Water roars from the kitchen, interrupting my concentration. I shove a cracker in my mouth from the crinkled silver bag beside me, wedged between my leg and the chair's armrest. A few crumbs fall between the cushions, joining the others that are probably down there.

"Emi, your tea is boiling," I call out.

Emi exits her bedroom in her oversized sleep shirt. She pulls a toothbrush from her mouth and mumbles, "Thanks."

I still don't understand why Emi brushes her teeth before drinking her nightly tea. It might give her brighter pearly whites to clean them twice, but it isn't time efficient. And if there's anything I know about Emi, she maximizes every moment of her day, from practicing to teaching to buying groceries. This is the one area she falls short in.

Or maybe not. I don't recall her going to the dentist very often, while I need to scrounge up the money once a year.

I blink at the script in front of me to refocus my attention. Have the root turn with the year. Behold three notes to kill the cheer. I flip through a few pieces of music until I find one entitled "Habitual Bother." Setting the folder on my chair, I hurry to my bedroom to grab my viola. I don't know if I'll need it, but I figure there's no harm in having my instrument with me as I analyze this monstrosity.

My viola rests in its case, perched on my bureau. I remove it from its cradle and pluck each string as I bring it to the living room. It's not very good pizzicato since it sounds like four coughs, though each is in harmony with the previous. At least I don't have to tune it.

When I return, Emi holds the music captive across her lap.

"You're continuing the search?" I ask.

Emi shrugs, not looking up. "Might as well."

"But... you seemed kind of annoyed earlier."

"There isn't much else to do around. We still have fewer students and no job offers." Emi glances up, and I detect sadness glimmering in her eyes. She blinks it away, taking a sip of tea. "Anyway, I'm sorry about what happened in the library. You were right about the clue."

"It's all good. No need to apologize." I plop into my chair without thinking. A crinkling crunch reminds me of my saltine snack. I lift the sad little wrapper, tipping my head back so some shards fall into my mouth.

"I guess I just feel kind of silly already pursuing this treasure."

The sentiment is mutual. Part of me doesn't want to get my hopes up, only to be dashed when we reach the end and find nothing. Emi's probably in the same boat, and if we can't allow ourselves to hope, then the only thing left is doubt.

"Play the beginning," Emi says, holding out the music to me. "I want to hear how it sounds."

I pluck the first few notes. A-A-B flat-A-D-C. A-A-B flat-A-E flat-D.

Emi's face scrunches up. "It sounds like a demented version of Happy Birthday."

"More like diminished," I say. "Thus emphasizing the habitual bother of birthdays."

Emi angles the music back to herself. "It doesn't even start on the right note. I'm assuming this piece is in A minor, given the key signature. But Happy Birthday starts on the fifth, not scale degree one."

"Silverenn doesn't follow the rules," I say with a shrug. "Now quit hogging the music."

Emi holds it out again so we can both see it. I point to a spot a few measures later.

"There's your fifth," I say. "She starts the right chords after the intro."

"Interesting." Emi's eyes scan the page. "There are mordents on many of the As in the piece. Those are basically like turns."

My fingers pluck absently at the strings. Eerie notes pierce the room, falling in line to create a spooky song. It's full of ornamentation, trills and turn-arounds, and I feel a strange exhilaration playing it. Yes, it's weird. But how cool would it be if it were featured in a performance? I've never heard anything like it. One thing's for sure: it's definitely a departure from Mozart.

"Well, this song certainly kills the cheer," Emi says after a moment. "No wonder I've never heard it before. I doubt anyone would want to play it."

My excitement dampens, and I refocus my attention on the clues. Perhaps there's a reason why music theory works a certain way, why every piece these days sounds the same. It's what works. The avant-garde only works in special circumstances.

If everyone were avant-garde, instead of repeating the same old stuff that works, how long would it be until we run out of new creative combinations to explore?

"The root in the clue is A since the piece is in A minor."

I snap out of my head, blinking at Emi. Her words register after a moment, and I chuckle.

