Ghost in the Piano
Chapter One
Music at Midnight
It began on a cold night in May – exactly a month after I’d stopped playing the piano. I went downstairs for a glass of water around midnight. It was so quiet in the house; the only sound was the buzz of my Dad’s snores. I tiptoed to the kitchen, grasped the handle of the fridge and stopped.
There was a single clang - one jarring chord that rang crisp through the bottom level of the house and vibrated in my head. I caught my breath and waited, my knuckles turning white as I clenched the handle. Nothing else. I slowly let out some air and released my grip on the fridge. Something must have fallen on the piano. A book my mother had left on top, teetering boldly on the edge. It had finally lost its balance; that was all.
I crept over the icy floor tiles in my bare feet. I shivered, but didn’t stop. After all, it must have been only gravity that had caused the piano to sound off. Into the living room, across the hardwood strips – that seemed even colder, although that wasn’t possible – right up to the ribbed keys. There wasn’t a book in sight. Only a wispy cloud above the keyboard, as if someone had blown the dust off the keys.
I stared at the old piano for a long time, but the dust finally settled and there was no more sound. Even my Dad’s snores seemed muffled down here. So I turned away and headed for the staircase. As my toes touched the bottom step, it clanged again, only it didn’t stop at one angry chord, but leapt right into a string of tearful notes. It was sound that would have had me sobbing if I weren’t so terrified. I sprang back and leapt through the archway of the living room, stopping just short of the piano that was cleverly playing by itself. I blinked and blinked, the sound sweeping through me, but at the same time making my knees knock. I looked left and right. I looked under the bench to see if someone was pulling strings and in that way, pulling my leg. Nobody there. With trembling fingers, I lifted the top from the upright and stared at the vibrating strings inside, untouched by human hands, with no attachment to an electronic memory. The piano was alive.
I sprang back, dropping the lid with a thud. The keys continued to play in a slow deliberate march that reminded me of the music played at a funeral. This was serious supernatural stuff. It had to be a ghost, although I couldn’t see anything other than the keys dancing. I knew I couldn’t handle this by myself. I turned and fled up the stairs, racing into my parents’ bedroom.
“ Dad! Wake up!” I shrieked.
He was instantly awake and wary. “W…what? Is the house on fire?”
I shook my head. “Listen.”
My father cocked his head. There wasn’t a creak, let alone a melody.
“ Did you hear someone in the house, Jenna?” he asked, still perked, but a little less panicked. He swung his feet over the edge of the bed and touched my arm.
“ Y…yes,” I said. It would be stupid to tell him I’d heard a ghost. “Come downstairs.”
He nodded. At first he shook my mother to try to rouse her. She was lying on her side, one arm flung over her head, her long brown hair draped over her face. “Claire. Claire!” he shouted in her ear, but she only groaned and rolled over. He shrugged and got out of bed. “I thought it would be better if she knew where we were, in case there was trouble. But I think our bandit must be long gone if he heard your shouting. You stay behind me.”
We crouched down the stairs - Dad with his hefty baseball bat - into the gloomy front hall. I sucked in my breath as we crept into the living room, but the piano held its tongue, looking once again like a lifeless object.
“ It was here,” I said. “Right here.”
“ What was?”
“ A ghost.” I looked at him with clear eyes, trying to show him that I wasn’t crazy. “It was playing the piano.”
Dad met my gaze but his eyes had become flat and dull. “Really? Did you see it?”
“ I saw the piano, and I heard it, playing by itself.”
“ Oh. That’s interesting. Are you sure?”
I nodded vigorously. “I was getting a glass of water.”
“ You woke up?”
“ Yes.”
“ And you were half asleep?”
“ You don’t believe me, do you?” Dad was squinting at me just like when I was six and he’d wondered where all the chocolates had gone. I’d denied it left, right and center, through my swollen cheeks. Or when Mom’s favorite ornament had been broken and I had his bat behind my back. “It wasn’t me,” never flew with Dad. Maybe that was because he was a cop – the po-lice – and he didn’t believe anyone’s story to be the ‘honest truth.’ That hadn’t changed, even though everything else had since the shooting. Just four months ago Dad had killed a car thief in self defense out on old Highway 9, just north of our small town of Prudence, and he’d been acting weird ever since. Nobody could talk to him about it, although the whole town was buzzing with gossip. He never brought his gun home anymore either, but I suppose it wouldn’t have helped with the piano.
“ I believe that you heard something,” he said. “Maybe the whistle of the wind, or a creak of some floorboards, but not a ghost.”
“ Dad, it was the piano. It was playing a song.”
He patted my head and said, “Uh huh.” Then he turned and headed for the staircase. Over his shoulder he threw, “Maybe it was just your guilty conscience.”
I gasped. He knew. How did he always know when I was doing something wrong, even when I put on my sweetest face and lied my little heart out? It was so upsetting I almost forgot about the piano. But how could I forget it when it was staring me in the face.
“ You’re not going to get away with it,” I snarled at the instrument. “I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”
I left it there, staring harmlessly at the opposite wall, without a twang of life.