Three White Candles & A Music Box

The arrival at No 13 Belgrave Avenue had felt, at first, like a stroke of incredible luck. For four college students operating on a shoestring budget, the rental agreement seemed too good to be true. The house was a sprawling, Victorian-era structure with creaking floorboards and high ceilings that seemed to swallow the light. It was an old-world sanctuary, shared by four strangers who had quickly become an unlikely family of convenience.

Charlotte O’Hare, an eighteen-year-old from Ireland, had been the first to move in. With her long, vibrant red hair cascading down her shoulders and cat-green eyes that seemed to see through people, she brought a sense of cautious warmth to the house. She was followed by Tom Holden, also eighteen, whose curly blonde hair and bright blue eyes gave him the appearance of a perennial optimist. Then there was Gillian Grey, seventeen, a girl of stark contrasts with long, jet-black hair and icy blue eyes that often remained unreadable. Finally, there was Jack Riley, a seventeen-year-old American whose mop of brown hair was perpetually messy and whose hazel brown eyes were always darting around, searching for the next curiosity.

The house was comfortably dated. They shared a single, large bathroom—a source of constant morning negotiations—though thankfully, there were two separate toilets located on different floors to alleviate the congestion. The heart of the home was the dining room, where they gathered for late-night study sessions and cheap takeout, and the living room, which felt like a museum of forgotten eras.

The master of the house was Mr. Jones. He was a man of mystery and kindness, or so it seemed. He never shared his first name, and he rarely spoke of his past, but he was a sweet old man in his late eighties. His hair was a wispy cloud of grey and white, his face a map of deep, weathered wrinkles that told stories he refused to utter. His greyish-blue eyes were milky with age, yet they possessed a keen, unsettling sharpness when he looked at the students.

Mr. Jones was mostly invisible, hovering in the periphery of their lives, but he had one obsession that he shared with them. It was his proudest possession, situated with meticulous care atop the mantelpiece over the open fireplace in the living room.

It was a music box, though it looked more like a piece of fine art. It was crafted in the shape of a pure white marble miniature grand piano with elegant gold gilded edges. A miniature music stand sat before it, holding a tiny, perfectly legible piece of sheet music. The piano lid was closed, and atop of that lid sat an intricate candelabra. Three miniature candles with small bulbs were embedded in the tiny white candles; when lit, they flickered with a realistic fire effect, casting dancing shadows against the wall. Beneath the piano were tiny, gold-plated foot pedals, so detailed they looked as if they could actually be pressed.

"A family heirloom," Mr. Jones would say in his thin, reedy voice whenever they admired it. "A song from a place far beyond our own."

The music it played was the first thing that bothered them. When the wind whistled through the eaves of Belgrave Avenue, the box would sometimes trigger on its own, or Mr. Jones would wind it up during his visits. The melody was odd—atonal and swirling, a series of notes that didn't follow any known scale. It was a haunting, hypnotic tune that seemed to vibrate not in the ears, but in the centre of the chest. It felt like a question that had no answer.

For the first few weeks, the students treated the house and its oddities with a sense of collegiate adventure. They spent their evenings in the dining room, arguing about philosophy and history.

"I'm telling you, the architecture of this place is Gothic Revival," Jack said one evening, leaning back in his chair and tossing a pen into the air. "It’s designed to make you feel small. It’s classic atmospheric horror stuff."

"Stop treating our home like a movie set, Jack," Gillian replied, her icy blue eyes fixed on her textbook. "It’s just an old house. Though I will admit, the music box is... unsettling."

Charlotte nodded, brushing a strand of red hair behind her ear. "It sounds like a lament. Like someone is trying to remember a song that they had forgotten a hundred years ago."

Tom laughed, his blue eyes twinkling. "You're all too dramatic. It's a cool trinket. Mr. Jones is a sweetheart. Why are we acting like we're in a ghost story?"

But the atmosphere began to shift as the autumn chill settled into the bones of the house. The music box, which usually stayed silent during the day, began to play more frequently at night. And the melody seemed to change, becoming more insistent, more demanding.

The first to succumb was Jack.

It happened on a Tuesday, around three in the morning. Jack had woken up thirsty; his throat parched from a night of studying. As he crept down the hallway toward the kitchen, he noticed a strange, ethereal glow emanating from the living room.

Curiosity, Jack’s greatest vice, drove him toward the light. As he stepped into the living room, he gasped. The miniature music box was gone from the mantel. In its place stood a full-sized grand piano, its white marble surface gleaming under the flicker of the candelabra. The lid was now wide open, and the three candles burned with a fierce, unnatural intensity, their light casting long, distorted shadows across the floor.

From within the belly of the piano, a thick, rolling white mist was spewing out, spilling across the carpet like a slow-motion waterfall. And the music—the odd, swirling melody—was now a roar, filling the room with a hypnotic, irresistible power.

"What the...?" Jack whispered, stepping closer.

He felt a sudden, violent tug in his gut. The mist didn't just flow; it reached. A tendril of white vapor wrapped around his ankle, cold as a winter grave. Jack tried to recoil, but the music surged, a crescendo that drowned out his internal alarm. He felt his body becoming light, his weight vanishing. The mist surged upward, enveloping him in a blinding white shroud. He tried to scream, but the sound was swallowed by a final, crashing chord. With a sudden, vacuum-like snap, Jack was pulled forward, his entire body sliding into the open maw of the piano as if he were nothing more than a piece of sheet music being sucked into a folder.

The mist vanished. The piano shrank. The lid snapped shut. The miniature music box returned to the mantel, silent and still.

The next morning, the house was filled with a heavy, confused silence.

