The Luthier's Apprentice
Publication Date: May 15, 2014
Synopsis
Niccolò Paganini (1782-1840), one of the greatest violinists who ever lived and rumored to have made a pact with the devil, has somehow transferred unique powers to another… When violinists around the world mysteriously vanish, 16-year-old Emma Braun takes notice. But when her beloved violin teacher disappears… Emma takes charge. With Sherlock Holmes fanatic, not to mention gorgeous Corey Fletcher, Emma discovers a parallel world ruled by an ex-violinist turned evil sorceress who wants to rule the music world on her own terms. But why are only men violinists captured and not women? What is the connection between Emma’s family, the sorceress, and the infamous Niccolò Paganini? Emma must unravel the mystery in order to save her teacher from the fatal destiny that awaits him. And undo the curse that torments her family—before evil wins and she becomes the next luthier’s apprentice…
Emma heard voices coming from the front of
the house, but they didn’t last very long. A moment later a door shut, leaving
behind total silence. The hands holding her now loosened their grip.
Emma jammed her elbow into the stranger’s
torso, pushed open the pantry door, and spun around.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
“Who are you?” he asked back,
stepping out of the pantry. He held the side of his stomach. “Did you have to
do that?”
“What did you expect? And you still
haven’t answered my question.”
“Neither have you,” he said.
The stranger looked about her age, but he
was taller—a lot taller. He had alert,
brilliant green eyes to die for, raven black hair and an arrogant, way too good-looking face that instantly
annoyed her. He was dressed in a dark green hoodie and jeans, and had a slight
accent she couldn’t quite place.
“Monsieur Dupriez was—is—my teacher,” Emma
said.
“Well, we have one thing in common. He’s my
teacher, too. What are you doing here?”
“That’s not any of your business.”
“You sneaked in here for a reason. You
don’t look like a thief, so my guess is you’re here for the same reason as I
am.”
Emma crossed her arms against her chest.
“Which is?”
“To find out what happened to him.”
For a moment Emma didn’t know what to
answer. She was too aware of the passing minutes.
“I’m right,” he said, half smiling. “Well,
that’s two things we have in common. And there’s a third one, too.”
“What?”
“We have no time to lose. Come on,” he
said, as if he had read her mind. He started toward the door.
“Wait!” Emma wasn’t sure if she wanted
another ‘partner.’ With Annika, that made them three. The way she saw it, three
was a crowd. On the other hand, he looked pretty smart... and three minds could
work better than two. Or couldn’t they?
“What’s your plan?” he asked.
“Going into his study.”
“I agree that’s the best place to start.
How did you manage to get in, by the way?”
“It’s a long story. My friend helped. What
about you?”
“I’m supposed to be cleaning the upstairs
windows,” he said.
“Then why are you hiding, if you have
permission to be in the house?”
“She said not to come downstairs until she
got back.”
They crossed the foyer and stopped in
front of the study door.
Both extended a hand to open the door. Throwing
her a look, he pulled back his hand and said, “Be my guest.”
After an instant of hesitation, Emma
grabbed the doorknob and turned it. Great. It wasn’t locked. She bent under the
yellow crime-scene tape and entered. He followed close behind and shut the door
behind them. Luckily, the curtains were drawn, so nobody could see them from
the street.
Nervously, Emma glanced at her watch.
Almost eleven. She wasn’t even sure what to look for. She had been here
hundreds of times, and knew every nook and cranny. The study was about fifteen
square meters. Except for two large square windows, the rest of the walls were
lined with bookcases. A cherry wood desk with a dark green leather top sat at
the far end of the room. Apart from the desk chair, there were two armchairs
with a little round table between them. The middle of the room had always been
kept free for teaching purposes. A music stand with some old scores stood in
one corner. The only adornment was a Persian rug in the center of the oaken
floor. Books, notebooks, legal pads, papers, Post-Its, pens, and pencils
cluttered the desk.
“Anything in particular we should look
for?” he asked. But there was something peculiar about his tone, as if he
already knew what he was looking for and he was asking her just for the sake of
asking. He had gone straight to the desk and opened one of its drawers. He
rummaged inside.
