Roz, together with Marilyn Kay, keeps readers up to date on the doings of the Mesdames and Messieurs of Mayhem. She has been writing since childhood: her first work was a 5-page book carefully printed on colored paper in grade school. After growing up, she first became a poet and went on to publish several literary stories in magazines and anthologies.
Her first foray into the mystery genre was the story, “Dana’s Cat”, chosen to be published in our third anthology, 13 Claws. She has now ventured into the horror genre with a tale accepted for publication. She recently completed her first novel.
“Bad Vibrations”, her fantasy cross-over tale, sends a warning to egotistical musicians everywhere. It is part of our 4th anthology, In the Key of 13.
BAD VIBRATIONS
by
ROSALIND PLACE
“I don’t know, Chris. Can’t the board do something? I’m thinking of packing it in.”
Amy ran her fingers through her hair as she sat down, flattening half of her carefully managed curls. It gave her the appearance of a crested bird, an image reinforced by her black sweater, black jeans and high-heeled black boots, now tapping anxiously against the auditorium stage floor. She felt nauseous and angry, as she often did after one of Neil’s so-called motivational meetings.
Chris didn’t seem to be paying attention to her. “Do you ever get the feeling, when you come back from a break or something, that things aren’t quite as you left them?” Hands on his hips, he stood staring at his bass, which was resting on its side propped against his chair. In his sweatpants, T-shirt and running shoes, he looked like he belonged on the track, not in the string section of a community orchestra. Tonight, his normally serene expression had been replaced by a frown. He crouched and leaned forward, pushing his instrument ever so slightly backward.
“No, I don’t,” Amy answered, growing impatient. “Didn’t you hear me? I’m going to pack it in.”
“You’re always threatening to quit, Ames.” Chris straightened, his frown replaced with a smile. “We’re a community orchestra, and we’ve got no say. If he wants to put us in the band shell again, he can. If he wants us to play the 1812 Overture again, he can. True, he can’t keep time, despite his friggin’ ivory baton with the silver handle crafted by I forget who. The board doesn’t care. They just want someone on the podium.” He looked around. “Christ, why is it still so cold in here?” He pulled a tatty gray sweater from the back of his chair and threw it on.
The other orchestra members began to file in. Their clothes reflected their reasons for being there. Although it was only a rehearsal, some, like Amy, were serious musicians who had dressed carefully. Many were still students who hoped to move on to professional careers. Others, like Chris, were just as serious about the music, but had to juggle the rehearsal schedule with day jobs, family or other demands.
As all the players found their seats, they looked more alike than different—all silent, all downcast, focused on their instruments and on warming up. No one made eye contact.
Neil, a tall, angular man who did nothing slowly, strode across the stage carrying his baton. As always, he was dressed in a tailored black suit, white shirt and startlingly bright red tie. His thick, black hair was perfectly styled, shiny and immovable.
“I hope our little meeting inspired everyone to do their best from now on.” He raised his baton. “From the top.” The musicians lifted their instruments. Taking longer than necessary, he waited, and then, with a flourish, began.
“That was the most humiliating experience of my life!” First Flute complained. “When did the 1812 Festival Overture become the 1812 Funeral Overture? How did he ever get hired and why don’t they do something about it?”
The instruments were alone again, the players having been summoned to another room for another inspirational talk.
“Well?” First Flute demanded. She was so upset that the music stand she lay on started to quiver. Wasn’t she a world-class instrument? Wasn’t her owner, Amy, a talented if rather tense player, on her way up?
“They’re not going to, are they?” Oboe responded. Unlike Flute, her owner was on his way out. “They either play or walk away, and none of them have anywhere to walk to. There’s no ‘I’m going to the Philharmonic’ talk here anymore, is there?”
“So you just want to stay in this wretched auditorium forever, playing the same old repertoire over and over again, with whatever moron they decide to throw onto the podium?” Flute asked. “Don’t you want more? Don’t we all want more? You’ve heard the new music; don’t you want to play that? Where’s your ambition?”
Flute went on, “Wasn’t it you, Oboe, who, all last year, went on ad nauseam about the Littlewood Symphony, the orchestra that started on a shoestring with a few good players and ended up in Carnegie Hall?”
Flute knew this was a very sensitive subject. Oboe’s previous owner had been a talented, ambitious young musician. She had recently graduated to a semiprofessional orchestra and promptly purchased a better instrument. Oboe had been sold to Jamie, the new but definitely unambitious oboist.
