The Fallen Piano

The first time the piano played itself, I was home alone with a fever and my cat, Marmalade. He was a sleek orange tabby, barely a year old, and he never made a sound unless he was hungry. But that afternoon, as I lay sweating on the couch, he lifted his head from my chest and let out a low, guttural growl I had never heard from him. His fur bristled, and he stared at the grand piano in the corner of my old Victorian flat. The piano had been there when I moved in, a massive black beast that I never touched. I tried to ignore Marmalade, blaming the fever for my own unease, but then the piano keys began to depress on their own, playing a slow, mournful chord that hung in the air like a warning. I watched in horror as the keys continued, a melody I didn’t recognize, and then a single, high note rang out, so loud and sharp that it made me flinch. The sound echoed through the empty rooms, and then silence. Marmalade bolted from my lap and hid under the bed. I told myself it was the old pipes, the draft, my feverish mind. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something in that room had been listening to us.

Three days later, I was walking Marmalade along the river that ran through my town, a murky, slow-moving body of water that had been there for centuries. The fog was thick, and the streetlamps cast pale halos in the mist. Suddenly, an old man in a tattered coat appeared on the path ahead, gesturing wildly toward the water. ‘Quick! In the river!’ he shouted, his voice cracked and desperate. I knew the river was dangerous, with its strong currents and hidden debris. But as I turned to ask what he meant, he vanished—right in front of my eyes, like a candle being snuffed out. My friend, Elena, who was walking with me, gasped and grabbed my arm. ‘Did you see that?’ she whispered. I nodded, my heart pounding. We both stared at the spot where he had stood, but there was nothing but fog and the sound of water lapping against the stones. Elena insisted we call the police, but when they searched the area, they found nothing, not even footprints in the damp grass. The older officer, a grizzled man named Sergeant Halloran, looked at us with a strange intensity. ‘You’re not the first to see him,’ he said. ‘He’s an old friend of the river.’ Then he refused to say more.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I lay in bed, listening to the wind rattling the windows, and I kept thinking about the piano. I had never touched it, but now I felt drawn to it, as if it were calling me. I crept downstairs, my bare feet cold on the wooden floor, and stood before the piano. The keys were dusty, untouched for years. Without thinking, I played a chord—the same chord I had heard that afternoon. To my astonishment, the piano responded, playing a different chord, then another, as if in conversation. The room grew colder, and the shadows seemed to deepen. Then, from the corner of my eye, I saw a figure—a tall, gaunt woman in a white dress, her hair hanging over her face. She stood by the window, her head tilted as if listening. I froze, unable to move or speak. The piano stopped, and the woman slowly raised her head, revealing eyes like black pools. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out, only a gust of freezing air that smelled of wet earth and decay.

I ran. I grabbed Marmalade and fled to Elena’s apartment across town. I told her everything, expecting her to laugh or call me crazy, but she grew pale. ‘The piano,’ she said. ‘It was your aunt’s, wasn’t it?’ I nodded, confused. My aunt had died in that flat before I moved in, and the piano had been hers. Elena pulled out her phone and showed me an old article she had found: ‘Local Pianist Drowns in River After Mysterious Disappearance.’ The woman in the photo was my aunt, and the article mentioned that she had been found in the river a week after she vanished. ‘They never found her killer,’ Elena said. ‘But there’s a legend about the river. They say it takes what it wants, and sometimes it gives back.’

We decided to return to the flat the next morning, determined to get answers. But when we arrived, the piano was gone. The spot where it had stood was bare, the floorboards pale and clean, as if it had never been there. In its place was a water stain, in the shape of a woman lying down. Sergeant Halloran was waiting outside, his face grim. ‘I thought you might come back,’ he said. ‘I know what you saw. The river has a way of calling its own.’ He told us that the piano had been found in the river decades ago, dragged out by the previous owner, who swore it played by itself. ‘It’s been waiting for someone to play the right tune,’ he said, ‘to bring back what it lost.’ Just then, my phone rang. It was a neighbor, saying she heard piano music coming from my flat, even though I was standing outside. I looked at the window of the flat, and there, in the empty room, I saw the figure of a woman with long hair, her hands on the piano, playing a mournful lullaby. As I watched, she turned her head and looked directly at me, and her lips moved, forming the words, ‘Come and play.’

I knew then that the piano was not gone; it was inside, waiting for me to finish the story. And as I walked back into the flat, with Elena and the sergeant behind me, I could hear the music growing louder, and the woman’s voice joined in, singing a song I had never heard, yet felt hauntingly familiar. The air grew thick with the smell of river water, and I realized that I was not just a witness to this horror—I was part of it. The piano had chosen me, and the river would not let me go until I had paid its price.