The stairs gave away under my feet slightly as I walked down the stairs. The smell of fresh paint lingered. The stairs and floor were painted gray, and the cement walls were painted white. Chips of paint fell to the floor. I could the draft that came through.

I was still halfway down when I heard the strange noise, then followed it to find my brother Jeff and the kid from across the street, Gerald, who was about my brother's age. They were playing on what appeared to be a sort of mini hockey rink. Against the side of the wall opposite the stairs, there was a hockey net, and above it, an electronic scoreboard.

"Where did this come from?" I asked.

"I don't know," Jeff said, "Dad bought it from somewhere. No one's supposed to know about though ..." He then made the stern face he always made when he was trying to look tough in from of his friends. "... so don't tell anyone about it."

I watched them play for some time, until something upstairs caught my attention. Over the sounds of their hustled game of hockey, I could barely make out the sounds of notes being played on a piano.

"Be quiet for a minute," I told the others. "Listen ..."

We waited for a moment, but heard nothing.

"Listen to what?" Jeff asked.

"I thought I heard the piano playing."

Jeff and Gerald shrugged it off and resumed their game. I wanted to go upstairs to see what the sound was, but my imagination ran wild with every ghost I'd ever seen in the movies.

It was the next day, when I was alone in the house, that I heard the playing again. This time I was halfway down the stairs to the basement, so I heard it more distinctly.

I walked up to the first floor. The house had dark paneling which had a tendency to make it feel smaller than it really was. There were few windows, but enough sunlight usually managed to creep around the corners.

A hallway led from the basement door to a sitting room, although the sitting room had originally been the dining room, and had a simple but elegant chandolier, underneath which my parents had placed the baby grand piano as a centerpiece. It was this piano which I heard more and more distinctly as I moved closer and closer to the sitting room.

I moved quietly, being careful not to let my presence be known to the stranger. I finally made my way to a shadowy corner where I could just peer at the uninvited guest.

Sitting at the piano, wearing a tuxedo, I saw a tall, gaunt man with short gray hair, looking perhaps as if he might be in his late 60's. He played a song, one which was familiar to me, although I could not place it.

He started to turn toward me, as if he had noticed me, and I quickly moved to where I could not see into the other room, nor could he see me.

The music abruptly stopped, and for a moment, I remained motionless in the dark corner, wondering if perhaps any moment, his face might emerge from the doorway. I waited and waited, but nothing happened, and I eventually summoned the courage to peer into the doorway, only to discover that the mysterious visitor had disappeared. 

I had no explanation for what I saw. The other door led to the kitchen which had no door to the outside. The only other way to leave the room would have been through the doorway which I had been looking through. He simply vanished into thin air.

I did not see the ghost ( as I called it ) for several days after this, but the strange melody remained in my mind. It was because of this that I recognized the sound when I heard it coming from the upstairs, which was really just an attic which was accessible by a stairway. I heard the melody slowly playing, not a piano, but something more like gently tapping against glass.

I followed the sound up the stairs to the attic, inside of which were dozens of old pieces of furniture covered by cloths. I followed the sound to the most distant corner opposite the stairs. I have to move several things out of the way to get to the source of the sound, which was something small covered with a green sheet. I pulled away the green sheet to find a small glass music box. As soon as I pulled the sheet away, the music stopped, as if it's job were done.

No one in the family knew where the music box had come from, or even recognized it. We speculated that perhaps it had been stashed away with a box of miscellaneous hand-me-downs. Perhaps in some long forgotten chain of events it had belonged to the strange figure who I saw playing the piano. Perhaps he wanted to let somebody know that he missed his favorite tune. It didn't matter to me really who he was or where he had come from. It was enough for me to place the music box on a table near the window, where the sunlight could reflect off the polished glass. I could know that if the ghost wanted us to hear the music, then it was someplace where it could be heard, and sometimes it still is.