Haunted

Author’s Note: Another short story I wrote in 2015. Publishing as-is to honor my past self!

-Caleb

The dream felt real. The type of dream that could reach and touch a soul, where reality

fades away, and there is nothing left but the dreamer and the subject of the dream. A woman, a

beautiful young woman with long silky black hair, sitting upright on the piano chair playing a

song that could make angels cry. Jacob stared through the dusty window of the old yellow house

and looked at this beautiful woman playing the song. Then she looked at him, and the music

stopped, he realized that the girl was crying onto the keys of the piano. She looked right at him.

“Listen” she whispered.

Jacob awoke on the couch to the living room. He reached back and turned on the lamp

rubbing his forehead. His phone read that it was one in the morning. Groaning, Jacob got up and

made his way into the kitchen for a glass of water. The dreams like that had come every night

since he had moved to fix up the house for his friend. As an out of work composer and

construction worker, living in a house rent-free had been a godsend.

The dream always took place in the old house with the woman playing the piano that

was upstairs on the landing overlooking the living room. She would always look at him before he

would wake up, the sadness in her eyes would always haunt Jacob well into the late morning

hours.

The kitchen light flickered to life slowly then filled the room. The kitchen was a good

size but had not had a makeover since the 1970s. The appliances were all avocado green with an

orange flower backsplash to tie it all together. Jacob smiled, it always reminded him of his

kitchen growing up. The kitchen led out to the dining room. Though the glow of the light from

the kitchen, he could make out an odd shape on the glass door, a perfect handprint.

“Huh.” He said out loud to himself.

He started to walk over to the handprint, but before he got there he stubbed his toe of a

loose floorboard. Swearing under his breath Jacob lifted up the rug to look at where he stubbed

with toe. The nails holding the floor down in that section had come up making the floor slightly

elevated. From the floor sticking out was some paper with hand written notes on it. Jacob pulled

the board the rest of the way up revealing multiple pages of handwritten music. Jacob looked it

over, it looked old, the paper was yellow from years of being under the floor. From between the

sheets of music Jacob found a picture, a family standing in front of the same house form what

looked to be about the 1960s. He started at the picture and realized who he was starting at, the

black haired girl from his dreams. As he looked up he saw a message written above the

handprint.

‘Listen’ it read.

“What?” He asked himself.

From upstairs Jacob heard the sound of footsteps making a creaking sound in the ceiling,

then the sound of a piano key, the highest note being pressed.

“Hello?” Jacob shouted “You are trespassing here!”

The playing stopped, and the house stood still. Putting the photo and music in his pocket,

Jacob made his way up to the top of the stairs to see what was causing all the commotion. He

turned the light on.The jet-black grand piano was illuminated, scattered over the surface was

Jacobs music and a dragon symbol that he assumed was the Piano's brand. Jacob pulled out the

hand written music and looked at it.

Since the dreams had started, he would try to replicate the song that the woman played.

So far he had remembered enough to get about halfway through what he had heard in the dream.

He sat down at the piano, cracked his fingers and began to play the music. It flowed from his

fingers, he could hear the melody from the dream. Jacob knew this was it this was the next part

of the song that the woman in his dreams had played. As he reached the next line, he hit a note

that fell flat. Testing the key a few times he realized that the note on the piano was out of tune.

“Damn.” He said to himself. “I’ll have to fix that tomorrow morning.” He got up turned

out the light and went back downstairs to the living room couch; he was currently in the process

of renovating the bedrooms upstairs, so he had to sleep on the couch. He clicked off the lamp and

feel back to sleep.

— —

Jacob awoke with a start again, glancing at his phone he realized he had only fallen back

asleep for an hour Sighing, he got up and made his way to the bathroom. As he rounded the

corner into the bathroom just off the kitchen, he turned on the light. Pressed into the mirror was

another hand print.

“What the?” Jacob said, moving closer to the mirror.

He paused and looked at it, it looked to be about the same size as the handprint from the

window earlier. Shaking his head, he shut the door to use the bathroom. As he was washing his

hands in the sink, he heard a knocking on the door making him jump and splash water on

himself. Goosebumps rose on the back of his neck. Jacob closed his eyes.

“This is another dream.” He said. “This is another dream. Wake up dammit wake up.”

“Listen!” The voice shouted right next to his ear Jacob jumped and opened the bathroom

door running back to the couch.

“Who’s in here?!” He shouted “You need to leave!”

The piano began to play.

Jacob paused for a second not quite sure what he was hearing. Then he realized, it was

his song, but not exactly his song, another part of his song, one he hadn’t yet written.

“Who’s there?” Jacob shouted.

The music stopped. He heard footsteps moving across the upper part of the landing and

books from the bookshelf being shuffled around. From his tool box, Jacob pulled out a crowbar

and began to make his way slowly up the stairs.

“Listen.” He said. “I do not want to hurt you.”

As he reached the top he dropped the crowbar; it clattered on the floor. Sitting at the

piano was the girl with black hair from his dream. She looked at him, with her sad eyes.

“W—who are you?” He asked

“Ann.” She said.

“Why are you here?”

“I live here,” Ann said then she looked away from him. “I am here forever.”

“I don’t understand.”

“All I ever wanted to do was finish the song.” Ann said from the chair. “Then you came

and you completed my it.”

“You wrote that?” Jacob asked pointing to the music.

Ann nodded, she seemed to be getting fainter. From the hollow book, Jacob pulled out a

picture.

“What is this?” He asked it looked like a picture of Ann and her family.

“My mom, my brother and that, that's my stepdad he’s why I never got to finish it. I was

here playing this song. He came up behind me, and the cord wrapped around.” She clutched her

neck. “I saw him, doing things to my brother, bad things and I said I would call the police, so

instead he did this.”

“Oh my God I’m sorry but why stay here? Why not move on?” Jacob asked.

“I needed to complete it, the music, I was writing it for my mom, she was sick, I thought

this would make her better.”

Jacob walked over and sat in the part of the chair where Ann wasn’t he cracked his

knuckles and began to play. This time it wasn’t a struggle to write the next part of the song this

time he knew exactly how the song should go. Ann stayed with him until the sun rose helping

him write the song. Then the last part came, and he hit the key, the key that was out of tune.

Jacob closed his eyes; he felt a kiss on his forehead and as he opened them Ann was gone. He

had completed her song for her.

Outside through the living room it began to snow, lightly sticking to the ground. Jacob

wrote in the last note, the flat note, Ann’s note and smiled. The snow fell, and Jacob began to

play the song from the beginning. The windows began to fog up from the heat of the house to the

snow outside Jacob could see into the living room window, written across it where two words:

“Thank you.”