Mara Klane, better known as either the Ghost Woman or the Ghostly Piano Teacher, is a character from the thirteenth book in the original Goosebumps series, Piano Lessons Can Be Murder, as well as its television adaptation.
History[]
Book[]
When Jerry Hawkins and his family move into their new house, Jerry discovers a piano in the attic. That night, he hears the piano being played, but when he investigates, he doesn't see anyone, but notes that the piano bench feels warm. Jerry takes an interest in the piano and is enrolled in the Shreek Piano School run by the eccentric Dr. Shreek, who seems to be particularly transfixed on Jerry's hands. Jerry soon sees the figure of a young woman playing the piano, but face melts off. She warns Jerry to stay away from the piano. When Jerry encounters her again, she reveals her hands to be just bloody stumps. Jerry tries to quit the piano school, but Dr. Shreek panics and grabs at Jerry's hands. Jerry runs off and soon discovers that all of the teachers in the school are just robots and the pianos are being played by disembodied hands.
He then runs into Mr. Toggle, the custodian of the school where it's revealed that Dr. Shreek is one of his robots and that while he is a genius that can invent near-perfect robots, he's never gotten the hands right, so he takes the hands of those who apply for the school. Before Mr. Toggle attacks Jerry, the ghost woman arrives, along with the ghosts of all of Toggle's victims. She tells Jerry that she was one of Toggle's victims and that she was trying to warn him to stay away from the piano school. The woman and the other ghosts reclaim their hands and grab Mr. Toggle, dragging him off into the woods, never to be seen again.
TV Adaptation[]
The episode changes the ghost woman's history significantly. Instead of being one of Andrew Toggle's victims, she is instead the ghost of Mr. Toggle's piano teacher, who always lambasted him for being so lazy and never learning to play piano. When Jerry arrives in his new home, she haunts Jerry, though not in the same ways as the book. When Jerry ends up learning the truth about Dr. Shreek and the Shreek Piano School, the ghostly piano teacher arrives and confronts Mr. Toggle. She then chases Jerry out of the school. Some time later we see that the ghostly piano teacher is torturing Mr. Toggle, forcing him to practice piano for the rest of his life (and presumably his afterlife as well).
Trivia[]
- While neither the book nor episode refer to the ghost woman by name, the Goosebumps Official Collector Caps Book reveals her name to be Mara Klane.