her favourite Brahms symphony and she’d looked so happy. Kite had seen her in loads of things since then, playing like a professional. How
could it all have gone so badly wrong?
    ‘But I only went with her to Howarth’s a few weeks ago, to buy more reeds.’ Kite grabbed hold of Esme’s arms and shook her. ‘What do you mean, she froze? When was
this? She didn’t tell me anything.’
    ‘I’m sorry, I thought . . .’ Esme pulled away from Kite’s tight grip. ‘Dad and I, and even Eddie, phoned her,’ Esme explained, looking over at the boy who had
been so distressed, ‘to tell her we needed her back.’ She wouldn’t answer our calls, so in the end Dad sent a letter to her parents to meet and talk everything through. But they
never replied.’
    ‘I don’t understand . . . she was at rehearsal every Saturday.’
    Esme shook her head. ‘We haven’t seen her for nearly two months now.’
    ‘Then Hazel and Jimmy can’t have got that letter . . . They didn’t know either. She must have felt so alone.’
    The boy with the black hair came and stood next to Esme. ‘Kite, this is Eddie.’
    ‘I’ve seen you play.’
    The boy nodded, his dark eyes red and swollen.
    ‘I told her you liked her but she wouldn’t believe me.’
    The boy opened his mouth to speak then hesitated and closed it again.
    ‘Kite was Dawn’s closest friend,’ Esme explained.
    ‘I wasn’t,’ whispered Kite. ‘I can’t have been or she would have told me what was going on in her head.’
    ‘I’m sorry,’ whispered Esme, and she and Eddie seemed to float off into the crowd of mourners.
    Kite wished she could cry. It was as if she had become an instrument with only two notes – flat and sharp; she was either dull and empty or filled with bitter acid anger that made her want
to lash out at someone or something. Suddenly the sky darkened and the rain began to fall. Umbrellas sprung open and people scurried away to take cover in the eaves of the chapel.
    ‘Come in from the rain, Kite,’ Seth called over