"Yeah, it isn't just in a minor key. It's like she never even learned about key signatures," I say. "This is a chromatic nightmare."

"For you, not me. Sucks to be a viola."

I glare at her, then roll my eyes back to the music, scanning the lines. The scroll of my viola rests against my shoulder, and I wrap my arm around the base to ensure it won't fall. Once I reach the end of the piece, I backtrack, looking more closely at what's written.

"Well, we aren't lacking for mordents on A," I say after a beat. "There are plenty of turns on the root. But what does it mean?"

"We need to dissect the clue more," Emi says.

"Have the root turn with the year." I squint at the bare wall across from me. "Maybe what we're looking for is a number, a particular year."

"Maybe one with significance in Silverenn's life," Emi adds, nodding along.

My eyes drift back to the tiny notes filling the page, scanning the As, the Fs, the Cs, the sixteenth and eighth notes, the long mordents and fancy turnarounds.

Have the root turn with the year.

The root is A in A minor.

What is A turning into?

Years turn with the A?

A is turning into a year.

The turn on A is the year.

My back straightens. "No. The mordent on A is the year."

"Huh?"

"Look." I point to a mordent on the page. "All the mordents happen on A. Now, since we're in the key of A minor, that means the starting number is 1, for the root."

Emi gives me a blank stare. I sigh in frustration, leaning over to grab a pencil that's fallen on the floor. On the music page, I lightly write out 'A-B-A-G-A.'

I point to the A. "Okay, A is scale degree one, right?" Emi nods, and I write 'one' underneath it. "B is scale degree two, A is one again, and G is seven. If we're looking for a year..." I trail off, staring down at the year '1217.'

A light brightens Emi's brown eyes. "Unless we count scale degree two in its octave form, in which case it would be scale degree nine."

"Nineteen-seventeen," I breathe.

"Nineteen-seventeen."

We grin at each other, though it's short-lived.

"What happened in nineteen-seventeen?" Emi asks. She doesn't wait for a reply and hops right away on her phone. I'll let her do the research.

"That's only part of the clue," I say. "We still need to figure out what we're supposed to behold and the cheer being killed."

Silence descends on the room. It's so still, I can hear Emi sipping her tea, and whenever I chew saltines, it sounds like construction work. The music becomes a pattern to me, a series of notes used over and over, motifs that appear over and over. Mordents only appear on the note A, but I find some gruppettos, a similar musical ornament that looks like a horizontal 's.' Those only appear in the beginning, though, on the notes A, E, and F.

"I think I found it," Emi says at last. "It's believed that D.C. Silverenn began her business as a mob boss around nineteen-seventeen. Her warehouse was a front for the World War One war effort, believed to be manufacturing bullets and gun parts. However, a significant portion was sold illegally to gangs. Some were even smuggled across state lines. The operation was discovered and dissolved a year later, but it seems that this was the beginning of Silverenn's life of crime."

A beat of silence passes between us. I'm still staring down at the page, down at the As, Es, and Fs.

"So... do you think the clue is Silverenn's business?" Emi asks.

"It could be," I say. "But that doesn't explain why she sent us to the library before."

"Wait a minute!" Emi whirls to face me. "The last clue was a room that contained old documents, right?"

"Yeah."

"So what if we're looking for a document that was created in 1917?"

My eyes widen. "Emi, that's brilliant!"

Emi looks down at her phone, grinning as her thumbs fly across the screen. My attention returns to the second part of the clue. The scale degrees of A, E, and F are one, five, and six. But the clue says we're supposed to be looking for letters, not numbers. Maybe those three letters are supposed to form a word.

I tap the pencil against the score, then lightly start writing every combination that comes to mind.

"What are you doing?"

I jump at Emi's words. "What do you mean? I'm writing out letter combinations." I show her the second part of the clue.

Emi purses her lips. "Can't you write on something that isn't a priceless document?"

Sighing, I head for my bedroom to get a scrap piece of paper, though I can't help the slight smile that upturns my lips. Emi thinks that the Silverenn scores are priceless. That's a point in my favor.

