The mournful sound of the recorded orchestra can be heard all throughout the house and crept into the walls. It reverberated that even the tom cat jumped out from the windowsill and sought out a more comforting place to nap outside.

The house was dark and humid from prolonged enclosure. The mistress had forbidden the servants to even draw the curtains that the rooms already stank. But this time, one of the maidservants had had enough of it all. The gloomy house, the heartbroken mistress and that wretched song! It was playing again. She drew the curtains to let the sunshine in for a minute, not caring if the mistress will see her since she had decided yesterday that she will be quitting this job. ‘What to make of this but a few pesos and a haunted sleep?’ she thought. The song had been playing in her head when she tried to sleep and she had been waking in the middle of the night in sweat from her bad dreams.

The tempo of the song slowed down into a long drag of death march until it abruptly ended like it has been cut off severely. It was an ugly piece of music. Ugly, in a way that it seemed to emanate gloom and despair everywhere in the house. The lyrics were poetic but sad. ‘What is it with this song?’ It made her think of cold days, a solitary house in a hill, of dark void that threatens to engulf them all in that big haunting house. She shivered despite the sunlight streaming through the panes.

Yes, she will go home tomorrow to her siblings on the other side of the village. She will take care of them personally. Maybe find another house that needs a maidservant. A house that certainly will not feel claustrophobic and funerary like this. She closed the curtains back and went down the flight of stairs to the kitchen.

A messenger arrived at three in the afternoon and the mistress was compelled to come out from her isolation. The servants were in the drawing room, some right outside the door on their toes, agitated and eager to hear the news the messenger brought. It should be from their master, no doubt.

“A letter for you, Madame.” the messenger said as he handed a piece of parchment, no envelope, to the mistress. A tiny scrawling was barely visible on the folded paper. The messenger bid goodbye after that and he was glad when he came out the door and away from the house.

The servants are quiet, waiting for the mistress to burst into tears or perhaps, smile. But she didn’t do both or show any reaction at all. She remained sitting, head bow and clutching the paper. The mistress was so pale that the servants were afraid she might faint. It must be bad news.

“I will retire now.” the mistress spoke suddenly. It pierced the silence and made the servants jumped. She stood up and went out, back into the master’s bedroom. Her back straight, head up and she was looking straight ahead that she didn’t even noticed the servants gathered at the door. They watched her walk stately. Even at 35, she is still beautiful, elegant—simply exquisite. And they all sighed in relief that their mistress was not crying but also in worry because she was not crying. There is something wrong but none of the servants knew what. They all dispersed and went back to work. Surely, sooner they will know.

The wretched music was on again until dinnertime that all the servants were anxious to finish the cooking, cleaning; the laundry and gardening so they could go home and get away from the house. The tom cat was called for dinner but it didn’t show up and was never seen again.

By that time, all of the servants were already gone from the house after complaining of headaches and hallucinations. They all blame the music. One servant swore that he saw the garden hose move from its place. It seemed to coil like a snake that he came running to the kitchen pale and shaking from fright. ‘It is that song.’ they say. It made them ill and their heads throbbed painfully. Their hearts felt weak and hopeless. They had not laugh or even smile for two weeks since their master went out of the house to go on a business meeting and never come back. Day and night they could hear music in the master’s bedroom where the mistress remained. Rosa, the servant girl tasked to deliver food had been going out of the room everyday carrying an untouched food tray. When asked by the other servants what the mistress does inside the room, she said ‘Miss Murcia is always at her desk, writing in her journal.’  

***************

The house was now silent. The scurrying of the servants was no longer heard. She stood up from the desk and went into the window. The sky turned darker and the air cooler. She looked out the window down to the street lined with lamp posts. She noticed a couple passed by, arm to arm. She clutched at her chest as she felt a tinged of pain. They had been like that too. But somewhere, somehow he turned cold. Robert was always immersed with his business. He rarely slept beside her anymore. He preferred his office, his desk, his chair in that wretched room! And that woman she saw he was with…how could she possibly know? When ever since she got married she had been locked up in that big house with nothing to do, no one to talk except the servants and occasional neighborhood women who knew nothing but gossip. Robert never conversed with her about his day or business. So how could she know?

She did not regret her status. Nor care that she was not anymore Matilda but Mistress Murcia. But when she thought of everything she had to lose for marriage she could not help but grieved. Her name, her friends, her home and her freedom. All gone. But there was no more grief so strong than when you lose the one you love.

 She had sung songs and dreamt of him lying dead. His eyes piercing hers as if searching her but she knew he had read the pain in her eyes and the madness. Yes, the madness that had driven her to kill. But it was a dream, a bad dream. He was sitting there in front of the piano that stood in the corner of the room. The tunes he played ease her heart and numb the pain. She waited for him to stop playing and lay down beside her on the bed…to put her to sleep.

