The Weight of the Music Box: A Story of Father Tristan Greene

The microphone light flicked on—a soft red glow in the small podcast studio tucked behind the parish office. Father Tristan Greene sat across from the host, a genial layman named Paul Martens, whose radio voice always reminded Tristan of a friendly uncle telling bedtime stories. The name of the show was Faith Unshaken, a popular Catholic podcast about miracles, mysteries, and moments of grace under fire.

Paul smiled. “Welcome back, friends. Today, we have a very special guest. He’s been called Boston’s modern-day exorcist, though he prefers the title ‘teacher and servant of Christ.’ Father Tristan Greene of St. Augustine’s Boarding School for Catholic Youngsters. Father, welcome.”

Tristan smiled thinly. “Thank you, Paul. It’s good to be here.”

“Now, you’ve done—what is it—nearly thirty house blessings and half a dozen full exorcisms?”

“Closer to forty blessings, and… seven true exorcisms,” Tristan said softly.

“Seven,” Paul repeated, impressed. “And tonight we’d love to hear about one that stands out. The one that… still makes the hair rise on the back of your neck. I think our listeners would appreciate your honesty about the spiritual warfare that sometimes manifests in the everyday world.”

Tristan took a slow breath. He folded his hands on the table before him, eyes distant. “There’s one I’ve never spoken of publicly. It happened four years ago. I was still relatively new to the archdiocese, assigned mostly to teach Latin and English literature. But as you know, exorcists are rarely ‘just priests.’ We’re watchers. Custodians of doorways. And sometimes—sometimes the doorways come looking for us.”

Paul leaned forward, the microphone catching every shift in Tristan’s tone. “What happened?”

Tristan exhaled, long and low. His voice changed—no longer conversational, but confessional.

I remember…

It was a Thursday evening in February. Cold enough that the breath hung like incense in the night air. My rectory phone rang around eight-thirty. A woman’s voice—older, trembling, yet polite.

“Father Greene? My name is Mrs. Callahan. I—I don’t mean to sound foolish, but I think there’s something wrong in my house.”

I get those calls sometimes. Strange noises, lights flickering, a family heirloom behaving oddly. Usually it’s the plumbing or grief taking strange shapes. But something in her voice told me this wasn’t a simple case.

“What kind of wrong?” I asked.

There was a pause, then: “It’s a music box. I inherited it from my grandmother last month. It plays ‘Hush Little Baby’… by itself.”

I waited. “By itself?”

“Yes, Father. It winds itself. Sometimes when I’m in another room. And when I try to throw it away—it won’t move. It gets so heavy I can’t lift it off the dresser.”

That last part made me sit up. Oppression often begins with manipulation of physical matter—weight, sound, smell. I told her I’d come by the next evening. She seemed relieved, almost desperate for company.

The next day was gray and biting cold. I packed my blessing stole, holy water, and the small black leather ritual case I never liked bringing but always needed. The Callahan house sat on the edge of Dorchester, one of those old triple-deckers from the 1920s, with peeling white paint and a porch swing that groaned in the wind.

Mrs. Callahan met me at the door—a woman in her seventies, frail but dignified, wearing a cardigan that looked older than I was.

“Thank you for coming, Father,” she said, voice quivering. “It’s been… unnerving.”

“I’m sure,” I said gently. “May I come in?”

She stepped aside. The house was clean, but the air inside felt… off. Thick, like the oxygen had gone heavy. I noticed the ceiling fan spinning lazily in the living room, slow and steady, though the windows were sealed tight.

“Where’s the music box?”

“In the master bedroom,” she said. “I—I left the door open so you could hear if it starts again.”

As she spoke, a sudden draft swept through the living room. The ceiling fan—without warning—began to spin faster.

Not faster like a sudden breeze. Faster like a motor possessed.

In seconds, it was a blur. The sound rose to a whine—a shrill, mechanical howl that filled the room like the scream of a helicopter blade. Papers whipped off the table. Curtains snapped from their rods. A lamp toppled and shattered, its bulb popping like a gunshot.

“Get down!” I shouted, pulling Mrs. Callahan toward the hallway.

The fan’s rotation hit an impossible speed. I could feel the air pressure shift, the roar pressing against my chest. My first thought—absurdly—was that the thing would lift right off the ceiling and shear through the room like a saw.

