The Ghost Light Read online

  When they returned to the stage, Maggie expected to see Kawanna fitting the actors for costumes, but instead everyone was in the midst of rehearsing a scene while Irene and Kawanna watched with their heads together. Occasionally they would stop the scene, and Kawanna would hop onstage and move an actor to a different position, marking the floor with tape.

  “They must be doing the blocking,” Maggie explained to Juniper. “That’s where they figure out where the actors will stand and move for each scene.” She pointed to Emily, who stood to one side with Dallas, the actor playing Macbeth. Emily saw them and waved. “Now where’s the lady in the red dress?” Maggie scanned the stage and the audience seats, but she didn’t see anyone who looked like the woman from the lounge. She felt a ripple of uneasiness flutter in her stomach, but she pushed it away. The theater was full of people coming and going and changing in and out of costumes. It could have been anyone. Or maybe I just thought I saw her, Maggie told herself. I bet it was just my imagination. She took a deep breath. Or at least I hope it was.

  Maggie unfolded two seats and settled in next to Juniper. “How about another princess story?” she asked.

  Juniper made a fist and exploded it outward. “Princess power!” she cried, causing a few actors to glance into the audience.

  “That’s right, princess power!” Maggie said softly, exploding her fist, too. “I love strong, fierce princesses, but remember, sometimes even warrior princesses have to use their quiet inside voices, especially when their moms are busy working.”

  Juniper nodded, her eyes wide. “Okay,” she whispered. “I’ll use my quiet inside voice, too.”

  “Great idea.” Maggie opened up the book and started a new story about a princess who went on an adventure to save her sister, and Juniper was quickly entranced. She cuddled up and rested her head against Maggie’s arm.

  After a few pages Juniper had dozed off, so Maggie quietly closed the book and settled back in her chair, soaking in the rehearsal. Emily and Dallas were alone onstage, and the other actors watched from the wings. Dallas held a wooden dagger in his hand. Maggie wasn’t sure what was going on, but it seemed like they were arguing about killing someone. “Wow, it really is a stabby play,” Maggie whispered to herself.

  Maggie could tell that Emily was good. She made Lady Macbeth seem so murderous and evil that Maggie couldn’t believe this was the same cheerful person who twirled Juni around until the two of them collapsed in giggles. How did she do that? Maggie didn’t know, but she hoped that someday she could learn to be as good as Emily.

  Maggie thought back to her unsuccessful meeting with Dr. Gujadhur. There must be some way to change the principal’s mind. He seemed to think that Maggie was the only person in the school who cared about drama, but she was sure there were lots of other kids who would want to join a drama club if only they had the opportunity. How could she convince him of that? Maggie turned the problem over in her mind. Suddenly, she remembered something. When her cousin, August, started middle school in California the students there weren’t allowed to keep anything in their lockers. When the administrators refused to change the policy, August had circulated a petition around the school, and lots of students had signed it. Maybe if she started a petition, it would show how many other kids wanted a drama program, and then Dr. Gujadhur would have to listen.

  Maggie pulled a purple glitter gel pen out of her backpack and scrounged around for something to write on. She finally settled on an old math test she found crumpled at the bottom. Ignoring all the red marks on the front, she turned it over and smoothed it as best she could. She wrote the heading in puffy bubble letters: Petition To-Do List. “Okay,” she whispered, “here we go.” She realized she had no idea how to start a petition, but she was pretty sure there were clipboards involved. She drew a heart-shaped bullet point and wrote Get clipboards next to it. She thought for a second and added a second heart-shaped bullet point: Get pens. After all, people couldn’t sign a petition without pens. And paper. She would definitely need that. She added Paper to the list.

  “Okay, good start,” she said to herself. After a second she added her final bullet point: Google how to write a petition. She nodded in satisfaction, folded the list in half, and shoved it into her backpack. She could already picture herself standing in front of the school, maybe with a megaphone, rallying everyone to her cause. She would be wearing something fierce, but serious. Maybe a polka-dot kerchief and coveralls, like the Rosie the Riveter poster in her mom’s office, but probably with a little more sparkle. Kids would be applauding and shouting encouragement, and she would lead them on a march straight to Dr. Gujadhur’s office. Her petition would have so many signatures they would run out of paper. It was going to be awesome.