“That was last year,” Oboe said. “That was when Maria was here and we were all delusional. We’re just a small-town orchestra, Flute. We’re lucky to have a conductor at all. Amy’s been making you listen to those stupid podcasts again.”
“Well, maybe Jamie should spend a little time listening, too,” Flute responded. “If today’s rehearsal is anything to go by.”
“There’s no need to resort to personal insults.”
“Will everyone please stop arguing!” It was First Violin, who had been happily contemplating his imminent return to the string quartet he loved so much. The audition last week had gone well, despite the fact that Evan, who suffered from performance anxiety, had been high at the time. Yes, he could see the light at the end of this particular tunnel quite clearly if everyone else would just shut up.
“Let’s just get through the rehearsal,” First Violin continued. “We’re at the band shell next week. The 1812 is a good choice for the band shell. And we don’t really mind playing there again, do we?”
Trombone jumped in. “Don’t mind?! Are you kidding?!” The entire brass section was humming angrily.
“Let’s just all calm down.” First Violin realized, too late, that he had been careless. “I know we all remember what happened the last time we played the band shell. However, Neil is now our conductor. We work with what we have. Flute, laughter is not helpful at this point. Bass, you’re unusually quiet.”
“Yeah, Bass. Nothing to say, eh?” Flute’s music stand was still quivering. “The biggest of all of us, in one piece and heavy enough to actually accomplish something. Look at me. I’m lucky if I’m not in three pieces, trapped in a case and even if I’m all put together I’m either in the air, on a music stand or on a chair. If I roll off and break a key, where would that get us?”
“Out of the 1812, at least.”
First Violin attempted to gain control again as the percussion section began to vibrate. “Whoever made that comment, I am disappointed in you. It was not helpful.”
Bass was barely paying attention. Chris had just started a new weekend gig with a jazz ensemble, and it had been a revelation. That was where he belonged, not here, in this orchestra full of unhappy instruments and unhappy players. Since Maria left, well, he didn’t even like classical music anymore.
“Well, Bass?” Flute ignored everyone else. “You know what I’m talking about. And you won’t even consider it? The so-called accident last year wasn’t your fault. Everyone knows it but you.”
“I think that is a topic best left…” It took a moment for First Violin to regain enough composure to intervene. Just the mention of the accident was enough to send the entire orchestra off the deep end. Bass was already vibrating loudly behind him, clearly very upset and who could blame him? He had been so fond of Maria.
It had been Maria, on that fateful last performance in the band shell, who had tried to save Bass when his stand gave way. As a result, Maria lost her footing, and fell from the stage. She was carried off on a stretcher and never returned.
“Yes, I know, First Violin,” Flute cut in. “God forbid anyone mentions the accident. It goes to show, though, doesn’t it, Mister First Bass, who won’t do anything to help the rest of us? Easy for you, who looks down on everyone. But then, you don’t have to worry so much, do you? Basses don’t play in marching bands, do they?”
The woodwinds were vibrating now; in fact, the entire orchestra was starting to quiver in distress.
“You didn’t know?” Flute addressed them all. “He’s going to do it. Next spring. A marching band!”
“Flute! Quiet, everyone! Please!” First Violin ordered. “They’re coming back. Trombone, is that how she left you? Cello, were you not facing to the left?”
The rehearsal ended earlier than usual despite the extra break. Neil slumped dramatically over his music stand, hand over eyes. then straightened up, tucked his baton under his arm and, with a flick of his wrist, told the orchestra to go home.
Chris and Amy were the last to leave.
“You know how it is when you walk into a room and everyone’s been talking and they suddenly stop?” Chris said. “That’s just how it feels.”
He waited as Amy carefully put her flute away and slipped sheet music into her briefcase, then straightened her chair and the one next to it. She had been known to straighten all the chairs in the orchestra before leaving—a pointless exercise, since the school janitor would pile them all up the next morning to clear the stage for the school assembly.
“We don’t have another rehearsal before Saturday,” Amy said. She turned to Chris. “It’s going to be a disaster. What kind of a conductor thinks tuning an orchestra is an unnecessary evil and when he does deign to do it, tunes to an oboe who regularly plays half a tone flat?” She glanced back at the chair she had just straightened.
