Tales from the Haunted Mansion, Volume 3

by Amicus Arcane

  Tobe shuffled back to his desk and, in the silent moments that followed, stared blankly at his quiz, the square root of 1,969 the last thing on his mind. He knew what he had heard and he knew what it meant. It was Genevieve’s revenge. The mousy ones could be scary. They hid in corners, nibbling away at their cheese, waiting for just the right moment to unleash their telekinetic powers on an unsuspecting prom. Yes, it was her. It had to be. But why hadn’t any of the other mice heard it? They must have. It was way too loud! Unless…

  But of course! They were in on it, too. Yes, it all made sense. He’d been warned, hadn’t he? By his third-grade piano teacher. The price of genius was the jealousy of others. But it would be a price worth paying. The talentless quiz takers were haters, too. They crawled out of the woodwork, like rats, first cousins of the mouse. And soon Tobe found himself doubled over with laughter. Having solved this little mystery, he laughed with relief.

  Sure, the others stared at him. Why wouldn’t they? I’m laughing at you, quiz takers! You pathetic no-talents! Ace your little test, but remember: math class never got anyone a standing ovation!

  It happened again during lunch. The sonata burst into Tobe’s head just as he was taking a big gulp of milk, causing him to choke momentarily. The music seemed to be rising from the floor again, but no sooner did Tobe put his ear to the ground than the music stopped. Tobe gave the lunchroom the once-over. The no-talents just kept on munching away, but Tobe had had enough.

  It was after eighth period when Tobe ventured into the basement. He hadn’t been down there since the first time he’d heard the sonata, back when Mrs. Birch was still in the pink. He hadn’t planned on stealing her music. Things just worked out that way. At the time, he’d been returning a stack of sheet music from the chorus room when he heard the opening. Truth be told, Mrs. Birch wasn’t the school’s best pianist—he was—but her sonata was something special. It seemed to infiltrate his blood. The piece was sad and sweet and bitter and whimsical. A complete personality. But mostly, it was honest, something Tobe was not, nor would he ever be.

  Tobe had been present when the music stopped—along with Mrs. Birch’s heart. It was on that fateful afternoon when he peeked into the archives. It was like a cave, loaded with compositions and vinyl records and CDs and instruments. In the center stood Mrs. Birch’s piano…with Mrs. Birch on the bench, frozen, like an ice sculpture. Her eyes were like glass, staring his way. And no, her head was not facing backward. So much for lunchroom chitchat. But she was definitely dead. They got that part right. Mrs. Birch had died at her piano, her fingers touching the keys. She had told no one but Gennie of her lingering illness. And the sonata was a final gift to her young pupil and friend.

  As you might have guessed, death wasn’t the only thing that happened in the archives that day. There was a theft, too. Tobe saw the handwritten sonata on the music rack, and deciding it wouldn’t do Mrs. Birch much good, her being dead and all, he stuffed it into his backpack, careful not to touch the body or disturb any evidence. He’d seen enough forensics TV to know. But just as he was tiptoeing away, he heard a sound. It couldn’t have been Mrs. Birch, that was for sure. Maybe it was the wind. Everyone’s always blaming voices on the wind. The wind should hire a lawyer and sue. But no. As much as he wanted to believe otherwise, it was not the wind. CLINK. It was a sound. A finger…striking a piano key.

  Tobe ran. With the sonata snug in his backpack, he ran and never looked back.

  He hadn’t been down to the archives since that day, but in light of recent incidents, he decided to check it out.

  And that was when the music started up again.

  Tobe steeled himself as he headed down a long, dark stairwell where a single fluorescent light strip was sputtering, adding a movie-like strobe effect to his journey. He stopped when he saw the door at the far end of the corridor. It was wrapped in heavy chains, just like the chitchatters said. He could hear his own heart ticking like a metronome, thump-thumping to the sonata. Someone—or something—was playing Mrs. Birch’s piano on the other side of the door. The sonata suddenly grew much louder, too loud to be beautiful. Even though it was the same piece, it somehow sounded ugly.

  Tobe covered his ears, trying to drown out the sound. He still heard it, even as he backed up the stairs, tripping over his own two feet. “Stop it!” he shouted. “You’re ruining it!”