  She grinned when she heard her phone buzz. She couldn’t wait to tell her friends about the amazing petition idea.

  Maggie almost dropped the phone when she saw the ghost emoji, her mind yanked back to the vanishing woman in the ladies’ lounge. How had Clio known?

  Maggie started to text back: Something really weird happened, but after a moment, she deleted it without sending. She didn’t know why, but she felt strange about telling the other girls about the uneasy feeling the encounter had given her. She remembered how Tanya had teased her about the Macbeth superstition, or the way Rebecca and Clio had exchanged a look when Maggie said she was babysitting. Maybe she was imagining it, but it felt almost like they didn’t quite trust her to keep a level head. Instead, she just wrote:

  Maybe she wasn’t imagining it. Maggie found herself gritting her teeth when she wrote back.

  Maggie didn’t really think it was funny at all. She shoved her phone into the bottom of her bag and went back to watching the rehearsal. Emily was alone onstage, practicing a monologue. Her voice was clear and resonated through the room. Maggie wasn’t sure what was happening in the play, but she let the words wash over her. “They met me in the day of success…”

  Maggie caught the scent of perfume, and from behind her, she heard another voice, this one a soft whisper, reciting the lines along with Emily. “… and I have learned by the perfectest report…” Maggie twisted around in her seat, but the rows behind her were too dark to see anyone.

  Emily faltered and stopped, forgetting her line, but the hissing voice continued, dripping with venom, “… they have more in them than mortal knowledge.” Maggie looked at the actors in the seats nearby, but nobody’s lips were moving, and nobody seemed to notice the other voice. Didn’t they hear it, too?

  The whisper grew closer. Maggie could hear it right behind her head. “When I burned in desire to question them further…”

  It was almost in her ear now. Maggie could feel it, dry and hot on her neck, like a foul desert wind. The cloying perfume lay thick in the air like a weight. “… they made themselves air, into which…”

  Something touched her neck. Maggie whirled around. “… they vanished.”

  The row behind her was empty.

  CHAPTER

  8

  THE NEXT DAY at school, Maggie found herself avoiding her friends. She hadn’t planned to, but when she walked through the front doors and saw them standing together at their lockers, she ducked down a side hallway. Last night at the theater had left her shaken and scared.

  Maggie was terrible at keeping secrets, and she knew she would spill all her worries the second she saw them. Right now she wasn’t sure she was ready to do that. She could tell that the other girls weren’t totally convinced that Maggie would make a good babysitter, and if she admitted how frightened she had been last night, they would doubt her even more.

  In their past supernatural encounters it always seemed like it was Maggie who overslept or broke something or made too much noise. Maggie who panicked and lost her nerve. Maggie who almost got trapped in the Nightmare Realm. She was getting tired of feeling like the screw-up her friends always had to jump in and clean up after. Maggie knew she had been doing a good job babysitting Juniper. She had kept her safe and ha
ppy during all the weird incidents at the theater, and she had even handled a potential rodent infestation! But if she broke down and told her friends how scared she had felt, none of that would matter. They would just see her as the same old hopeless Maggie.

  Besides, the things she had seen at the theater were definitely weird, but she wasn’t 100 percent sure there was a supernatural explanation. After all, Kawanna was at the Twilight almost every night, and she didn’t seem to have noticed anything strange. Maggie wasn’t about to give up her first real babysitting job and her chance of helping with a live theater production. If there was spooky stuff going on at the theater, she would have to learn to toughen up and deal with it. And until that tougher, braver Maggie emerged, she would just have to avoid her friends in the meantime.

  Shortly before lunch Maggie ran into Tanya in the hall. “How was the Twilight last night?” Tanya asked. Her voice grew teasing, and she wiggled her fingers at Maggie. “Anything mysteriously baaaaaaad happen?” Maggie paled and bit her lip, and Tanya’s voice grew serious. “Oh, no. Did it? Did something go wrong with Juniper?”

