Ruth Writes

“In the quiet of the night, I heard a soft, haunting melody drifting from the abandoned house next door.”

I ignored it at first, thinking it was my subconscious tricking me by weaving a strange song through the wind whispering past my window. After tossing and turning until the music became too real to dismiss as a mischievous mind playing tricks on me, I sat up in bed. My heart froze and it puzzled me. Shouldn’t it pound against my bones in panic? I was listening to phantom music tinkling within the light breeze from an unknown source in the middle of the night. I knew that the music wasn’t coming from within my house. It wasn’t coming from my right-side neighbour because she’s an elderly lady whose choice of music to blare during the day is old showtunes. She didn’t strike me as the type to play classical piano pieces.

As much as I wanted it to be more probable that my elderly neighbour had decided to broaden her music taste in the middle of the night and not some serial killer or ghostly presence with a musical talent manifesting in the empty lot beside me, the wall of my room was also the wall of the room the music was clearly emanating from. So as much as I didn’t want to, I was hopping straight into fight or flight territory.

Curiosity restarted my heart and pushed me out of bed. I pulled on boots and a sweatshirt, grabbed my phone and keys and wandered out into the night. The music immediately became clearer when the walls of my own house no longer muted it. It wasn’t a melody I recognised but I couldn’t deny its beauty. It wasn’t a disturbance to the silent night but an improvement. It distracted me for long enough that when I looked at the house as I walked up the short, empty, overgrown driveway and saw the soft white light coming from the room next to mine in the otherwise dark house, my heart sank into my stomach.

This was the point in the book where you would shout at the character to stop being so bloody stupid, turn around and go back to bed. This was the point in the movie where you would roll your eyes and curse the silliness of the storyline. This was the point where every inch of my body started screaming at me to run away but the tiny nudge from that curious cat in the corner of my brain was surprisingly compelling. I took a breath and with shaky knees I walked up to the front door.

With a glimmer of hope that I wouldn’t be able to get in, my insides clenched tightly when I pushed open the door with ease. The music continued to bleed into the night without stuttering. The potential serial killer/phantom obviously didn’t hear me open the door.

Breathing heavily and sweating profusely, I headed straight to the stairs, avoiding the cliché of calling out a timid ‘hello?’ into the darkness. Everything was dusty; the floor, the abandoned furniture, the walls, even the air. I felt myself collecting dust just standing amongst it all. A stale dampness curled into my nostrils. The rest of the house was in complete darkness apart from the blurry glow of light pouring from the upstairs room into the landing.

I couldn’t hear the wind from in here. The only sounds that punctured the deep silence within the house were the piano and my heavy breathing. I could picture the silence creeping up the stairs and trying to suffocate the music, but the player kept going, ignoring its advances. I tentatively placed a hand on the banister, immediately leaving a dark handprint in the dust, and climbed the stairs. My steps were dulled by the surprisingly healthy carpet beneath my feet. I followed the music to the top of the stairs and then followed the trail of light to the ajar door of the room.

Armed with little knowledge of self-defence and my balled-up fists by my side, I swallowed the creeping fear that this could all go terribly wrong. The back of a man hunched over the grand piano emitting the music stopped me in my tracks on the wrong piece of floorboard. The traitorous wood creaked loudly, echoing through the almost empty house. The music cut short causing an abrupt silence to wrap around me like a suffocating scarf. My eyes widened as my body stayed frozen in time and the man whipped around on the low stool to catch me standing in the doorway.

He was handsome. That was my first embarrassing thought and it knocked me off guard. Ridiculously, an ounce of tension untangled itself from my shoulders as if a handsome stranger wasn’t as much of a threat as an ugly one. He was long and spindly with delicate hands and a kind face that creased with concern when he looked at me. He held his hands up in a peace offering, the sleeves of his oversized cream cardigan slipping down to his elbows.

‘I’m so sorry. Did my music wake you?’ he asked, like he lived here, like he was my neighbour, and this was normal. My mouth fell open and I tried to form a response with words but all that came out was a little wheeze. He stood and I jumped. His hands flew back up into the air like I was pointing a gun at him.

‘I’m Alfie. I don’t think we’ve met yet. You’re living next door now, right?’ he said, again like he lived here, like he was my neighbour, and this was normal. I nodded my head, still open-mouthed and wide-eyed as my brain scrambled to make sense of the situation. Was it possible this was a dream?

He put his hands together like a prayer and tilted his head slightly as he squinted at me. Quick as a flash, I whipped my phone out and snapped a picture of him.

