CHAPTER FIVE- MUSIC OF GHOSTS
She recalls Luke’s last words to her as she steps inside the foyer.
Yer gonna get it. The crazy man’s gonna getcha.
“Wow…” she says. Her body perks up and with a smile on her face she never lets the eerie sight of the room go.
In one corner of the foyer, there are cobwebs are a canopy under her. She looks up and crinkles her nose at the sight. The broken chandelier hanging loose from the cracked ceiling reminds Elizabeth of champagne and lavish parties. But now, it is a sad remnant of a past long forgotten. She looks around until her eyes meet something new. The painting on the wall is shrouded in dust and grime, but she feels herself compelled to see what is behind it. She tilts her head to the side and with open eyes looks at the painting that is on the wall, hidden in a shroud of dust. She inches her way up to the painting and begins to wipe her hand across it. The dust is at least seven inches thick and the grime sticks to her hand. She wipes it off on the side of her gown, not caring of the prospect of angering her mother.
“Oh, would ya look at that!” she exclaims, stepping back.
The painting is that of a family. She tilts her body closer to the painting, narrowing her eyes. She cannot make them out. Rustling of paper against the floor. She gasps and turns to look, making sure that there are no grim shadows in corners. She inches towards the source of the sound. There is nothing. Her breath is jagged, her pulse racing faster than ever before. Elizabeth stops to take a breath, letting her mind back into what is surrounding her.
But her imagination tells her that someone is lurking— watching her. She turns to look again. There is no one. She walks away from the painting, towards an open archway, where a bit of sunlight is peeping in. The only bit of sunlight in this grim room. She does not keep her eyes away from it.
Elizabeth sees more paintings, on a smaller scale, but cannot make out the faces, even with the sunlight shining on the wall. There is nothing there but figures of people without distinguishable faces—as if they are ghosts or hollow shells of people. Looking at the portraits are bothering her even more. Pounding against walls. Her heart stops. She knows now that the sound is not her imagination. Her mouth dries up and becomes drier than a desert. She closes her eyes, to calm her thundering heart. Her hands are shaking.
There, in another part of the mansion, is the distant sound of floating music. She closes her eyes. It sounds like a whirlwind of sound, a cacophony of sorts as the music is jumbling together. It reminds her of a hurricane. She pauses, standing still. It reminds her of the fiddle playing of one of her old Talisheek neighbors. Except this kind of music, this sound is unlike anything she has ever heard before. Though it is heard from a distance, the sound reaches her ear, teasing it gently. She longs for more when the music pauses for a moment. The dreadful silence brings her back to the reality of where she is standing, staring at the faceless figures of the painting before her. Elizabeth gulps and tries to pry her eyes away from the painting, but finds that she cannot. The music starts again and Elizabeth darts closer to where she feels that the source of the music is coming. She stands at the foot of the large staircase, perhaps one of the largest she’s ever seen. It is a behemoth and every step looks bigger than the other. The figures, in her mind are almost twisting and contorting. She steps back, breathing deeply.
The music… I can’t stop listening.
There is a single high note that stays for what seems like an eternity, just floating mid-air like a bird soaring in the sky, looking down at the world below it. Elizabeth wants to, even if it is for just a moment, to be able to play with such virtuosity. With such passion. For a moment, she forgets where she is and who she is. She is standing in a music hall, she herself is the center of attention.
But then the music fades into oblivion and she is brought back to this reality.
But the music… Why can’t it keep playing?
Elizabeth realizes now that she is walking up the stairs, her eyes are wide. She cannot believe that she is doing this. In this moment, she sees her mother’s eyes staring at her — chiding her. She knows that she should not be doing this, but her body is doing the movements. Her mind is detached completely. The corridor is dark, as Elizabeth expects it to be. The musty smell of it is black with age. She tiptoes her way towards a window at the end of the hall. She winces when the floorboards creak ever so slightly. Without the music, this is incredibly hard for Elizabeth.
She smiles when she hears the fluid notes of the violin again. Every muscle in her body loosens and she leans against the windowsill, taking in the view of a part of the expansive yard of the home. She sees a few townspeople pass by with their little dog on a leash. She narrows her eyes to get a better picture of who they are but she cannot make them out from this high a distance. Judging from their appearances, they seem well-to-do with the lady’s elegant pink gown and the man’s dapper suit. The dog looks well-groomed, too, much different than Mr. Guillory’s limping ball of puff. Elizabeth smiles, thinking of Celie.
She turns around and listens to the violin music playing again. She recognizes this tune, she’s definitely heard it before. It’s one of those that Pa used to play on the Decca Portable often.
