No copyright infringement intended in the story. Disclaimer: All Charlie Bone characters and settings belong to Jenny Nimmo.

Chapter One: Pianissimo

Pianissimo - Soft, seeping through people's souls quietly

A quick rap on the oak doors startled Dr. Bloor. He glanced at the wall clock behind him; it was half past three in the morning. He frowned – who the hell would visit him unannounced at this hour?

"Come in," Dr. Bloor spoke, in his quiet sinister voice. It rang of power and danger. The door opened slowly, and the most unexpected visitor stepped into the room quietly, as if he was weightless.

The person was small – hardly taller than five foot. He was wearing a black cloak with a hood, which left his face in shadows. Dr. Bloor could see from the slender hand still on the doorknob that it was pale white in an unhealthy pallor.

"Manfred Bloor sent me here," said the hoarse voice. It sounded like the person was still recovering from a particularly bad sore throat.

"Manfred?" Dr. Bloor said, getting up from his study. "Who are you?"

The hood slipped back. Dr. Bloor was not a man easily frightened, but he found himself gasping.

"I'm supposed to stay here, sir," the person continued in a flat voice. It was not commanding; if anything, it sounded confused, repeating facts as if to have a hold on what's going on. "Manfred said that."

"Yes," Dr. Bloor said, steadying himself on his study, understanding. "Yes."

"CHARLIE BONE!" shouted an irate grandmother, slamming her door behind her. The echo vibrated around the small house, waking up its occupants.

A boy with messy brown hair woke up groggily. He turned around in his bed and caught a glimpse of the neon green numbers on his digital alarm clock. "Seven o'clock."

His eyes widened immediately.

Before he had time to react, his grandmother opened his door. It slammed against his set of drawers, and his photo frame fell onto the ground with a smash.

"Charlie," said Grandma Bone furiously. "You have exactly half an hour to get dressed, pack your bag and straighten your hair!"

She glanced around the messy bedroom. Books were strewn all over the floor. She opened her mouth to say something – and saw his blue music cape hung on his window so that it was billowing in the wind like a makeshift curtain. Before shock could register on her face, Charlie hastily tugged his cape down.

"Thanks, Grandma," he said, and closed the door quickly before she could rant. Grandma Bone practically worshipped school. Seeing his uniform tossed around callously would most likely ground him to the next century.

"Hurry up, Charlie," called Maisie, Charlie's maternal grandmother. His friends often called her 'The Nice Grandmother'. "Your bacon and eggs are getting cold."

"BREAKFAST?" Grandma Bone snorted. She was not yelling exactly – but her voice carried through all the same. "He doesn't deserve breakfast, that ungrateful law-breaking school-"

The door pushed open and Charlie, dressed in his school uniform with his bag slung around one shoulder, hurried by the corridor. "Thanks, Maisie!" he called.

Grandma Bone sniffed again as she watched her grandson run down the stairs. "Ignore me then," she sniffed, "no one appreciates me around here."

"Get a grip, Grizelda," snapped another voice from the bedroom above. "Now kindly let me get some sleep!"

Charlie, down at the dining table, snickered. Maisie caught his eye and smiled. "Paton – 1; Grandma Bone – 0" remarked Maisie. "Now come here and see if she stops me from hugging my 15-year-old grandson."

He squirmed uncomfortably under her grasp. "I'm just one year older."

Maisie let him go. "One day, one year, same idea," Maisie said cheerfully. "If I had my way, you wouldn't be going to school at all."

"It's Bloor's."

"And so it is." There was nothing more to say. Nobody skipped school at Bloor's.

A loud honking sound from down the road had Charlie shooting up from his seat. With toast in his mouth, he waved goodbye at his grandmother and went to his bus.

"Hey Charlie," said a cheerful voice, "Happy Birthday!"

"Hey Fidelio," answered Charlie, always glad to see his friend. "Thanks."

"Going to keep your head down this year, I suppose?" Fidelio asked, grinning, "No more ruined castles? No time twister, no invisible boa, no mirror, no ancestors to help etc etc?"

"You know me Fidelio," Charlie said seriously, "I'm never that type of guy."

"Sure you're not," Fidelio answered good-naturedly, and the bus moved on with the sound of boys' laughter.

"Charlie!" shouted Olivia, running towards him as soon as her bus rolled to a stop. A black-haired boy with spots turned to her. "Sorry Charlie," she told the boy over her shoulder, not stopping, "I mean CHARLIE BONE!"

Charlie and Fidelio turned around. A tall girl with a stream of jet black hair skidded to a halt in front of them. She grinned at them. Olivia Vertigo was a student in the Drama department at Bloors'. She looked like a perfect model student, until one's eye went down to her shoes. Killer boots. Leather. Five inch heels.

"You ran in that?" Fidelio exclaimed in disbelief.

"It just takes practice," Olivia said seriously. "Anyway, Happy Birthday Charlie! I got you this." She threw something small at him.

Charlie's arms flailed and the present landed at his feet. Olivia rolled her eyes. "Honestly Charlie," she said, "have at least one cool moment in your life?"

"I prefer being unique," Charlie replied, picking up the object. He turned it around in his palm. It looked like an Ipod.

"It looks expensive."

"Actually it was free!" Olivia admitted happily.

"Wow, thanks for cracking open the piggy bank for me, Liv."

"No, wait-" Olivia said, looking over her shoulder. A man with stringy black hair was advancing at them, his black eyes focused on Charlie suspiciously. "I got it from my dad's set. It was a spy movie and he got real government agents to design it for him."