And then—just as suddenly—it stopped.

The silence afterward was deafening. Dust floated down like snow.

Mrs. Callahan was shaking, clutching her rosary. “It does that sometimes,” she whispered. “Only when someone comes over.”

I looked at the ceiling fan. The metal arms glowed faintly red from friction. No ordinary motor could do that.

I took out the holy water, made the sign of the cross, and prayed: In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.

The air settled. The temperature dropped by ten degrees.

And from down the hall, faint but unmistakable, came the delicate, tinkling notes of Hush, Little Baby.

We walked toward the master bedroom together. The tune grew louder, though I could swear it came not from a box but from the walls themselves.

The room was small, neat, with lace curtains and a single oak dresser by the window. On top of the dresser sat the music box—a porcelain heart painted with fading roses, its lid slightly ajar.

The melody slowed and stopped just as I crossed the threshold.

“May I?” I asked.

She nodded.

I approached it carefully. The box looked ordinary. No wind-up key that I could see. I tried lifting it.

It came up easily—lighter than a feather.

I frowned. “You said it wouldn’t move.”

She stared, pale. “It—it never does. I swear, Father. It won’t budge for me.”

I believed her. Whatever inhabited that object wanted to humiliate her. Make her seem delusional. Waste my time.

I examined the underside. Nothing unusual—no markings, no hidden gears. I set it down again.

That’s when the air shifted.

The curtains fluttered though the window was closed. The mirror on the opposite wall began to ripple—not crack, not fog, but ripple—like water stirred by a finger.

Mrs. Callahan whimpered. “Please make it stop.”

I reached for my stole and prayer book. “Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name every knee must bow, in heaven, on earth, and under the earth…”

The music box lid snapped shut on its own.

A heartbeat later, it sprang open. The lullaby resumed—slower this time, distorted. The notes bent, warped, off-key.

I kept praying. “Deliver your servant, O Lord, from all evil, and from all the snares of the enemy—”

The melody reversed.

Literally played backward.

Mrs. Callahan gasped. “Oh my Lord.”

I felt the hairs rise on my neck. The scent of iron filled the air—like blood and rust. The mirror behind us pulsed again, and for a moment I saw—reflected, not behind me but within it—a shadow crouched low, its outline human but wrong. Its head tilted at an unnatural angle.

Then, faintly, a whisper: Hush… hush… hush… little baby…

I sprinkled holy water onto the box. A hiss rose from it like boiling oil.

“Who are you?” I demanded. “In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you—identify yourself.”

The lid slammed shut again. Silence. Then a sound not from the box but the dresser itself—a deep, groaning creak, as if the wood were expanding under immense weight.

Mrs. Callahan stepped back. “It’s happening—Father, it’s happening again—”

The entire dresser began to shake. The box lifted—hovered—three inches above the surface.

I flung the rest of the holy water across it. “Ab renuntio tibi, Satana! Depart from this house, from this vessel, from this child of God!”

A shriek burst from nowhere and everywhere at once—a sound not made for human ears. The lights flickered out. The box slammed down so hard the top cracked.

Mrs. Callahan fell to her knees, sobbing. “Is it over?”

I didn’t answer right away. The box lay still, the air thick with the smell of burnt roses.

When I touched it again, it was cold. Heavier than before—immovable once more.

That night, I took the box with me. Against all instinct, I knew I couldn’t leave it there. I placed it in the trunk of my car, wrapped in a consecrated cloth. The car groaned under the weight like I’d loaded a bag of bricks.

Back at the rectory, I set it in the basement prayer chamber reserved for exorcistic study. For three nights it remained inert.

On the fourth night, I woke to music.

Faint. Muffled. Coming from below.

I went down in my cassock, candle in hand. The air smelled of lilacs and something fouler beneath it. The box was open again, the cracked lid trembling slightly.

The tune played softly—softer than breath.

And beneath the melody, another sound. A whisper.

Hush, little baby, don’t say a word… Papa’s gonna buy you… a mockingbird.

Then silence.

I closed the lid. “In nomine Iesu,” I whispered.

The candle flame flickered out.

The next morning, I called a senior exorcist—Father Benedicto, a Jesuit who’d trained me years ago. He arrived by noon. Together we examined the object. He listened quietly, then nodded gravely.

