“You have to tell her about the pie,” Roland was explaining when Cuerva Lachance floated into view, riding a grand piano that was spinning through the air above the chairs. She was crouched on top, leaning over towards the keyboard and playing the piano upside down. The first note shook the room. It seemed eminently logical to Freddy that the piano should sound like a pipe organ.
“Could I revive within me her symphony and song,” said Roland, who wasn’t deaf in the dream.
As Freddy stood in the gigantic living room, the chairs whirled into fragments and danced away into the familiar walls of her bedroom, solid and shadowy in the dim light from the street outside. I was dreaming, she thought, and then, I haven’t stopped yet. She could still hear the organ music, less clearly than she had a moment before, but clearly enough. It was muffled by the walls. Faintly, she could feel the room vibrating. A door slammed, and Jordan said, “What the hell…?” and Freddy knew she was awake. It was happening again. It had never happened in the middle of the night before, but considering their new neighbours, it wasn’t all that surprising. Cuerva Lachance had discovered the tower room at last.
Freddy joined Jordan and Mum as they stormed along the hallway and down the stairs, sucking Mel into their wake. As always, Freddy felt vaguely disoriented to see her mum and stepfather. It was the way she always felt in the spring when the sun came properly out from behind the clouds for the first time in months, and Freddy found herself thinking, Right … that’s what it looks like. Mum and Jordan weren’t really home all that often. Freddy couldn’t remember the last time they had all eaten dinner together. Usually, she, Roland, and Mel made themselves spaghetti or chicken and rice or cold-cut sandwiches, then ate in their rooms or in front of the TV in the basement.
Roland was the last to join the parade. His room was a small one at the back of the house, and even though he wouldn’t have been able to hear the music, Freddy suspected his room was shaking much more noticeably than hers was. The bass notes of the organ made the house shiver; Freddy could hear the windows creaking ominously. Roland rubbed his eyes and signed something to Mel. Freddy turned away before she could accidentally read the signs.
Outside, the music was much louder, and it became louder still as Jordan led them all out the back gate. Freddy glanced down the lane and saw lights going on in nearby houses.
“Tower,” shouted Mel, pointing. Freddy could hardly hear her. There was a light in the window of the miniature tower attached to the house on Grosvenor Street. Through this window, and out through the walls of the tower itself, rolled the sort of organ music that Freddy associated with misshapen geniuses lurking beneath the Paris Opera House and fixating on innocent young sopranos. As she listened, the melody switched to what would have counted as light jazz if it hadn’t been played on an organ the size of a bus.
It was the one thing that made the house on Grosvenor Street truly odd. The house had been built around a pipe organ rescued from a derelict movie theatre. The tower housed the console and the pipes. Freddy thought it had been a neat idea, but it would have been a neater one if the house had been built in the middle of a forest. The organ was the right volume for a theatre, but it was the wrong volume for a suburban neighbourhood.
Jordan was pounding on the kitchen door of the house on Grosvenor Street. Freddy wished him luck. She thought he would need it to make anyone inside the house hear a mere angry knocking. The music was abruptly supplemented by an incredible wailing sound that swooped enthusiastically up and down the scale.
“She’s found the siren,” Freddy screamed, and Mel nodded.
Over the course of the next several minutes, Cuerva Lachance sampled all the organ’s sound effects, then went back to the music, though not without the occasional squawk, hoot, or drumbeat. Freddy knew it was Cuerva Lachance. The organ was being played by someone without an attention span, and the music changed styles every thirty seconds or so. Jordan had his cell phone out now. From what Freddy could hear, he was trying to talk to the police. Freddy thought he should have walked a good ways down the lane first. She caught snatches of the conversation: “… playing the organ! At three in the … no, I said organ … not right … a right to our sleep … I said Grosvenor … no, with a G … I am not drunk! Listen…”
Freddy wasn’t sure how much longer the music went on. When it finally howled its way to a stop, Jordan, who had given up on the call to the police some time before, began to pound on the door again. It was opened shortly afterwards by Cuerva Lachance herself.
She looked wide awake and not at all surprised to see them. “There’s a pipe organ in my house!” she said to Freddy, exactly as if they were continuing a conversation that had paused ten seconds ago.
Jordan said, “We know there’s a pipe organ in your house! That doesn’t mean you have to play it at three in the morning!”
“But that’s when I noticed it,” said Cuerva Lachance.
Jordan was only about five foot four, but Freddy could have sworn his indignation helped him spontaneously grow a foot right then and there so that he towered over Cuerva Lachance as he shouted, “I don’t know who you think you are, but you have no right to disturb the neighbourhood like this!”
Out of the corner of her eye, Freddy caught movement from Roland, and she turned a bit towards him. He was gently backing away from Jordan, looking ashamed. He couldn’t have seen what Jordan was saying, but Mel had been translating for him again. For a fraction of a second, Freddy felt sorry for Roland. It was never fun when parents drew attention to themselves in public.
That fraction of a second was all it took for Mum to join in. “You don’t have the sense that God gave a grasshopper,” Mum said drily to Cuerva Lachance. Mum was wearing a flannel nightgown with teddy bears on it. “Hasn’t anyone ever taught you manners?”
“No,” said Josiah from behind Cuerva Lachance. “So terribly sorry. Won’t happen again. No idea how she managed to get into the room and lock the door and brace various pieces of furniture against it so w—so I couldn’t break it down.”
“I taught him manners,” Cuerva Lachance explained. “I’m Cuerva Lachance. It’s very nice to meet you.”
Jordan and Mum stood on the porch and gaped at Cuerva Lachance. “Mum,” said Mel, “she’s not going to do it again. Let’s go home.”
“You’re damn right she’s not going to do it again,” said Jordan. “Do you hear that, Ms. Lachance? I forbid you to play that organ ever again.”
“Dad…” said Roland.
“Not at night, at least, please,” said Mum, who did have a certain amount of common sense.
Cuerva Lachance was pretty obviously not taking any of this in. She beamed at Freddy. “I’ve always wanted a pipe organ next to my bedroom. It’s very convenient. Have a good night!”