“How about a secret passage?”
He turned to look at her. “Secret
passage?”
“That’s always how it works in books,
isn’t it?” she said defensively. “A person can’t disappear just like that.”
“I agree,” he said, surprising her.
She had half expected him to mock her. The
fact that he didn’t, and that he was looking seriously at her with those sharp,
brilliant green eyes, made her blush.
“If he…um...if he really wasn’t seen
leaving this room, then there must be a secret passage, otherwise it has to be
the work of…” she hesitated.
“Magic?”
Her pulse raced. She stared at him. He
didn’t stop surprising her. “That’s right—magic. Do you think that’s lame?”
“No. The idea already crossed my mind.”
She was half incredulous, half thrilled. “Really?”
And then, to her utter astonishment, he
adopted a stuck-up British accent and recited from Sherlock Holmes. “‘An old
maxim of mine, that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains,
however improbable, must be the truth.’”
She was speechless for a moment. “That’s
from Sherlock Holmes! You don’t look like...like you read Holmes.”
“You shouldn’t trust appearances.” He
yanked open another drawer and started rummaging inside, as if nothing had
happened, as if reciting Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to a stranger was completely
normal.
“Okay...
You look for the notebook, I’ll look for the secret passage—” She
froze—literally froze, just as he
turned to look at her. Why had she said notebook
with such conviction? Were her new abilities kicking in again?
His eyes narrowed, and when he spoke, his
tone was cautious. “Notebook?”
Emma looked away, flustered. “Why not?
That’s what people put in desk drawers. Maybe he kept a journal or something.”
“Maybe.” But he sounded doubtful.
Emma had to wonder: was he suspicious
because she had guessed what they should be looking for or because she had
guessed what he was looking for?
Whatever. She didn’t have time to think
about this now. She checked the bookcases for the possibility of a secret
passage, even though the idea of a passage felt less and less exciting by the
second.
Like Grandpa’s house, this was an old maison,
probably one-hundred fifty or two-hundred years old. Old constructions often
had moving bookcases…or at least they did in the movies. She had never seen one
for real, of course. For the next several minutes, she searched the walls while
he concentrated on the desk. She tapped and knocked for hollow sounds and secret
latches. But all along, her mind kept whispering...notebook.
“Damn,” she said, feeling frustrated. She
turned to him. “Did you find anything?”
“Yeah, you could say that.” He was leaning
against the desk with an open notebook in his hands. He was reading, absorbed
by its contents. Then he looked at her.
Emma swallowed. “What’s that? A journal?”
“No, not a journal. A notebook. How did you—?
“I told you. It was just a wild guess.
Why? Is it important?”
“Maybe. Did Monsieur Dupriez ever mention
to you that some modern violinists were playing in a way similar, very
similar, to some of the old masters?”
Emma frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Once, while watching a New Year’s concert
on TV, he said that the violinist who played—the famous Maria Damasio—was a copycat
of Jean Pierre. You know, the famous Swiss violinist who disappeared in the 30s.”
Monsieur Dupriez often had them watch
concertos on TV to demonstrate the performers’ techniques.
“What’s so unusual about that?” she said.
“Many young violinists copy the techniques and mannerisms of the old masters.”
“That’s true, but the way Monsieur Dupriez
said it struck me; he was very insistent.”
Emma remained thoughtful.
“Look,” he said, showing her a notebook
page filled with two columns of names. “Here’s a list of new violinists… and
next to it is a list of old ones.” His finger moved down the list until he
reached Maria Damasio. Next to her name Monsieur Dupriez had written “Jean
Pierre.” “This is a list of all the violinists he thought were copying the old
masters. I’m not sure if this has anything to do with his disappearance.
Probably not. But I have a hunch...Anyway, I’m taking it with me.”
“You’re taking the notebook? That’s
illegal. What if the police find out?”
“I have to do something about this. The
police aren’t doing anything. They’ve found nothing so far about the other
three violinists. What am I supposed to do?
Sit and wait?”
