Stirrings in the Black House Read online

  As it turned out, there wasn't any power in the house. I shouldn't have been surprised, but as I screwed in the bulbs and flipped the switches up and down, the rooms remaining dark, I cursed to myself. As the evening rushed in and a denser darkness stole through the house, I relied on the candles I'd bought, lighting a few of them in the living room, kitchen and bathroom with a plastic lighter. It was a tad bit rustic and not a little creepy, but there was something romantic about it, too. I imagined my uncle, who'd apparently had a distaste for lightbulbs, doing much the same, hammering on his Steinway well into the night.

  Prior to sundown, I'd done a quick walk around the property. A brief jaunt from the house I'd found a small stack of weatherbeaten firewood. How long ago it'd been chopped was impossible to say, and the pile had been rather small to begin with, toppled by the seasons. Gathering up all I could carry, I'd dropped it into the fireplace and fussed over a piece of lit newsprint till I actually got a proper fire going. With a blaze in the hearth, the living room really came to life. It was almost as good as having the electricity on, and the flickering flames rendered the piano in warm light.

  That evening, sitting at the hearth with a can of tuna and some Ritz crackers, I looked out across the room and was pleased. “I could get used to this.”

  3

  My curiosity won out.

  I had to toy with the piano. There was no way around it.

  The night was young, and with no other distractions I found myself returning time and again to the Steinway, testing its keys and using one of my T-shirts to hastily dust it off. To my surprise, the piano was very much in tune; repeated testing of the keys and run-throughs of the scales yielded the kind of crisp, impeccable sound one would expect from a meticulously-kept instrument. This was strange for a couple of reasons. An average piano, in my experience, required at minimum four to five tunings a year to maintain a proper sound, however this one, which looked as though it hadn't been touched in years, sounded perfect. Changes in barometric pressure, in humidity, could also alter the sound of a piano, requiring additional tuning, however this Steinway of my uncle's seemed to have tolerated the changes in season and temperature with preternatural grace. I'd never come across anything like it.

  The keys, shielded from the dust and grime, were shining ivory, and they felt marvelous beneath my fingertips. They boasted a heaviness that lent the player exquisite control, and the depth of each was just right. It was truly a world-class piano, possibly the finest I'd ever laid my hands on. The bench, a handsome thing upholstered in leather, proved adjustable. After some tinkering I sat before the piano at the proper height and played in earnest.

  When performing professionally, I often set aside three to four hours a day to practice the piano. Even when I didn't have a performance coming up, I'd often brush up on repertoire, would spend a few hours with Bach or Chopin. It'd been a few weeks since I'd played the piano, but my years of practice and the superior craftsmanship of the Steinway made things easy on me and before long I was playing with my usual ease. There is nothing in the world more relaxing to me than the piano, and sitting in that dark room, a cool wind coming from the windows and a warm fire bumbling in the hearth, I felt at peace.

  My favorite piece, something I used often as a warmup to loosen the fingers and which I had memorized completely was Debussy's Arabesque No. 1. It's a famous piece, dream-like in a way that only a great impressionist like Debussy could envision, with passages that called at turns for delicacy and force. With the familiarity with which one might approach an old friend, the piece flowed from my fingers and its warmth flooded that dark room in Weatherby House with sweetness. It was at the piece's resolution, as I sat back and admired the piano once more, than I came to appreciate the acoustics of the space. My uncle, genius that he was, had not arbitrarily placed the piano in this room. He'd done so because the space was well-suited to the sounds of the piano; because its dimensions were such that the sound of each note could expand and resonate to its fullest potential.

  I played nothing more that evening, awed at my inheritance and admittedly humbled by it. Had my uncle seen me just then, his “talentless” nephew, playing his prized Steinway, he might've rolled in his grave. Nevertheless, I was moved. Though the man had never shown an interest in me, he'd been most generous in bequeathing me this house and instrument, and I was determined to make the most of it. I had no illusions about my own talent; no hours of practice could possibly imbue me with the singular genius he had been born with, however I would carry on the family legacy to the best of my ability and take my place in the world as a pianist of renown, using this Steinway as my guide.