***************

Rosa had finally packed her things. She heard the music playing again in the mistress’ bedroom but she ignored the goose bumps on her skin. It’s her last day anyway and she will never again hear the haunting music and feel the chilling air creeping in every wall in the house. She started to climb the stairs to her mistress’ bedroom and tell her of her resignation. For weeks she had tolerated the smell building in her mistress’ bedroom thinking it must be the mistress herself or spoiled rotten food left inside the office adjoining the master’s bedroom on the left. The mistress had forbidden them all to open it ever since the master went missing. And they all yielded and were sorry for her. It must have hurt her to see the mahogany desk where Mr. Murcia always sat and do his business. It was his favorite room.

The last note of the song finally sounded and then the silence of the house struck Rosa that she jumped at the sound of her own footstep. It is already dark inside the room as she turned the doorknob and peered inside. She could see the phonograph on the bedside table still and a vinyl disc attached to it. The lamp is not lit that only the last rays of the sunset came through the open window. A shadow is visible on the wall across her and suddenly Rosa screamed at the top of her lungs. The house itself seemed to come alive as her voice echoed throughout the house.

The passers-by on the street and the neighbors heard the scream that they hastily rushed to the house. Some fifteen people were about to come in when they saw a pale-faced Rosa on the threshold.

“What happened?” They all asked. Rosa was shaking badly and her eyes were unfocused. Her hair disheveled and the bundle of her possessions she had carried had fallen off her hand and was left inside the mistress’ room. She was murmuring fast and incoherently. Two people helped her as she fainted right there while the others rushed into the master’s bedroom where they heard the scream from the open window. It was very dark now so they turned on the switch and a bulb right above their heads flooded the room with light. And there on the ceiling hung the mistress on her evening dress. Her face turned sideways, mouth slightly open, the rope slowly revolved with the weight of her body. There were gasps from the men and scream from the women as they rushed outside the room bawling with fright while the composed men called the authorities.

On that same evening the police searched the whole house with possible evidences of the cause of her suicide. They took possession of all the keys in the house but found that some keys are missing. After tearing down the door in the adjoining room, they found the decomposing body of Mr. Murcia behind his desk. He was still in his suit and tie, reclining on his chair. The smell was so bad that some officers vomited on the dusty carpet. His wife’s journal was found on her desk and was also taken. Her confessions were all written. How two weeks ago she followed her husband on his supposed business meeting and found him dancing with another woman. There was no need of confrontation. She had poisoned her husband that night when he came home but none of the servants stayed in the house during nighttime that nobody saw him arrived in the house. So everyone presumed he was missing.

As the investigators perused the journal, a letter tucked in the pages fell off. It was dated on that same day of her suicide. It read:

“To my wife,

On this day, a decade ago, I have married you. It still remains to me the most moving part of my life as I watched you walk down the aisle. I remember that time we dance and how I kept stepping on your foot! So I have been practicing everyday for tonight …I will dance with you.

Please meet me at…”

 The rest of the words were barely visible by the splotches of tears.

***************

The discovery of Mr. Murcia’s body became the talk of the town more than the suicide of the mistress. Never had the small village experienced such horrifying crime since its foundation. The men felt sorry for the man while the women were disgusted and outraged from the scandal the mistress had caused.

“And a woman!” Mrs. Santos exclaimed. “I have never in my life thought a woman is ever capable of such a hateful crime. She is wretched! She may burn in hell!” she added.

Indeed, no woman in town felt sorry for the mistress’ death that all of them refused to be in her funeral. “It serves her right!” They said.

On the course of the couple’s wake, the officers found out that the letter was taken to the post office two weeks ago by Mr. Murcia himself and he had instructed to send it on the day of their anniversary. It was planned to be a surprise.

Mr. Murcia’s dance coach was notified of the event and she came to the headquarters with eyes red and puffy. She was still crying when the officer asked her to sit down.

“How could she?” she said, her voice thick from crying. “I have sacrificed my toes just so he could dance with her perfectly. Do you know that sir?”

The officer merely shrugged and let her go on with her testimony.

“So that is why he never showed up for our practices these past few weeks! If I had known.” She started sobbing loudly. Her hands covering her face so that the next words she uttered were hardly coherent. “But I didn’t contact him in his house thinking the mistress might found out about the surprise.” she added.

The dance coach was dismissed and the case was closed since there is no one to file a case with. The death of the couple had reduced them to mere objects of gossip and moral scrutiny. The town people had made the crime their concern that both men and women discussed it every time two or more people meet or gathered together.

         The church refused to give the mistress a Christian burial as per tradition when someone commits suicide. “It is a mortal sin.” they say. The bodies were buried next to each other and that became an issue with the sensitive women in the town. They could not bear to think that the murderer be buried next to its victim. It is absurd and unheard of.

