A Piano Lesson

Owen usually found that reading late into the night didn’t put him to sleep the way it’s supposed to for children. Then again, he hadn’t been a child for a long time. He tended to do most of his heavy, serious reading once the rest of the world was asleep. And while it was awake, he’d think about how he’d much rather be asleep. But the sun would do its crawling to the other side of said world, a supernatural burst of energy would overtake him, and he’d read until he remembered he was supposed to be tired. Owen chose not to question these nocturnal tendencies. Let the other young men living in that old house the university had pushed them into do the questioning. Owen had already been banished from reading by the light of his small desk’s single lamp by Harris, his roommate. Harris was the kind of guy who preferred early bedtimes and sighing quietly when Owen turned the pages a little too loudly.

The year was 1857. That house, leaning on the outskirts of a drowsy suburb, was older than the university Owen attended. The same one his grandfather had attended, and his grandfather before that. It was, therefore, a very old house indeed. And renting very old houses instead of building more dormitories for students was what the very old university preferred to do, at least for the time being.

Owen’s house only had four bedrooms, each smelling faintly of mold and waterlogged wallpaper that probably should’ve been replaced during the days of Owen’s grandfather. He’d claimed the smallest room at the end of the long, dark, creepy hallway upstairs, the room big enough for two rather than four boys, and called it a win. 

The entire place seemed simultaneously empty and full. The furniture was debatably as old as the foundations, or at least Owen thought so. He didn’t know much about late nineteenth-century interior design trends. But he did know that walking around by himself at night, searching for reading corners with suitable lighting, made the surely haunted house feel even more spectral. And yet, there isn’t a whole lot a young insomniac living far from the rest of his lucky friends with on-campus housing can do to keep himself occupied. So, Owen walked and read. Don’t misunderstand him entirely, though. If he ever found a way out of the sleepless routine he’d developed, he’d run straight for the exit. He loved his books, but he also yearned for some activity that didn’t make him feel like he was sleepwalking. Some truly pleasant company would be nice.

You will want to understand that Owen the insomniac was a dreamer. A daydreamer, if you will. It was probably a result of all the reading. And you may have already guessed what Owen studied at his university.

Literature? Correct. 

Predictable? Maybe. 

But most daydreamers are, in the best way. Those friends of his with the good housing luck liked to poke fun at him for it. But that’s what nondaydreamer friends are for. 

Owen was pretty sure melodrama suited him. He sometimes viewed the crumbling two-story he called home as a living thing. He thought his friends would agree if they lived there, too. But they hardly made the three-mile trek in the first place. A persistent image liked to rotate around Owen’s mind, of the house crumbling under the weight of the twelve boys within it, and the twelve existential crises surely approaching. The first semester of his third year was nearly over; the inevitable final stretch of the fourth year loomed just ahead. He wasn’t sure all twelve of them would make it to graduation, but wisely kept this thought to himself. Owen thought he might’ve been the only one to read outside of what professors assigned, though he never saw Harris crack open any of the textbooks collecting dust in a pile on his nightstand. 

Girls came and went on the weekends. They asked for Christopher, Toby, and, if Owen had to wager before opening the door to see another nervous, smiling face, Frederick. Frederick was the opposite of melodrama. Too cool for school. He lived on the other end of the house, in the master bedroom with three other boys. Owen had never seen a book on Frederick’s person. He wondered if there was some sort of secret correlation between books and girls he’d yet to grasp.

The girls and the boys they’d walked three miles for would leave the house on weekends and, Owen assumed, find somewhere closer to campus to sleep for the rest of the weekend. And so Owen was left to his reading and promenading up and down the creaky floorboards. Alone.

Except Harris. Harris slept through most of his classes. But his weekends were for napping, napping, and more napping. So Owen did his best to leave Harris undisturbed in his noninsomniac tendencies.

Owen preferred the lighting in the house’s study best, anyway.

It had one window in need of a thorough wash, so the two bright green lamps with the half-lidded shades had to be fully depended on. It seemed possible there were more dust motes than books on the shelved walls. But it was the kind of room even an insomniac might find sleep in. 

