The Music Box

The Music Box

Alex watched the four-door sedan pull up the driveway from a second story window. He looked back at the long empty hallway behind him and considered greeting his brother, but decided against it.

Taylor got out of his car and took a deep breath. The cool mountain air felt crisper, cleaner. He walked up to the large, old-looking house in front of him and knocked three times. There was no response. After knocking once more he tried the knob and discovered it was open.

“Alex?” he called. His voice echoed around the large entry hall. Taylor wondered if he had the right place. This house was dusty and dark; it seemed deserted. He also couldn’t help but wonder how Alex got such a nice house in the first place. He assumed his reclusive brother was inside somewhere. “Hello? Are you here?”

He walked from the entry hall into a smaller den with a fireplace at one end and stairs leading up to the second floor at the other. “Hello, Alex? The door was open, I let myself in. I hope you don’t mind.” He kept talking to keep the oppressive silence of the house at bay. The stairs creaked loudly as he walked up them. He suddenly felt as if he was being watched.

“Alex?” he called once again. For no discernable reason, he was beginning to feel nervous. As he came to the top of the stairs his pace quickened to a trot. Finally he rounded a corner and spotted his brother at the end of the hallway, staring out one of the iron-laced windows. “Alex, there you are. How’ve you been?” Taylor said as he went up to give him a hug.

“Hello, brother,” said Alex.

“You haven’t seen me for seven years and that’s all I get? ‘Hello, brother’?”
Alex walked past him without saying a word. Taylor shrugged and followed him.

“Nice house. You’ve kept it up very well, with it just being you and all,” Taylor offered as they entered the kitchen.

“Mm, yeah, thanks.” Alex tried pouring Taylor some milk from the refrigerator, but had a tick and spilled it all over the table.

“Here, let me get that for you-“

“I’M FINE!” Alex roared, and Taylor jumped back in surprise. After an awkward silence, Taylor tried again at conversation while Alex began wiping the milk up with a rag.

“So, mom’s doing well.”

“Good… good.”

“But she’s worried about you. We all are. But I guess you know that already.”

“Everybody’s been worried about me, ever since I was born. But I haven’t killed anybody, you said yourself I’ve kept the… the place up fine. And now my family sends my brother to baby-sit me.”

“I’m not here to baby-sit you. It’s just that, a man of your health can’t be expected to take care of a house like this all alone.” Suddenly the door to the kitchen slammed shut and a burst of cold air rushed through the room.

“I’m not alone, brother. Not here. Here, I’m never alone.”

Taylor knew his brother wasn’t well, but the way Alex said that made a tingle shimmy up Taylor’s spine.




Alex helped Taylor move his bags into the room he would be staying in. The sun was setting, making the sky a brilliant red color. Taylor noticed how old all the furniture looked. “Did you buy the house furnished?” he asked.

“Yeah, yeah I did,” answered Alex, standing in the corner watching Taylor make his bed. “You may be paid a visit tonight,” he said after a moment, “Amelia isn’t used to visitors.”

“Amelia?” asked Taylor. Alex didn’t respond again, but walked out into the hallway and shut the door.

Taylor was feeling very uneasy. The room he was in was very small, but it had some odd angles to it, making shadows and dark spaces everywhere, even with all the lights on. He tried sleeping but couldn’t. The house felt very cold, especially now at night. Taylor noticed a small end table in the corner with a drawer. Because he wasn’t sleeping and hadn’t much else to do, he went over and opened it.

Inside was a book. Taylor took it out of the drawer and dusted it off. Both sides were bound in leather, with no writing on either side. He looked inside and discovered it was a diary, with entries written in by hand and then signed and dated. Taylor laid down on the bed and began reading.

The first entry was written by a woman who had just moved into this house with her husband and her child. It was dated July 2nd, 1905. Taylor had no idea the house was that old.

Suddenly he gasped and dropped the book. The entry was signed Amelia McNough. His thoughts flashed back to Alex telling him that Amelia would be paying him a visit. Had Alex read this book, and somehow the name worked its way into his disturbed mind? Taylor was feeling very nervous and wished to God that he wasn’t alone. He hated being alone.