  With each step he took toward the door, the sonata built. “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!”

  Then a chill shot up Tobe’s spine. He sensed a presence behind him, as if someone was watching him from the opposite side of the corridor. As the music reached its crescendo, Tobe turned around.

  A shadowed figure was waiting for him at the top of the stairwell. It said nothing. Tobe screamed and the figure lunged forward and grabbed his arm. Under the fluorescent light, Tobe saw that it was George, the janitor, who hadn’t been sent to a sanitarium after all. “What’s all the racket about?”

  “The piano!” cried Tobe. “Can’t you hear it?”

  The janitor put a hand to his ear and listened. “I can’t hear anything over the buzz of that fluorescent.” He held up a replacement bulb.

  But Tobe was insistent. “Someone’s in the archives. You need to check it out. Do you have a key?”

  The janitor shook his head. “I do, but I can’t. The archives have been a no-go since Mrs. Birch…well, you know.” He made a cut-your-throat gesture with his finger. “No one’s in there, I can promise you that. And no one’s supposed to be down here, either. Now get going or you’ll miss the late bus.”

  Tobe remained a moment longer, staring suspiciously at janitor George. “You’re in on it, aren’t you? I get it. You’re just a janitor. You’re jealous. There are no standing ovations for mopping up vomit!” Tobe laughed right in George’s face. In fact, he laughed so hard he didn’t even hear the janitor’s retort. Which is just as well, dear reader. The janitor’s retort was an adult locution not suitable for printing.

  The next day, as he was getting ready for his little cousin’s birthday party, Tobe heard the sonata again. The piece swirled in from a TV set in the living room. It was being played in the background of a life insurance ad.

  Life insurance. Tobe really should have looked into that.

  Later in the day, he heard it again, this time at the party. Little Scotty had just turned six, and Tobe had bought him a toy piano as a gift. But little Scotty had no interest. He wanted the latest smartphone, not a toy for toddlers. Tobe was rightfully annoyed. Little Scotty was his blood relative; he should appreciate music just like his big cousin! In protest, Tobe chose not to sing “Happy Birthday” to the jealous little brat. Instead, he hid in the back of the rumpus room while his relatives gathered around the ice cream cake. And that was when Tobe heard the toy piano. At first it sounded like someone banging on the keys, but then the music changed. Oh, you know what it’s about to play, don’t you, dear reader? The toy piano began to play the sonata, and chills once again performed their macabre melody up and down Tobe’s spine. He approached the toy, terrified. It had been programmed to play kiddie stuff, like “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” something like that. It couldn’t possibly know Gennie’s Friend!

  So Tobe did what came naturally to the rationally deprived. He stomped on the toy piano. He stomped on it until it fell silent. Until everyone in the room fell silent. The jealous faces stared back at him, judging him. As if any of those bozos could pass judgment on a genius. Yes, Tobe decided, they were all in on it, all except for little Scotty. Because little Scotty wasn’t staring; he was smiling. He hated the toy piano. “Now can I get a smartphone?”

  Little Scotty didn’t get his smartphone. And Tobe didn’t get much sleep after that. Even his dreams were scored with the sonata. And when he opened his eyes, things got worse. The music was everywhere. He heard it on a car radio. From the landscaper’s earbuds. From a girl whistling on the street. He even heard it being played as Muzak at Food World.

  Gennie’s Friend was everywhere he
was, and it was driving him mad.

  Tobe was convinced “they” were all in on it, including his mom, who he’d heard humming the tune during dinner. He couldn’t believe it. His own mom, jealous! Just like Beethoven’s mom! Ahem. Beethoven’s mother was never jealous. Just ask Beethoven. I have. We’re old friends, you know.

  But they would not beat Tobe. He was determined to wow the world at the finals, which were now just one night away. He would win the scholarship on live TV and be hailed a genius. If only he could stop the sonata from eating away at his brain cells. A quick perusal of the hall closet did provide temporary relief. Tobe stuffed two handfuls of cotton into his ears. And it seemed to do the trick while also managing to block out every other sound on the planet, which suited him just fine. He didn’t need to hear their words. He only needed to hear their applause.

