Page 25 of Love at First Fright

A shiver shot through me. The guitar’s body suddenly froze against my chest, ice seeping through my shirt.

Every hair on my arms stood up.

Oh, bollocks.

I tried again. This time the note rang out, sour and sharp. Completely out of tune. Obviously. Probably hadn’t been touched in decades.

My fingers moved automatically, adjusting the tuning pegs. E string first, then A, working my way through each one. The familiar ritual calmed the jagged thing trying to burrow into my chest. Made the locked door feel less immediate. Less terrifying.

I plucked the strings. Close enough. Not perfect, but playable.

I positioned my fingers on the fretboard. They fumbled for the right placement, thick and useless.

A simple chord progression. G, D, Em, C. Basic. The sort of thing I could play in my sleep once.

The first notes came out hesitant. Awkward. Rusty didn’t begin to cover it.

I tried again. Slower this time. Letting the muscle memory surface through years of neglect.

The melody took shape. Something melancholic I’d written at sixteen, in that tiny bedroom at my parents’ house. Back when I’d believed I might actually be good at this. When Dad would listen to everything I wrote, beaming with pride. Before I’d measured myself against every other musician and found myself lacking. Before Dad died and everything else seemed frivolous.

The notes flowed easier now. My fingers remembered the patterns, even if my brain had tried to forget. The song unfolded, achingly familiar. A ghost of who I’d been.

The attic faded. The locked door, the impossible situation, Brad’s inevitable mockery—all of it dissolved into the music.

I played through to the end. Let the final chord ring out, resonating in the dusty air.

Silence rushed back.

Then—a sigh.

Deep. Appreciative. Longing.

My hands froze on the strings.

That hadn’t been wind. Hadn’t been the house settling or my imagination. That had been a breath. Human. Close enough that I should be able to see who’d made it.

The attic stood empty.

“Hello?” The word barely made it past my lips.

The dust motes shifted. Not drifting. Not random. They moved with purpose, swirling in patterns that spelled out—

Nothing. They spelled nothing. Just moved. Responding.

“Who are you?”

The motes spiralled even faster, concentrated into a vague shape near the window. Almost person-shaped. Almost.

The EMF meter sat heavy in my pocket. I could check it. Confirm what was happening with actual data instead of dust and feelings and impossible atmospheric pressure.

But my hand didn’t move towards it.

Some part of me—the stubborn, contrary part that got me fired from jobs—refused. Didn’t want to reduce this to numbers and readings and colours. Didn’t want to break whatever this was with cold scientific confirmation.

Later. I’d check later. Right now…

My hand lifted. Reached towards them.