The clock on the dresser dinged loudly and Taylor nearly jumped out of his skin. Ten o’clock. Taylor put the diary back in his drawer and tried to go to sleep. Predictably, he couldn’t get the thought of Amelia out of his mind and failed miserably. He considered reading more of the diary, but he was a little afraid of what it might say.

Taylor wasn’t what you’d call superstitious; he didn’t believe in any kind of an afterlife. But he was what you’d call a wimp, and was frightened easily. Now, lying here in a dark old room all alone, he was very afraid.

The clock rang out again for eleven o’clock, and then once more for midnight. Instantly Taylor felt it get colder. The light bulb lighting his room flickered out, casting him in darkness. Taylor let out a shiver, reached for the candle on the bed stand, and lit it. The flickering light made shadows dance across the walls.
Taylor had had enough and left the bed, wanting to go to his brother’s room so at least he wouldn’t be alone in this house. He reached for the doorknob, but recoiled. It was icy cold.

He tried again, but stopped. Very faintly, he heard a noise. It started very quietly and slowly grew louder and louder. It was a music box. The melody seemed to resonate all around the room, filling every crevice. It was playing Dance Macabre, a classical piece Taylor recognized. The music seemed so sweet yet so sad at the same time.

Then Taylor heard another noise. It was footsteps. They were moving down the hallway. Taylor’s heart was pounding in his chest, his brow dripping with sweat.
His hand was still clasped around the icy doorknob. He tried calling for Alex, but couldn’t get his voice to work. The footsteps continued getting louder and closer as the music continued to play.

To Taylor’s horror, the footsteps stopped right outside his door. His hand was shaking, but still wrapped around the doorknob. He felt it start to move. Whatever was on the other side was trying to get in.

Taylor tried with all his strength to keep the doorknob in place. It stopped trying to move, and immediately there were three loud bangs on the door. After a moment he heard a crash in the hallway. He thought it must have been one of the pictures on the wall.

Then the music died down, and Taylor felt it become warmer all of a sudden. He released the doorknob and waited for something to happen. Nothing did, and Taylor felt very sleepy all of a sudden, all fear having inexplicably left his body. He barely made it to bed before falling fast asleep.




The next morning Taylor awoke with a start, wondering if the events of last night had all been a dream. He looked over and let out a yelp. Alex was standing in the doorway, his arms folded over his chest.

“It wasn’t a dream. Any of it. It was all real.” He started down the hallway, and Taylor followed him.

“What the hell was all that?” Taylor asked as Alex led him into the den. Coffee and eggs were already laid out on the coffee table.

“Amelia. She wrecked one of my pictures. You should have let her in.”

“Who’s Amelia? A ghost?”

“She wouldn’t have hurt you. You should have let her in.”

“Look, I don’t know about the music I heard, but there was something in the house last night. We should call the police.”

“I’ve tried that already. Many times. They don’t believe me. They think I’m crazy. Everyone thinks I’m crazy. You think I’m crazy, don’t you, Taylor?”

Taylor crunched through the eggshells strewn about his scrambled eggs. There was indeed a nagging doubt in his mind that it was Alex in the hallway last night. He shrugged.

“Yes, you do. But I’m… I’m not. I’m not crazy.” He had another tick and nearly spilled his coffee. “I may be a little messed up, but I’m not crazy. This house… this house is what’s crazy, not me. Whatever’s in it… it’s not good. It’s not right.”

Taylor sat back in his seat. He really didn’t want to stay here anymore. He never did; he drew the proverbial shortest straw among him and his two sisters. But now there was something different. Now he was scared to. Be it this house or his brother, Taylor now feared for his life.

He decided he had to give himself something to do, or else he’d lose it. He went back to his room and continued to read about Amelia.

After awhile Taylor became more and more engrossed in the life of Amelia. It turns out she was the wife of the owner of a famous logging company in the early nineteen-hundreds. Her husband was Henry McNough and her daughter was named Madeline. They were pretty well off, which explains how they were able to build such a nice house for themselves.

Much of Amelia’s focus was on her daughter, Madeline. Madeline was apparently a beautiful girl of about eight. Amelia sounded very content, but there was something off about the way she wrote. She seemed strangely detached, almost as if she were narrating a story that had nothing to do with her.