“It happens every time we come back from a break, Ames. As if there were people here, whispering to each other and…moving things.”
“Moving things?” Amy asked.
“It’s just a feeling,” he said. “I didn’t say it made sense.”
Chris watched Amy move toward the next set of chairs. “It’s okay, Ames. Let’s just get out of here.” He touched her lightly on the arm, and she turned back to him with a small smile. “I was just saying that something feels wrong, that’s all,” he said.
“Something’s wrong all right. We have a conductor who cannot conduct, an oboist who cannot play and a bass player who’s losing it.”
A school bus had been booked to take the players and their instruments to the fairgrounds. The musicians had been told to arrive half an hour early, leave their instruments in the bus and meet inside the school.
Everyone in the orchestra was required to wear a black jacket. The order created hard feelings among the players as they searched for the proper apparel at local secondhand stores. No one had money to burn.
When everyone had been gathered and seated in the auditorium, Neil, baton in hand, appeared on stage. He was followed by a very young woman, dressed in a long sweater and leggings, who looked tense and uncomfortable.
The conductor said, “I felt it my duty, given the importance of today’s concert, to do my upmost to prepare everyone. Leanna is here today…”
He paused, raised his baton and pointed it at her. The woman took a few steps back and bumped into a row of music stands not yet put away by the janitor. The stands clattered onto the stage floor.
Neil waited, baton still raised, as one of the players jumped up to help the woman. “As I said, I felt it was my duty to ensure you are prepared, and to this end I have asked Leanna here today to teach everyone some simple techniques of meditation.” He promptly left the stage.
Leanna, red-faced and still recovering from her brush with the music stands, hesitantly stepped forward.
Bass was regretting, and not for the first time, the way Chris always chose to sit with Amy. He was now trapped at the back of the bus right next to Flute, who was getting everyone upset.
Flute’s constant carping about Neil was getting on Bass’s nerves more and more, and making all the instruments anxious and irritable. Bass would be perfectly content working weekend gigs at the bar if Chris would just give up this lost cause.
Flute, whose speechifying had been going on for some time now, was getting louder and impossible to ignore.
“Just what are you suggesting, Flute?” asked First Violin, who sounded distinctly nervous.
“There is a rumor—it’s surprising what one can learn when forgotten in a conservatory hallway—that Maria has recovered and may wish to return. Neil is about to make us all a laughing stock. If we don’t want that to happen, well, something has to be done. Isn’t that right, Bass?”
Several instruments chimed in at the same time. “What?” “What something?” There was a definite vibration running through parts of the orchestra, and Bass could feel the tension rising up around him. He wasn’t happy that Flute had addressed him directly.
“All right. I’ll say it, then.” Flute waited, ratcheting the tension up another notch. “Neil has to go and he has to go soon. He’ll never resign, not unless he gets a better offer. But who would have him? No, he has to go and the only way I can see it happening is if he were… well…unable to continue.”
“Yes!” cried Trombone, who almost slid off the seat across which she had been carefully laid.
The vibration was now a hum, moving down the rows, instrument to instrument. Oboe, uncertain and unwilling to give in to Flute on anything, would have refused to join in, but for the impossible-to-ignore thought that this could be a way to get back to where she had once been.
Only one instrument did not react. Bass remained silent and perfectly still.
The bus was almost halfway to the fairgrounds when the rain started. The driver had warned Neil back at the high school that the forecast had changed. Neil ignored her, so she repeated it, more loudly, as the players trailed onto the bus. The meditation lesson had left them more irritated than calmed, but all knew better than to raise a protest. They stoically watched as the sky darkened, the wind picked up and the first drops of rain splashed against the bus windows.
By the time they arrived at the fairgrounds, a full-blown thunderstorm was sending fairgoers running for cover. The chairs lined up on the band shell stage were sliding away in the wind. The temporary steps at the front of the stage that Neil had demanded—as the conductor, he couldn’t possibly enter the stage from the wings like everyone else—had been pushed sideways.
The musicians waited, listening to the pelting rain and the crashing thunder, feeling the wind pushing against the bus with alarming strength. When the sandwich board announcing the orchestra’s performance fell facedown into the mud, even Neil had to admit there would be no performance.
As the bus turned around, Neil stood at the front, shouting to make himself heard above the storm, and reviewed the schedule of performances for the next three months. Unfortunately, the fall season finale would be in the same band shell during the Festival of Lights.