The sleep Owen fell into on one particular night in October was unexpected and deep. The book in question was Charles Dickens’ Hard Times. He’d found the copy inside the study’s massive desk.

Harris snored. Loudly. It was seemingly the one thing he and Owen had in common. The first thing Owen thought when he started awake was if his own snoring had been the thing to wake him up. It wouldn’t have been the first time. Disoriented, he lifted his head from where he’d made a pillow of his crossed arms. He looked around the dark, musty room for Harris. The green lamp near his left elbow quickly showed him he wasn’t in his bedroom. But a young woman was sitting at the piano. Two young women, one much shorter than the other, sitting side by side.

Owen was fairly certain there’d never been a piano pushed up against the far wall. But he could’ve easily overlooked it. Daydreamers aren’t usually known for their stellar observation skills.

A low dulcet note moved the dust motes in the air. The young woman responsible for the note played a short series of higher notes before purposely slamming her hand down. The cacophony was discordant, but it made the other young woman laugh and clap her hands. She was definitely more girl than woman. They both wore dresses far outside of the current fashion, not that Owen would’ve been particularly snobbish or knowledgeable about such a thing. The pure whiteness of both dress’ fabric hurt Owen’s eyes. The edges of both figures shimmered like candle flames.

The young woman played another series of beautiful notes before slamming her hand down again. The keys shimmered beneath her hand, which seemed to not quite touch the surface despite her clear playing. The girl laughed just as before, eliciting a laugh out of the other. 

It was a game. Owen felt like he was intruding. But when had girls started visiting the house in the middle of the night to play the piano Owen had never deigned to notice before? Why had nobody alerted him? He tried to sit up fully in his chair, feeling stiff, and the pair abruptly stopped their giggling. He’d disturbed a pen on the desk. It was rolling toward the edge. Clink, it said as it hit the floor. 

The pair looked at each other; Owen could see the girl’s wide eyes. They were completely black.

“Did you hear that?” the woman who’d been playing the piano murmured. The girl nodded slowly. Her black eyes darted around the shadowy room. Owen held his breath, suddenly afraid to make his presence known. He was definitely intruding. But he was also definitely curious. He wanted to know if this game of terrible-sounding chords evolved into something more, or if it was meant to remain at a base level of amusement. Owen did some rapid blinking. The figures still shimmered. It was like he was looking at them through some sort of invisible fire.

There are advantages to waking up slowly, to thinking you might still be dreaming even after you’ve opened your eyes. Such advantages make the realization you’re being visited by ghosts easier to stomach. Thankfully, being an insomniac and a daydreamer lent Owen the ability to speak before numbing fear or disbelief set in.

“My apologies. I thought it was the middle of the night, but I must have lost track of time. If you’re here looking for Frederick or one of the other tenants, I could go find them for you?”

As Owen began to murmur, the young women simultaneously looked in his direction and clutched each other’s arms. They leaned back on the piano bench as if a strong gust of wind were trying to push them off. They both had impenetrably black, pupiless eyes. Now that they were trained on him, he felt a cold sort of unease creep along the inside of his stomach. 

“You’re… not here for Frederick?” Owen asked. What a silly question. He knew, even before he admitted it to himself, that these ghosts had no clue who Frederick was, that he should be attempting to sleep in his bed upstairs despite Harris’ snores and not here in the midst of the haunted house’s ethereal occupants’ nocturnal activities. The pair blinked at him slowly. The whole “ghost” realization had nearly set in for Owen.

“Who is Frederick?” the girl asked from behind the armor of her older companion.

“He lives here,” Owen said a little breathlessly. “But never mind that. That was a foolish question.”

Owen sat up straighter. A small twinge in his back wanted his attention, but he kept it devoted to the girls—ghosts—looking at him as if he might launch himself over the desk like a wild cat to maul them. He really didn’t want them to look like that, not when he didn’t know the first thing about wild cats, or the wilds beyond university life, or proper etiquette in general. There were so many things Owen didn’t know, but he did know he was making a mess of a first impression. He was also beginning to realize he had access to the minds and psyches of real live ghosts who seemed like rather pleasant company indeed.

