Langston

“Again.”

The boy presses trembling fingers to the ivory keys, his scrawny frame barely able to manage the breadth of an octave. The sound is stiff, uneven. But it is progress.

A sour note breaks the melody.

“Damnit,” he mutters, his voice catching.

“Language, Finneas. Again.”

He exhales sharply and lifts his fingers to begin anew. I watch, my own hands hovering over the keys, mirroring his movements out of habit.

He flubs a note. I resist a sigh. “Pay attention. Again.”

He pauses, looking directly at me. Most don’t. Most can’t.

But he had.

The first time I spoke, he didn’t startle, didn’t stumble back in fear like the others. He simply blinked—as if I were no more surprising than the wind through the rafters. As if he had seen ghosts before.

It unsettled me.

Over the years, others had seen me—a girl with ink-stained fingers, a soldier who muttered about ghosts before drinking himself silent. They always left. I remained.

But Finneas was different. He meets my gaze, steady, unafraid. This is our third lesson. While not an adept pupil, he is persistent.

“You know, you sound like that rich guy from Gilligan’s Island,” he says now, glancing up from the keys. “Like you should be sipping tea and calling me ‘old sport.’” 

I pause, unsure of his reference. Once, I had known every composer worth knowing, every playwright, every poet. Now, the boy speaks of things I cannot place, a reminder that I am no longer of his world.

"I speak properly,” I counter. “You should try it sometime. Again.”

He mutters something under his breath but obeys, stumbling over the keys.

I admit, his perseverance impresses me. Most children his age waste away before that cursed glowing contraption—a mechanical hearth of restless phantoms, chattering in unnatural colors—while their minds wither like neglected parchment.

As he plays, I turn to the window. A shadow flickers against the glass.

Not mine.

Finneas

The house, like us, is tired—groaning floors, peeling wallpaper, a faucet that drips no matter how tightly you twist it. Mom calls it a fixer-upper, but there’s no money to fix anything. I’ll be old enough to get an after-school job in another year. Then I can help.

At night, it creaks. Like something shifting in the walls, trying to move but stuck. I used to think it was mice. Now, I know better.

Once a week, Grandma called from Baltimore. She’d begged us to move there with her, but Mom refused.

Mom tells her everything is fine. She doesn’t mention the second job, the late nights. Ever since the plant shut down, work had been scarce. She took what she could get.

For some reason, Mom told Grandma I knew how to play the piano.

One came with the house. It sat in the corner—weathered, its luster long faded. Silent, but expectant.

The first night, while I was alone, it played itself. A few soft, uncertain notes. I told myself it was the wind. The next night, I heard it again. Not just a note or two this time. A melody, threading through the emptiness of the house. No wind could do that.

Hesitant, I crept downstairs and whispered into the dark, not expecting an answer.

But one came.

Seated at the piano was a man.

No—not a man.

Something else.

He sat with perfect posture, hands poised above the keys. His clothing was crisp, its cut belonging to another time. His dark skin held no warmth, only a faded, translucent glow. The piano’s wooden frame blurred at the edges of his form.

Anyone else might have screamed, might have stumbled back into the dark.

I only stepped closer.

“Who are you?”

He turned sharply, surprise flickering across his face. “You can see me?”

“Yeah.” I shrugged. “And hear you, too.”

He studied me. “You are not afraid?”

I met his gaze. “Should I be?”

“Perhaps.” A pause. “What’s your name?”

“Finneas.”

He tilted his head slightly. “That name, it sounds…”

“Geeky?” I finished.

He blinked. “I was going to say… distinguished.”

We talked for a while—about the house, how long it had stood empty, and things that shouldn’t have mattered. At some point, he told me his name—Langston.

“How long have you been here?” I asked.

“Longer than you.”

“And before me… did other people see you?”

A pause. Then, almost idly, “Some. They didn’t last long.”

My stomach twisted. “Why not?”

He met my gaze, his expression unreadable. “Because I didn’t let them.”

A chill prickled down my spine. “Then why am I still here?”

Langston studied me for a long moment, fingers drifting over the piano keys but never pressing down. Then, softly—almost as if speaking to himself—he said, “Because you haven’t given me a reason to send you away.”

I swallowed, the weight of his words settling between us.