Then Taylor spotted something from his bed. He walked over to it. It was a trapdoor that had been painted over. He tried opening it, but it seemed to be locked. He shrugged, put the book down on the bed, and left the room.

The trap-door made him decide that a big old house like this was worth exploring. The rest of the second story had nothing interesting to offer, so he decided to go up to the attic.

He would never want to be up here at night. There were all sorts of boxes and coat racks and pieces of furniture. Everything was dusty and covered in cobwebs.
He went over to an old wardrobe that stretched towards the ceiling and opened it.

Hanging inside were all sorts of random clothing, what one would expect to find in a wardrobe, but sitting there at the bottom was something Taylor didn’t expect to find at all.

It was a porcelain doll, a clown, dressed in a frilly white costume with red polka-dots. It’s shiny face had a big, grimacing smile painted on it. Taylor picked it up and dusted off the cobwebs. The way the doll stared back at him made him uncomfortable.

“Everything in the attic belonged to the family that originally owned it,” said Alex, coming up the stairs. Taylor almost dropped the doll in surprise. This house made him very jumpy.

“Really? That’s interesting,” Taylor responded. Alex saw the doll he was holding.

“May I see it?” he asked, extending his hand.

“You can keep it. Ugliest toy I ever saw.” Taylor handed Alex the doll. Alex began cradling it oddly. He turned and walked down the stairs, and Taylor followed. “You know, I read in a diary I found in my room that the family who built this house lived a hundred years ago.”

“You found a diary?” Alex turned and asked.

“Yeah. Interesting stuff. Anyway, as I was saying, you should think about getting an appraiser in here. Who knows how much this stuff could be worth.”

“Doesn’t matter. I could never sell anything. Amelia would kill me.”
Taylor stopped walking. Whenever most people say “so-and-so would kill me”, they don’t mean literally. But Alex was definitely not like most people.

Dinner was very awkward. Taylor couldn’t help but sit and stare at Alex, who continued holding the doll as if it were real the entire meal. The doll seemed to have a habit of directly meeting Taylor’s gaze, and whenever it did he would avert his eyes, only to have them drawn back again.

He was dreading the sun setting in the sky, but when it finally did, he felt somehow braver than he had the night before. He decided that tonight he would sleep with the door open. He made the decision that whatever this was had a perfectly logical explanation, and he was going to figure out what it was.

Lying in his bed, he tried to put his restless mind to sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw that horrible doll staring at him with it’s menacing, black, lifeless eyes. He wanted to stop, but no matter what else he tried thinking about, he couldn’t get this image out of his head. Even when he fell asleep around nine, the doll was there in his dreams, just sitting there, staring at him with its hideous smile. It wanted something. It wanted him to do something. But its presence to Taylor was nothing short of nightmarish

He awoke right as the clock struck midnight. He shot up in bed. The room felt even colder than it did last night.

The music began just as it had the night before. There was something almost taunting about it. Taylor listened for where it was coming from, but it seemed to be coming from everywhere.

The room grew even colder. After a moment a sudden bang made his heart skip a beat. His eyes darted to the trapdoor he’d found earlier. It was moving. Bang, bang, bang, three more times it moved, as if someone was trying to escape from it. Or trying to break into it.

Taylor’s breath was shallow and quick. Sweat dripped off his nose. He backed up against the wall, wishing he were anywhere besides where he was. The trapdoor stopped moving, but he knew it wasn’t over. Taylor stopped breathing altogether and for a moment all was still. Then the skin on Taylor’s chest began to tear open and blood poured down over his shorts. It was as if giant claws were being dragged through his flesh. He shrieked as an agonizing pain racked his whole body.

Just as quickly as it had come, the awful cold went away. He lumbered into the bathroom and bandaged his bleeding wounds without saying a word. He had so much fear and anger running through him that he couldn’t do anything; couldn’t scream, couldn’t cry, couldn’t even draw his fingers into a fist. He was feeling tired again, but sleep wouldn’t come for another hour. He could do nothing but lie in bed, tears streaming down his cheeks.




He awoke the next morning feeling like an anchor at the bottom of the sea. He didn’t know what he was doing; he didn’t really care. All he knew was that he wanted to leave. Get out, immediately, and run as far away from this place as he could. There was no longer any logical explanation; there was something here, in this house, and he wanted out.