When I return, Emi says, "I found three documents in the library database that have the date 1917 for the year created and were entered into the database between 1950 and the year of Silverenn's death, 1992. I doubt she started working on the treasure hunt earlier than that."

I tip my head back, letting saltine crumbs from the cracker sleeve tumble into my mouth. "Why?"

"I don't know," Emi says, an edge to her voice. "One is a map of the city, the next is an old letter, and the last one is a war poster."

"The map," I say. "That's the clue."

Emi raises an eyebrow. "You sure? It could be the letter."

"Doubtful. Is it written by Silverenn?"

Emi peers at the screen. "It's only part of the letter. There's no author name on it."

My brow furrows. I'm almost certain that the clue is the map, not the letter, but how can I be certain? How can I prove it to Emi?

How can I prove it to myself?

Emi stares down her phone screen while I scrawl the letter combinations onto an old piece of sheet music that was sitting crumpled on the floor of my room.

Aef. Afe. Eaf. Efa. Fae. Fea.

I shake my head. Maybe I'm supposed to double up the letters. That'll give many more combination options. Silverenn only said that three letters were important, not that they made up a word that was only three letters.

Aaef. Aafe. Eeaf. Eefa. Ffae. Ffea.

Aeef. Affe. Eaaf. Effa. Faae. Feea.

This is hopeless. I let my pencil roll onto the floor, then down the rest of the cracker crumbs. The plastic crackles in the silence, mimicking the static buzzing in my head.

"Huh, that's interesting." Emi shifts in her seat, pulling her right leg onto the cushion.

"What?" I say through a mouthful of soggy cracker.

"For the other maps entered, they're only entered every five years, and multiple copies are in the database. The single 1917 map is the odd one out."

"Do they only make the maps every five years?"

"Let me check." A moment later, Emi grins. "You're right! According to the official Dewhurst website, they only update the map of Dewhurst every five years. That's what they've done for the last one-hundred and fifty years."

"So the 1917 map is an anomaly. Perhaps it was edited by Silverenn and added into the database as a clue."

"The timeframe would correspond. The map was added in 1988."

I face. "What is it with you and the 1980s?"

Emi shrugs. "I just think Silverenn probably started working on the treasure hunt later in her life. I mean, wouldn't she be living off her treasure during her life? She would have no need to create a treasure hunt unless she thought she was going to die soon. If you're 87 years old, you definitely are going to think more about wills and testaments compared to someone who's younger."

"Good point. I like the way you think."

Emi beams.

"Wait," I say. "Silverenn began her life of crime at age sixteen?"

"It appears that way."

"Wow. What a Queen."

"She was a criminal!" Emi says, bewildered.

"Still a Queen. So, let's look at this map."

Emi leans over the side of her chair to show me the map. It seems pretty standard. Nothing jumps out at me right away. A stillness settles between us as I feel my energy draining away. The day has taken its toll, as have the clues. When I glance over at Emi, her eyelids are fluttering, fighting to stay open.

Ten minutes tick by in the upper corner of Emi's phone screen. It's only nine p.m., and I normally stay up much later, but I think we're both slowing down, Emi especially.

"Are you getting tired?" I ask at last.

"Uh-uh." Emi's hand drifts to her mouth as it stretches into a yawn.

I can hear the fatigue in her voice. She tips her cup back to finish the remaining drops of her tea. Though we made leaps of progress, our clue-deciphering is rolling to a stop. Emi also needs her sleep. I'm pretty sure she still has a private lesson scheduled for tomorrow morning.

"I think I'm going to cash in for tonight," I say. I stretch my arms overhead, feigning a yawn. "It's been a long day."

Emi yawns, a real one again. "Perhaps you're right. We can finish this tomorrow. Might also give us a fresh—" Her jaws stretch, swallowing her final word. "Perspective."

Gently, I draw the music from her hands and start for my bedroom. When I glance over my shoulder, I don't see her stirring from her chair.