Erik was forced to stay off his leg for two days; during which time he felt quite trapped. He was unable to perform even the simple task of walking from one end of his house to the other.

More than anything Erik hated being incapable, and this was why only two days after his fall he began to hobble around the house again. As he limped around his new home he began to see it with an architectural eye instead of as simply as means to escape the public.

There was quite a bit of damage to the old estate; more than Erik could fix by himself and he came to the conclusion that he would be needing to hire someone to help him with the house. It was not an exciting prospect, but Erik knew that if he attempted to fix every crack in the ceiling and every warped floorboard by himself, not only would it take him the greater part of his life, it would also give him heart failure.

Erik's main focus however was not on the rest of the house; it was on, of course, the music room. Erik had hobbled in there first thing every day. On his first trip in he found that the scattered remains of his shrine were still all over the floor. He stared at them for some time before he decided what to do.

When an idea did come to him; he felt as though he had not really thought of it himself but rather that someone had told him what to do.

He collected everything he had brought; all the music, all his drawings, and placed them in a barrel he found when he limped cautiously down to the basement. Then he took the barrel and hobbled painful down to the river. Tossing the barrel into it, Erik watched at the current carried his past away. He watched for some time, even after the barrel was gone; wondering if it were really possible for time and swift water to take his pain away.

When he finally broke out of his trance, he turned his back to the river and waked slowly back to the house.

Well, he thought to himself as he rested his aching leg by sitting down for a moment, that is over now; and I have other work to do.

This other work was mainly discovering what or who was haunting his house. Every night he heard the music and saw the watery yellow light under the door; however if he were to open the door the music would stop and all he would find in the room was one lit candle.

At all other hours of the day the door would always open a bit, no matter how many times Erik shut it. Eventually he gave up and just let the door be.

The questions in his head were perplexing him to the point of frustration; what was in the room? What was making the sound and why? Why music?

Erik had never believed in ghosts; never. He had lived all his life in shadow and darkness; he had seen everything which made others skin crawl but he had never had any reason to believe ghosts actually existed. He had believed he was a ghost, but only ever in metaphor; he knew he was not really dead, he had just thought he was not really living.

This disturbance in the music room threw his former theory to the wind; there was something in the house.

Erik wanted answers. There had to be some way, he thought as he paced around his living room two weeks after his incident with the stairs, still limping slightly,

There had to be a way to figure out what, or who was in the room. Erik had become fixated on the idea of finding out the story behind the ghost. He had nothing else to think about, nor did he want to think about anything else. He needed another fixation and he had found quite an interesting one.

Erik formulated a plan. At night fall, he went into the music room and sat in the middle of the floor and waited. He waited for about an hour before anything happened. He was beginning to wonder if anything would happen when he heard a sound; the beginning of a haunting melody.

He turned to see the piano; the keys did not move but the sound came all the same. Erik stared at the candle which was always lit at night in the room; he had never seen the candle light itself and he did not really believe it could; and then it did.

There was a burst of light at the end of the candle, a bright tongue of orange yellow which went much higher than was normal for a small candle.

For one brief moment the room was completely illuminated and the music played loud enough to wake the dead. And then it was over; the candle blew out by some unseen wind; sending streams of smoke spiraling upward, curling in the moonlight. The last chord of the music echoed through the room and then there was nothing except silence and darkness.

Erik picked up the candle and turned it over in his hands. He had been known to do magic tricks, and he knew what was required to create the illusion of a candle bursting into flames, but he did not think that was what had happened. There was no trick here; this was real.

And then he wondered; why had everything stopped so soon, usually he heard the music all throughout the night. Perhaps it is because I am here? He thought and, being the genius he was, he decided to test his theory. Erik moved to the door of the room and exited.

He waited for several moments; and then the music started again. This time however, the melody was not so harsh as it had been before, it was sweet and simple, as it had been every other night.

Opening the door again, Erik peered inside the room, but the music stopped the moment he put his hand on the knob. This was going to be harder than he thought

Erik returned to his sofa. He had not been upstairs since he had fallen through the step; he was worried that if one step could give way than so could the others. He realized he needed to hire a crew to help him with the house in a hurry, Elliot Davis had even offered him the names of a few people he knew. However, Erik had wanted to put this off as long as possible.

Lying on the sofa Erik wondered if he would ever find out who was in the room and why they lingered there. He had no idea how to go about any further discovery, and he faced the fact that he may never know. But there had to be some way, he thought as he fell asleep.

As he closed his eyes the music continued to play, and then the door opened wide. A small stream of light shot through the dark house, and in the cellar, a door Erik had not noticed before creaked open.