One of the oldest on campus, the music building boasted an ornate interior, deep carvings in every square inch of the oak walls and thick red carpet lining the floors. My boots sank into the newly-vacuumed carpeting, leaving dark prints behind. The yellow lights above shone dimly through the hallway as I walked on, pushing through a high swinging oak door into the practice halls. Here the lights were dimmed, almost entirely off, and I moved through the darkness, letting one hand trail along the wall to guide me forward.
Then I heard something that stopped me in my steps. Soft music drifted down the hall, muted by the carpet. A piano.
For a moment, I thought someone might just be practicing late at night, an overzealous music major anxious to impress or a chemistry student embarrassed by her amateur playing. But as I moved tentatively down the hall, I could tell that it wasn’t an amateur at the keys. All of the normal practice rooms stood open, their doorways black and empty. The only closed door lay at the very back of the practice hall, and light shone brightly from the insulated glass panel above the door. The piano behind that door was the Bosendorfer.
The midnight piano.
Moving closer, I could hear the notes more distinctly. I recognized the song as a piece by Erik Satie, one of the Gymnopedies. The melody tiptoed along the higher register, a lonely, slow song full of simple repetition. The quarter notes came hesitantly, carefully, building louder as the song continued, but still restrained. The walls, designed to muffle the sound of studious beauty, made the music sound as distant as though it came from another country, far, far away.
Was someone playing a prank on me? Perhaps it was a recording. I pressed my ear to the door and listened.
The music eased into the final chords, the pause between them lingering a moment too long, and then only silence remained. I still had my ear pressed to the door when it opened, sending me tumbling forward into the arms of the midnight piano ghost.
I shrieked as I fell forward. But the arms that caught me were strong and altogether more corporeal than any spectre. I looked up into piercing blue eyes, and gasped as I saw who had been playing the Bosendorfer.
“Valentina. What a pleasant surprise.” Eliot smiled as he helped me find my balance again. His hands supported me easily, and I didn’t want him to let go.
“You’re not a ghost.” I said the first thing I could think of, but I guess Eliot wasn’t familiar with the legend.
“A ghost?” His smile touched his eyes with sincerity. “Not quite.”
“Sorry. I, um, I just— I heard you playing— I didn’t mean—”
“You were eavesdropping,” he said.
I blushed. “Yeah, I guess I was.”
“I was thinking that I might enjoy some company just now,” Eliot said. “How lucky for you to be on the other side of the door.” He motioned me into the room, apparently unfazed by my eavesdropping. He seemed taller than before, over six feet easily, but he moved with a grace that belied his massive stature.
Eliot slid onto the piano bench and patted the wood next to him, inviting me closer.
“Come, sit. You can tell me what I’m doing wrong,” he said. He began to play the first part of the piece again. I had played the song before—a classic, easy enough to learn but not easy to play well. Satie had written notes to sound dissonant before resolving into harmony, and I had always struggled to get the phrasing correct.
Not Eliot. His fingers glided across the keys effortlessly, and his hair hung forward, dark curls resting on his forehead, the scar running down the side of his cheek more visible now in the light. I sat beside him on the edge of the piano bench, afraid to let myself get too close. Afraid of my own desires. Without his wool coat and hat he looked like a different man than the one I had met sitting on the bench. His white buttoned shirt and crisp pants gave him an air of authority, and as he played I let my gaze drift over his profile. He stopped on a difficult passage in the second coda and turned to me, catching my eyes resting on his scar.
“It’s from a car accident,” he said, a note of bitterness in his voice.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just—”
“It’s alright,” he said, although he sounded more defensive, on edge. His fingers reached out to the sheet music, marking the notes as he spoke. “The accident was my fault. It’s a good reminder.”
“A reminder?”
“To be careful,” he said, with a finality that ended that part of the conversation. He turned back to the music.
“This sounds wrong,” he said, his fingers running across the keys again in irritation. “What is wrong? I am no musician.”