Speaker 1: Welcome to Cozy Horror, where the tea is warm, the
ghosts are always invited, and the shadows have stories to tell.
I'm your host, Julie Hopkins, and tonight's tale is called
Springtime Seance. It's a story about things that gloom, some
from the ground, some from the heart. It's about a
forgotten melody, an antique piano, and all the parts of
us we bury. So pour yourself some herbal tea, light
your candles, and don't forget to stop and smell the roses,
because tonight you're attending a springtime Seance.
Speaker 2: Some flowers bloom loud, big bright things that demand attention
the moment they break the soil. Others take their time.
They grow in the shadows, winding up trellises when no
one's looking quiet and unsure, waiting for the right season
to reach for the sun. I've worked for Miranda for
two years. She runs her event company like a boot camp,
precision perfection, Every flower pedal in its place, and I
assist her. I arrange the chairs, I pour the tea.
I do what I'm told because that's what assistants do.
Don't get me wrong. I have all kinds of ideas
for tonight's event, the Springtime Sayance fundraiser. But I can't
bring myself to actually speak up. My mom always said
I was a late bloomer. Everything is it's just about ready.
Speaker 3: No, it's not, Clara, What have you done with the chairs?
Speaker 2: I was just testing out how it would look to
have the chairs in a semicircle facing the fountain. You know, actually,
never mind, this is a silly idea.
Speaker 3: Of course it is.
Speaker 4: I'm the expert, you're my assistant. You're here to make
my job easier, not harder. So how about we stick
to the original layout, straight rows, clean lines. We want mystical,
not messy.
Speaker 2: You got it.
Speaker 4: And speaking of massie pedals on every surface, really, Clara,
is this another one of your clever additions to the
event decor. I thought you did that me as if
I would do anything so tacky. These rose petals are everywhere,
on the chairs, tablecloths, someone even tucked them under the teacups.
Speaker 2: They're actually kind of pretty.
Speaker 4: They're unprofessional. This is a fundraiser and not a wedding
for tiny woodland fairies. Honestly, I don't know what you
were thinking.
Speaker 2: I promise I didn't do it.
Speaker 3: And who did.
Speaker 4: Clara, because the rest of the staff members are in
the court running the pre seance cocktail hour.
Speaker 2: I'll clean the pedals up right now.
Speaker 4: Thank you, And could you please stop with the incessant
humming between that and the piano playing. I'm surprised you
got anything accomplished today.
Speaker 2: I haven't been playing the I mean, it won't happen again.
Speaker 3: It had better not.
Speaker 4: That piano has been in whisper Wood Manners Conservatory for
over a hundred years. It's not a toy. It's a
priceless antique. Where is that psychic? She's fifteen minutes late.
Speaker 2: I called her. She's probably stuck in traffic.
Speaker 4: If she's a psychic, shouldn't she have known there would
be traffic in her future.
Speaker 3: It's six pm on a Friday, for goodness sake.
Speaker 2: Oh I bet that's her right now.
Speaker 5: So sorry, I'm late. I wasn't sure if I make it.
I had to drop off a chili cheese dog to
a raven a bird, no, a person. You not making sense.
I'll tell you what doesn't make sense. That darn delivery
app It had me going twenty minutes in the opposite direction.
But I made it. I'm Iris License medium, Difnation specialists.
Speaker 3: And occasional Uber Eats driver. You're late.
Speaker 5: No, I'm Iris, and you must be Miranda. Did your
psychic powers tell you that? No? Actually it was the
giant's stick up here.
Speaker 2: It's so nice to meet you, Iris, Thank you for coming.
I'm Clara, Miranda's assistant. I can show you where you'll
be sitting so you can get ready for the seance.
Do you need me to carry something? You brought a
lot of stuff. Is this like ghost stuff?
Speaker 5: Ghost stuff?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 5: No, no, no no. These are my T shirts, T shirts,
T shirts, tote bags, bumper stickers. I brought merch for
the gift table. I got one that says which please,
and another this says manifest this and they all glow
in the dark, but only when mercury's in retrograde.
Speaker 2: Kidding mostly, I'll set that up for you if you
follow me. Iris. We have you sitting over here.
Speaker 5: Wow, did you do the flower petals?
Speaker 3: No one's claiming the flowers, but they need to go now.
Speaker 5: Gorgeous. The spirits are obsessed, and there are a lot
of spirits. It's like a liquor store up in here.
Speaker 2: I'll take care of the flowers right now.
Speaker 5: I wouldn't spirits get touchy when you rearrange their decor
you think a spirit did this. If you didn't do
it and she didn't do it, then obviously it was
a spirit. That's the only rational explanation.
