Petrify

5. The Pianist

The Pianist

“My brother is dead.”

Said so matter-of-fact, while Henri runs through his B-flat scale. He doesn’t even look up at me, continuing through the two octaves.

“Oh. Your—brother?”

In that way that kids are bluntly honest, I’m not sure if he’s making this up or telling the truth.

It’s our second day of lessons. A few hours in, and he’s opened up, as if we’ve done this together for years. At some point between last night and this morning, he decided he’s not afraid of me.

He nods. “I never met him. Mother says he died before I was born.”

Surely, I would have seen this online when I searched the family. But wracking my brain, I don’t remember any mention of a dead brother—a dead son. Henri clearly isn’t heartbroken over it, but for some reason he felt the need to tell me.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “What was his name?”

“Arnie.” Henri finishes the scale and immediately moves to F major, his movements almost robotic. “He’s buried outside.”

Arnie? I frown. “Outside?”

“Yeah, we have a cemetery—”

“Henri.”

Ms. Wilder’s stern voice interrupts the young boy. She enters at the same time as one of the male staff members—I can’t remember his name—who goes straight for the radiator in the corner.

The older woman is quick to usher Henri onto his feet. “Don’t disturb Miss Mallary with your stories.”

Henri’s eyes widen as she grabs his hand. “But it’s not a story.”

“It’s alright. I don’t mind.”

She gives me a strange look. “You shouldn’t speak of it, Henri. You know better.” Then she sighs as she leads him away. “We can’t cut into your lunch time, or else you’ll be late for your lessons this afternoon.”

Henri whines at the prospect of mathematics, and then they’re gone.

A dead son. Arnie.

Kept a secret? Certainly not on the first page of search results during the little bit of online searching I did before hopping on the bus.

I could read all about Mariane’s family before she married into the Beauchenes.

I found articles about Leo’s exploits in college, over three decades ago.

A passing mention of Henri, here and there. But nothing about their first son.

“It’s true.”

I whirl toward the voice. I forgot the guy was here.

Deep blue eyes, light brown hair, and dressed in slacks and a tight-fitting long sleeve t-shirt. Handsome in a boyish way. Kneeling by the window, he looks me up and down at the same time I study him.

“What is?” I ask like a moron.

“The story about Arnie. He died fifteen years ago. Buried in a tomb next to the old Beauchenes and a few family dogs.” He’s by the radiator with a small box of tools.

“Do I want to know how?”

“Drowned in the pond when he was only eleven years old.”

“That’s… terrible.”

A shrug. “It happened a while ago. No one really talks about it.”

He tinkers with the radiator—it has been a bit chilly in this room—giving me his back. His shoulders are broad, and the shirt does nothing to hide the muscles of his torso. He glances at me. “Don’t talk about it,” he amends. “At least, not around the family.”

I bite my lip. “Does this house creep you out too?”

His laugh is endearing. Setting down the tool in his hand, he stands to his full height, a few inches taller than me. His hair is tousled, like he just didn’t care to tame it before getting to work. “At first, yes. There are rumors the house is haunted.”

The way I feel eyes on me constantly, I’d believe it. “That explains it, then.”

“What, you think the ghost of Arnie is watching you?”

Against my better judgment I decide I like his smile.

“Some of the staff here say they’ve seen him.”

“They have?”

I imagine an adolescent, child-ghost slipping around corners just out of my periphery. Puddles of pond water pooling on the floor, flooding the room. Laughter fading in the corridors. Rapid footsteps. Something straight out of The Shining.

“Yeah. But he doesn’t seem to know he died. It’s been a while since he was last seen. Supposedly, he’s all grown up. The same age he’d be as if he were still alive.”

I cross my arms. “He doesn’t know he died?”

“I can’t pretend to understand the logic of ghosts.”

“That’s kind of sad, don’t you think? To be stuck in one place forever, not knowing what happened to you?” And in such a cold house, with such an unfeeling family?

“Purgatory, maybe—or Hell.” He shrugs. “That’s if the afterlife even exists.”

“Maybe.”

The oppressive weight of the ghost’s stare is present even now, but the guy doesn’t seem to notice.

“Well, I haven’t seen him.”

“You probably won’t. It’s a rumor.” He steps closer and closer until we are only a few feet apart, and I fight the instinct to step back. Too close. “Reece.” He says, offering his outstretched hand.

He and I are alone in this room.

Warily, I place my fingers in his. “Mallary.”

“I know. You’ve been here, what, two days? What do you think?”

“I think the house is creepy.”

“Sleeping tight?” His lips pull up at the corners, his attention all on me, and I know I’ve drawn his interest. However inadvertently.

“Fine enough.”

“Some of us stay up in the kitchens, after hours,” he says, shoving his hands in his pockets.

If he were not my coworker, and we’d met back in the city, maybe I’d entertain him.

Maybe I’d find him just charming enough to waste the night away, never to see him again in the morning.