  Where earlier in the day I'd been hurting for a Percocet, my hunger for opiates waned. I was still addicted, would have willingly accepted a handful of the things, but had gone long enough without them that they were no longer the number one thing on my mind. I couldn't recall exactly how long it'd been since my last fix. Not long enough, I thought. Focusing on music, on my future and the house, made it easier to put the matter out of my mind.

  I sat up by the hearth for a time. From the window there came the chirps of nocturnal insects, and from far-off, the hooting of what must have been a large owl. Never in my life had I lived in such a rural area as this. I'd grown up on the east coast, in one of New England's largest cities, and was used to the attendant noise and bustle that came with such a place. Here, in Newberg, I could tell life would be very different for me. In all my hours sitting in that house I hadn't heard a single car go by, hadn't heard the mutterings of passersby or even the barking of a dog. This was a place where houses were few and far between, and where nature was still very much intact. To me, it was like living in a public park.

  There was so much to do. Probably the land surrounding the house could be used for planting food; something that would save me money in the long-run. There were few trees to be seen nearby, but with some elbow grease and a bit of luck I could probably use this land to grow fruits and vegetables. Judging by the hint of sulfur I smelled whenever the tap first came on, I figured the property was fed by a well. All I needed to do to turn this into a proper home was to rummage up some basic furnishings and get the lights on. Then I'd be in business.

  The night deepened and fatigue from the day's journey seeped into me so that I was left nodding off by the fire. Hiking up the stairs, I chose the bedroom nearest the stairwell and dusted off a portion of the floor with a wet rag. I set my futon mattress down and kicked off my shoes, stretching. The room was dark, painted in shadow except for the space nearest the window where a watery moonlight stole in. The closet to my side sat open like a deep, yawning mouth, and dust motes drifted through the moonlit air as I fought to relax on the lumpy cushion I intended for a bed. I stared up at the plaster ceiling, counting pockmarks here and there until, eventually, I fell into a deep sleep.

  When I awoke, it wasn't light out yet. The moonlight remained in the window, its glow serving to highlight the animated dust motes that'd since found their way into my lungs and sinuses, where they'd incited a terrible congestion in me. I coughed, wiped at my eyes and nose, and rolled onto my side, wondering why it was I'd woken up. I'd been sleeping peacefully up till then, had been dreaming pleasantly, when something had knocked me out of sleep.

  And then I heard it.

  It broke the rural silence gingerly, barely catching my ear at first. From somewhere nearby, either outside my window or else in the downstairs of the house, I thought I heard music. Piano music. Is that coming from the Steinway downstairs? Possibly the instrument was just settling, I told myself, the thing not used to being played for ages. I closed my eyes and tried to resume my dreaming, however the music promptly intruded once again, and this time with an undeniably determined sound. A batch of staccato notes rang out from the downstairs, heralding the start of a piece I'd never heard.

  Its closest analog to my ear was Erik Satie's Gnossienne No. 1, a slow, somewhat brooding piece. The light, initial flourishes gave way to a more forceful undercurrent, and upon this framework was thrust a curious, wandering melody which repeated throughout and had about it a certain darkness. It was an experimental piece, doing away with traditional chordal structures and oozing with what the listener could only deem a withering despair.

  I found myself undisturbed and listening intently, eyes glued to the ceiling, as the tune wore on. I should have been frightened out of my mind at hearing the piano play, but I'd convinced myself that, somehow, I was still locked in a world between dreams and reality. This house was in the middle of nowhere; it was unthinkable that someone would enter it in the middle of the night just to play the piano—and masterfully, no less. The sounds drifting up from the lower level were those of a highly practiced hand, of a true expert; and the composition, I decided after some minutes, was an original. Though rare, I did sometimes dream of music in this way, and closing my eyes, I was content to write it off as a trick of my imagination.

