Into the Ocean

There was a piano in the living room. Though I liked to keep to my room, one morning I decided to explore a bit.

I lifted the covering, blew the dust off of the keys, and played slowly. It had been years since I played a piano. I'd had lessons when I was little but I didn't continue anything when I was older.

Letting the melody flow from my fingers was comforting and peaceful. I liked the way things were going. Besides that odd encounter with whatever it was a few days before that, my stay had been exactly what I needed.

After having my fun with the old, out of tune piano, I grabbed a book from the library, went up to my room, and started reading. It was some old-fashioned love story that involved courting and men actually being gentlemen. Why couldn't the world revert to those ways again?

As I was soaked into the sappy love story where everything always turns out right, I heard something coming from the living room. The piano.

"What the hell?" I muttered and set my book down. Was it also a self-operated piano? Those things used to freak me out when I was little. I always thought there was some invisible person playing them.

I snuck down the stairs to investigate and watched at the gowned, white figure sat there and played the piano. If she was a ghost, how in the world could she touch the keys?

I crept down the rest of the staircase and stood quietly behind her. After a few minutes, she stopped playing.

"I knew you were behind me, Charles."

"It's Samuel," I reminded her.

"Ah," she said, her ghostly back still turned.

Ghosts are pecular things. Sometimes they can be little orbs of light, other times they are orbs of temperature, like cold or hot patches. Other times they can be outlines of people. But this one was different. Some say it was because her whole life was still on earth. But I didn't know that then. She had so much connection to her home that she couldn't leave. She was practically a human with a ghostly glow and unchanging appearance to give her away.

"What is your name?"

That's when she vanished. I wasn't sure if she had control of her vanishing or not, but it seemed she was not too happy about sharing her name.

I went back up to my room and continued with the love story. About an hour or so later I felt a rush of cold air and heard someone say quietly, "Victoria. My name is Victoria."

I smiled slightly, still not knowing whether to be scared or worried for my sanity.

"Victoria," I echoed and closed the book.

I had a feeling she'd keep me company.