Karolyne's Waltz

A short story that I consider a synopsis and teaser to the novel that I am in the process of editing and finalizing.

They say that music, perhaps due to its ethereal nature, has a direct connection to the soul. A simple song can stir up any number of emotions, and can even enable the listener to transcend time and relive a fond memory from the distant past, as though they were actually there once again, if only for a short time. Many tie an important event to the music they were listening to as it happened, such as the birth of their first child or their first taste of young love, and relive that moment every time the cherished song is played. Think about your most memorable experience, and chances are there’s a song in there somewhere.

I am a musician and songwriter by trade, and am well aware of the nature of my craft, as my livelihood depends on stringing notes and verses into captivating stories that wedge themselves into my listener’s imaginations, hopefully adding an extra layer of rich emotion to their reminiscences, or at worst a decent soundtrack to the monotony of their day.

Chasing my dream, stars in my eyes, I made my way to New Braunfels, Texas as soon as I was able, hoping to find my niche among the legendary musicians who call the Texas hill country home. I lucked into a rental cabin right on the Guadalupe river, and spent most of my time out by the water, taking in the serene sounds of the world around me and incorporating the rustic aesthetic of my surroundings into my music.

The cabin was an old A-frame with a wrap-around porch, built sometime in the late 1800’s and situated on a twenty acre parcel of land. The cobblestone driveway leading up to the house was lined on either side by pecan trees, and the rest of the property was dotted with boulders and cacti, adding an extra air of seclusion. The closest neighbors were miles up the road in either direction, and I knew as soon as I laid eyes on the place that it would be the perfect retreat.

The interior of the cabin was spacious, with an open concept living area, dining area and kitchen, two downstairs bedrooms and a loft taking up the entirety of the upper floor. The floors were gorgeous hardwood, polished to a shine and creaked cozily in certain spots, giving the place an air of rustic antiquity.  

I fell in love at first site, and knew before I had even seen the bedrooms that I would do whatever I needed to be able to sign the lease and move in as soon as possible. I almost didn’t even notice the hesitant look on the landlords face as I asked him to show me up to the loft. As we made our way up the stairs, I could feel the pressure in my chest building, a distinct feeling of apprehension settling over me, as though the air were somehow getting heavier with every step I climbed. By the time we were standing on the landing in front of the loft door, my every instinct was telling me to turn back, and the landlord’s hand was noticeably shaking as he reached for the knob.

The door swung open, and for a heartbeat my mind tricked me, thinking that the door had moved of its own accord. I shook my head, willing myself to get a grip and quit jumping at shadows, and made my way into the loft. The same polished hardwood floor adorned the loft, but whereas the lower floors had been spotless, without the first hint of dust or dirt, the loft looked as though it hadn’t been accessed in years. The air had a stuffiness to it, like a house that hadn’t been inhabited in decades, a characteristic that was completely at odds with the rest of the cabin.

I could tell that the landlord was uncomfortable, subconsciously shifting his weight from foot to foot and glancing around as though he expected his eyes to relay a sight he didn’t particularly want to see. I shook it off as superstition or paranoia, as nothing in the room seemed particularly out of place to me. I still had that heavy feeling on my chest, but chalked it up to the musty nature of the air in the room. By the time we had made our way back downstairs, I had put the entire ordeal out of my mind, anxious to get the lease signed and start moving in.

The first night in my new home was wholly uneventful, with one distinct exception. As I lay in bed sleeping, I was overcome by a dream that seemed so real it was almost like I had actually lived it.

***

I could tell by the chill in the air and the turning of the pecan leaves that autumn had begun to set in, probably sometime around mid-October judging by the temperature. I was outdoors, and as I glanced around I instantly recognized my surroundings to be the very property that my sleeping body had recently rented. The cabin looked much newer to my dreaming eyes, the pecan trees noticeably younger, and I knew that my slumbering journey had taken me to a much earlier time. I could hear music in the distance, and as I looked around, I noticed that there was a faint glow nearby, which I warily began to approach.

