May timapple's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

The reel player kept the three ghosts in the room. May watched its two silver circles spin. The tape was thin now. The song dragged at the edges. One reel caught, then slipped free. The ghosts flickered when it did. May understood what she was looking at. When the tape ran out, the music would stop, and the three spirits would leave. "How much is left?" May asked. Mac Lanapple crouched by the machine. He touched the feeding reel. Almost none wound there now. "One more pass," he said. "Maybe less." May's hands went cold. She had chased these ghosts for three nights. Now a strip of old tape was all that held them. She reached for the strange instrument in the corner, the one with the tall antennae and glowing marks. She waved her hand near it. It whined and bent the air. "We play live," she said. "We take over before the tape dies." Mac shook his head. "Try to beat them, they leave. You can't play over a ghost." He said it flat, like a closed door. The side entrance scraped open. Jake Hazardapple came in before anyone answered him. He played guitar for Nona Hagapple's reformed band, and he never knocked. He had faced studio ghosts before and walked out with a record. He looked at the dying reel, then at May. "You're fighting it," he said. "Wrong move." "Then what's the right one?" May said. Jake pulled a chair under the glowing instrument. "Don't play against them. Play under them. You record them. You let their sound stay louder than yours." He nodded at Mac. "Start your song again. Soft." Mac hesitated. He hated being told how his own song should sound. But the tape had maybe a minute left. He fed it back and pressed the button. The slow, bruised melody crawled out one last time. The tall man ghost lifted his violin. The girl ghost drew her bow. The woman with hollow eyes opened her mouth and sang a note with no words. May leaned into the instrument and let it hum beneath them. Jake matched her, quiet, holding the floor steady under the voices. They did not push. They followed. The reel ran out. The tape slapped loose and spun empty. The ghosts did not vanish. Their song kept going, carried now by the three living players holding it up from below. The hollow-eyed woman's voice softened. The violin grew gentle. The three spirits bent toward the instruments as if settling in. Then the sound thinned. The ghosts faded, slow and calm, until the room was empty. But the glowing instrument still held the shape of their song. Jake tapped it. "That's one take," he said. "You captured them. They'll come back for a song that remembers them." May stared at the empty air. She had lost the ghosts tonight. She had also learned how to keep them. The reel was dead. The band was real.