The Fourth Movement

The old Victorian house on Maple Street had always been a bit off, but I never paid it much mind. The previous owners had left behind a massive oak dining table, polished to a mirror sheen, and a collection of vinyl records that I’d been slowly working through. My friend Clara and I were in my study, a cramped room at the top of the stairs, just big enough for two armchairs and a stereo system I’d salvaged from a garage sale. The speakers were mounted on homemade shelves in the back corners, angled toward the center of the room.

I had just found a pristine copy of a progressive rock album, the kind with a long, sprawling suite that took up an entire side. The opening track began with a faint, distant rumble, growing into the unmistakable drone of a propeller plane. Clara leaned forward, her eyes wide with anticipation. The sound swelled, filling the small space, and at the peak of its intensity, when the plane was directly overhead, the right speaker ripped from its shelf as if wrenched by an invisible hand. It sailed across the room, past my head, and out the open doorway into the hallway, where it hit the far wall with a sickening crack. The needle scraped across the vinyl, and then silence.

We sat frozen, the air thick with the smell of ozone and dust. Clara’s face was pale, her lips parted. Then she screamed, a raw, primal sound, and bolted. I heard her footsteps thudding down the stairs, the front door slamming, and then nothing but the ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall. I never saw Clara again. She refused to answer my calls, and eventually, I stopped trying.

I stayed, because the house was mine, and I told myself it was a freak accident, a faulty shelf, a loose screw. But I couldn’t bring myself to play that album again. I put it in a cardboard box in the closet, and for a while, life went on. I had dinners with friends, set the table with the fine china my grandmother had left me. One evening, I placed the plates in a neat stack on the table, ready for guests. I turned to light the candles, and when I turned back, the plates had moved. They were scattered across the table, one on the floor, one leaning against the butter dish. No one else was in the room.

Over the following weeks, other oddities occurred. The grandfather clock would chime thirteen at midnight, always thirteen. A faint, rhythmic tapping would come from the walls, as if something were counting. But the worst was the music. Late at night, I’d hear a faint, distorted version of the album’s second movement, the one I’d never listened to. It would drift from the empty study, a ghost of sound, all wrong and slowed down, like a record played at the wrong speed underwater.

I finally worked up the courage to play the album again, determined to prove to myself that it was all in my head. I stood in the center of the room, the same stereo, the same place. The needle dropped, and the familiar opening notes of the first movement filled the air. It played perfectly, and I felt a wave of relief. But then, at the exact point where the plane should have appeared, the music changed. Instead of the usual transition, a new melody emerged, one I had never heard. It was a slow, funereal dirge, with a single, persistent note that hung in the air like a question.

And then, from the hallway, came a sound. Footsteps, heavy and deliberate, ascending the stairs. The music grew louder, the dirge pounding, and the footsteps reached the landing. I turned to face the door, my heart hammering. Nothing was there. But the music continued, and I felt a cold breath on the back of my neck. The needle lifted on its own, and the room fell silent.

I looked down at the record sleeve. The tracklist had changed. The fourth movement, which had never existed, was now listed as ‘The Return.’ I don’t know who or what is in this house, but I know now that I have to listen. Every night, I go to the study, put on that album, and wait for the footsteps. They never show themselves, but they always arrive at the same moment. And I know, one day, I’ll follow them into the music, and I won’t come back.