  What sad and beautiful music that is, I thought. If only there were someone really in this house, playing it, I'd go and ask them to teach it to me. The only one who could play something like that was my uncle—

  The tune abruptly ended and my eyes snapped open. A perfect stillness enshrouded the house. It was the stillness one comes to expect of a night in the country, though with the sudden cessation of the music it seemed out of place and awfully heavy. I sat up, wiping my face and loosing a few coughs. And I listened. My ears hummed in the silence as I waited for the music to resume, but it never did. “You dumbass,” I muttered, scratching at my scalp. “You were dreaming, see?”

  Wakefulness stole over me then, and I spent the next hour tossing and turning on the thin mattress, half-hoping that the music might return. It never did, of course. What, did you think that Uncle Gustav decided to drop by and give the old Steinway another go?

  When the morning sun dragged me out of bed some hours later, I felt like I'd barely slept a wink.

  4

  I spent the next day phoning the electric company and getting a feel for Newberg, Oregon. Informing a receptionist that I'd taken up residence in Weatherby House and that I needed the power on, she promised to send someone over and that a small fee would have to be charged to my credit card in order to create a new account. The thing was nearly maxed as it was, but I gave her the card number and then rolled the windows of my Civic down on the way to a rundown Dunkin' Donuts several miles down the road.

  Eating a cruller and sipping coffee that I'd accidentally dumped a mixture of sugar and Splenda into, I paid close attention to my surroundings and tried to map out the little city in my head. It was important that I get to know the area and to stake out potential places to work. A part-time job somewhere, maybe stocking groceries or working a cash register, would help me make ends meet while trying to mend fences in the piano world. Working on the east coast was probably not in the cards in the foreseeable future, not after my breakdown in Baltimore. Eventually things would cool down, but for the time being it was better for me to lay low and get to know the west coast's music scene.

  My wanderings led me to a small grocery store, a locally-owned place called Falcon Foods with a cartoonish, avian mascot on its burnt-out sign and a messy collection of sun-bleached patio furniture out front that no one would ever buy. I put on my Raybans, both to keep the morning sun out of my face and to shield the world from my tired, bloodshot eyes, and paced across the parking lot. The front door, filled from corner to corner with taped-up circulars advertising sales, slid open as I approached. It looked like any mom n' pop grocery operation on Earth; not a self-checkout machine in sight, overly-polite high schoolers working the registers and a stern-faced manager sitting behind a little desk whose dangling placard read “Customer Service”.

  I took up a hand basket and started through the narrow grocery aisles. I avoided anything perishable; I didn't have a working fridge yet and couldn't stand the thought of leaving fresh produce sitting out on the counters to gather dust in that filthy house. Canned and pre-packaged foods would have to do. The big, oval-shaped speakers in the ceiling clicked audibly as a new song came on; Del Shannon's “Runaway”. I hummed along while trying to decide between tuna packed in water or olive oil.

  The grocery store had everything I needed but little else. There wasn't as much variety as I was used to, and nowhere else in the joint was this as apparent as in the alcohol section. Despite my being flat broke, I wanted a good beer to celebrate the move. I ended up having to settle for some no-name watered-down lager that would probably taste like piss. I grabbed a six-pack, peered into my basket to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything and then started for the registers, grabbing a Snickers along the way.

  There was an opening at checkout number four, and the girl working the register looked older than the rest; maybe I was being too optimistic, but she looked about my age. Wearing a pair of black Chuck Taylors, grey yoga pants and a white Falcon Foods-branded T-shirt, she buried her hands in the pockets of her green apron and nodded. “You ready to check out?”

  I set my basket on the belt. “Sure am.”

  She was damn cute, with sandy hair pulled into a tight ponytail that had some natural bounce to it. She had a little mole near her upper lip, giving her something of that Marilyn Monroe aesthetic, and her smile, also like the actress, was a dynamite shimmer of ivory between two sumptuous lips.

  I'd decided to try my luck with her before I'd even fished my wallet out of my back pocket.

  She bagged my stuff, sparing me the occasional curious look as she did so. It was either because she thought me a real hunk or because she'd never seen me in town before; I was hoping it was the former.

  “Don't suppose you could hook me up with a job application, could you?” I asked. “You guys hiring?”

  She smirked like she wasn't sure whether I was kidding, and then replied, “You from around here?”

