“Why? Will you hurt Daddy? Or Stephanie? If they go down there?”

“I don’t know,” I said. Because, truly, I did not.

“W-what are you?”

I crossed to the piano and flipped up a portion of the sheet to reveal both the huddled girl and one corner of the instrument’s keyboard, aged and broken.

Once, my hands, like a pair of lovely spiders, had climbed over these very keys, coaxing such sounds from their hidden strings. And the music I had played—how it had filled the house that, on this side, lay in ruins around me. How it had filled the soul that lay in ruins on the other.

And this version of the piano. The real and true version. Did I gravitate to and guard it the way I did because we two were so alike? Too damaged to issue forth anything but the discordancy with which our hollow bodies had become wracked?

“I’m no longer certain of what I am,” I murmured.

“Charlie!” called Stephanie, her feet pounding down the stairs. “Charlie?”

Her courage bolstered by the approach of her sister, Charlie darted from her hiding place, shoes pattering over the scattered and torn music I could not have played anyway.

“Charlie!” cried Stephanie when her sister stopped just short of colliding with her. Simultaneously, she took in the scene. “Oh my gosh. What happened in here?”

Charlie peered from Stephanie to me and back again, still holding on to the hope that her sister might, at any moment, perceive my presence.

It was a hope we shared, if for different reasons.

“I—I was coloring,” answered Charlie.

“I see that. But why did you rip your papers up and throw them everywhere? That’s not nice.”

“I didn’t do that.”

“Let me guess,” came Stephanie’s dry reply. “Zedok came in here and ripped up your drawings.”

“And then threw them,” Charlie said.

“Oh yeah?” sighed Stephanie, bending to gather the bits of paper into a stack. “Why would he do that?”

“I got in trouble,” Charlie whispered. “For coloring.”

“What?” Stephanie crossed to the crayons. “You’re not in trouble. Just c’mon. Help me pick these up.”

As the two set to work tidying up—Charlie keeping a watchful glare on me all the while—my gaze slid from the girls to the piano’s keyboard, where I laid two fingers.

“Listen,” Stephanie prattled while she returned the crayons to their designated tin. “I’ve got to get to school early to finish my homework, so Dad’s going to drop you off. But I’ll pick you up later, okay?”

When I pressed the chord, Charlie jumped, startled by the dissonant sound.

Stephanie, however, displayed no reaction whatsoever. Rising then, she approached the piano. She hesitated, though, after taking hold of the dustcover, her free hand falling to the naked keys. She did not press them. Instead, she trailed her fingers over the keys that remained—and over the sockets of those that did not.

I checked the girl’s features to find upon them an expression I could not help but recognize.