Maybe I shouldn’t ask any more questions. But I can’t stop myself.

“What did you do? You know, before…” I hesitated.

He finished for me. “Before I died?”

I nodded.

“I was a mason.”

I blinked. “You mean, like… laying bricks?” My voice wavered slightly. “I think we learned about masons in school. They built… cathedrals? Old cities?”

 Langston huffed, shaking his head. “Your teacher should be fired. What are they teaching you these days? Masons built things people needed—roads, bridges, homes… this home, in fact.”

I glanced at him, then at the piano. “No offense, but that doesn’t seem like your thing.”

For a moment, he said nothing. Then, quietly— “It wasn’t. It was my father’s trade. I was meant to follow in his footsteps.”

“But that’s not what you wanted?”

“No. I wanted something else. But men like me didn’t have many options back then.”

I looked at the way his hands hovered over the piano keys—like they belonged there. Suddenly, I had an idea.

“Will you teach me to play?”

 Langston turned, intrigued. “Why?”

I sighed. “Mom told Grandma I could play. I don’t want to make her a liar, but there’s no money for lessons.”

His gaze sharpened. “Do you actually wish to learn?”

I hesitated, glancing at the piano. “Wish she’d said I learned guitar instead,” I muttered. “People actually like guitar players.”

Langston arched a brow. “Ah, yes. Because that is what music is about—being ‘liked.’” A long pause. Then, finally, a nod. “Very well. I will teach you.”

“Alright,” I said, before hesitating. “But how will I pay you?”

Mom warned me to never owe anyone anything I couldn’t repay.

Langston arched a brow. “Pay me? What do you have that I would even want?”

I fell into silence, sulking as I wracked my brain for an answer.

“I guess... I could keep you company,” I finally offered. “Must be lonely, being a ghost and all.”

Something flickered in his eyes. His hand drifted to his neck, fingers pressing lightly—as if easing some invisible ache. He held my gaze for a moment longer, then nodded in approval.

“Then let us begin.”

Langston

The boy asks too many questions.

How did you die? What is it like to be a ghost?

He sits at the bench, fingers hovering over the keys. He is different, I tell myself, though it should not matter.

“Slouching will not make you a better musician,” I say. “Straighten your spine.”

He obeys, though the tight set of his jaw tells me he wants to bite back with something sharp.

“Again.”

Finneas plunks idly at the keys, the notes clumsy but improving. He lingers after lessons now. A habit I should break.

For a while, we say nothing. But silence never lasts.

He asks— “When you were alive, did you have any friends?”

The answer comes too quickly.

“No.” 

He glances up. “You’re lying. Everyone has friends.”

I almost laugh at his boldness. “Friendship is for lesser men.”

He frowns, fingers stilling on the keys. “That’s not true.”

I turn away, frustration tightening my jaw as I step away from the piano. “That’s enough for tonight.”

“What happened to you?” Finneas asks, softer now.

The temperature drops. The lamp on the piano flickers—once, twice—then violently sputters.

The boy stiffens.

“You should go to bed.” My voice is taut, but Finneas doesn’t move. He’s searching my face, waiting for an answer I cannot give.

“Langston.” His voice is careful now, hesitation threading through each syllable. “Did they… did they hurt you?”

A picture frame on the piano cracks—sharp, sudden, a splintering from within. The sound knifes through the silence. Finneas jerks back, his breath hitching, a half-formed cry caught in his throat.

I close my eyes. Swallow the anger. But the air shifts, thick with something restless, something unwilling to be caged. The lights flicker, pulling inward—like the house itself is holding its breath.

A chill slides between us.

Across from me, the boy shivers. His breath unfurls into mist, curling before it vanishes. Wide-eyed, he stares, his voice a threadbare whisper. “Did you do that?”

I don’t answer.

“Go to bed, Finneas.” My tone is sharp, edged with something that allows no argument.

For the first time since we met, he looks afraid. He bolts, feet pounding up the stairs, faster than I thought he could move.

I stay behind, alone with the weight of what I cannot take back.

Finneas

I avoided the piano for several nights, lingering upstairs, flipping through channels—Knight Rider, Three’s Company, some horror movie Mom would’ve never let me watch. Anything to drown out the notes slipping through the walls.