  “Um, no. Not at all. Everything’s great with Juniper. I just realized that I forgot I promised to meet with Ms. Kulkarni at lunch today to go over my math test. I’ll catch you guys later, okay?” Without waiting for an answer, Maggie waved goodbye and hurried down the hall.

  She decided to hide in the library, knowing it was the last place her friends would ever expect to find her. The only books Maggie read were for school, and she gave even those only a half-hearted effort at best. The librarian glanced up and straightened his bow tie when Maggie pushed open the glass door and scuffed her gold-studded flats across the carpet. “Can I help you find something?” Maggie shook her head. She stood without moving, not sure what to do next.

  Maggie couldn’t remember the last time she had been inside her school library, and now, seeing it again, she remembered why. She found herself in an unremarkable room with practical brown carpeting, orange plastic chairs clustered around octagonal, Formica-topped tables, and modular shelves crowded with books. What did people even do in here?

  Maggie was starving, but there were signs all over the walls that said NO FOOD OR DRINK. Her stomach growled audibly, and she saw the young man glance at her zebra-print lunch bag. “Hiding out?” he finally asked, and Maggie nodded. “Follow me.”

  The librarian led her to a table tucked away in a corner where a few other kids sat eating their lunches in awkward silence. Maggie realized she didn’t recognize a single one of them. Some of them had their noses buried in books, but others just sat quietly staring down at the table or their phone screens. One girl with dyed black hair, tan skin, and a nose ring sat slouched in her chair. Her heavily made-up eyes were closed, and she lip-synched along to the music blasting out of her headphones. Maggie wasn’t sure, but she thought it sounded like the Les Misérables soundtrack. Interesting.

  The librarian pointed to an empty chair, and Maggie dropped her backpack on the floor behind it. He put his hand on his crisp blue-and-white checked shirt. “I’m Mr. Gallaher, but most kids just call me Mr. G. Let me know if you need anything.”

  Maggie smiled shyly. “Thanks.”

  “You bet,” he answered, and headed back to his desk. “Fabulous tights, by the way,” he tossed over his shoulder before turning the corner.

  Maggie smiled down at the pink and black rose-patterned tights she wore with a short pink skirt, white Beatles T-shirt, and jeweled black cardigan. She pulled out her chair and sat down. A few kids peeked curiously at her from the corners of their eyes, but nobody greeted her. She slowly pulled out her lunch; her bag of chips sounded loud when she tore it open. Why was it so quiet?

  Maggie wasn’t about to spend her entire lunch period sitting in silence with a pack of morose-looking kids, like she was being punished or something. If there was one thing she knew, it was how to talk to people. She looked around the table searching for the ringleader, but there didn’t seem to be one. Finally she turned to the boy sitting next to her. His pale face was sprinkled with freckles and acne, and his coarse auburn hair stuck up from his head like a brush. “Hi! I’m Maggie.”

  The boy looked up from the scratch on the table he’d been picking at. “Oh, um, hi,” he stammered. “Uh, I’m, uh, Alex.” He looked back down at the table.

  “Nice to meet you,” Maggie said. He didn’t respond. “So, do you guys always eat lunch in the library, or what?”

  “Pretty much,” Alex answered, running his finger along the edge of the table.

  “How come?” Maggie asked.

  A girl with mouse-brown hair and thin, patchy eyebrows spoke up. “Are you serious? The cafeteria is like the seventh circle of hell.”

  “Really?” Maggie crunched down on a chip. “I like the cafeteria.” She got to sit with her friends, check out cute boys, and watch middle school drama unfold at the tables around her. School was mostly boring, but the cafeteria was where all the exciting stuff happened. She wished she could be there right now.

  She saw Alex and the girl exchange a look. A look that told her she had just said the wrong thing. Maybe Maggie wasn’t so great at talking to people after all. Or, at least, these people. She turned to a round-faced girl sitting on the other side of her, her nose buried in a giant book. “Hi, I’m Maggie.” The girl didn’t answer. Maggie tried again. “What’s your name?”