That’s the only way I’ve been able to do it—fleeting moments of connection, avoiding giving away my name, or what I do, or where they can find me after. It’s best they don’t remember me.

“You’re welcome to join us. Get drunk courtesy of the Beauchene’s wine cellar.” He’s smiling, and it’s genuine. There’s a twinkle in his eyes. “It’s good wine.”

I don’t have time for cute mistakes like him. “Yeah, maybe.”

Maybe he can see the hesitation on my face. “Don’t be a stranger. You may as well get to know us, since we’re all stuck out here together.”

“I’ll think about it.”

He lifts his shoulder again. “Offer’s always open.”

“Thanks.”

“They have you in the old heir’s wing, right?”

I start stacking papers, straightening Henri’s music books, avoiding facing Reece. “The guest wing. Ms. Byrne just told me I’d be a bit separate from everyone else. For the quiet.”

“No, you’re in Arnie’s old wing.”

I freeze. “What do you mean?”

“Ms. Byrne must be mistaken.”

“It was late when I arrived,” I admit. “But she said the guest wing. And that there are no other guests, so I’d be alone.”

“On the east end of the house, yeah? Second floor? That’s where Arnie stayed. That’s the heir’s wing. Has been since the family moved in, eons ago.”

Ms. Byrne had told me not to wander into the Beauchene’s personal wing, right above where I was staying. Of course their son, their heir, wouldn’t be far.

Reece is still talking as he returns to his work, kneeling once more on the hardwood floor. “We were all pretty surprised they roomed you there. Not my business.” He raises his hands. “They’ve kept it as good as sealed all these years. Must be moving on finally.”

“Must be.” I realize I’m hugging the folder of sheet music to my chest. A tinny ringing has started in my ears. “I’ll see you around.”

“If it gives you the creeps, I’m sure we can find you a room in the staff wing,” he calls.

I roll my eyes, throwing him another scathing look over my shoulder. But he’s undeterred, a smirk exposing a dimple at his left cheek.

“Mallary?”

I stop with my hand on the door. Refuse to look at him, the blush scalding red on my cheeks.

“I heard the ghost likes cute girls. Might want to keep your eyes open.”

Though I’ve not seen his face in over a year, it still haunts me at night. His strong brow, deep brown eyes; his honey-colored hair, and the way it’d shine blonde in the summer from the sun. Those summers, he tanned so easily, while I could not step into the sun without turning pink.

He called me his vampire. He made fun of my need for shade, how easily I burned and bruised.

He poked at my canine teeth with a finger, claiming they were long—acting like it pricked his finger, insisting that now I must suck the blood from his thumb—and I’d do it, making sure to lock eyes with him while I sucked dutifully.

The pad of his finger was rough from years of plastic keys and sheets of music.

After some time, I memorized the feeling of his hand as if it were my own, the sweet taste of his skin.

How hard I could bite before he’d hiss through his teeth.

He liked me biting. He liked me hungry and wanting.

Often I felt like a creature in a cage, crying for its caretaker, day in and out; desperate for attention, for the sustenance he would allow me.

I needed him, needed his favor, did whatever I could to keep his attention, offered everything of myself if only to have the advantage of his affection.

Now the only evidence of our strange connection is the necklace glinting at my throat. A thin golden chain, a small crystal pendant. Nothing fancy—a reflection, probably, of how much he truly cared for me.

It’s been years, and still that hunger blooms within me, every so often.

When it comes, it seizes my lungs, visiting me in the night, the memory of my despair replaying over and over again, so that I wake up choking on my own desperation for something I can no longer have, starving for something that I’ve never really tasted.

It’s all I can do to force myself awake, to chase away the image of him in my dreams. I’ve become quite good at it, pushing myself out of sleep and into my body.

It’s no different tonight. Tonight, I gasp awake, flattened against the cool silken sheets, staring at those grinning angels juxtaposed against his fading image. Silver moonlight pools through a part in the curtains, casting a dim glow across the room.

My eyes try to adjust, but there is no adjusting to the midnight dark.

I am suddenly, forcefully, wide awake, my heart pounding in my chest.

The ghost likes cute girls. Might want to keep your eyes open.

Not the ghost of the dead Beauchene firstborn, but a ghost all the same, a nightmare, the memories skipping in my head like a record.

It’s ridiculous. He can’t hurt me anymore.

One of my hands clutches at my chest as if to still my racing heart. I sit up, casting the sheets off my too-warm body, damp with perspiration, limbs uncomfortably restless, and—

A black figure stands at the foot of my bed.

Tall, slim, and entirely drenched in shadows.

And it’s not him. It’s not Jason.

I must be half asleep.

I blink, but the dark figure doesn’t disappear.

My mind spins, faster and faster. My limbs are frozen in place.

This has to be a trick of the low light.

Until I see the figure’s head move. Tilting to the side like a curious animal.

Panic has me rolling over, reaching for the cord of the lamp, pulling it so hard it almost tips over.

But when I turn back, heart in my throat, the figure is gone.