The walls have started lean in toward each other as if it is an unavoidable habit. After so many years of witnessing the same horrible events that repeat themselves within their grouping, they've realized that standing together is the only way they can prevent falling outwards and apart. The wood has aged to an indifferent grey; once rough and uncared for, but now polished smooth by pacing footsteps. As far as the eye can trace, lines can be found marring the floorboards in spite of their nearly petrified state, trailing marks of dark blood, splintering scratches hewn into the timber, and footprints of an unnameable creature.
It was not deserving of good furniture even in its earlier days, but now everything has moved on past youth and the vanity of trying to put up a good front for any who might happen by. No one ever comes, and the one who does, namely myself, comes in a state that cares not for sagging bedsteads, torn tapestries, and swinging shutters. I really only came when I must, but now I've return for old times sake, and that is when I caught sight of the ragged, dust-layered instrument that reposes at an odd angle between two hazy windows.
Footsteps behind me recalled my situational to the presence of my mind, and I took the hand of the young woman who appeared beside me, her bright hair the only spot of color in the room.
"This is... spooky. In a picturesque sort of way."
And I smiled, because I almost could have sworn she would say that. The floorboards protested as she strode across the room, her footsteps deliberate, but cautious. Toe, heel. Toe, heel. Her boots were scuffed and dust-coated from our journey, and she accidentally tripped over a loose board, catching herself upon the instrument and sending a grin my way, her husky laugh filling the room.
"Oy, would you look at that," she said, drawing an absent circle in the dust with her finger. "A piano. You know, my dad used to say there was only one reason that it goes in right here." She thumped the concavity of the instrument's body in a familiar way, and the ancient wood resounded in hollow apprehension.
"What's that..." I murmured, plunging my hands deep into my pockets as I took in the memories which the derelict place brought back in sweeping droves.
"You know, there's the piano-ist – er, pianist," she said, going over to where a bench ought to be, but which was conspicuously lacking. I found it overturned in the corner near the bed and carried it over, setting it in place. She twitched her coat out behind her and sat down upon it with great aplomb and a dangerous creaking. Placing her palms flat upon the keys and giving it a vigorous bang, she sent discordance ringing through the structure which did not perturb the debonaire expression she had pasted upon her face like a wanted posted is pasted upon a street post. I smiled.
"And then there's the singer."
She got to her feet and once again her booted tread sounded as she stood in the indentation and made a great show of leaning upon the instrument. "After years and years of fat opera ladies leaning here to sing, it finally stuck." She shrugged. "Either that or the instrument makers decided to get a clue."
I merely nodded, my thoughts far away, years in the past, with the young boy who used to come here once a month on the night of the full moon. He was blessed with others' kindness in helping him conceal his curse, the great tree guarding the entrance planted there for the express purpose of keeping his secret. The scars that lined his face, hands, and everywhere else were a testament to his suffering in this place, and the silent, graying instrument before my eyes was a testament to his only comfort in the long hours waiting for the excruciating transformation to begin, and biding his time as his strength and sanity slowly returned to him enough that he could dress himself, and return whence he came, more often than not admitting himself to the hospital wing for the blissful oblivion of rest.
I can see it all before me now: his form is slight, his light brown hair lank and hanging limply in his eyes, his flesh marred with scars and cuts that cross his young face and pull tenderly at his pale skin. He is very much alone, and it must be that way, so he crosses the room and hunches in the corner, eating the bread and cheese left for him, and drinking the dark liquid that might be some kind of wine, more likely some sort of potion which may or may not help his transformation be less painful. Then he hurriedly undresses down to his underwear and ties a shabby, oversized dressing gown over his thin, scar-crossed form, folding his clothing in the corner for use when he transforms back. Then he waits.
It is silent for a long while, the only sounds the howling of the wind through the uneven chinks of the cracked siding, and the clacking of a door swinging loosely on its hinges somewhere below. The shadows sway and dance like eery spectres, and just when he feels he can bear the silence no longer, he stands and crosses the room with quiet, bare steps, the floor giving homage to his passing in a symphony of understated creaking. Bathed in dim shadows of the twilight, and not yet illuminated by the night body which monthly curses him by showing its full face, the piano sits, and the boy pulls up the bench with an irreverent screech, and hovers his small hands over the keys.
Flashing through his mind come the taunts of those who teased him when they first found out that he could play.
"What is it that you play, Lupin? Moonlight Sonata?"
Quiet chuckles. "Or maybe Clair de Lune? Debussy probably had someone like you in mind when he wrote that..."
He simply shut his eyes, and as if with a mind of their own, his fingers begin to pick out a melody that is new, haunting, and yet oddly soothing. His left hand joins, adding more notes in combination, and soon the shack is full of the melody, climaxing in a crescendo of sound when the moon bursts forth from behind the clouds–
An errant clang fills the room as the musician falls forward upon the keys, breathing heavily, and suppressing the pain-induced cries that rise to his lips. The instrument shudders with misgiving as the bench slides from beneath the boy and he falls to the floor, his mouth open in a deep-throated moan as he convulses, his arms locked desperately across his chest, his legs tangling with each other. The rest of the night is filled with the cacophony of inarticulate groaning, manic screams, heart-wrenching cries of anguish, and finally the blood-curdling sounds of a long, wavering howl that is unmistakable, and irrevocably telling of the boy who struggles to hide his lycanthropy.
I shook my mind free of the vivid hallucination, bringing my focus, with great struggle, back to the young woman who stood before me, her arms crossed and her legs akimbo, but her face wearing a plainly concerned look.
"Remus?"
I shook my head again, brushing at my face as if it were the fault of some imaginary cobweb clinging there that I had experienced such a lucid rush of memory. In silence I walked past her, intending upon holding aside the ragged curtain and gazing out the broken casement, but the piano magnetized me, and before I knew it, I was seated before it, eying the yellowed ivories as if they were an old friend. My hands were heavy, and laid limply upon my knees, and every song I had ever heard fled my head in that instant as I stared at the derelict instrument.
I lifted my right hand nevertheless, and brushed at the thick coating of dust that lay over the keys, feeling it collect into tiny balls with the moisture of my skin, and brushing the crumby feeling away on the front of my coat. Sweeping an arm down the keyboard, I filled the shack with a raucous clangour, but I had cleared away most of the dust, and set my fingers upon the keys, beginning to play, very tentatively, Vaga Luna. An ironic choice, but my fingers have a mind of their own.
Tonk's footsteps as she drew closer to my side did not interrupt my reverie as I recalled more and more of the song, fumbling a few times, but becoming filled with joy and energy the further I played; it was like a circuit of energy coming from my heart, to my mind, animating my fingers, filling my ears with music, inspiring my heart to fill my mind, to animate my fingers, to fill my ears...
My hair fell into my eyes and I tossed my head to rid it from my line of vision, playing the out-of-tune instrument like mad, until finally I reached what seemed a good place to end, and simply repeated the theme rather quietly on the higher registers, and let my hands fall back into my lap.
The young woman's beautiful eyes were full of tears when I looked up.
"We are getting a piano," was all she said.