  But when he got to homeroom, the sonata was waiting, seeping through the cotton like blood through a paper towel. Once again, a sour version of Mrs. Birch’s masterwork had risen from the archives. “I can still hear it!” cried Tobe as he tore the cotton from his ears.

  Enough was enough. He was convinced that Genevieve had somehow masterminded everything, even though she hadn’t been to school since the art incident. Or had she? She was a clever little mouse. It must have been her in the archives. But two could play at that concert. It was time to return to the scene of Mrs. Birch’s death—to break into the archives and discover the truth, once and for all.

  That night, Tobe returned to the school with a pair of bolt cutters “borrowed” from his neighbor’s shed. He could hear the sonata rising from the basement and drifting out into the parking lot. He noticed that the gym door had been propped open, George the janitor outside, grabbing some air. Tobe sneaked right by him and ventured down the stairwell, where a new fluorescent bulb was doing just as much sputtering as the old one.

  The music was overpowering, and Tobe had to cover his ears just to keep his balance. “I can still hear it!” he cried. Soon it would all end and Tobe would know sweet silence once more.

  The chain appeared to be rattling right along to the music. Can chains be jealous? Tobe placed the bolt cutters on the lock’s shackle and snipped it in half. The chain fell like limp spaghetti, and Tobe bravely swung open the door, announcing, “Gennie, I’m home!”

  But Genevieve wasn’t in the archives. Nor was anyone else. At least, not anyone he could see. What he did see, however, caused his eyes to bulge behind his fake glasses.

  Mrs. Birch’s piano was playing on its own, unseen digits tickling the ivories, the foot pedals pumping up and down. Gripped with terror, Tobe stared the way they stared at him. It couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible. But there it was, being what it couldn’t. A spirit with an ear for music was playing the sonata.

  This madness had to stop, and for once, Tobe had the means. He yanked open the lid of the piano and surveyed its innards, strings and hammers moving like the guts of a living organism, the composer’s messenger.

  “Shut up!” he shouted, but the piano would not listen. “Last warning!” The piano did not heed his command. It couldn’t. Something else was in charge. So Tobe climbed in and got busy with the bolt cutters, surgically clipping every last string. Snip! Snip! Snip! Snip! The piano screeched in protest, crying out in a crescendo of high notes before growling its lowest lows. Snip! Snip! Snip! It continued to play. Snip! Snip! Now it was a simpler arrangement. Snip! Snip! Defiant to its very last chord, until all eighty-eight companions fell silent.

  The task completed, Tobe climbed out of the piano and dropped to the floor, exhausted. The haunting sonata had finally ended. Perhaps he could get some sleep. He needed it, too. The next day was the competition. The TV cameras. The scholarship. The applause. He got to his feet, proud of his accomplishment and beaming with self-importance. If skill with bolt cutters deserved standing ovations, surely he’d have gotten one.

  But he heard it again.

  The piano had begun to play once more. Impossible! He’d cut the strings to ribbons. Had he missed a few? He turned and lifted the lid to check. If his ears had been playing tricks on him, his eyes would be another matter. Tobe peered into the piano in complete disbelief. Somehow, someway, the strings had repaired themselves. The keys and the pedals moved frantically, the haunting sonata echoing throughout the archives, growing louder and louder with each note.

  He dropped the bolt cutters and covered his ears. It did nothing to muffle the now sinister sound. “I can still hear it!”

  He ran from the school with his hands pressed over his ears. “I can still hear it!”

  Tobe was last seen running through town, shouting at full lung capacity, some say singing in the melody of the sonata: “I can still hear it! I can still hear it! I can still hear it!”

  The auditorium was full. But the star of Buena Vista Middle School was a no-show. Most had heard the chitchat concerning Tobe’s mad exit the night before. Now the admirers were to gorge themselves on gossip, to fill the lunchroom coffers with something new, something awful. “I heard he went deaf!” “I heard he forget how to play!” “I heard he ripped his own ears off!” Those were just some of the murmurings being bandied about before the curtains parted and Principal Gribbons made the formal announcement: Tobe would not be performing in the finals.

  The crowd grew silent.