After that horrific evening when she had discovered the mistress dead, Rosa became an instant celebrity. She was bombarded with questions from the investigators, her co-servants and the townspeople. But she had never enjoyed the attention for a second. In fact she wanted to be alone in her room. Yes, she had finally come home to her family but it still felt like she had not escaped the horrors of the house she had serviced for long. The light bulb in her room remained on all throughout the night. She is afraid of what might be lurking in the dark. She is afraid to close her eyes because every time she does so, the picture of her mistress’ face pale and dead comes into her mind.

No. Not that sound again. “Stop it. Please.” she begged into the wallpaper-covered wall across her as she covered her ears. She heard the recorded orchestra started playing. The mournful cello sounds as though it brought with him death itself. She could not do anything but cry as the music continued to play.

Her younger sister found her in the corner of the room still covering her ears and begging for something to stop. She was at it again. Her younger sister thought. She had noticed Rosa acting strangely since she had discovered her mistress’ death. She’s in a trauma. She knew. But it got to stop as it’s already slowly trying to affect the sanity of the whole family.

“No, Rosa. YOU stop it!” her younger sister Melly finally shouted. She clearly had enough of her murmurings and covering of her ears as if not wanting to hear something.

“Melly! Melly…help me. Make it stop. The music…” Rosa urgently held Melly’s hands. Her eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep.

“What music? No one is playing music Rosa!” Melly exclaimed as she took hold of her sister’s arms and shook it with frustration. “Get over it. You are making us all crazy!”

“No! No! Listen...it’s starting again…” Rosa looked pitiful as she once again covered her ears and Melly couldn’t do anything but went out of the room.

The next day Rosa was put in an asylum. Her family could not keep up with her strange actions anymore. Last night was the last straw.

The whole family was awoken by Rosa’s scream followed by a loud crash in the kitchen. They found her there with firewood in her hand. She was beating an old radio with all her might. Her hair was all over her face as she beat it with vengeance. They all rushed to her and make her stop. But she was still screaming “STOP! STOP! STOP!”

 Melly wrestled the firewood off Rosa’s hand and they tried to calm her down. She looked frightening with the dark shadows under her eyes and her hair a mess. She looked possessed with the devil but no, it was the music in her head. It kept playing accompanied with the taunting face of her mistress. She saw it again as it revolves above the ceiling.

The house that stood on the left side of the street in East Village remained uninhabited for years. The children have learned to keep out of the house with its peeling paint and windows that have come off its hinges. The bushes that lined the walls were overgrown and had reached the windowsill on the ground floor. The town folk had swore they hear the sound of a recorded orchestra playing from the unhinged window upstairs. They shivered every time they passed through the house that has nothing to do with the mist hovering over the town for over a month.

         The bad weather persisted and it adds up to the gloomy aura of the house that the people living in the area make it a point to go home before evening to avoid passing it in the dark. A rumor has been circulating in the area that a low mournful music plays inside the house during the hour of sunset. And a woman was seen standing by the upper window looking down at the street below.

A strange happening occurred at the time when the mist had finally risen and the warm season had begun. The neighbors witnessed labor men started working on the house. Little by little the wooden boards of the house were painted white and the hinges repaired that it looked like it had never seen death at all. Gardeners came on the third day. The overgrown plants and ivy were cleared and Bermuda grass was placed on the brown thick dirt. On the second week of restoration, various plants already dotted the front yard. The neighborhood women flocked outside the house for the first time since the tragedy that happened years ago. They were asking the laborers who the new owner is but the latter merely shrugged. None of them had any idea. They were just hired and paid handsomely.

 For months the house became so picturesque that the women were seen staring longingly at the house by their kitchen window and the men sat on their porches with the excuse of taking some fresh air but really were gazing at the enigmatic beauty of the house. It seems to draw people into it. To admire and be envious of it.

At last, the house was finished. The young couple was ready to move in. The husband is a very busy businessman while the fragile wife was a teacher until she got married and became a plain housewife.

They both stood outside and stared lovingly at the house. Their house. The very first property they owned together. And they felt so proud of it. It was the wife who saw the property up for sale. It had been on the list for so long. The price was very cheap that they had bite at the opportunity and bought it.

The man had started to take a large baggage off their space wagon while the wife continued to stare at the house smiling to herself. The sky had broken out into pink and orange streaks accompanied by a slow sad sound of an orchestra. The wife looked up at the upstairs window and wondered. The music seems to come from upstairs. Yes, she was not imagining. She could hear the music clearly. An instrumental piece of music she is very familiar with. The famous Death Song. She looked behind her. Her husband was busy getting out their personal belongings but did not appear to hear the music. Goose bumps formed on her arms and she shivered. She looked up at the house again. It did not look as nice as it had been under the sun. Now it stood like a dark sentinel trying to ward off trespassers. She heard the car door slam and she went to her husband to help him carry their stuff. She chose to ignore the music. Maybe she was just too tired from their travel that she was hallucinating. A neighborhood woman came up to the couple to welcome them and she bluntly asked:

 “ But don’t you know the history of this house?”

The couple exchanged glances and their brows arched.

“What history?”