The Uninvited Read Online Free PDF

colorful spots and dribbles, courtesy of her father. A large carpet of industrial gray twill covered most of the central space, and on the carpet sat a couple of Ikea-type trestle tables, upon one of which sat an impressive Mac connected by all sorts of cables and adapters and who knows what to a couple of synthesizers and an array of black boxes stacked in a rack behind what she guessed had to be some kind of mixing board. There was a ratty-looking Yamaha keyboard and several other electronic thingies strewn on the floor, their little LED lights glowing in readiness. Guitars were arrayed on stands around Action Central. So was what she thought must be an electronic drum kit. There were mikes on stands, speakers and headphones, and a music stand and…
    “Shit!” she said. “It’s a recording studio.”
    He laughed. “Well, sort of,” he said modestly. Then once again his face fell and he looked sad, defeated. She carefully put down her mug of tea on the floor by the stairs.
    “I have bad luck with liquids and computers,” she said. “I fried my laptop with a double latte.”
    “Bummer,” he said. But his mind was elsewhere. “I want you to hear something.”
    He cleared a space on the desk and put down his own teacup. Then he booted up the Mac. He sat, put on a pair of headphones, and started moving things around on the screen with a mouse, so quickly and expertly that she didn’t have time to catch what he was doing. When he stopped, the screen was filled with blocks of color like a Mondrian painting on a gray background. He vacated his seat and the headphones.
    She sat and he placed the headphones on her and tightened them for her. And when she nodded that she was comfortable, he punched the space bar.
    Simple
was written in the title band at the top of the screen. There were instrument names written in a list down the left-hand side of the screen. It was some kind of musical composition. Yes. There was a goofy-sounding riff played, she guessed, on the Yamaha. Her mother had bought her a similar keyboard when she was a kid, before her musical talents had been tested and found to be nonexistent. But the goofy theme soon was undermined by a deep and resonant sound and a wind song that seemed to blow the melody out of the water, replacing it with a harmonically complex tune that she realized was a var­iation of the rinky-dink Yamaha melody. Meanwhile, a rhythm was beginning to pulse under the rich tapestry of sound, picking up momentum. She nodded in time with it, smiling.
    “Can you hear it?” he asked.
    She went to take off the headphones, but he stayed her hand. He wanted her to keep listening. “Hear what?” she said, too loud, because of the music pounding in her ears. The question was ridiculous.
    “Listen closely,” he shouted.
    She concentrated but felt a little exasperated. This was nuts! And then suddenly she heard something unexpected. Unexpected because it was random—out of sync to the orchestration. A chirping sound.
    She looked up at him. “The cricket?” she said. He nodded. Then he reached over her shoulder and paused the piece, and she leaned back in the chair and pulled off the headphones. She looked at him. “You didn’t put it there?” He shook his head. “And you can’t get rid of it?”
    He shrugged. “I can. I mean it’s on its own track. But it took me awhile to figure it out.”
    Mimi looked at the screen, at the charts and graphs there that indicated the paused music. There were tracks arrayed down the screen; each instrumental voice had its own. And sure enough, there was a track labeled “cricket.” She pointed at it.
    “Yeah, well, when I figured it out, I labeled it,” he said. “I mean, at first I thought it must have just gotten in the house and I’d picked up the sound of it. You see there’s an acoustic guitar track that isn’t recorded direct.”
    “Eng​lish, please.”
    “Sorry. I had to mike the guitar, and if there had been any ambient sound in