Chapter 10: The Bloody Instrument

The photograph was black and white, but I could easily make out the faces of my nighttime acquaintances. I quickly skimmed through the news text: disappeared a week ago, police report filed, search operations initiated. The old car had been stolen but was found abandoned yesterday in the suburbs of St. Petersburg. The mother of one of the missing men gives an interview, describing what a good person her son was – he helped animals since childhood, studied diligently, led a healthy lifestyle, and had achievements in boxing. Yes, that same bald guy who had been shaking his phallic attribute in front of me turned out to be a dutiful mama's boy, and they were waiting for him at home…

I suddenly felt nauseous. I must have noticeably paled at that moment because the teacher asked, puzzled:

"Nicole, what's wrong? Did you not practice the exercise at home?"

"I… no, I…" I bleated weakly.

"You're unpleasantly surprising me. This is the first time I see a phoenix unprepared for a Geography lesson – it's your major subject, after all. I'll forgive you this once, don't turn pale. But I must warn you: if this happens again, I'll have to report your poor performance to your curator."

My voice immediately returned, and even color, judging by my flushed cheeks, rushed back to my face.

"Don't tell the curator!" I exclaimed. "I did prepare! Just a moment, Mr. Walker!.. I just need to… get in the right mindset."

A minute later, I did get my well-deserved A, but my mood was irreparably spoiled, and for the rest of the class, I couldn't think of anything except that newspaper. As if on purpose, Jake and Liz weren't called to the board, and right after the end of the lesson, the teacher stuffed the evidence into his briefcase along with the other papers and left – faster than I could tell my friends what I had read.

"You don't believe me again?! Let's catch up with him!!!"

"Antipova, quiet, don't yell," Charm stopped me. "I suppose that wasn't the only copy of the newspaper in existence. Did you remember its name?"

"No," I exhaled.

"Then we'll go to the newsstand today and look through all of them. Not now, but after the fifth lesson."

"I'm not going to Black's class!" I started trembling inside again. "I can't face him! Don't you understand?! This was real! He's a murderer!"

"But what if it's still a coincidence?" Jake asked quietly. "Well, they disappeared because they're drug addicts, they're just hanging out somewhere. Gone today – found tomorrow. In any case, I won't risk skipping Mr. Black's lessons now, and I don't advise you to either! Better tell me, did anyone read the first paragraph in his study guide?.."

* * *

Only by the beginning of the fifth period did I understand why almost all our girls had come to class today in miniskirts. Apparently, every self-respecting first-year female student considered it her duty to try to hook up with the young curator. Flirtatious whispers constantly echoed throughout the classroom. Legs in high-heeled shoes provocatively peeked out between the rows of desks.

Mr. Black seemed to notice none of this outrage. With a confident gesture, he removed the violin case from his shoulder and surveyed the room. From the female half of the group, his attention was drawn only to Lizzy, who was dressed modestly today and had even chosen humble hazel-brown contact lenses:

"Charm, what are you doing here? If my memory serves me right, you were sent to the Astronomy elective, following in your mother's footsteps?"

"Your memory serves you right, Mr. Black," she drawled in an angelic voice, jumping up from her seat. "That's correct, you didn't put me on the list, but I came anyway. I just really… really!.. want to attend your course. I'm not at all like my mother. I'm drawn to Art, you see? I feel it's my calling!.."

Mr. Black twisted his lips in a semblance of a smile. In my opinion, he barely held back from laughing sarcastically, but still pulled himself together and said:

"Well, Charm, if you've weighed everything carefully and this is your conscious decision…"

"Couldn't be more conscious, Mr. Black!"

"Keep in mind, I won't let you go back in the middle of the semester."

"I don't need to go back," Liz chirped enthusiastically. "I swear, I'll go with you till the end! I…"

"So be it," Mr. Black unceremoniously interrupted her. "Let's begin. Today we are to practice the technique of passive connection."

Sitting down at the table, he opened the gradebook and wrote in Lizzy's surname, then in a couple of seconds, as if in passing, marked the absentees with the red pen – without even doing a roll call. Had he really memorized all of us from just one time?!