Speaker 3: I think your logic is a bit flawed.
Speaker 5: I think logic in general is way overrated.
Speaker 3: Clara, if that's you again, I swear it wasn't me.
Speaker 2: I've been standing here the whole time.
Speaker 3: And who keeps messing with the piano?
Speaker 5: Looks like you got yourself a haunted piano.
Speaker 3: I thought you said she had good references.
Speaker 2: The one with good references had to kissel Iris is
the only one I could be at last minute figures.
Speaker 5: Actually, I made myself available because my psychic powers told
me you'd call. I saw it in a dream.
Speaker 3: Isn't that nice?
Speaker 4: And the guests are already coming in, so let's hope
this all goes well.
Speaker 5: Oh my, look at this place.
Speaker 6: Those real climbing roses.
Speaker 2: Drink at that. There's a fountain right inside building and
a grand piano.
Speaker 5: Excuse me, I found a rose on my chair.
Speaker 4: Ah, yes, yes, that was intentional. You win a prize?
What is that rose doing there. I thought you picked
up all the flowers I did, like I said, ghosts.
Tonight's seance is going to be very interesting.
Speaker 3: I imagine it will be.
Speaker 4: Welcome everyone to whisper Wood Manners Springtime Seance fundraiser. This
historic property has had many lives, a private estate, a
boarding house, and even a boutique hotel for a time.
Some notable guests have stayed here over the years, including
Edmund Thorne, a famous composer who stayed here many times
in the early nineteen hundreds. He used to come here
every spring for inspiration, always staying in the same room,
always requesting time alone in this very conservatory. That's why
there's a piano behind me, he said. This place, with
its glass walls and blooming garden, was where his best
work began. He eventually became famous after writing a piece
called Pedals at Dawn.
Speaker 2: It's actually Pedals at Dusk.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, thank you Clara for that correction, as I
was saying. The composer was immensely talented, the best of
his generation, and though he's no longer with us, many
locals say that Edmund Thorne continues to play his beautiful
music every spring at whisperwood manor he is just one
of the notable people connected to this historical building that
we celebrate tonight.
Speaker 2: Oh hoh goodness.
Speaker 4: The spirits perhaps or a mischievous assistant. Tonight, with a
little help from behind the veil, perhaps we'll make contact
with some of these notable residents.
Speaker 3: All proceeds will.
Speaker 4: Go toward restoring the local historic buildings, ensuring our town
stays forever rooted in its past for future generations like perennials, blooming.
Speaker 3: Again and again, season after season. And now I'll turn.
Speaker 4: Things over to the incomparable Iris, our metaphysical expert.
Speaker 5: Who's ready to wake the dead? Can I get a what?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 5: Can I get a woo? All right, darlings, get cozy,
hold hands with the person next to you. We've got
a big group here tonight. And I'm not just talking
about you all. Clara, Clara, light the candles for us,
would you? You've got that steady energy? Sure, Spirits of
Whisper would manner if you are near speak now, come
wander among the blossoms again. You are remembered, You are welcome. Hello, spirits,
any takers come on now, don't be shy? Is it
because I smell like chili, cheese dogs.
Speaker 4: We could have hired a magician and saved on candles.
Oh hoh goodness, Clara, Clara, what are you doing sitting
at the piano.
Speaker 3: We talked about this.
Speaker 2: My name isn't Clara, of course it is.
Speaker 3: Come on now, wait.
Speaker 5: Don't stop her, Clara?
Speaker 2: Who are you? This was my garden. I grew it
with my hands, my songs, my patients.
Speaker 3: Is this part of the show.
Speaker 2: This conservatory was my whole world. It was the only
place I felt truly alive. When everyone was asleep, I
would creep in here and serenade the flowers. They always
smiled back. They didn't mind if I hit a wrong note.
They grew and they flourished. Who are we speaking with tonight?
What does it matter? No one ever listens. I can
hear my voice, but I'm not the one using it.
Something else or someone else has taken over, And now
everyone staring at me, including my boss. This is where
I felt most myself, where I closed my eyes and
let my hands play. Whatever Melody decided to come out?
Speaker 6: Is she acting?
Speaker 5: No one told me this was immersive. Ask her, go,
ask her if she's Edmund Thorn that's not Edmund Thorn.
Speaker 2: When they brought in the piano, I was just supposed
to dust it and sweep around it, but I stayed late.
I taught myself to play one note at a time.
I played in secret. No one heard except him, the composer.
Speaker 6: Wait, the composer.
Speaker 3: Is she talking about Edmund Thorn?
Speaker 2: He came every spring, sat right there in that chair.