My slow footsteps soon brought me to a makeshift dance floor, the gas burning lanterns strung between pecan trees casting a soft glow on the crowd gathered about, a group of approximately twenty men and women dressed in late Victorian garb mingling about and a four-piece band tuning up their instruments. My eyes were immediately drawn to a young lady with golden hair, whose face I couldn’t make out, gesturing passionately to one of the band’s guitar players. As I watched, she walked away in a huff and stood dejectedly out at the edge of the lantern light, her head bowed and her shoulders shaking as though she were crying.

As the band began to play a rousing waltz, a young man approached the girl, appeared to argue with her a moment, then grabbed her by the arm and pulled her onto the dance floor, seemingly against her will. As her feet hit the floor, however, her entire demeanor changed and I was finally able to see her face. She had eyes of deep blue, deeper even than the Guadalupe rushing and flowing in the distance, and as she began to twirl and step in time to the music, those eyes took on a rapturous intensity, as though she were a caged bird taking wing for the first time.

***

I awoke the next morning with fuzzy memories of the dream, and found the entire thing quite odd but by no means alarming. The first night in a strange place will often cause the mind to do queer things, and there was nothing foreboding or inherently frightening about what I had experienced. I had already forgotten most of the details by the time I had finished my first cup of coffee, and by the time I grabbed my guitar and made my way down to the riverside the entire turn of events had slipped my mind entirely.

Most of that first day was spent sitting by the Guadalupe, taking in the unmistakeable tone and feel of the hill country, admiring the sound of the notes I was strumming echoing back from the cliff face across the river and using the sound of water rushing over rapids as a natural metronome, adding a lilting flow to the music I was creating. I had completely lost myself, enraptured in the majestic splendor of my new home, when a sudden uncomfortable feeling overcame me, as though I were being watched intently. Anyone who has ever been hunting or hiking will know the feeling. One moment everything is normal and peaceful, then sudden unease sets in.

I turned about to see if I had missed someone pulling up the drive, and a quick movement in the loft window caught my eye, causing my heart to skip a beat and nearly jump up in my throat. My first thought was that someone had snuck in while I was distracted and was robbing me blind, so I set my guitar down and looked about for the closest weapon at hand, which turned out to be a metal fire poker. It would do in a pinch, I decided. I made my way up to the back door, fire poker gripped in both hands like Excalibur itself, and quietly eased the door open. The cabin appeared to be empty, but I swept through each room on the first level just to be sure. By the time I got to the loft stairs, I was sweating nervously and that feeling of oppression I had felt on my first trip up those steps had multiplied manifold. Each step seemed an eternity, and my every instinct was screaming at me to turn around and go back downstairs.

Ignoring my fear, I reached for the knob and opened the door. I’m honestly not sure what exactly I expected to see, but the completely empty room turned out to be just as disconcerting as anything I could have found up there. I stood in the doorway, perplexed, and walked into the loft to check the bathroom and closet, convinced that I was losing my mind. Now confident that there was nobody in the loft, I stood in the middle of the room a moment and tried to make sense of what was going on in my house. I was just about to turn out the light and go back downstairs when a small object on the floor, completely unnoticed in my initial surveillance, caught my eye. I bent down to get a closer look, my mind initially refusing to believe what my eyes were seeing.

There, in the middle of the room, was a single petal from a blackfoot daisy, one of the few wildflowers in the area that bloom in the autumn months, pristine as though it had been picked just moments before. I picked it up, now thoroughly confused and more than a bit creeped out, and made my way quickly back out the door and downstairs to try to calm my nerves and figure out what I had just experienced. No immediate answers were forthcoming, of course.

Later that night, as I lay in bed, I naturally found it difficult to get to sleep. The events of the day kept playing back in my mind, and it seemed like every time sleep would almost find me, I was jolted awake by the image of the figure in the loft window. I must have dozed off at some point, because I remember waking up to a sound that was immediately out of place.