“Canon in D” she says out loud. “It’s Canon in D…”
Elizabeth falls down to her knees, her tears a deluge. Why does it have to be this moment, of all moments? Why did she have to feel everything crashing down on her? She curls herself into a ball and clutches her hands against her chest. The black hole of his absence is strong now, mightier than ever before. As if he is standing before her, present everywhere, but cannot speak to her, nor look at her.
Is this what total and complete absence feels like?
“Pa, please…” she says, her whisper jagged and broken into several pieces on her lips. “Come back…”
Though she wishes, she knows it’s never going to happen. Canon in D is just a reminder of this. The reminder that her life will go on, while her father’s life will always stay permanent in Talisheek. She cannot even bring herself to think of his grave. The day that he was interred. She cannot, nor does she want to think of it. She spent all of this time, trying to come to the mansion to forget about all her worries for a while. Now it is all coming back to her, breaking through the dam that she created.
“No,” she says. “I have to keep going. I have to keep going through this. I can’t stop to cry.”
Her legs wobble as she tries to maintain proper posture. She takes in a deep breath. “I came here for a reason and will not stop until my curiosity is satisfied.”
Elizabeth takes in one more deep breath and presses on, her mind still remaining in a whirlwind of musical notes and the gentle face of her father. The walls have several faceless paintings, one that change with every step that Elizabeth takes. Some figures are shorter, some taller than others. Some seem as if they are about to have faces, but are blurred, rendering them difficult to make out. Elizabeth is unsettled as she tilts her body closer to one of the paintings. It is the figure of a boy, kneeling, hands clutched to his chest.
Beethoven’s Fur Elise is playing in her mind, or at least she thinks it’s playing in her mind. The somber notes of the piano are resonating through the wall, reaching her fingers. Her eyes are open wide as she realizes that the piano music is coming from the other side of the wall. She saunters until she realizes that she is facing the door of the room. It is closed shut.
Elizabeth gulps, tempted to open it. She wants to see the person making this beautiful music. She wants to see their face. The floorboard beneath her makes a loud crack. The music stops. She hears the sound of heavy footsteps coming closer, but then they stop. The heavy sound resumes. She presses her ear closer to the door, her heart in her throat. She places her trembling hand on the knob and opens the door, inching her way inside.
Her heartbeat seems to stop altogether when she spins around. Her breath is jagged and she bites her trembling lips. There is no one here. Is there a ghost in this house? How did she so vividly hear the music? She knows the music. She can feel it from the walls from earlier before. A trail of white sunlight present in the room reaches Elizabeth hands and shines like diamonds on her pale skin. Elizabeth sees its source, one of the only windows that is open. The rest of the room is covered in dust. There are sheets and sheets of music. She kneels down to pick up one of them and sees the title of the musical piece, Beethoven Tempest Movement 3: Allegro. She does not recognize the foreign musical notes, nor the words that are written in. It looks like Greek to her. She holds it in her hand for a moment longer then sets it right where it was before. Elizabeth sees no sense in agitating its ghostly owner by messing with the home’s contents. Her mind is spinning in different directions. How is it possible that there is no one here?
How? How? How?
Elizabeth runs her fingers through her hair and dashes to the window.
She is drowning in a sea of books and papers scattered around the room, as if they were forgotten by time. She walks up to an old cabinet, where there are portraits, but they are not faceless. The sepia-toned daguerreotypes are nearly faded but Elizabeth picks it up and looks at the the obvious father of the family. At first glance, the portrait is lovely. The picture is perfection itself. Not a single hair in these people is out of place. Their clothing is of decades ago, of the days of The Titanic. The days of gold as Elizabeth’s father always liked to call it. He is smiling, but his eyes are not alive. The woman seems as if she is looking above the camera, a longing in her eyes. The young boy, Elizabeth furrows her brows and studies his face. It is the face of someone who has seen much in life, despite its youthful features. His lips remain still, not even curling for a smile. The portrait is placed back. The empty silence remains in the room, hanging like a canopy. The colors of white of the walls are fading. The black piano is cracking but the music is still on the stand. Elizabeth walks up to it, eyes never leaving the music.
The music reads Fur Elise. Elizabeth’s eyes widen.
There was someone in this room. This is it. This is the music… How are they not here anymore? How is it possible? I’ve gotta tell Luke and Sam, assuming they’re still outside. There’s no crazy man in this place at all. There is a ghost. A ghost! This place is haunted!
As Elizabeth walks out of the room and down the staircase to tell Luke and Sam what she has seen, she hears the faint sound of the violin, the notes soar as if they are reaching to Heaven.
ns 15.158.61.42da2