"As you could have read in the first paragraph, if you had opened it, any work of art – be it music, painting, poetry, or sculpture – is a channel. Through it, you can connect with the author, living or dead, and get much more information than was initially put into their creation. The artist Basil Hallward in Oscar Wilde's novel 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' said: 'I can't exhibit the picture in an art gallery, because I've put too much of myself into it.' And he's not the only one. An author always puts their whole self into any work – entirely, without remainder. Such is the essence of creativity. This is what we intend to use to complete the assignment."

The case locks clicked. What a familiar sound! In Mr. Black's hands appeared a bow – that same one with the black stone handle – and then, a violin made of dark wood.

"Now you will listen to an excerpt from a work by a great composer and virtuoso violinist. Try to open the channel and establish a connection to his personality through the music, using the instructions provided in the first paragraph. Those who didn't deign to study the methodological guide yesterday have about two minutes while I prepare the instrument. At the end of the exercise, I will ask you to tell everything you were able to read between the notes."

Speaking of notes – he had no sheet music with him. Looks like he was going to reproduce the melody from memory. Amazing! Until this moment, I hadn't thought that he could actually play. I wasn't even sure his violin was real. Watching Mr. Black rub rosin on the reddish hair of the bow, I mentally shuddered. Could this thing, besides slicing people, really produce sounds from the strings?

"If you manage to establish contact, don't yell about it to the whole classroom. Keep silent. I will sense those who connect."

The musician stepped to the center of the podium and, standing halfway turned to the audience, lowered the violin onto his shoulder. Touching it with his chin, he closed his eyes. A bracelet jingled under the cuff of his black shirt, a silver cufflink gleamed, his hand with the bow fluttered upward… I instinctively recoiled back in my chair, squeezing my eyes shut. A nervous shiver ran down my spine, and only after the first sounds of music filled the air could I get a hold of myself. Phew! He's not going to kill anyone. At least not this time.

When his eyes are closed, his face becomes different – calm, serene, benevolent. Probably, he loves his violin much more than people. Heeds the melody, completely gone there, and disconnected from the real world. From under the sleeve of his raised arm, the edge of another tattoo is visible – also round, like the one on his neck, but this time he doesn't feel my inquisitive gaze on it. He doesn't notice anything at all, doesn't even hear the admiring whispers of his fan girls. And he certainly doesn't pay attention to the fact that a strand of hair is about to slip out of his ponytail and fall on his face…

Now the girls in the classroom were no longer whispering loudly, but quietly gasping. I chuckled to myself – they'll probably come to the next lesson without skirts at all.

Mr. Black slightly shook his head, removing the stray strand. Though not for long. Soon it again disobediently lay on his smoothly shaved cheekbone, and he gave up. His hand continued to flutter, gently moving the bow across the strings, the violin let out a slow melody that pierced the air with invisible threads. Well, how can you so mercilessly charm students! It seems they've completely forgotten what the assignment was. Even Liz – she also seems to have been enchanted. Leaning forward, propping her chin with her hand, barely breathing and almost not blinking, plump lips parted, eyes dreamily half-closed.

The "charms" didn't affect only me, on the contrary – they irritated me. I probably won't calm down at all until he puts away his bloody instrument.

To somehow distract myself from the frightening pictures that came to mind, I took a few deep breaths and tried to tune in.

My breathing stopped on its own – as during an astral projection exercise. Mr. Black's dark silhouette against the white board blurred, and then flowed along the contour in waves, spreading outward like the surface of a river into which a boulder was thrown. Only instead of a boulder, it was my gaze.

I looked at the classroom from somewhere far away and slightly above, and around me grew a coniferous forest. Huge, mighty, centuries-old firs and pines hid me with their "paws." Fresh air hit my face – clean and cool. I heard the murmur of crystal waters through which the silty bottom could be seen. I didn't understand where I was, but I no longer wanted to breathe. Now Mr. Black and I were separated not only by two rows of desks. There were thousands of miles between us, and with each new heartbeat, with each new sound of the violin trembling in the restless wind, I flew somewhere further and further…

The sound of applause knocked me out of my trance. The beautiful pictures disappeared, scattered into gray dull fragments.

"Alas, I cannot respond in kind," a deep haughty voice drowned out the harmonious clapping. "There are thirty-two students in the hall, and only nine connections. Not much. Miss Foreteller, let's start with you. Tell us what you managed to read?"

"The person who composed this melody," the chips lover began uncertainly, rising, "is already dead."