“Really? Outside at the end of November?” complained Jamie, the oboist. “We’ll freeze our asses off.” Tall and extremely thin, he pulled his ill-fitting black jacket around him and shivered as if he could already feel those chill winter winds.
The bus had arrived back at the high school just as the sun came out, and the players were returning to their cars.
“And what was it he said about a marching band?” Jamie continued.
“A marching band?” asked Jeanie, the petite trombone player. “Who said anything about a marching band?” She hefted her instrument case onto the backseat of her truck. Nightmarish memories of high school football games ran through her mind, making her a little dizzy. “You can’t have heard him right.”
“Oh, I heard him all right,” Jamie said. “You should’ve seen the look on Amy’s face! He’ll be firing us left, right and center if he gets his way. Speaking of which, did you hear the latest?”
The small group of players who had gathered around him all shook their heads.
“Well, Maria wants to come back and got turned down,” Jamie said. “The word is that there’s going to be an investigation of her accident. Word is, it wasn’t one.”
Chris came up beside the group. “What’s up?”
Jamie had a nasty habit of gossiping about other players that Chris wanted to quash. Amy had already stalked off to her car.
“Nothing,” Jamie replied. He didn’t make eye contact. Chris was impossible when it came to any kind of gossip. “We were just talking about the marching band, that’s all. Nothing you have to worry about.”
“Hmm.” Chris nodded and turned away. He asked himself when everything had started to feel so wrong. A vision of the auditorium stage, chairs empty but for the instruments, appeared before him, and he felt a chill creep from the top of his head to the base of his spine.
“Get a grip,” he muttered as he got into his car. “All that BS about phantoms moving instruments around. Amy’s right. You are losing it.”
It took about six weeks of playing outdoors in their black jackets in the summer heat, six weeks of alternating sycophantic praise and bullying from Neil, and six weeks of band shells and distant town halls before some of the orchestra members decided they’d had enough.
By the time October—with its promise of extra rehearsals for the endless Christmas concerts Neil had signed them up for—rolled around, there were mutterings about going to the board. This was something of a pipe dream, as none of the players knew who the board members were, where they met or if they would be the least bit interested in what any of them had to say.
Leanna, the meditation teacher, had been replaced by Bjorn, the life coach, who had just been replaced by Ariana. No one was sure exactly what Ariana’s specialty was.
So the players and their instruments found themselves in the gloomy auditorium again, on a busy weekday evening, rehearsing the 1812 Festival Overture again. The Festival of Lights was fast approaching, the temperature was dropping daily and it appeared to everyone that Neil was intent on making the final concert of the outdoor season one to remember.
“Open minds, everyone. Open minds!” Neil stepped down from the podium and walked slowly around the stage. This was extremely disconcerting to any female player he paused behind, as he stood just a little too close and placed his hands on the back of her chair, making it impossible to move forward.
Neil’s hands had a tendency to wander, as did his thoughts, evidenced by sudden and abrupt speechifying that left many a woman trying to ignore the moist warmth of his breath against her skin.
Tonight, however, he walked off into the wings and beckoned the players to follow. Ariana was waiting, and, as long as their minds were open, she would lead them all on a spiritual journey that would bring their playing to new heights.
“We’ve been over this. How many times have we been over this?”
Flute had started to address the instruments as soon as the last player had followed Neil off the stage. Then she turned her attention to Bass. “It’s perfectly simple. Those steps were dangerous last year, and they haven’t done anything to fix them. That’s a sign. We are meant to do this.”
“There is no ‘meant to’ only ‘must do,’ remember?” Trombone, quoting Bjorn, interjected. “And is that the royal ‘we’ you’re using, there, Flute? I don’t see that you actually have to do anything at all. It’s Bass who has to ‘move,’ a euphemism if ever there was one.”
Flute was annoyed by the interruption and offended by the sarcasm. “Well, I’m obviously not in a position…” But she stopped herself from saying something she’d regret later. Stay on point.
She turned to the full orchestra again. “All he has to do is fall over. That is all he has to do. He’s in the perfect position to do it, now that Neil has moved everyone around. Bass falls over, Neil loses his balance, and, with any luck, given the condition of those steps…well… there’s a good chance he’ll be laid up for a while. It gives us some breathing room, some time to…to…”
“Find a way to get rid of him?”
