The Hollow Tune

I was eleven when my family moved to the small town of Duskhallow, into a crumbling Victorian house that had been empty for decades. My name is Cora, and I never believed in ghosts—not until the music box in my new bedroom began to play by itself.

My room was at the end of a long, crooked hallway. The walls were covered with faded rose-patterned wallpaper, peeling in places, and the floorboards groaned with every step. On the first night, I woke to a soft, tinkling melody coming from the corner of my room. I flicked on the lamp, and there it sat on the dusty dresser: a small, ornate music box I’d never seen before. The lid was open, and the little ballerina was spinning. The tune was a lullaby I didn’t recognize, but it made me feel cold. I closed the lid and went back to sleep, assuming I had been dreaming.

The next morning, I told my mother about it. She dismissed it as the wind or an old clock. But the music box continued. It would play at odd hours—always when I was alone. Sometimes I would find it open in different spots: on the kitchen counter, in the bathtub, under my pillow. Once, I found it in the basement, which we never used because the stairs were rotting.

I started to feel watched. There was a strange pattern in the wallpaper, a figure that seemed to shift when I turned my back. I would hear a faint humming, like a child humming that same lullaby, but when I searched, no one was there. My mother began to lose her patience with my ‘imaginings.’ She told me to stop playing with the music box, so I hammered it with a rock and threw it in the garbage.

The next day, a new music box appeared on my pillow, identical to the first, but the ballerina had my face. I screamed and ran to my mother’s room. She wasn’t there, but the music box was on her bed, playing the lullaby. When my mother came home, she found me sobbing on the floor. I told her everything, and this time, she didn’t dismiss me. Her face went pale. She said she had heard the lullaby too, in her dreams, and that it had been sung to her by a woman in a long white dress.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I sat in the middle of my room with all the lights on, and the music box played from the dresser. I refused to look at it. The humming grew louder, and I heard a child’s voice, whispering my name. ‘Cora… Cora… come play with me.’ I clamped my hands over my ears. The voice grew desperate. ‘Please, Cora, I’ve been alone for so long.’

I felt a tug on my blanket. I looked down, and a small, icy hand was gripping the edge. I shrieked and backed against the wall. A little girl materialized out of the shadows. She was pale, with hollow eyes, and she wore a tattered white nightgown. She smiled at me. ‘You broke my music box. But I made you a new one.’ She pointed to the dresser. The music box lid was open, and the ballerina was spinning to the lullaby. ‘Now you have to stay with me forever.’

The girl reached out to touch me, but I bolted out of the room, down the hall, past my mother’s room, to the front door. I yanked it open, but the porch was gone. Instead, there was a hallway, identical to the one I had just run down, stretching into darkness. I turned back, but my bedroom door was gone too. I was in a maze of wallpapered corridors, with the lullaby echoing from everywhere and nowhere.

I ran, turning corners, opening doors, but every room was the same: dusty, with a music box on the dresser, playing that tune. The girl’s voice followed me. ‘You can’t leave, Cora. This is my home now. And you’ll be my new music box.’

I finally collapsed in a corner, crying. The music stopped. The voice went silent. I looked up, and the girl was standing in front of me, holding a shard of mirror. ‘Look,’ she said softly. I looked at my reflection. My face was starting to blur, like I was fading. ‘In a hundred years, you’ll be like me,’ she said. ‘Lost, searching for a friend.’

I closed my eyes, and when I opened them, I was back in my room, in my bed, morning light streaming through the window. The music box was on the floor, broken. I thought it was a nightmare. But on my nightstand, there was a small doll, with a porcelain face that looked just like mine. And as I stared at it, I heard a faint whisper: ‘Play with me, Cora.’ I never slept in that room again, and my mother, who now believed me, sold the house. But every night, I hear the lullaby, and I see the girl’s face in my dreams. She’s waiting for me to finally agree to play.