He said I had a gift. He said I should
share it. So I did. Every melody I played, he
wrote down every piece of me I poured into the keys,
and then he played them for audiences like they were
his own.
Speaker 5: Is she saying he stole her music? It says wild.
Does someone better be recording this?
Speaker 3: No, no recordings, please.
Speaker 2: I didn't know how to read music, and I didn't
have a name worth printing. I was just the gardener,
the girl who played after hours. He said he'd help me.
He said we'd share it. He lied.
Speaker 4: All right, Now that's enough. This has clearly become some
sort of theatrical diversion.
Speaker 2: And you, you're just like him. You take and take
and take. You smile while your assistant sets the table, folds,
the linens, fills in every little gap, and you never
want to say thank you, never want to give her credit.
Speaker 5: I'm starting to think she's actually possessed. Yeah, me too.
Speaker 6: She makes a fair point.
Speaker 2: I'm getting a little freaked out.
Speaker 4: Clara, come away from the piano. You're upsetting the guests.
Speaker 2: I am not Clara, my means. Dahlia Margaret harte.
Speaker 5: At Dusk, Dahlia, we want to help you. What would
help you find peace?
Speaker 2: I just wanted someone to hear the song the way
it was meant to be.
Speaker 5: We're listening. You've got a whole room full of people
here waiting to hear your song.
Speaker 2: Dahlia. Margaret Hart uses my fingers to play pedals at Dusk,
and everyone is spellbound by the beauty of the melody
and the chords and the passion behind each note. As
the song ends, I feel lighter, peaceful, and all at
once the candles go out. Then I'm back in my
body again, sitting at the piano, the center of attention
at this disastrous fundraiser.
Speaker 6: Did it just get warmer in here?
Speaker 2: This is the best fundraiser I've ever been to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it totally was.
Speaker 5: That does sound good? Where's my check book?
Speaker 3: Oh? I'm so glad you enjoyed yourselves. The nations can
be made out to the whisper for what historical society.
Clara will come around to collect them. Clara, where are
you going?
Speaker 2: But I don't answer her, because there's something I need
to do. I push open the conservatory doors and I
run past the roses, down the gravel path to the
patch of earth beneath the climatis finds. I don't know
what a clematis is, but Dahlia does. I'm me again,
but something from her lingers, not her spirit exactly, but
her knowing. I dig through the damp soil until I
find a rusted tin box, just where she remembered leaving it,
where we remembered leaving it.
Speaker 5: Clara, what have you got there?
Speaker 2: I think it's her music Pedals at Dusk isn't the
only song she wrote?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 5: Would you look at that?
Speaker 2: Look? The margins are full of flowers, sketches and music notes,
whole pages of it.
Speaker 5: She wasn't just growing flowers, she was growing a legacy.
You found it, Clara, Can I have a word.
Speaker 2: I'll be right there.
Speaker 5: Remember be the wild flower, not the houseplant. And most
it's a hoot. Thos those take over everything Clara.
Speaker 2: I know you're mad at me because I've ruined the seance.
But before you fire me, I just wanted to share
some of my ideas for the summer event at Whisperwood Manor.
I actually made a mood book. It's on my phone here.
Take a look. I came up with some alternative layouts
and lighting and some ideas for the decorations.
Speaker 3: I'm not firing you, I'm promoting you.
Speaker 4: Really, you're very good at this and I'm sorry I
didn't see it before.
Speaker 3: Show me what you can do.
Speaker 2: I will thank you.
Speaker 3: But let's not do any seance events for a while.
Speaker 2: Deal. That wasn't me a ghost?
Speaker 3: I know?
Speaker 5: Did someone say ghosts here? Take my card? I think
I'm okay you say that now, But if you do
any more fundraisers in here, you're going to want to
give me a call. This place is definitely haunted, and
not all of them are cute little piano playing ghosts.
Did I mention I've got a discount for returning clients?
Speaker 3: I bet you do.
Speaker 2: Thanks for everything, Irisks. Some flowers bloom loud, some bloom quietly,
but even the quiet ones deserve the sun.
Speaker 1: Well. I think we all grew a little. From that
empowering story, Clara learned that it's never too late to bloom.
She spent years playing it safe, holding her ideas back,
staying small, until a ghost gardener gave her the courage
to say what needed to be said. We all have
a song inside of us, sometimes we have to dig
through the dirt to find it. If you enjoyed tonight's tale,
I'd love if you left a review. It helps more
kindred spirits. Find our cozy corner of the dark, and
please visit January Daphne dot com for a bonus audio drama.
Springtime Seance was written and produced by your host, Julie Hopkins.
This has been cozy horror where the darkness has never
been so inviting.