"Has anyone seen Jack?" Tom asked, standing in the dining room with a piece of burnt toast in his hand.

"Maybe he went for an early run?" Charlotte suggested, though her green eyes were clouded with worry. "He didn't leave a note."

Gillian looked at the living room. "He left his phone on the coffee table. Jack never goes anywhere without his phone."

They searched the house, then the garden, and eventually they called his parents. No one had seen him. The police were called, but there were no signs of a struggle, no broken windows, no footprints in the mud. Jack Riley had simply evaporated.

Gillian was the next to feel the pull. Two nights later, she was in the living room, unable to sleep. She had been sketching in her notebook, the dim light of a lamp illuminating her page. The house was silent until, softly, the music box began to play.

She froze. The melody was different tonight. It sounded like a voice—a thousand voices—whispering her name in a language that she didn't understand. She looked up at the mantel. The miniature piano was glowing.

"I know you're there," she whispered, her icy blue eyes narrowing.

Suddenly, the room exploded into white light. The transformation was instantaneous. The full-sized grand piano materialized before her, the open lid acting like a great, white mouth. The candelabra flickered wildly, and the rolling white mist poured out, filling the room with a freezing fog that smelled of ancient dust and ozone.

Gillian tried to stand, but the mist was faster. It coiled around her waist, lifting her off her feet. She didn't struggle as much as Jack had; she was mesmerized by the music. It promised her secrets, a cold, eternal stillness where the chaos of the world couldn't reach her.

"It's beautiful," she murmured, just as the mist surged.

With a sudden, violent jerk, she was yanked into the depths of the instrument. The sound of a piano key being struck—a single, resonant G-sharp—echoed through the room, and then there was silence.

Charlotte and Tom found her notebook on the floor the next morning, open to a page where she had sketched the music box. But the sketch was different. She had drawn the piano open, and inside the strings, she had drawn two small, screaming figures.

"We have to leave," Charlotte sobbed, her red hair dishevelled, her green eyes wide with terror. "Tom, we have to get out of here right now!"

"I'm not leaving without them!" Tom shouted, though his voice trembled. "We'll find them! We'll find a way to help them!"

But the house had other plans. The air in No 13 Belgrave Avenue had grown thick and oppressive, as if the walls were closing in. The dining room felt distant, the bathrooms felt like tunnels, and the living room had become a magnetic pole that they were subconsciously drawn toward.

On the third night, the atmosphere reached a breaking point. Tom had barricaded himself in his room, but the music didn't stay in the living room. It seeped through the vents. It vibrated through the floorboards. It sang to him in his sleep, promising him that his friends were waiting for him in a place of gold and marble.

Tom woke up in a trance. He didn't remember leaving his room. He didn't remember walking down the hall. He only knew that he had to reach the music.

He entered the living room to find the piano already transformed. The white mist was no longer just spewing; it was pulsing, like a heartbeat. The candelabra's flames were now blue, casting a ghostly pall over the room.

"Jack! Gillian!" Tom yelled, stepping toward the instrument. "Where are you?"

The music surged, a triumphant, booming orchestral swell. The mist leaped from the piano, slamming into Tom with the force of a tidal wave. He fought it, digging his heels into the carpet, his blue eyes wide with a sudden, piercing realization of the trap. But the piano's pull was absolute. The vacuum intensified, and Tom was sucked inward, his blonde curls disappearing into the white void of the instrument with a final, desperate gasp.

Charlotte was alone.

She spent the final night huddled in the corner of the dining room, the lights turned on in every single room, hoping that the brightness would keep the darkness at bay. But the darkness didn't come from the shadows; it came from the melody.

The music began to play, and for the first time, it wasn't odd or haunting. It was a lullaby. It sounded like her mother’s voice, like a warm Irish breeze over the cliffs of Moher, like every comfort she had ever known.

"It's not real," she whispered, covering her ears. "It's not real."

But the melody grew louder, vibrating in her very marrow. It told her that the others were cold. It told her that they were lonely. It told her that the collection was almost complete, and that the symphony could not begin until the final note was placed.

Driven by a mixture of grief and an irresistible, magical compulsion, Charlotte stood up. She walked, step by step, toward the living room. Her green eyes were glazed, her movements robotic.

When she entered the room, the grand piano was waiting for her. The white mist was towering now, filling the entire room, making her feel as if she were floating in a cloud of frozen breath. The candelabra atop the lid flared with a blinding white light.

Charlotte reached out a hand to touch the white marble. As her fingers brushed the gold gilded edge, the music reached a deafening, celestial peak. The mist surged forward, wrapping around her like a cocoon, and with one final, sweeping motion, she was pulled into the piano.

The silence that followed was absolute.

The mist evaporated. The full-sized piano collapsed inward, shrinking rapidly, folding into itself until it was once again a miniature piece of marble and gold. The lid snapped shut. The three small bulbs of the candelabra flickered once and then dimmed.

The front door of the house creaked open.

Mr. Jones stepped into the living room. He didn't look like a sweet old man anymore. The kindness had vanished from his wrinkled face, replaced by a predatory hunger. His greyish-blue eyes were glowing with a faint, unnatural light.

He walked to the mantelpiece and looked at the music box. He could feel them inside—the four vibrant, terrified souls of the students, trapped within the marble and gold, their essences fuelling the instrument's eternal melody.

He reached out with a gnarled, trembling hand and picked up the miniature piano. He held it close to his face, feeling the vibration of the trapped souls humming against his palm.

Mr. Jones let out a loud, wicked laugh that echoed through the empty house, a sound that contained no sweetness, only a cold, timeless malice.

"At long last," he hissed, his voice dripping with triumph, "I have my collection of innocent souls."

The End.

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