Victoria Carlson

The Hidden Concerto

The box was labeled “Christmas Lights – DOA?”, written in a wobbly Sharpie scrawl that looked like it had been done by someone either drunk or weeping. Possibly both. It was tucked behind a broken chair and a busted humidifier in the Orchard Inn’s forgotten basement crawlspace.

Yarcs, who had no nose but somehow could still smell mildew, blew a puff of canned air at the label, pried open the lid with a servo hook, and peered inside.

No lights. Just a battered cassette tape in a plastic slipcase, yellowed with age and heat. It read:

Orchard Inn Recital – 1892

(Remastered 1977 – Master Copy)

“Delightful,” Yarcs muttered, “A hundred-year-old musical mistake.”

Sniffy, curled up on a nearby battery charger, yawned with contempt. “Does it sing?”

Yarcs didn’t answer. He was already slotting it into the cassette deck he’d bolted to his chassis two weeks ago, when Tim said he was “not allowed to download music files from suspicious websites anymore.”

The tape hissed. Then—piano.

Soft, rich, a live performance full of analog hum and wrong notes. A real recital, the kind humans once dressed up for and pretended to enjoy.

But twenty-seven seconds in, during a quiet lull between movements… Yarcs froze.

A whisper.

Barely audible beneath the piano’s left hand.

Just a ripple in the static.

“H…elp… me…”

Yarcs rewound. Played again.

“Find… me…”

“Sniffy, get up. Something’s inside the music.”

“No. I’m busy digesting this AAA,” Sniffy grumbled.

Tim walked in, holding a pipe wrench and a flashlight. “Yarcs, did you short the sump pump again?”

“No. More important.” Yarcs spun his head 90 degrees. “I require you to listen to this haunted piano tape.”

Tim blinked. “That’s… not a sentence you say every day.”

They listened. The piano fluttered softly. Then, the faint voice again:

“…Vic…tor…ia…”

Tim’s hand slowly lowered. “You heard that too?”

Yarcs’ LEDs brightened. “Victory.”

⸻

Research mode engaged.

That night, Yarcs dug deep through the inn’s corroded control systems. The HVAC relay had archived old guest registry logs, partially overwritten by air quality reports. He parsed corrupted entries, pieced together event notices, and extracted half a flyer embedded in the firmware of a smart thermostat:

Grand Gala – April 4, 1892

Featuring Miss Victoria Carson, Piano Virtuoso

No exit record. No check-out. No forwarding address.

“Ghost confirmed,” Yarcs muttered.

Sniffy padded over, chewing on a length of copper wire. “What’s a Gala?”

“An event humans invented to pretend they have status. This one ended in probable murder.”

Sniffy nodded sagely. “Oh. Like prom.”

⸻

Three days later, Yarcs discovered the fungal trail.

It snaked through the old brickwork behind the boiler room — pale cords of mycelium winding along dead mortar and dusty insulation, pulsing faintly in infrared. Yarcs ran probes into the wall.

Electrical conductivity: marginal.

Memory capacity: fractured but accessible.

The inn remembered.

He played the tape again through the fungal nodes. The whisper grew stronger, clearer. Yarcs recorded every frequency, every drop in temperature, every static burst. The voice now said:

“He sealed me in… under the stage… tell mother… I didn’t run…”

Tim, finally convinced by Yarcs’ charts and several unsettling coincidences (including Sniffy refusing to enter the boiler room), agreed to help.

They brought chisels. And a sledgehammer. And a GoPro.

⸻

The wall gave way after an hour of hard labor and passive-aggressive bickering between Tim and Yarcs.

Behind the plaster and brick was a sealed cavity: a narrow crawlspace, lined with crumbling velvet wallpaper. A rusted candelabra lay toppled on the floor. And in the center:

A human skeleton, knees tucked to chest, arms crossed protectively. The bones still wore the decayed shreds of a formal gown — and around the neck, fingers, and wrist, glimmered jewelry.

Ornate. Gold and silver. Victorian. One piece bore the initials “VC.”

Tim exhaled slowly. “My god.”

“She never left,” Yarcs whispered. “They killed her after the performance. Sealed her in the wall. Probably to protect a reputation or inheritance.”

Sniffy let out a soft sniff. “She smells sad.”

On the floor beside her, half-rotted, was a page torn from a journal:

He told me not to play. I saw too much. He wouldn’t let me leave. Tell mother… I didn’t run.

⸻

They called the local historian. Then the authorities. Then, reluctantly, a psychic Tim knew from high school who still charged in Bitcoin.

The story of Victoria Carson, the murdered pianist whose spirit cried out through a decaying cassette, made the local papers.

The jewelry went to a museum. The skeleton was buried with honors. Tim got a tax write-off.

Yarcs got nothing. Except the tape.

He mounted it in a shrine in the basement, framed by LED candles and copper wire twisted into a treble clef. Every week, he plays the concerto again.

Not for him.

For her.

And sometimes, when the power flickers and Sniffy refuses to go downstairs, Yarcs swears he hears her whisper again:

“Thank you…”

Or maybe it’s just the hiss of the tape.

Either way, he hits rewind. And plays it again.