| Year | Event |
|---|
| 1938 | Whitmore Academy founded by Director Aldous Whitmore, an English pianist. The conservatory hall is built above a natural cavern. Aldous insists it improves the acoustics. |
| 1944 | Director Whitmore commissions "the grand" — a Steinway Model D with a ninth octave, hand-forged by a foundry that closed in 1902. The 89th key is ivory. (We are not permitted to say whose.) |
| 1952 | FIRST DISAPPEARANCE: Eleanor Vance, 14, vanished during a recital. The piece "Air on the G String" resumed itself. Eleanor's seat was warm for the rest of the evening. |
| 1966 | The curtain behind the stage is installed. Director Whitmore calls it "for the echoes." It is velvet, black, and moves when there is no draft. |
| 1974 | A student "borrows" the 89th key. She is found three days later, sitting at the piano, playing it. She cannot stop. She could not stop for three days. She died of dehydration. The key was returned by persons unknown. |
| 1988 | Six students vanish over four months. The conservatory installs CCTV. It records an empty hall, a piano playing itself, and a shadow in the velvet curtain that does not belong to anyone in the hall. |
| 1996 | Director Whitmore is asked to retire. He declines. He is 94. He looks 50. His passport photograph from 1940 and 1996 are pixel-identical. |
| 1998 | I start this site. 🎹 |