Owen already lacked experience and confidence with girls. These ones were bewitching in the very sense of the word, if one could get over their eyes not having any pupils and whatnot. Owen got to his feet slowly and thought, Why don’t I try giving this another go.

“Um… are you alright?” This question was silly too, but polite. If these ghosts hadn’t appeared to visit someone in the house, then maybe they were lost.

“We’re fine,” the woman sitting on the piano bench closest to him said in a melodious voice Owen didn’t think quite matched her narrow face. “We were just about to begin our weekly lesson.”

“Oh,” was all Owen said before, in his attempt to take a tentative step out from behind the desk, he promptly knocked his book onto the floor. The thump sent both ghosts’ hands to the piano. The sudden stir of wrong notes made Owen clench his teeth.

That had to have woken Harris up, he thought as his ears began to ring.

“Sorry! Sorry,” he said as he retrieved the book. The ghosts seemed to be shimmering a bit more when he looked back up at them. “Clumsy. I’m clumsy. And didn’t mean to startle you.”

The ghost with the narrow face looked like she wanted to laugh. Her companion did. The sound was the antithesis of the piano’s racket: soft, lilting, and perfectly musical.

“That was loud,” she said through a giggle.

Owen could feel a flush on his neck. He smiled.

“It was, wasn’t it?”

Both ghosts nodded, and Owen laughed. He strained to hear the creak of floorboards or a door opening above, but what had he been thinking—Harris could sleep through anything.

“I’m interrupting a piano lesson, then,” Owen said once his laughter had faded, more statement than question.

The ghosts looked at each other furtively. The younger one looked at Owen with what could only be described as a twinkle in her unlit eyes.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m clumsy at the piano.”

“I’m afraid I am, too,” Owen said. The older ghost was turning to look at him fully. Her shoulders had been tense, but now looked visibly more relaxed. She offered him a small smile.

“We’ve been using your piano for the past few months,” she said in a half-sheepish, half-explanatory sort of way. “But you’ve never been in here before.”

“I… must’ve been asleep,” Owen said, unsure of what else to stay. He had the distinct sense he was about to be dismissed, or that if he wasn’t outright asked to leave, it would be in his best interests to leave the pair to their studies. He wasn’t a part of this. He was meant to be what he’d just said: asleep.

But when he wasn’t sleeping, he was reading of the adventures and friendships of other people, fictional people, whose lives spanned further and wider than Owen could ever hope to achieve for his own life, even after obtaining his degree. He suddenly felt very foolish and lonely standing before the two of them, on the outside looking in. 

“Would you like to learn how to not be clumsy at the piano with me?”

The younger ghost asked the question so brightly, Owen nearly thought her shimmering outline flared a bit. Owen expected her teacher to give him a look that would communicate something along the lines of, I don’t think that’s a good idea at all, or She doesn’t understand what we are and what you are. 

But the narrow-faced ghost was smiling at him again. Her look suggested she thought the idea was grand. He thought he might very nearly be on the verge of tears and would have to blame it on the dust motes, but he kept his composure and nodded once, then twice.

“I would be delighted.”

*

When Harris woke up at precisely 11:04am, rolled over for another 14 minutes of hazy sleep, and finally shuffled into his slippers to fetch some tea from the kitchen, he didn’t wonder why Owen’s bed looked entirely untouched.

He did wonder, once he had his tea and was feeling a bit more awake, why the door to the study was ajar when it was always kept closed. He was halfway through shutting the door when he saw that the lamps on the desk were on. His gaze wandered to a piano pushed against one wall—Harris had never fully entered the mildew-scented room—and wondered why someone would choose to store such a grand instrument in such a dull room. 

Owen was at the piano bench slumped against the keys, looking quite comfortable despite his slouching position. His peacefully-sleeping face was tilted towards Harris, and Harris decided to let his roommate be. He knew Owen had a tendency to stay up far too late reading, and that he had a tendency to snore.

He closed the door to the study and failed to notice a few of the piano’s keys moving slowly of their own accord in the empty space next to Owen.