"What does it do?" said Charlie in interest. Olivia's father was a director, and he picked up interesting things along the way.

"It-"

"Welcome back, Bone," Manfred Bloor said snidely, not looking pleased to see them.

"What are we, invisible?" muttered Olivia from the corner of her mouth. Unfortunately, Manfred picked it up. He glared at her.

"Watch your mouth, Vertigo," Manfred snapped. "If it weren't the first day, I would have you in detention."

"We'll go now, Manfred sir," Fidelio said quickly, holding Charlie's wrist. He dragged the boy into the hall. Olivia followed them, and the three of them stopped at the corridor.

"Olivia!" said a girl's voice brightly. "I found you!"

"Emma!" cried Olivia, crushing the smaller girl.

The boys looked wryly upon this scene. Emma Tolly emerged from the bear hug, bright pink but quite unscathed. "I just saw you at the bookshop yesterday, Liv."

"You know what they say, yesterday is twenty-four hours ago."

Emma turned to Charlie. In their first year, they were around the same height. Now, Emma was only at Charlie's shoulder. She was forced to look up to look at him in the face.

"Happy Birthday, Charlie," she said, beaming. "I've got something for you too, but I left it in the Music Room, just in case I wouldn't see you today."

"Thanks, Em," Charlie said. He felt his spirit rise. It was brutally materialistic of him, he knew, but at the mention of every gift, he felt more and more cared for. First, the bamboo flute from Fidelio, who promised to teach him for his leaving examinations so he would not flunk, then the Ipod. Now this.

"We should go," Fidelio repeated, tugging Charlie's arm. "C'mon, assembly is going to start."

"Assembly?" Charlie said in surprise. "Why?" They had never had a school-wide assembly in the morning before.

"I'm not sure," Fidelio frowned, "but it's in the newsletter the school sent to us last week. Didn't you get it?"

"His Evil Grandmother probably got to it," remarked Olivia.

The bell rang.

The school assembled in the dining hall, where the students had their meals. In the sea of blue, green and purple capes, a formidable man in a black cloak stood up and swept his gaze over his students. They immediately fell silent at once.

"Another year has gone," Dr. Bloor said flatly, "but several things have happened in the past few weeks that need to be brought to your attention."

"Wow, that was blunt," Charlie said under his breath. Gabriel Silk, another boy in the Music department, kicked him under the table. It was too late, Dr. Bloor's expression fell neatly on him.

"It is because some of you are ignorant fools which is why I am sacrificing today's curriculum," Dr. Bloor said in a steely voice. He cleared his throat and went on.

"As some of you may know, Bloor's Academy offers places to students who are gifted in music, art or drama. Most of our talented students have gone on to fashion a name for themselves in the world. Dona West is an incredible violinist, and John Low has made remarkable contributions to the art world, as examples.

"However, Bloor's Academy also gives valuable spaces to endowed children, descended from the Red King. These children have remarkable powers which they learn to control, and perhaps put to good use. Bloor's Academy cannot be the only such institution in the world obviously.

Manhattan Academy for the Endowed is another such place – or perhaps Mademoiselle's Academy in France."

Over at the green table, a boy with spiky yellow hair was tearing his napkin impatiently. "Hurry up, for crying out loud," he muttered, "I'm hungry."

His friend, a dark-skinned boy with dreadlocks, nudged him. "Shh."

"The point is," Dr. Bloor said sternly, as if he had heard Tancred Torsson, "it has come to our attention that people have mysteriously disappeared, or are dying, in the schools housing endowed children."

There was silence for a nanosecond before an uproar began. The handful of endowed children in Bloor's Academy found themselves standing up and backing away from the crowd. Yells of "Oh my freaking gosh" and "You're going to kill us too!" were bouncing off the ancient walls.

Manfred Bloor decided it was time to stand up. He too was one of the endowed, and nobody dared to stand up against him. "SIT DOWN," he bellowed across the din.

Everyone scrambled to their seats, but somehow, all the endowed children continued to stand. They glanced at one another, and then at Dr. Bloor.

Dr. Bloor felt weary as he felt their gazes. It was difficult to manage all of them. Though he knew his duty, he agreed to a certain extent, that these children were going to damn them all.

Billy Raven. Lysander Sage. Tancred Torsson. Gabriel Silk. Emma Tolly. Charlie Bone. Dorcas Loom. Idith Branko. Inez Branko. Joshua Tilpin. Dagbert Endless. Manfred Bloor.

And though nobody knew, for this spirited girl had the sense to keep her head down, Olivia Vertigo.

Another girl stood up slowly. She was from the music table – in fact, she was only a few heads down from Charlie. Nobody had taken much notice of her. She was small and slender, with dark brown hair pulled into a ponytail and sharp green eyes. Her face was so pale she looked deathly ill. She seemed to understand what the standing people had in common, and stood up also.

"What are you doing?" Charlie said softly in a murmur. She was too far to hear his soft voice, but she turned her head to him all the same.

Dr. Bloor sighed. "Though these… mysterious murders are happening in other countries, we have been foretold that it might start in our school as the term has just begun. We will have extra security around our school. We are told to remind you to keep extra vigilant as well. A note of caution – it is not only the endowed that are being attacked, but everyone. But so far, the eight people who have died are all endowed.

"It is untimely, but let me introduce you to another Red King descendent. Ray is in the Music department, but a talented violinist.

"You are all dismissed to your classes, except for the endowed. Go to the King's Room immediately."

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