‘I’m meeting my sister for breakfast in the morning and if you kill me, she’ll find you,’ I blurted out. With so many questions stumbling around in my brain, I needed to make sure the most important one was answered first. Alfie’s eyes widened in fright, and he stumbled back onto the piano stool, hitting a couple of the keys with his shoulder blades.

‘No, no, you’ve misunderstood. I’m not going to kill you. I’m just afraid to tell you the truth,’ he said. My fear disappeared with the look on the seemingly harmless man’s face and the other questions began to swirl, creating a tornado of confusion in my mind.

‘Do you live here?’ I asked, the second question to fall out of my mouth like one of those gumball machines where you put your coin in, twist the dial and hope for the strawberry flavoured one. Alfie bit his lip, a curl of his red hair falling over one of his eyebrows.

‘Kind of?’ he offered.

‘I was told this place had been abandoned. It sure looks that way,’ I fired back, gesturing vaguely to the old and dusty and mostly empty room. Alfie’s face creased in contemplation and then after a brief pause broken only by the wind picking back up outside, he inhaled deeply.

‘This house was abandoned. I abandoned it. Everything here belongs to me. They couldn’t resell the house because since the day I died, I have been stuck here, kept within these four walls by some unknown force that I can’t break. Nobody wants to live in a house with a ghost, especially a sad, trapped one who never stops playing the piano. I can’t leave this house and I can’t move on to the other side and I don’t know why,’ he explained. He threw his hands up and slapped them heavily on his thighs.

Despite all of the alarm bells that had started to ring loudly when he mentioned he was dead, I laughed. I laughed until my stomach ached and my cheeks hurt. I laughed until Alfie’s sombre face sucked the breath right out of my lungs when I realised he was being serious.

‘You’re a ghost?’ I said. He rolled his eyes.

‘I prefer spirit but sure, I’m a ghost,’ he replied. I narrowed my eyes at him. Nothing about him seemed dead. He looked just like a living, breathing human being. I was open to a lot of things, including the existence of a world where the dead walked amongst the living, however I just couldn’t quite fathom that this was happening to me.

‘Prove it,’ I said. He sighed heavily, like this was a regular occurrence and braced his hands on his knees as he pushed himself to stand tall. He rolled his shoulders, the sleeves of his cardigan falling back down to his wrists and walked straight through the wall into the other room. For a split second I was alone and unsure but just as my heart started to beat in a panicked pattern, a cold breeze brushed along my back sending a shiver down my spine.

‘Boo,’ Alfie breathed into my ear, and I leapt into the air with a shriek, my hand flying to my heart. He appeared in front of me apologetically. ‘You asked for proof. Now, look at your phone.’

With my heart and mind racing, Alfie peered over my hands as I unlocked my phone and looked at the picture I had taken just minutes earlier. My stomach dropped like I had just dipped on a rollercoaster. There was nobody in the image. All I could see in the picture was the grand piano and its accompanying stool.

‘Holy shit,’ I muttered, my hand still clutching my chest where my heart galloped under my fingertips. Alfie retreated to the piano and lazily trailed his fingers over the highest keys. Another shiver wriggled down my spine and I considered bolting, but I was enjoying the unknown, the fear pumping through my veins, the curiosity burning in my brain.

Moving without much direction from the logical parts of me, I walked to the piano and sat down beside Alfie. The cold emanated from him, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention. I walked my fingers across the piano from the lower keys and stopped when I realised my hand had passed through his arm. My brain couldn’t comprehend what my eyes were seeing; my hand resting on the piano within Alfie’s arm. A series of random, unknown moments flashed through my mind like a firework show. Alfie with rosy, alive cheeks laughing wearing a pair of delicate round glasses. A dark empty field. Two takeaway coffee cups on a picnic bench.

I yanked my hand back into my lap and the images disappeared, the unease creeping under my skin didn’t. Alfie resumed the melody he was playing earlier that drew me into the house.

‘I need your help figuring out how to untie me from this house and let me cross over,’ he said, his words not disturbing his nimble fingers.

I looked at him sharply, even more confused than before. What did I know about ghosts? His eyes didn’t move from the piano.

‘How am I supposed to help you?’ I asked. He dropped the weight of his hands onto the keys sending a loud, out of tune noise echoing through the room. He turned his head and locked his dark eyes on mine.

‘You owe me,’ he said, his voice suddenly eerily low. My neck reared back slightly, and I scoffed at his audacity.

‘Owe you? I don’t even know you,’ I replied, trying to subtly increase the distance between us once again.

‘Of course, you know me, Evie,’ he said in a gentle voice like he was addressing a confused toddler. A strange look twisted his face and then he continued bluntly, ‘You’re the reason I’m dead.’