At first, it was anger that kept me away—the sharp, simmering kind that pressed tight against my chest. But anger never lasts. Eventually, I went back.

Langston is waiting at the piano. As I sink onto the bench, he watches me, his expression unreadable.

“Welcome back,” he says at last. I don’t answer, letting our silence stretch a little longer.

Finally, I speak, the question lingering since the other night. “Do you see other ghosts?”

He doesn’t look at me when he replies. “No.”

I frown. “Not even my dad?”

At that, his gaze flicks to mine—steady, unreadable “I am the only ghost here, Finneas.”

A chill settles in my spine.

“But—” I start, then stop myself. A part of me had hoped.

Langston watches me closely, as if waiting for me to argue. When I don’t, he exhales softly, something almost like relief crossing his face.

I turn back to the piano, my fingers ghosting over the keys without pressing down.

“Again,” he says.

I obey, but my thoughts remain elsewhere.

Langston

The days pass. Then weeks. The boy improves—his hands steadier on the keys, his ear sharper. Soon, he will not need me.

It shouldn’t matter.

Tonight, he asks me something unexpected.

“We’re friends, right?”

I do not answer at first. But the boy waits, watching me with wide, expectant eyes.

“I am your teacher,” I finally exhale. “Nothing more.”

He nods. My answer enough to quiet his curiosity. For now.

I turn away before he can see the way my hands tremble.

“Again,” I say, my voice firm, but thinner than before.

Finneas obeys, and I do not speak again. I pray he never asks again. But the question lingers, slipping through my resolve, stirring something I have long tried to forget.

Once, I had someone. Not just a friend—not in the way Finneas could ever be.

Tobias.

He was no pianist. No artist. Just a man of sweat and labor—like my father. When he arrived at my door, I laughed. “Are you lost?”

His gaze was sharp. “No. I want to learn the piano.”

It had been absurd. He was not the type of man who seemed drawn to such things. He was broad-shouldered, rough-knuckled, sun-worn in the way of men who spent too much time outdoors.

“And why would a man… such as yourself… wish to learn?”

He did not answer right away. Instead, he stepped forward, the porch groaning beneath his weight. The late summer air was thick, heavy with magnolia and honeysuckle.

“Amelia—my wife—insists it will make me more of a gentleman,” he said at last.

I had smirked at that. But I let him in.

At first, he was terrible. Worse than Finneas, worse than any student I had ever taken on. He had no patience, no ear, no feel for the notes. He grew frustrated easily, cursing under his breath when his fingers betrayed him.

But he was determined. And I admired that.

In time, the lessons became more than lessons.

He would stay after, lingering. We spoke of things that had nothing to do with scales or melody—of books he had never read, of things he had never considered.

“You think too much,” he told me one evening, the glow of the oil lamp casting long shadows over the polished wood of the piano.

“And you not enough,” I had countered.

He smiled at that.

I should have known then. Understood what it meant—the way he watched me.

By the time I did, it was too late.

There was a night. The air was thick with rain, a bitter storm pounding against the roof like a prophecy I did not heed.

Tobias came late, long after the lessons had ended, long after the respectable world had gone to sleep.

“I shouldn’t be here,” he said. But he didn’t leave.

 “Then why are you?”

He did not answer. Not with words.

It was foolish. Deadly. Yet for a moment, magic. 

I do not know how Amelia found out, only that she did. And once she knew, so did the rest of the town.

That evening, as the sun bled into the horizon, I stepped outside to find a crowd at my door—angry, unrelenting. I did not need to ask why they were there. 

The first stone sailed past me. The second struck true, splitting the skin at my temple. Hot blood trickled down my cheek. I did not see who threw it. But I wished it had blinded me—so I wouldn’t have to see him. Standing at the back. Amelia at his side.

His gaze met mine—then slid away as another stone was cast.

He simply watched as they dragged me forward and slipped the noose around my neck.

The rest, I do not remember.

Now, I wander these halls, bound to this house—whether it’s a curse or a penance, I can no longer say. Was my sin in loving Tobias? Or in believing, even for a fleeting moment, that he might have loved me in return?

Finneas doesn’t understand the weight of what he asks when he calls me “friend.” I pray he never learns of friendship—or love—as I have.

The next evening, when he plays the piece flawlessly for the first time, I pause.

Then, softly say, “Again.”