"You don't need to be a fortune teller to know that," Mr. Black snorted, putting aside the violin. "The piece is classical, written three centuries ago. I'm interested in the emotions put in by the composer. Who is this person, what was he thinking about, what was happening in his life?.. Mr. Healer, help your neighbor."

"Well… he was an extraordinary creative personality," the classmate blurted out, carefully hitting the bull's-eye, "and he was depressed because his genius remained misunderstood by the secular world."

"Yeah," Mr. Black demonstratively rolled his eyes and, sitting down in the teacher's chair, leaned back. "And you did connect, Mr. Healer, even twice, I felt it. Miss Witchley, you try?"

"The composer was gay," she blurted out.

"This is not Tchaikovsky¹⁷!" Mr. Black growled, reaching for the red pen. "Everything is clear with group 'M'. The rest of the mages will get F-s automatically."

"But!.. wait!"

"We haven't answered yet!!!"

"Why should we…?!"

The classroom drowned in indignant exclamations.

"Dear students," the violinist winced, "stop this circus. In the future, I hope none of you will dare to play this humiliating guessing game with me, and you will start working. Now let's move on to group 'S', who's brave? Mr. Brittlegill?"

"Well, of course," Jake grumbled, getting up, "if it's an execution, I'm always the first, as usual…"

"Louder, Mr. Brittlegill, don't be shy."

"I'm saying, he was ill, Mr. Black. Traumatic brain injury in childhood and as a result – insomnia. And after his father's death, he developed an unusual gift, he began to see spirits. It seems he tried to escape from his visions to a monastery, but it didn't bring him peace…"

"Now that's more interesting. Continue."

"I've said everything I felt. Sorry."

"The composer could project his consciousness out of his body and communicated with entities from the lower astral," a girl from group 'S' came to his rescue. "He was considered possessed."

"Larvae and devils visited him even during his years of seclusion in the monastery," her neighbor joined in.

"He is not the author of the work attributed to him," the yellow eyes of another snake flashed.

Not wanting to receive F-s en masse following the mages, the students began to "pull out" each other, gathering the necessary information in bits and pieces through time and space.

"And who is the real author then?" Mr. Black asked, almost mockingly. In response, the company just spread their hands. "Okay, sit down, Brittlegill, you've got 'C'. I'm not giving grades to the others, since it's not possible to confirm or refute these hypotheses using historical sources."

The students exhaled with relief. Someone slid down the back of their chair, someone stretched stiff shoulders, someone put a mint candy in their mouth.

"Antipova, now you. Surprise us."

My knees were shaking slightly. I wanted to hide, there wasn't enough air. A gust of wind caught me again, and I really did hide – there, far-far away, high-high above the moisture-smelling trees. How good it would be to actually fly away from here right now!

The image split. I saw two places at once and began to describe the second one in an emotionless, hollow voice:

"The old railway cuts through the dense forest. It bends and weaves between tall, dark green firs and pines that stretch endlessly. Cracked, wet wooden sleepers flash by in the window. Despite the heavy rain and gusty wind, the train rushes as fast as it can until it is stopped by a tree felled by the hurricane…"

Mr. Black raised an eyebrow. Then, frowning, he began to rub his chin.

"Somewhere far away, a large city is noisy, and next to it spreads a huge clean lake – like a real sea. But I'm not there. I'm flying over dark dense forests, besides which nothing can be seen, and if you expand the view higher and to the right, then further, beyond the forest, mountains will begin, and at the foot a small village of ten houses will spread out. Now there are ten, one old wooden and nine brick ones, but once there were twice as many, and later – only a single one. The rest were destroyed by a storm…" I paused and added uncertainly. "Should I continue?"

"Yes," Mr. Black exhaled. "I mean, no. Thank you, Antipova, that's enough. Sit down. B."

"Why not an A?" Jake chimed in.

"I can draw a map!" I exclaimed, returning to reality. "I don't convey small details very accurately in words, it would be easier to draw!.."

"No need," Mr. Black strictly cut me off. "I asked you to read the melody. The melody, Antipova, and what were you reading?.. You tune in well, but next time make an effort to hear the assignment correctly."

I felt a slap as if someone had painfully hit my hand. Or even my wing?! I was knocked out of contact, and couldn't connect anymore. A solid metal wall with barbed wire that suddenly grew around the podium reliably suppressed all attempts to open the channel again.