  The girl sighed and answered like she was doing Maggie a favor. “Jackie.” She went back to her book.

  “What are you reading?”

  Jackie snorted and wordlessly pointed to the cover, where Lord of the Rings was written in golden, flowy script. “Oh, I know. I mean, I saw the title,” Maggie said, blushing. “I was just wondering … is it good?”

  The girl looked up from her book. “You’re asking me if Lord of the Rings is good?” Maggie nodded eagerly. Jackie let out a humorless laugh. “It’s only, like, the best book ever written.”

  “Really?” Maggie asked, encouraged. “Wow. What’s it about?”

  The girl just rolled her eyes. “Google it.”

  Maggie looked down at her untouched sandwich. This whole library decision had obviously been a mistake. She thought longingly of the cafeteria, with its dishwater gravy smell and crowded tables of kids—interesting kids—shouting at one another and laughing. Cute Trent Conrad could be standing at her table right now, tossing his floppy blond bangs as he stole part of her lunch. She imagined all the fun conversations she could be having with her friends. Maggie missed them already, and it had only been half a day. She wondered when the braver, tougher Maggie would emerge and she could face them again. Maybe it had already happened? She turned her mind back to the Twilight, and she felt a twist of fear in the pit of her stomach. Nope. She was still the same old Maggie, so she probably wouldn’t be leaving the library anytime soon.

  She had no idea how to even begin facing the Twilight mystery on her own, so until she figured that out she might as well work on her petition. After all, none of these people seemed to want to talk to her. Maggie pulled a fresh sheet of loose-leaf paper out of her backpack and took out her purple glitter gel pen. She wrote Drama Club Petition Notes in bubble letters at the top of the paper and used her phone to pull up a website she’d found about the importance of theater education in schools. She drew a column of heart-shaped bullet points where she could write down important facts to use. Next to her first bullet point she wrote: Improves reading comprehension. She knew this was something that teachers really cared about, so adding it to the petition seemed like a good idea.

  The girl with the headphones leaned over, her smoky eyes flickering with interest. She pulled out one of her earbuds, and Maggie could hear Éponine singing “On My Own.” It was Maggie’s favorite song from Les Mis. “What are you doing?” the girl asked.

  “Trying to start a drama club,” Maggie answered.

  “Oh, cool,” the girl answered. “I’ve been going to theater camp in Portland every summer since
I was ten. Can I join?”

  “Definitely,” Maggie said, “if I can convince Dr. Gujadhur to let us start one.”

  The girl turned off her music and brushed her long bangs out of her eyes. “I’m Valerie,” she said. She pointed to a golden-skinned, spiky-haired boy seated to her right. “This is Nobi. He’s seen Rent, like, fourteen times.”

  Nobi nodded. “Fifteen times, actually. But who’s counting?”

  Maggie laughed. “You’re so lucky! I only got to see it once, but I do have the soundtrack.” She looked around the table. “Anyone else interested in starting a drama club?”

  * * *

  Maggie was walking on air by the time she arrived at the Twilight that evening. Three other library kids wanted to help start the drama club, and Val had offered to print out the petition they had drafted together and bring it to lunch the next day.

  She slid into a seat near the stage to wait for Emily and Juniper. Onstage the set designers were painting a backdrop to make it look like a castle wall. When Maggie squinted her eyes the gray backdrop looked almost like real rock, and the green-painted moss on some of the stones made it seem old and castle-y.

  Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She hadn’t looked at it all day, and she pulled it out to see a long string of texts from her friends.

  Maggie thought about what to write back. Finally she wrote:

  She was hoping that would keep her friends from thinking that something might be wrong. Maggie stood up and looked around the theater. There were no mysterious women appearing and disappearing. No strange whispers. Maybe everything was fine. Maybe she had been worrying for nothing.

  Emily arrived with Juniper in tow. When Juniper saw Maggie she broke free of her mother and ran over, throwing herself against Maggie’s legs.

  “Hey, Juni!” Maggie said. “So what do you want to do today?”