“Yes, thank you, Oboe,” First Violin cut in. “We can always rely on you to be on the mark.” He waited for the hum of nervous instruments to subside.
It had been a difficult summer for First Violin. His longed-for move to the concert world had not come to pass, despite all signals to the contrary. He had received the news on the very day that Flute had come to him. She had presented her plan in such cool, well-thought-out terms that he found himself unable to say no.
“As you all know, as Concertmaster, I cannot condone this kind of action. However—”
Flute cut him off. “I was going to say, some time to consider our options.” She paused, seeming to come to some certainty, then continued. “But Oboe is right. That is what we all want in the end.”
When had things started to go so wrong, Bass wondered, as the arguments continued around him. They had been replaying them all summer and fall, and Flute had been haranguing him every chance she got. He had been able to stand up to her, but she was winning over the string section.
And when had Flute become so powerful anyway, powerful enough to make them all think that he would do something like this on purpose? Last year had been an accident, and they had all lost Maria as a result.
Bass could still remember the sickening feeling he had as the instrument stand snapped and he started to slide, then Maria stepping forward to try to catch him and then stepping backward into space. How could they expect this of him?
Bass had been sold after that accident, his player telling everyone he couldn’t face playing him anymore. It was sheer luck that Chris, the best player he had ever had, had been the one to buy him.
“I think we can all agree that what happened last year was not Bass’s fault,” Flute said. “I think we are all familiar with the rumors. When Neil was in the orchestra, the last chair in the violin section if I remember correctly, it was clear that he had ambitions. Well, he fulfilled those ambitions, didn’t he? Not through talent—we all know he has none of that—but by a nasty little bit of sabotage.”
“What?” Bass could feel the vibrations building to an angry hum around him. “What do you mean, a nasty little bit of sabotage?”
“Just what I said.” Flute turned to Bass, but she was addressing the entire orchestra. “Neil wanted to conduct; he made sure he got the chance. If wanting to get rid of the worst conductor we have ever had isn’t enough reason for you, then think of it this way—it’s time for a little payback. Come now, Bass, wouldn’t you agree?”
Receiving no response, Flute continued, “It appears all concerns have been dealt with. Is that not so, First Violin?”
“Yes, Flute, yes…ah…yes, certainly…ah, I believe some of the players are returning.”
Chris stood in front of the band shell, arms crossed, surveying the stage. Chairs were askew, and some instruments lay across them. Others, like his bass, stood neatly in their stands. The scene was no different from that of any other performance. Yet there was that feeling again. It wasn’t exactly whispering … he just couldn’t put his finger on what it was.
Preconcert jitters, Amy had told him. Something he wasn’t usually prone to, but then again, it was their final concert at the band shell and the forecast was for snow flurries. Neil seemed to be blissfully unaware of what the cold would do to the instruments and their players.
With all the resentment that had been building since spring, Chris didn’t want to be here.
“What did you say?” Amy came up behind him. “You’re talking to yourself again.”
“No, I wasn’t. I just…did you hear anything?”
“I know. You don’t have to tell me. It’s your ghosts again. Maybe the band shell is haunted, too. Probably by all the players who came before us and cannot believe what they are now hearing. That I would believe.”
“You know, I’m a regular kind of guy,” Chris said. “I go to work, I go home, I practice, I come here. This, though, is creeping me out. Look at your flute, Amy. Your flute wasn’t like that when we left.”
The other players began filing back onto the stage, and Chris turned away to go back to his own place. He looked back at Amy, who hadn’t moved and was looking back at him.
“It’s just bad vibrations, Chris. That’s all it is.”
It was during the break between the first and second performances that it happened.
The players had all rushed into the hall behind the band shell to warm up. The first performance had not gone well, which was no surprise given that the temperature was hovering close to zero.
Neil had said nothing to any of them, striding off alone toward the bleachers. He arrived back well before the second performance, though, and stood at the entrance to the hall. He stared at each of them in turn, a look of disgust on his face. With a flick of his baton, he beckoned them to follow him back to the bandstand.
But no one paid much attention. The musicians were past fearing the flick of Neil’s silver-handled, ivory baton. No one wanted to leave the warmth of the hall, and they still had 10 minutes of their break left.
