Dead Tempted - BOOK 1 - Pomegranate Seeds

PART THREE - LEVITICUS - I

NEC POLLUAMINI IN OMNIBUS HIS QUIBUS...

{Defile not yourselves with any of these things}

Ping.

Kenneth turned to his piano - to the light sound of a key playing of its own accord. He was unperturbed by the phantom sound. Often it might happen that a string is plucked by whatever force coursed through the air. Like the memory of heat a ceramic pot retains or the twitching of a muscle too often used by a repetitive action.

Or perhaps it was in his mind.

Kenneth turned away, back to his desk and his paperwork.

PING.

A cord this time.

Kenneth reached for his lamp and turned the gas up fully, so the light passed over the whole room. He stood and walked the few paces to his piano and lifted the fallboard off the keys. They were white and glossy, the black blocks leering over them, they jeered at him, as mute as a mime. He put the lantern down on the hood of the instrument and lightly pressed down on a high cord, too lightly for any sound to come of it.

Its deeper brother cord answered.

The teacher stared at it a moment, then swiftly rounded the piano and lifted the entire top off, knocking the lantern from the table. He was lucky it did not smash, the flame simply extinguished and it rolled away to the wall, making the room darker but for the light of a streetlamp outside.

There was nothing inside the piano. None of the hammers were out of place and the strings were not vibrating.

It was a trick of the mind from his weariness. Ghosts and ghouls did not worry him, there were far more terrifying things that could lurk in the darkness and in the darkness of one's mind.

duuuhhhnnndonnndinnnnn....

BANG! The hood of the piano slammed closed as Kenneth let go of it. A painful thump in Kenneth's heart turned into a lump in his throat, plugging his scream back down into his stomach. In the brief second before the lid hit into place, he had seen his sister on the shiny surface of the piano, as if she were sat there.

The music ceased the moment the lid had closed, but he had seen that not a single hammer had moved when the music sounded. The noise still rang in Kenneth's ears; his muddled brain grasping at what the tune had been, at the same time as rejecting that he knew it.

When he finally felt able to breathe and move again, Kenneth sided around the piano and picked up the fallen lantern.

There were too many shadows that could dance to and fro with the small amount of light, and cause an agitated mind to see things. Kenneth thought the best thing to do was leave the room and go to bed as planned.

He lit the lantern again with the matches on the mantel piece. Someone was playing a trick on him and he refused to be scared in his own domain.

Not glancing back at the piano, or closing the lid to keep dust off the keys, Kenneth strode to the door. Just as he reached for the handle, the music began again. He had been expecting it this time however and smiled with one edge of his mouth.

It was obvious who would want to frighten him and who potentially had the unearthly power to manipulate a piano to play on its own.

Lady Bronwen would have to do better than that if she wished to unnerve him.

"You have been practicing," Kenneth smirked, not turning back from the door.

"Are you impressed, brother?"