The Volume Knob That Turned by Itself

I was seven when we moved into the house on Marrow Lane, a squat, brick bungalow with a yard full of dead roses. It was just me, my dad, his fiancée Clara, her son Marcus, and my older sister Jenny. The house had three bedrooms that all opened onto the same living room, which was fine except that at night, any noise from the living room carried into every room. And every night, that living room seemed to hold its breath.

My room was at the end of the hall, and Jenny’s was next to mine, connected by a thin wall. Dad and Clara had the master bedroom on the other side, and Marcus had the room opposite the bathroom. The living room was the heart of the house, cluttered with mismatched furniture, a dusty television, and an antique stereo system that Clara had brought from her old place. It was a huge wooden console with a turntable on top, a row of push buttons for the radio, and a large volume knob that you had to turn with some effort. It was old enough that switching it on required pushing a button, not a dial.

I remember the first night I heard it. I had been asleep, dreaming of a beach where the waves were made of static, when a sound dragged me awake. It was music – not like anything we played – a ghostly, wavering melody that seemed to come from the stereo in the living room. I sat up in bed, my heart thumping, and listened. The living room was right outside our doors, but no one else seemed awake. The overhead fan in my room hummed, but the music wasn’t coming from that. It was coming from the living room, playing at a soft volume, like someone had turned it down so no one would notice.

I crept to my door, my feet cold on the hardwood, and cracked it open. The living room was dim, lit only by the pale glow of a streetlamp through the curtained window. The stereo was on, its green indicator light glowing like an eye. No one else was there. The music was a slow, mournful jazz piece – saxophone and piano – and the volume was low. I watched, barely breathing, as the volume knob turned slowly down until it was at zero, then slowly up, past where we ever played it, until the music was loud enough to rattle the speakers. Then down again, a slow, deliberate rhythm, as if someone were testing the range. But there was no hand. No one stood by the stereo. All the other bedroom doors were closed, and I could hear my father’s snores from behind his.

I stood frozen, my hand on the doorknob, for what felt like minutes, watching the volume knob move as if it had a life of its own. Then, as suddenly as it had started, the music stopped. The knob clicked softly to the ‘off’ position, and the green light died. The living room fell into silence, and I could hear my own heartbeat. I backed into my room, closed the door, and dove under my covers, shaking. I didn’t sleep the rest of the night.

The next morning, I told Jenny. We were sitting on her bed, and I whispered, ‘The stereo turned on by itself last night. The knob moved.’ She gave me a skeptical look. ‘You were dreaming,’ she said. ‘Dad must have been sleepwalking.’ ‘No,’ I insisted, ‘I saw it. It was freaky.’ Jenny rolled her eyes and pulled at a loose thread on her blanket. ‘Maybe Marcus did it to scare you. He’s a jerk like that.’ But Marcus was asleep when I checked; his door was closed, and he was snoring.

Over the next few weeks, the music became a nightly occurrence. Every night, around two or three in the morning, I’d hear it start: a low, scratchy tune, like an old record. Sometimes it was jazz, sometimes a waltz, sometimes a lullaby that sounded like something my mom used to hum. I never told Dad or Clara, because I didn’t want to seem crazy, but Jenny heard it too. She moved her bed closer to the wall and said it kept her awake. Once, we both crept out and saw the volume knob spinning back and forth, faster than before, while the record player’s arm hovered over a spinning disc. There was no record on the platter, but the arm was moving as if tracing grooves in the air, and the music was coming from the speakers. We stood there, our hands locked, and watched as the volume knob turned all the way up and then slammed back to zero.

Then, one morning, Marcus came out of his room looking pale. He said he’d had a nightmare, but he looked like he’d seen a ghost. Under his arm, he carried a stack of old vinyl records. ‘I found these in the basement,’ he said. ‘They were hidden behind some boxes.’ He put them on the kitchen table, and we all gathered around. The records were dusty, with faded labels. Some were classical, some were swing, but the one on top was unlabeled, with a plain white sleeve. ‘This one was in the player when I found it,’ Marcus said. ‘It’s stuck. I can’t get it off.’

My father took the record and examined it. ‘There’s a name scratched on the label,’ he said. He squinted, reading aloud: ‘Edith Harlow. ‘Souvenirs of the Living.” We all looked at each other, puzzled. Clara went pale and sat down. ‘Edith Harlow,’ she repeated. ‘That was the old woman who lived here before us. She died two years ago. They say she was a piano teacher. She never played anything but classical.’ The music we’d heard wasn’t classical; it was old music-hall songs, the kind you’d hear in a dimly lit nightclub.

That night, I decided to stay up and wait. I left my door cracked open and lay on the floor where I could see the stereo. Sure enough, at two o’clock, the volume knob started to move. The record player’s arm swung over and lowered onto the platter, and music filled the room. This time, I was ready. I had a flashlight in my hand, and I pointed it at the stereo. The beam caught dust motes, and there, standing beside the stereo, was a faint shape – a woman in a long skirt, her hair piled up, her hands hovering over the knob as if she were operating it. She didn’t seem to be solid; I could see the couch through her. She was humming along to the music, and I realized I knew the tune from somewhere. It was the lullaby my mother used to hum when I was a baby, before she walked out on us.

I let out a breath, and the woman turned, as if hearing me. Her face was kind, but infinitely sad. She looked at me, and I felt a wave of cold wash over me. She mouthed something – ‘Can you hear me?’ – and I nodded. Then she faded, and the music stopped. The volume knob clicked off.

The next day, I told everyone what I’d seen. Clara was quiet, then said, ‘Edith used to be a local performer before she married. She never had children, but she used to play for the neighborhood kids. Maybe she’s still trying to connect.’ That made it worse. I didn’t want Edith’s ghost turning our stereo on every night; I wanted it to stop. So I did the only thing I could think of: I took the record out of the player and hid it in the backyard, burying it under the dead rose bush.

That night, the stereo didn’t come on. But the next night, I heard humming from my closet. And then the lights flickered. I called out, ‘Edith?’ and the humming stopped. After a moment, my closet door creaked open, and a voice whispered, ‘You’re still here. You hear me.’ And from then on, every time I was alone, I’d feel a presence, a cold spot, and the faint smell of lavender. The music stopped coming from the stereo, but it started coming from inside my head, always that same lullaby, always Edith’s voice, until I couldn’t tell if I was awake or dreaming.

One night, I woke to find myself standing in the living room, my hand on the volume knob of the stereo. The stereo was off, but my fingers were on the dial, and I felt an irresistible urge to turn it. I fought it, shaking, and then I heard Edith’s voice, not from the speakers, but right in my ear: ‘You can still hear me, that’s enough.’ I screamed, and my father rushed in. He found me with my hand on the knob, trembling. He didn’t say anything; he just unplugged the stereo and took it to the garage. But even unplugged, that night I heard the music again, faint, coming from the walls, from the floorboards, from the air itself. And I knew that Edith wasn’t in the stereo – she was in the house, and she’d been waiting for someone who would listen since the day she died.

Now, when I walk past that house, I see it has a sold sign. New people moved in, a young family. I wonder if they’ll hear it, the music that plays by itself at night, the volume knob moving as if someone is still there, trying to be heard. I don’t know if Edith is gone or if she just moved on to them. But I think about the last thing she said to me, that night I found myself at the stereo: ‘You have my heart,’ and I realize she wasn’t trying to scare me. She was trying to give me something, a song, a memory, a piece of herself. And I guess, in a way, I took it with me. Because sometimes, in my own house, when it’s quiet, I can still hear that old lullaby, and I’ll catch myself humming it without realizing, as if it’s been part of me all along.