The rhythm is all wrong. It's hard for me to believe that I'm such a failure as a teacher that my students can't distinguish eighth, quarter, and half notes. I know I explained the difference between them. Yet here young Jamie is, elongating each note as if she's tuning. She pauses after the first line of the piece and tucks her instrument under her tiny arm.

I smile and nod encouragingly. "Go on."

"That's as far as I got," she replies.

I should've guessed that. My eyes graze the first four bars of "Long, Long Ago" as I determine what to tackle first.

"Well, you have a great start on it," I begin. "There's just a few things with the rhythm to go over." Jamie gives a slight, jolting nod. "Let's start with the first measure. The notes go long, short-short, long, short-short."

The child sticks her viola-stringed violin under her neck. She plays a few skidding, squealing notes, like a train grinding to a halt.

"Try to use a little more finger weight," I say. "Make sure you press the string down to the fingerboard."

"But it hurts," Jamie says with a sniff.

"Here, let me help." I stand from my embarrassingly dirty chair in the living room and shift Jamie's hand so it hovers over the string more. Her bent wrist straightens from the adjustment, and I gently press her first finger down.

"Does that hurt?" I ask, stepping back. Jamie shakes her head. "Good. If your fingers hurt, look in the mirror. Your hand should be in alignment like it is right now. Why don't you try the piece from the top?"

Jamie nods and sets her bow on the string. Now her hand is too tight, gripping the instrument's neck tighter than a train holding onto its track. Her bow flails across the string at an uneven pace, providing more scraping sound effects.

"Your wrist alignment looks much better, but now I think your fingers may be a bit too tight. The hand should feel light and flexible, not tense."

"Then how do I apply pressure?" Jamie asks.

Kid, I'm still trying to figure that out for myself.

"It's a very delicate balance," I say. "Kind of like a bridge. It can't be too heavy or else it will fall. But it must be strong enough to hold up, say, a train if it should pass over it."

Jamie's blank, blue eyes blink at me. Despite it, I inhale a breath and forge on.

"Let's start again. Don't worry about your fingers this time. Focus on treating your bow like a motor. Long, short-short long, short-short long, short-short long. It's an engine keeping tempo throughout the piece. Think of a train chugging along." I nod to her with a far too optimistic smile. Jamie plays it exactly the same as before.

This is a train wreck.

I'm almost grateful when the doorbell rings, and I glance at the clock on my wall. Jamie's half-hour lesson is up.

I open the door for Jamie's mother. Shiny, windswept brown hair frames her full-face of makeup. She strides past me, several inches taller due to her red stilettos that match her business suit.

"Hi, Jamie," she says in a voice sweet and smooth as buttercream. "How did your lesson go?"

"Good," the girl says. She clunks her instrument down in her case. I wince at the resulting high-pitched vibrations of the strings. Jamie's mother turns to me, her smile fading.

"How did she do?"

"I can tell she's been practicing," I say. It's a safe way of circumventing the question. "I gave her a few tips to make sure her hands are in alignment. I don't want her to develop any injuries."

Or bad habits, I add silently.

"We'll work on those this week, won't we, Jamie?"

The little girl just nods in response, latching onto her mother with her free hand.

"We'll see you next week, then." Jamie and her mother leave my apartment. I heave a huge breath when I shut the door. Two lessons done, one to go for the week. At least I have a day to recover.

As I fall into my chair, a train of thought barges into my head, or more like thoughts of a train. I keep mulling over what the song could mean.

Start the song that rings the rhyme.

The lyrics must have meaning. But what does a train have to do with anything? There are no trains in the city of Dewhurst, only bus stations. I already tried searching for it earlier.

"Done for the day?" Emi's voice jars me from my thoughts.

I lean forward to catch sight of her, then collapse back against the cushions. "Yeah, I guess."

She sinks into the chair next to me. Her muscles seem to melt into the hole-filled upholstery. "What's on your mind?"

"The first Silverenn piece."

"Oh, right."

I can't tell if she's disappointed that I remembered it. Maybe she regrets agreeing to look at it. But she can't back out now.

"Let me get it for you. But I'm warning you now, it's pretty weird." I disappear into my room and return a moment later with the piece. I hand it to Emi, and she flips through the pages, skimming the lines.

"You're right," she says. "Who sings about trains?"

"I can only assume it's part of the clue. Like maybe we're supposed to go to a train station. The only problem is that there aren't any trains in Dewhurst."

Emi pulls out her phone. "Let me see."

"I already looked it up. There are only bus stations."

Emi's fingers fly across her screen. I grow restless watching her, irritation pricking at my skin. It's a waste of time to look up imaginary train stations that don't exist. A few times my lips part to speak, to tell her to stop and help me think, but her brows are furrowed in concentration that I can't disturb. Finally, Emi sits up straighter, eyes meeting mine with a triumphant glint.

"How about the Silver Queen Museum?" she says.

"Huh?"

"It used to be a train station back in the nineteenth century. Fell into disrepair because of the proliferation of cheap cars. Around the early 2000s, the city turned it into a historical museum."

"Why didn't I find it?"

"I looked up old trains in Dewhurst." Emi rifles through the music, then holds out a page to me. "See, it says 'traveler's wait in the town's Queen.' That must refer to Silver Queen station."

"So whatever clue we're looking for will be found there," I say. "Unless it was removed when they built the museum."

Emi looks back at her phone. "It says here that the station was preserved in its original form. Nothing was removed from the site."

I take the music from her hands so I can read over the poem again.

"I have a feeling whatever we're looking for will be outside," I say. "It says 'Look to the left upon the grass, does the grail wait before the glass?'"

"Good thinking. But what are we looking for?"

"I don't know." I think over the second part of the clue Silverenn wrote.

Click the clock to find the time.

But what clock are we clicking? What time are we trying to find?

I glance at the front of the music again. To the left of the title, there's a metronome marking.

"Emi, check this out. This piece is supposed to be played at quarter note equals one thirty-two."

"Let me see that." I show her the front page, and Emi grimaces. "That seems fast."

"I know. I wonder if maybe that's the second part of the clue. The first is 'Start the song that rings the rhyme.' Then it says 'Click the clock to find the time.' Maybe the time is supposed to be the metronome marking."

Emi nods along. "When we're trying to figure out the tempo, we tap out how fast we want to go to clock the speed. That's basically 'clicking the clock...'"

"'To find the time.'" I grin so much my cheeks hurt. "I think we figured it out."

"I think so." Emi's eyes sparkle in the afternoon light. "There's only one way to check and make sure. The museum closes in an hour and a half, but I think we can make it over there in time."

Then off to the museum it is.