May timapple wanted a band of ghosts, but no ghost would come when she called. For three nights she stood in the music hall and sang their names into the dark. The dead stayed put. She finally understood why. She had nowhere to offer them. A band needs a room. Restless spirits need a place to gather and make noise, and May had only borrowed corners and locked doors. She found the old recording studio at the edge of town. Its walls had cracked. Green slime dripped down the front. The windows were broken, and wires hung like dead vines. But inside, the air hummed. May pressed her palm to a wall and felt it shiver. Something had lived here once. Something might live here again. The door was chained. May had no key. That was when Candy Brownapple arrived. Candy had played in more failed bands than anyone in Applesville, and she carried bolt cutters in her bag like other people carried gum. She was May's oldest friend, the one who never laughed at the ghost idea. She snapped the chain in two quick cuts. "If this works," Candy said, "I want in. I'm tired of playing for the living." Inside, dust covered everything. In the corner sat a vintage reel player, its two silver circles still threaded with tape. Beside it stood a strange instrument with tall antennae and glowing symbols along its face. May had never seen anything like it. When she waved her hand near the antenna, it whined, and the sound bent the air. The side door opened. Mac Lanapple stepped in from the dark. May knew him by reputation. He wrote the heaviest songs in town. He had an album he could never finish, and he trusted no one who praised it. He looked at the broken studio with flat eyes. "This place is dead," he said. "That's why I want it," May said. Mac crossed to the reel player. He pressed a button. The reels turned. A low song crawled out of the speakers, slow and sad and bruised. It was one of his. The glowing instrument began to hum along, matching the tune by itself. Then the cold came. The dust lifted off the floor. Shapes gathered in the corners, faint at first, then clear. A girl. A tall man. A woman with hollow eyes. They swayed to Mac's song. One reached for the strange instrument and made it sing. May's chest went tight. They had come. Not to her voice. To the room, and to the music inside it. "They stayed for the song," May whispered. Mac turned off the reel player. The ghosts did not vanish. They waited. "Keep it playing," one of them said, "or we leave." May had her space now. She had her first spirits. But they would only stay while the music never stopped, and she did not yet know how to keep it going.

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.

The ghosts were gone. Their song sat inside the glowing instrument, one fragile take. May stared at the silver reels. The recording lived on the old reel-to-reel now. She had one copy and no backup. If she played it to call the spirits home, the tape could jam, snap, and the song would die for good. Mac Lanapple crouched by the machine. He threaded the tape slow. "One reel," he said. "One song. You play it, you risk it." "I know," May said. "But they only come back for a song that remembers them. We have to play it." "Then don't play the only one." Mac stood. "Copy it first." The side door scraped. Candy Brownapple came in holding a second reel machine by its handle, cords dragging. She was the reporter who had cut the studio chain for them, who kept secrets for a living. She set the machine down hard. "Found this in a dead man's shed," she said. "Don't ask whose." May knelt by both machines. "We dub it. Feed the master into this one. Record onto the new reel." Her hands shook. "If the old tape jams while it feeds, it tears. We lose everything." Candy pushed her glasses up. "So thread it right the first time." Mac fed the master reel through the heads, careful, slow. The tape was thin and dry. One edge frayed. He wet his fingers and smoothed it flat. "Ready," he said. May pressed play on the master and record on the new machine at once. The bruised melody crawled out. The violin. The bowed note. The hollow-eyed woman's wordless voice. The master reel turned. The new reel caught the sound. Then the old tape snagged. The feed reel locked. The tape stretched tight between the heads. May saw it pull thin, about to break. "Stop it!" Candy said. "No." Mac leaned in. He touched the stuck reel with one finger and turned it by hand, gentle, feeding slack into the heads. The tape loosened. The song kept playing. He walked it through the jam turn by turn until the reel ran free again. The master played to the end. The new reel held the whole song. May rewound the copy and played it back. The ghost voices rose from the second machine, clear and complete. She had two now. She could play one to call the spirits and keep the other safe. Candy folded her arms. "Now you can bring them back." May set the master reel in its case and closed the lid. "We call them tomorrow night," she said. "The copy plays. The master stays locked away." Mac looked at the sealed case. "They'll come," he said. "They heard themselves remembered." May held the copy against her chest. The band was one reel away now. She just had to press play.