  And after he departed the stage and the lights went down, a single spotlight focused on a figure seated at Mrs. Birch’s piano. It was Genevieve, wearing the best dress she could borrow. She lowered her delicate fingers onto the keys and began to play. She played the sonata as it had never been played before, with all the sweetness and sadness and whimsy that had come to define her. And she didn’t blink once.

  When it ended, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. None of the other competitors came close to her brilliance. The audience rose to their feet in a rapturous eleven-minute ovation that broke the Buena Vista Middle School record. And although certain individuals around these parts loathe a happy ending (Ahem!), Genevieve was awarded the full scholarship.

  When the auditorium cleared, she remained onstage for a few minutes, soaking it all in. It was a night she’d only imagined. But amid her joy, there was an emptiness in her heart. If only Mrs. Birch had been there. And for an instant, it was almost as if Mrs. Birch was sitting on the piano bench next to Genevieve.

  Oh, but she was. You see, occasionally the dead decide to right certain wrongs, and that’s just what Mrs. Birch did.

  Genevieve smiled at the thought of Mrs. Birch’s sonata living on, yet at the same time, she also mourned the absence of her rival. Tobe was an egomaniacal bully, but she still respected his talent. Genevieve had performed magnificently that night. If only he could have been there to hear it.

  She gave an exhausted sigh, regarded the piano one last time, then grabbed her bag, ready to leave. And that was when she heard the clapping.

  “Who’s there?” She inched her feet to the edge of the stage. At the same time, a boy stepped into the center aisle, silhouetted by a spotlight. It was Tobe—she could tell by his walk—but there was something different about him.

  Still clapping, he emerged from the shadows, and when Genevieve saw him, she screamed a scream he could no longer hear. Tobe’s ears had been removed. In their place were scabbed, crusty brown circles. Occasionally the chitchat gets it right.

  For Tobe, the concert hadn’t ended. He had wanted the sonata, and now it was his. Forever. Mrs. Birch’s piano was once again playing the chords on its own, in an endless loop for all eternity. Tobe climbed onto the stage and extended his hands, presenting, as a gift to Genevieve, his ears, severed from his head. Genevieve looked at them, horrified, and continued to scream. Tobe looked to the piano and, in a voice reserved for the hopelessly insane, shouted at the top of his lungs:

  “I CAN STILL HEAR IT!!!”

  The piano was back where it belonged, the final refrains of the haunting sonata lingering like a sound shadow within the music room. The l
ibrarian slid his bony finger along the keys. “I can still hear it,” he said with a sly grimace.

  Marge and Pasquale remained suitably creeped out. And Declan remained suitably unimpressed. “Sorry. Music ain’t my ting.”

  “Thing.”

  “That neither.”

  The librarian glided toward him, and Marge did a double take. Declan was at least a head taller, yet he and Amicus Arcane were standing eye to eye. “What is your thing, sir? Perhaps it’s gold you desire?”

  Marge nodded. “Seems he’s got your number, Deck.”

  “My number’s unlisted!”

  The librarian made a sweeping gesture with his hand “The mansion has everything you could possibly desire. Gold. Jewelry. Precious artifacts, considered priceless by most.”

  “You got a lot to learn, old-timer. Everyting’s got a price.”

  On that, the librarian agreed. “So it does.” There was a rumble. The threesome turned to see a panel opening in the wall, a secret passageway revealed. “If you’d care to follow me…”

  “Follow you where?”

  “Follow me there.” The librarian pointed, tipping his candelabrum. Flickering candlelight illuminated the passage. The walls were glistening. And swelling. “If you would kindly transport the crate labeled ‘Valley of the Kings.’” Again, the librarian smiled. He looked worse when he smiled. He ducked his head and vanished in the passageway.

  Marge turned to the others. “What do you tink?”

  “There’s ‘art facts’ down there. I tink (think!) we follow,” said Declan. Pasquale thought differently. He was staring at the piano as if he’d just seen a ghost. (Or, more likely, heard one.)

  Declan shouted directly in his face. “Yo! You comin’?” But Pasquale didn’t answer the brute. He simply sat there. Staring. “What’s with him?”

  “The drive took a lot out of him,” replied Marge, covering for her friend. “Maybe he should rest here for a while.”