Which was why Neil was alone when he walked, fast, toward the stage. He took the first two steps in a leap, jumped again onto the third and landed heavily on the final, crucial step. No one was there to hear it give way, nor to witness him, one foot on the stage and one on the collapsing step, turn and, still holding his baton and arms flailing, fall face-first onto the ground below. There was a scream, and then nothing.
The players ran to the band shell, as did some of the audience members. They were all too late. They milled around in confusion and horror as Neil’s body was lifted onto a stretcher and carried away.
No one noticed the bass. It lay where it had fallen, across the cracked steps, pointing at the bloodied, snow-covered grass where Neil had landed.
It was a long time before the orchestra was able to assemble again.
Two terrible incidents, one fatal, occurring within the space of a year had resulted in investigations by the police, the Department of Health and Safety, and the previously invisible orchestra board of directors. All had come to the same conclusion—that these were two very nasty, undoubtedly coincidental, accidents.
So it was months later, on an unseasonably warm March day, that the players came together again. Depositing their instruments in the still chilly auditorium, they went back outside to await Maria’s arrival.
Chris, standing with Amy, couldn’t help but feel that things were on the upswing at last. Those strange forebodings of last year, those bad vibrations, were gone. The cloud of guilt that had surrounded him ever since the accident had lifted with the end of the last investigation.
And Amy had finally auditioned for the jazz ensemble; she was a shoo-in.
“It feels good to be back!” Amy said, slipping her arm into his. “It’s going to be a good year; I can feel it!”
In the auditorium, no one was thinking about Maria or looking forward to the new season. The instruments were on edge, watching a familiar, unnerving scene play out in front of them, with no one to keep things under control.
First Violin had left the week before. on to better things, or so he said, though all suspected he had simply lost his nerve.
“It was murder, pure and simple,” Bass declared, comfortable enough in his new stand to let himself vibrate and be heard. He was determined to get Flute to admit the truth. Then he would let it go. He had done what he had done and would have to live with it, but he was damned if Flute was going to get away with pretending it hadn’t happened at all.
“It certainly was not!” Flute shot back, vibrating loudly. “How long are we going to have to discuss this?” She was sick and tired of Bass going on and on, trying to make her feel guilty. She felt no guilt and never would. The plan had been more successful than she could have imagined.
“They investigated not once, not twice, but three times,” Flute said. “All three were ridiculous, and I still can’t imagine how they got away with any of them.”
“I can imagine,” Oboe cut in. She had had quite enough of Flute, and was stressed out by problems of her own, namely Jamie. “It was because it was the second time. They probably thought Bass was some conductor-killing serial murderer.”
“Oboe, don’t be absurd,” Flute replied. “It was an unreliable instrument stand. Which was perfect. Bass, you fell perfectly. If Neil hadn’t held onto that ridiculous baton, he wouldn’t have fallen on it, and it wouldn’t have—well, you all know what happened.”
A shudder went through the instruments as they remembered the grisly scene.
“It was murder,” Bass said. “It was what you wanted. And you got me to do it”
“Excuse me! It was what everyone wanted.”
Flute had had enough. She had been angry and upset all week. She still couldn’t believe that Amy had auditioned for the jazz ensemble. Flute was as open-minded as any other instrument about music but jazz! No, Neil had only got what he deserved. Flute had saved them all. And she would do it again.
“As I have said many times, Bass, it’s not like someone took his baton and stabbed him to death. In fact—” Flute turned to the orchestra again “—if you really think about it, it was the stairs giving way that did it. It really had nothing to do with any of us, at all.”
Bass could feel the mood changing around him now. She was winning them over, and there was nothing he could do about it. He thought of Chris, the ensemble, Maria. He would just go forward and never listen to Flute again.
“We all need to think about this differently,” Flute said. “Maria is back and we need to think about what we can accomplish under her.” Flute felt excited, sure of herself, sure of her power. “We want to get out of this wretched high school auditorium, don’t we? We want something better, don’t we? Isn’t that what this has all really been about?”
She had them now. “In light of what we have learned from this…” She paused. Bass had said nothing more, was silent; in fact, the entire orchestra was silent. Yes, they were waiting for her, waiting for her to show them the way forward.
It was time. It was her time. She would not be turned back, not by Bass, or anyone.
“In light of what we have learned from this,” she repeated, certain and calm now, “I, for one, see nothing wrong with a little more weeding out. Oboe, has Jamie been practicing?”
THE END
Mesdames of Mayhem 