He walked out of his room with heavy footsteps. Alex was sitting in the hallway, staring at the wall with a blank expression on his face.

“Amelia left a message for you,” he said, without averting his gaze.
Taylor looked at the wall. He nearly fainted. There, on the wall, was written,

“TAYLOR, THE KEY IS MINE. BRING IT TO ME.”

“Oh god. Good lord, please, no… it knows my name…”

“Do you know what key Amelia is talking about?” Alex asked. Despite the situation, neither his voice nor his face gave any hint of excitement or emotion of any kind.

“How the hell should I know? I’m getting out, today.” He noticed that Alex was still holding that doll, the same one that had haunted his dreams.

“It’s… it’s raining out. Real bad. The roads are all washed out. You won’t be able to leave today.”

“No!” Taylor moaned and started punching the wall repeatedly. “I’m stuck here with my lunatic brother and some ghost who’s trying to kill me. Just great.” He looked over and saw the expression on Alex’s face. He could tell his words had hurt him.

“I didn’t… I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry.”

“Yes you did. Of course you did.”

“I said I was sorry. Alex… I know you know what’s going on. Please, tell me what to do to survive another night here.”

“Amelia has never hurt me before. She’s broken things, but she’s never hurt me. You must have done something…”

“Amelia. How do you know her name’s Amelia?”
Alex continued staring at the doll. He didn’t say anything. Suddenly something came to Taylor.

“Of course… you read the diary. That’s how it got into that bed stand in the first place, that’s why you put me in that room. Why? Why did you get me involved in all of this?”

Alex stood up and walked down the hallway. Taylor tried to follow him, but once Alex entered his own room he slammed the door in Taylor’s face.

Taylor returned to his room and got out the diary once more. He knew that whatever Amelia wanted, whatever he had to do, the answer would be in the diary somewhere. Rain was pounding on the window, which proved what Alex had said about the roads true.

He read each entry thoroughly, looking for clues. As the entries went on, they became more and more detached. No matter what happened, no matter if Madeline caught pneumonia, or the logging company was in danger of going bankrupt, or even her own mother dieing, Amelia just didn’t seem to care one way or another what happened.

Finally, a few entries from the end, Taylor found something.

“The music box I ordered for Madeline finally came in the mail today. It plays her favorite song, Dance Macabre. She loves it, of course.”

So the music box Taylor heard every night was Madeline’s. Was that what Amelia was searching for? Was that “the key”? Taylor seemed no closer to finding out what he had to do.

Not much later, he came to the final entry, dated June 2nd, 1907.

“We had a visitor today. It was a man, coming to tell us that Harry got his brains spilled all over the ground when they were loading up a skid and it toppled over.”
Taylor read the brief, two-sentence entry over and over again. He couldn’t believe how a grieving widow had just described the death of her husband.

The day passed for the most part with Taylor staring out the window, deep in thought. He was horribly depressed, he didn’t remember ever feeling quite so sad. Then the evening came, and Taylor knew that if anything was coming, it was coming soon. He walked downstairs and joined his brother in the den. Alex was sitting on the couch with a cup of tea and a plate of cookies in front of him.

“One more night in this miserable house, and I’m out of here.”

“You just can’t wait to leave, can you?”

“No, I really can’t.” The thought excited Taylor, but he knew what he said wasn’t very nice.

“Of course. You’re abandoning me. Just like everyone else.”

“What?” Taylor said as he stuffed a cookie into his mouth, “I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Two days ago you didn’t want me here at all, and now that I’m leaving you’re going to act all hurt and needy? That’s not fair.”

Alex didn’t respond. Taylor knew he didn’t have an answer for his question.

“Well, if you don’t know why you’re acting the way you are, then I know. It’s because underneath all of those awkward, anti-social layers of yours, you’re lonely. You’re lonely, and who can blame you. You secretly rejoiced at the thought of my coming here. You just couldn’t show it. I don’t know if it’s because of the way you’ve been treated your whole life, or just because you don’t want people to like you. Now that somebody knows the truth of this house, that it’s problems go far beyond the person occupying it…” Taylor paused for a moment, his eyes wide open. He continued, expounding upon his theories, “…you finally have a connection with someone; that wall that’s separating you from the rest of humanity is finally gone. And you don’t want to lose that.”