  “I am now,” I said. “Just moved into town a day ago. Name's Emil. And you?”

  She pointed to the name tag that hung from her apron. “Kelly.” The beer was the last thing to ring up, and either I didn't look over twenty-one to her or else she was a real stickler for the rules, because she asked for my ID. Looking over it with an arched brow, she eventually handed it back and punched a couple of keys on the register. “From Rhode Island? What brings you all the way out here? Where you staying?”

  “It's complicated. I just moved into a house not too far from here, on Stratford Road. Weatherby House.”

  At the utterance of the property's name, Kelly suddenly looked up at me, eyes narrowing.

  “You know it?” I asked, handing her my debit card.

  She clicked her tongue and brought up my total, giving my card a swipe before handing it back. “Liar.”

  I picked up my bags and waited for my receipt. “It's no lie! My uncle owned the place. He passed on recently and I inherited it. It's a big old house, pretty unkempt, but it'll shape up once I get some furniture moved in there.”

  Holding my receipt hostage, Kelly furrowed her brow and leaned against the register. “No, I know you're not serious. You're talking about Weatherby House, the one... it's two stories, sits all alone a few miles down Stratford, surrounded by open fields?” She frowned. “The people in town have all kinds of stories about that house, about weird things that have happened in it.” Her eyes suddenly widened. “Not that I believe it, but... I've always wanted to have a look at the house myself. To walk through it, you know? I don't know anyone who's ever been inside.”

  I shot her a smile. “Well, how about that? You could be the first. I'll give you the grand tour.”

  A twinge of doubt still shaded her rosy smile. “You're fibbing, aren't you? You're some whacko from out of State, hoping to lure me to an old, creepy house.”

  I chuckled. “Well, you're half-right. The house isn't all that creepy, though.” I plucked up my six-pack and grinned. “What time do you get off of work? You can come by then, if you want. My day's wide open.”

  She seemed to be genuinely thinking it over. “Well, I dunno...”

  From the check-writing platform I plucked a blue ballpoint pen. I jotted down my phone number on the back of my receipt and slid it over to her. “Well, if you change your mind, let me know.”

  “I get off of work at six,” she said as I started from the checkout area. “I can drop by after that, maybe...”

  “Sure, if you like.” I gave her a lazy wave and made my way to the door. “Maybe I'll see you then... if you've got the courage to brave Weatherby House!” The dramatic waggling of my eyebrows earned me a pity laugh. I was almost out the door when I suddenly turned around. “Oh, and Kelly? You have a job application, by chance?”

  She motioned to the gruff manager sitting near the entrance. “Mr. Wesley can give you one.” Then she added, very quietly, “If you're sure you wanna work here...”

  I left Falcon Foods with a few days' worth of food, some beer and a job application to fill out. More than that, I'd managed to strike up a conversation with a cutie; something I didn't often do. Picking up girls in Newberg was easier than expected. It turns out they're all keen on empty old houses!

  As I drove back to the house, rather pleased with myself for not blowing the interaction, I wondered just what kinds of things the locals had to say about my uncle's place. Was it the local haunt ala Amityville? Was it sitting on an Indian burial ground?

  With any luck, Kelly would drop in later that day and give me the full scoop.

  5

  On the way home, I stopped by the convenience store and found myself a mop and an assortment of cheap cleaning supplies. Afterward, I burned away the afternoon talking on the phone with my mother and filling her in about the move. “It's a pretty big house,” I told her. “Four bedrooms. And the piano! You should see it. It's a big, gorgeous Steinway.” As I spoke, I paced around the piano room, my eyes never leaving the thing. Every time I passed it I felt an overwhelming urge to play, to lift the fallboard and get cracking on something new and challenging. I resisted the temptation and instead prepared to clean up around the house. If I was going to live in it for any length of time—and invite cute girls over—then I needed to tidy up. Breathing in dust wherever I went wasn't going to do my health any favors. “This place is really dusty. I don't think Uncle Gustav spent much time here at all. It's been two years, minimum, since anyone's lived here, I bet.”