As I lay there, my mind foggy and still half asleep, my musician’s brain mechanically took over and parsed out what my ears were hearing. Just overhead, seemingly coming from the loft above me, was a rhythmic beat in a time signature that I immediately recognized. As I regained full consciousness bit by bit, I realized that I was hearing the footfalls of someone dancing a waltz on the hardwood floor above me.

More curious than scared at this point, I eased out of bed and made my way into the living room, glancing up at the door to the loft and noticing that the light was on. As I walked up the stairs for the second time, I was overcome with a sense of peace rather than the initial foreboding that I had experienced earlier in the day,

As I opened the door to the loft, my senses were overcome with a scent of lavender, and my breath caught in my throat when I saw the young lady standing at the window, her back to me and her long blonde hair tumbling down her back. She turned to me, her blue eyes misting over and a slight tinge of sadness in her smile, and I smiled back awkwardly, not knowing exactly how to proceed with such a meeting.

“I heard your music out by the river this morning.” She said, still smiling sadly, as though her mind was lost in a distant, yet mostly happy, memory.

“You’re the girl from my dream, aren’t you?” I asked, not knowing how else to respond. “I….uhhh….don’t really know how to put this lightly, but I think you passed away a long time ago. Do you remember anything?”

She shook her head, her face still tinged with sadness. “All I really remember is fog and wandering, until your music brought clarity. Can you play me just one more song?”

I nodded my head and turned to go downstairs and grab my guitar, half expecting her to be gone when I got back up to the loft. To my surprise, she was standing just where I had left her, and I sat down cross-legged on the floor and started to strum a lilting tune, the closest thing to a waltz I could muster.

As I began to play, I experienced what I can only describe as an out-of-body sensation; I knew that my corporeal form was still sitting on the ground strumming, as the music never stopped, but at the same time I was standing in the middle of the room, facing the young lady I now felt a strong connection towards and grinning like a fool.

In her hand was a circlet of blackfoot daisies, the same flower I had found in the loft earlier that day, and as we stepped together, she placed it atop my head with a bashful giggle.

We danced on the hardwood floor for what seemed an eternity, my clumsy steps gaining confidence from her sheer excitement and joy in movement, her face more radiant than anything I’ve ever seen, before or since. As the song finally came to a close and we parted, she beamed at me and curtsied, and just before she disappeared, she winked, leaving me with one short, poignant piece of advice.

“There’s always time for one last dance.”

And just like that, I was alone, cross-legged on the loft floor, wondering if the whole thing had been a figment of my imagination. As I got up to leave, I put my hand atop my head. Much to my surprise, the laurel, so delicately placed, was still there.

To this day, that circlet of blackfoot daisies accompanies me with every show I play, draped across the head of my old acoustic guitar, a tangible reminder that music is a beautiful and powerful gift, capable even of piercing the veil of the afterlife to touch the soul. And it still looks as fresh as the night it was placed on my head.

***

Out of curiosity, I did some digging on the history of the cabin and the family that had built it. They had been German immigrants, the patriarch a brewer who had immigrated through Galveston and made his way to Central Texas. He had two daughters and a son, and the youngest daughter had been murdered at the age of seventeen. Her murder had gone unsolved, but everyone speculated that it had been a crime of passion by a jilted lover.

I was able to dig up her obituary, and found that her passion in life had been dance, which certainly came as no surprise to me. Her name was Karolyne. I penned some lyrics to go with the tune that I had played the night we had danced together for the first and last time, and call it “Karolyne’s Waltz” in her honor.

I never saw her again, and can only assume that she has finally been able to move on, but every now and then I make it a point to bring my guitar into the loft and play a few songs. And without fail, as soon as I strike the first chord, I can faintly smell a familiar lavender scent, a smell that I now find immensely calming and comforting.    

Author's Note

This is the first of many posts, please feel free to comment and critique as you see fit. Don't hold back, I'm a big boy, I can handle constructive criticism!

Reviews

[Wez Hardyn]

Such a contrast to your other story although both are centred around a woman. I enjoyed the descriptions of the landscape and music but perhaps a shade too romantic for my tastes - nice to meet a benevolent ghost for a change though. Would it be sexist to say this is a spooky romance for the ladies?