When Minahane brings the piano into his house, he begins to hear it playing on its own, accompanied by the footfalls of disembodied people dancing to its rhythm. Despite being in her late 90’s, people would hear her loudly playing her piano into the wee hours of the night before her death. Ellie was a wealthy but not well-liked resident of Martledge. “The Dancers” – A man named Minahane purchases a piano which survived a fire that destroyed most of Lowther House and burned its elderly owner Ellie Winfell to death. He sets up a website which can’t be traced back to him where he relates a series of stories set in that town, then opens it to comments from the public. It’s this area where Nakata chooses to conduct an experiment in the hopes of proving his theories about ghosts. We also get some backstory on the history of the town of Martledge from its earliest recorded documentations as it grew over time to eventually encompass smaller surrounding villages into itself.

The Prologue – The prolude brings us up to date with Nakata’s present as he focuses in on trying to find an explanation for, and obtain proof of, the existence of ghosts. These are all good stories, but I think “The Dancers” would be my favorite of them. I’m a fan of Simon’s horror tales and have featured a couple of his collections here before in Lost Places: and Quiet Houses (which also features Nakata). In it, we are returned to the world of Unsworth’s paranormal investigor Richard Nakata. The Martledge Variations is a micro-collection of stories written by Simon Kurt Unsworth which is published by Black Shuck Books.

Quiet Houses by Simon Kurt Unsworth