“It’s not the box that’s bound,” he said. “It’s the memory.”

“The memory?”

“Of the song. The mother’s lullaby turned curse. Whatever tragedy lingered around it—someone fed it grief until grief became hunger.”

We prayed over it for hours. Recited Psalm 91. Burned incense of frankincense and hyssop. The air churned, hot and cold in waves.

At one point, the melody began to play again—quietly at first, then so loud the glass panes rattled. Father Benedicto pressed his crucifix to the porcelain.

“Exorcizo te, omnis spiritus immunde!”

A crack split the lid. A shriek echoed—childlike, piercing, sorrowful.

And then… nothing.

When we opened our eyes, the box was in two halves. Empty inside. No gears, no spring, nothing to play the music at all.

He looked at me. “It’s done.”

“Are you sure?”

He smiled tiredly. “As sure as one can be, my son. But keep it sealed, nonetheless.”

I buried the remains in the parish cemetery beneath an unmarked stone. Mrs. Callahan passed away a year later, peacefully, in her sleep. Before she died, she sent me a note—just one line.

Thank you for silencing the song.

I still have it, folded in my breviary.

Paul sat silent for a moment after Tristan finished. The studio air seemed heavier, the red recording light almost too bright.

Finally, he spoke softly. “That’s… haunting, Father. Did anything else happen after?”

Tristan hesitated. “There’s one more thing.”

He leaned closer to the microphone.

“Three months after we buried the box, one of my students brought me a small wind-up toy she found in the school attic. It was broken. Rusted. She asked if I could fix it. I said I’d try. When I turned the tiny metal key…”

He paused.

Paul swallowed. “What happened?”

Tristan’s eyes were distant again, haunted.

“It played ‘Hush Little Baby.’”

Silence filled the room.

Paul reached over and quietly turned off the recorder.

“Father,” he said, his voice low, “do you still have it?”

Tristan nodded slowly. “Locked away. Beneath the altar at St. Augustine’s. I pray over it every week. Because evil, you see…” He folded his hands. “…evil doesn’t always leave when you tell it to. Sometimes, it waits. It learns patience. It waits for a new lullaby to begin.”

He exhaled, the exhaustion of memory catching up to him. “I remember that night often, Paul. Not because of the fear, but because of what I learned—that even when we stand in darkness, the smallest prayer, the simplest cross, can still scatter shadows that have waited generations to fall.”

Paul nodded. “Amen to that.”

The recording resumed, and the rest of the episode turned reflective—about the power of faith, the reality of spiritual warfare, and the importance of discernment before assuming something is supernatural.

But later, when the episode aired, thousands of listeners wrote in. Some swore they could hear, faintly beneath Tristan’s last words, the delicate notes of a lullaby playing in the background—too quiet to be noticed in the studio, too perfect to be accidental.

The producers checked the audio file. Nothing. No anomaly. No trace of music.

And yet, when Tristan returned to his parish that night, he paused in the empty nave before the altar, the votive candles flickering in gold halos.

From somewhere deep beneath the floorboards—so faint he could almost believe he imagined it—came the soft, broken chime of a porcelain heart trying to remember its song.

He crossed himself, whispered a prayer, and walked away.

But as he reached the door, a whisper followed him.

Hush, little baby…

He turned. The candles were steady. The silence absolute.

Tristan smiled grimly. “Patience, old friend,” he said under his breath. “You won’t find sleep in this house.”

He extinguished the lights and locked the church behind him.

Epilogue: The Transcript

Excerpt from “Faith Unshaken,” Episode 147 – “The Music Box Exorcism”

Paul Martens (Host): Father, before we close, what would you say to anyone listening who’s frightened by this story?

Father Tristan Greene: I’d say: fear is natural. But faith—faith is not the absence of fear. It’s the strength to walk through fear holding the hand of God. Evil feeds on attention. Prayer starves it.

Paul: Beautifully said.

Father Tristan: And if you ever hear a song playing when no one is there… don’t run. Pray. Pray until it stops. Because it will stop. The Name above all names still carries power.

Paul: Amen.

The outro music faded—a serene hymn played on piano. But as the credits rolled, one note lingered a little too long.

A soft, mechanical chime.

The sound of a music box winding down.