Alex continued to sip his tea, not saying anything.

“Alex? You must tell me, it’s important. Why did you want me to read that diary?”

“Taylor… despite your overly-complicated theories on why I want you here, it’s because… I’ve done all I can do. Amelia is still here, she’s here for a reason. I don’t know why, and I can’t help her. Somebody has to. Why not you? You’re a good person… or at least, I thought you were.”

Alex’s words stung Taylor. He didn’t know what to say. “I… you… I don’t know what to do, Alex. I really don’t.”

“I know, I know. But I have a feeling… I have a feeling that it’ll all be over soon.”

Alex’s words offered Taylor little comfort. He was feeling cold again, and wrapped the knit quilt folded over the back of the couch around his shoulders. After a few minutes Alex brought him another cup of tea. It was around ten o’clock.

Taylor was very tired. He wouldn’t be able to sleep, so he sat there huddled on the couch, his eyes half-open, his mind drifting from one thought to another. About an hour later he spoke, hardly even aware of what he was saying.

“Alex? Do you hate me?”

Alex acted like he didn’t hear him. He stared into the fire he had started in the fireplace.

“Alex?” he asked again.

“I… do you hate me?” Alex countered, quietly.

“No. No, I don’t hate you.” He smirked. “You may be a little messed up, but you’re not crazy, and I don’t hate you.”

“I’m …mm… I’m glad. Maybe I’ll move in with you. Maybe you’re right… maybe I shouldn’t be all on my own.”

“Yeah… yeah, that’d be nice.” The clock struck eleven. Taylor drifted off into sleep.
His dreams wandered into a nightmare, a horrible sequence of images and sounds. It ended in a terrible climax, with the evil clown running a knife down Taylor’s chest, killing him, ending his life, his dream, his very existence. He toppled over and saw the image of his own body shattering into pieces, as if it were made of porcelain.
He awoke, screaming. He saw the doll, still cradled in Alex’s arms. “That… that thing! I… it’s staring at me! I swear to god it’s staring at me!” he shrieked madly, the doll yet again seeming to meet his gaze.

“Taylor… it’s just a doll.”

“It’s so ugly… it’s… it’s evil!” His eyes flashed in the light of the fire, his mouth brimming with saliva. He reached for the doll, but Alex pulled it away. Then he had another tick and thrust the doll in Taylor’s face. Taylor snatched it away from him.

“No, don’t!” Alex yelled, but he was too late. Taylor hurled the doll into the fireplace, its head smashing into a million pieces, its costume lighting up in flames.

“It… has begun,” said Alex. The clock in the corner rang out loudly for midnight. A very strong gust of wind blew threw the room, bringing with it the iciest, most deathly cold Taylor had ever experienced. The flames quickly died out, but there was something left in the ashes. Taylor walked over to the fireplace. It was a small skeleton key. He kneeled down and picked it up. It wasn’t hot; it felt like picking up an ice cube. The wind was still very intense, and the now-familiar music began to play.

Scratches began to appear all over Taylor’s body. He yelled, his body writhing in pain. The clock, after ringing the twelfth time, tipped over and shattered. Two of the windows burst. The things in the room began to fly all over.

“The key! She wants the key!” Alex yelled over the commotion.

“Here, take it!” Taylor yelled, throwing the key towards the stairs.

“No! You must use it!”

Taylor picked it back up and began walking up the stairs. Somehow he knew right where to go. He walked slowly to the room he had slept in, the wind still blowing, making it difficult to see. As he neared the room, the scratches got worse and worse.

Finally he reached the room. The diary was on the bed, its pages flipping wildly back and forth. The music was deafening. He kneeled down at the trapdoor and slipped the key into the lock. He turned it, and the lock clicked open. Slowly, ceremoniously, he lifted up the door, and immediately the wind and the noise stopped. The scratches stopped. Inside, still playing, sat Madeline’s music box.

Then, in a final rush of energy, the music box exploded into a million pieces.
Now it was clear; for some reason, Amelia wanted Madeline’s music box destroyed, for as long as the melody played, her spirit could never leave. Taylor looked back at the diary on the bed. Slipped inside the cover was something he hadn’t noticed before. It was a newspaper headline.

“Mother kills child and herself.”