She felt just a twinge of suspicion. Why
would he go to such extreme? But then again, wasn’t she doing the same? Here
she was, trespassing at the scene of a crime and messing with the evidence.
She sighed. “I feel the same way. He was
my friend, too.” Then she asked, rummaging among the books and papers. “Isn’t
there anything else that can give us a clue?”
“I don’t think so. He was working on his
book. The stuff on his desk seems like it has to do with the book.”
“There’s his violin case,” Emma pointed.
The black leather case lay on the floor by one of the armchairs. She crouched,
opened it, and inspected the empty, red velvet interior. “Don’t you think it’s
odd that his violin disappeared with him?”
“Maybe whoever’s responsible wanted his
violin, too.”
“Why would someone want it? It was a fine
violin. My grandfather made it. But it wasn’t something priceless. Besides,
nobody has asked for any ransom, and none of the other violinists’ violins have
turned out in the black market. Well, at least that we know of.”
“Are you Donatelli’s granddaughter?” He
looked surprised. “Emma? The double-jointed girl?”
Emma felt herself blushing. “Um...yeah.”
“Monsieur Dupriez talked about you a lot.
It was annoying. The last time was to warn me that you would be my toughest
rival at the Christmas competition.”
“What? You’re competing, too?” The thought
of competing against him sent a jolt of excitement through her. She had double
joints, but something about the way he’d recited Holmes told her he had an
uncanny memory, and this came extremely handy when memorizing concertos. “Who
are you?”
“Fletcher,
Corey Fletcher.” The way he’d said it made her think of James Bond, but maybe
she was being paranoid.
“Oh, yeah... Monsieur Dupriez mentioned
you, too.”
“So what are you playing in the
competition?” he asked.
“The Beethoven.”
His eyebrows shot upwards. “Cool.”
“You?”
“Brahms.”
Hmm. Really? Brahms? Big deal. Okay, so
she was a little bit jealous. It was a tough concerto to play well. But so was
Beethoven’s.
“‘I have seen too much not to know that
the impression of a woman may be more valuable than the conclusion of an
analytical reasoner,’” Corey quoted in a stuck-up British accent again.
Heat rose to her cheeks. “What?”
“From The Man with the Twisted Lip.”
Either he was a nutcase, a total show-off,
or a genius. It certainly took a special talent to memorize lines so well from
a book. It also took a great deal of self confidence to recite them to people
he’d just met. Who did he think he was? So what if he was incredibly hot? He
annoyed her. She was crazy about Sherlock Holmes, but the only line she could
quote from him was “Elementary, my dear Watson,” just like the rest of the
world. Oh, and, “The game is afoot.”
“We’re wasting time,” Emma said, not
impressed. “Let’s stick with what we came here to do.”
“Okay.”
He seemed amused. He put one hand up, palm out, and stepped out of her way.
“You have a quick temper, don’t you?”
“I’ve been accused of that,” she retorted.
Emma searched around the room for
something, anything that might offer a clue, while at the same time she tried
not to feel self conscious under his presence. Then she stared at the carpet.
She bent down and started rolling the
carpet, displaying the floor beneath.
“Let me help,” he offered.
“Thanks.”
They pushed the roll of carpet aside. The
oak boards were marred with tiny dents, scratches, and some discoloration, but
the floor looked normal.
Emma kneeled down and knocked on the wood.
“Seems solid.”
He also went on his knees and together
they knocked all over the floor looking for hollow sounds.
His hand moved across a part of the floor
that had been damaged. “What’s this?”
“Discoloration. The varnish is gone.”
“It seems more than discoloration.” He
touched his nose to the wood and sniffed. “It smells like it’s burned.”
“Burned?”
Emma was about to smell the area in
question when they heard voices from outside approaching the front door.
A jolt of panic raced through her. “She’s
back. Quickly, roll back the carpet!”
Mayra Calvani’s Playlist
Moonlight Sonata
Figlio Perduto
Snow White soundtrack
The Village soundtrack
Interview with the
Vampire soundtrack
Dracula soundtrack
And last but not least—in
fact, currently my personal favorite: the Revenge (series) soundtrack
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