The Girl Who Fell into the Sky

Published in 1986, The Girl Who Fell into the Sky is a novella by American author Kate Wilhelm. Combining elements of suspense and the supernatural, The Girl Who Fell into the Sky tells the story of John MacLaren, a middle-aged lawyer who experiences an uncanny event, uncovers a family secret, and finds his passion when he attempts to recover an old piano for his father. A prolific writer, Wilhelm wrote fifty science fiction novels and thirty mysteries, winning numerous awards. The Girl Who Fell into the Sky received the 1986 Nebula Award for Best Novelette. Wilhelm was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2003.

When John MacLaren’s elderly father, David, proposes to drive three hundred miles in the uncompromising Kansas summer heat to retrieve an old player piano, his wife objects. As John MacLaren breaks up his parents’ squabble, he wishes he shared their passion. He inherited his mother’s red hair and green eyes and his father’s robust stature but didn’t receive their intense emotions. He envies his feisty mother and forceful father “their passion, their uncompromising fights, their uncompromising love.” John’s own marriage to his wife, Gina, is emotionless and distant. John realizes he must volunteer to retrieve the piano to spare his father the trip.

John doesn’t know why the piano matters so much to David. It belonged to one of David’s friends, Louis Castleman, whom John remembers as a reclusive old crank who raved about seeing a girl on the isolated prairie where he lived. Louis died recently, and David wants to get the instrument before Louis’s nephew, Ross Cleveland, gets there and goes through his belongings. John notices that talking about the piano awakens a “darkness” in David, making John think his father has a secret. John takes his father’s ancient, air conditionless truck and drives out to the old Castleman home.



Lorna Shields is already at the house. Lorna is twenty-five, dark-haired, blue-eyed, tall, and tanned. As part of a grant extending her master’s project, Lorna is traveling around the country interviewing elderly people about their youthful religious experiences. Lorna’s sister is Ross Cleveland’s wife, and the couple invited Lorna to stop there on her travels. Her sister and brother-in-law have not yet arrived, and Lorna enjoys the deserted, silent beauty of the Kansas prairie. She appreciates the bright blue sky and the way the shadows play over the golden grass. Her first night in the house, she dreams of music, and voices singing an old song.

Initially, John isn’t happy to see someone in the home. He wanted to take the piano and snoop around for more information, but John does find Lorna attractive. The two share a beer and John leaves, promising to return for the piano when Ross arrives. Lorna has been snooping: she hides some legal papers she found, then heads off to hike the trails through the tall grass. Lorna finds a valley enclosed by hills and notices the ruins of old structures. She hears a sound like the grass is singing and then the sky seems to vanish. Suddenly, John is there, leading her away from the valley. Worried about Lorna getting lost in the dark, he followed her trail through the grass.

Over dinner, John tells Lorna that his grandfather, a judge, used to own the land. It was no good for farming or ranching, so the judge worked a mysterious deal with one Josiah Wald, who had come up for trial. Josiah bought the land and never went to trial or jail. He started a commune in the valley, but it burned down in 1941. The fire killed six people and Josiah disappeared.



That night, John camps outside the house. Inside, Lorna has a violent, lewd, disturbing dream in which she is onstage singing and then is molested by two men. John hears the piano playing and Lorna singing. Lorna awakens confused and scared. She considers the elderly people she has interviewed and experiences her own fear of the unexplained. Lorna realizes this experience could change her world view: she thinks the piano is haunted. Examining the piano, John confirms it hasn’t been played in years. Lorna produces the papers she has hidden. Reading them, John discovers that Louis sold the piano to David twenty-five years ago, David had been present when the commune burned, and his grandfather had been blackmailed. Lorna leaves to walk the grass trails again.

David arrives unexpectedly. He tells John that the commune was really a “Sodom and Gomorrah and Eden” all rolled into one: a place where people could hide out and get dope or girls. Josiah mixed religion into that lifestyle, asserting that “no one can choose good who hasn’t experienced evil.” Louis and David were good friends, and David visited the commune when he could. Louis played piano at the “hotel” and fell in love with one of the girls who sang there. The two friends planned to smuggle her to safety after her act. But the girl told Josiah, and the next day her act changed: she was raped and beaten to death on stage. The following night, Louis started the fire that burned down the commune. David joined the army. David tells John that Louis shot Josiah.

Out on the prairie, Lorna sees a vision of Josiah, his hands bound behind him, and Louis leading him with a rope. She hears the two men talking, and she whispers that Louis will walk these trails the rest of his life. Then Lorna is “falling, falling into the sky.” Lorna returns to the house, and with David and John, burns the piano and the stacks of money that pour out of it. John realizes that “the girl he had yearned for like a schoolboy, was gone, lost on the prairie, perhaps,” but that he “was very much afraid he was in love with the woman who had replaced her.” Lorna, in turn, understands that she and John can now have “an ageless relationship.”