The Ghost Light Read online

  “Why didn’t she go on?” Maggie asked. She couldn’t imagine giving up a chance to appear onstage in front of a crowd of admirers.

  “Nobody knows,” Mr. Dubois answered.

  “What do you mean?” Tanya asked. “Didn’t someone ask her?”

  “They couldn’t. After that night she was never seen again.”

  CHAPTER

  14

  MAGGIE TRIED TO keep her face composed, but her insides were hopping around like popcorn. Could Vivien Vane be the woman in red?

  The actor went on. “The Twilight’s opening was meant to be one of the greatest in theater history. It was sold out, and Graham Reynard Faust, the owner, spared no expense to produce a show that would make the whole country take notice. He had personally booked Vivien Vane to play Lady Macbeth in the performance. It was a perfect opportunity for both of them. Vane would reach the next level of stardom, and Faust dreamed of all the money that would come rolling in. But alas, it was not to be.”

  “What happened?” Maggie asked, her voice hushed.

  “It was such a perfect storm of bad luck that the theater has never recovered from the curse of that night.”

  Tanya snorted derisively, startling Maggie. She had been so absorbed in the actor’s story that she had forgotten Tanya was in the room. “Don’t tell me you believe in curses, too,” Tanya said, rolling her eyes. Maggie tried to give her a knock it off glare, but Tanya ignored her. “I mean, it’s a ridiculous idea!”

  Mr. Dubois turned off the projector. “I beg your pardon, young lady, but what on earth could you possibly know about it? Why, look at you. You can’t be older than seven.” Tanya looked affronted, and Maggie bit her lip, trying not to snicker. Mr. Dubois obviously hadn’t spent much time around kids.

  He stood up and opened the curtains before pulling a heavy maroon scrapbook out of a carved black bookshelf along the wall. He lay it open on the glass-topped coffee table in front of the sofa and turned it to face the two girls.

  First was a front-page clipping from the Register, dated October 24, 1929. The image showed the Twilight’s marquee all gleaming and new, with a red carpet rolled out in front of it. TWILIGHT THEATER PREPARES FOR HISTORIC OPENING, the headline declared. Maggie skimmed the article, a glowing piece about the huge success the performance was likely to bring to Faust, the actors, and the entire town. “Jeez,” Maggie said. “Did this Faust guy own the paper or something?”

  Mr. Dubois arched one eyebrow. “Very perceptive, young lady. Faust didn’t own the paper, but his brother-in-law did. In fact, the Register’s owner was one of the theater’s major investors. Which may explain this.” He turned the page. The next headline was dated October 25, 1929: THEATER OPENING AN UNMITIGATED DISASTER.

  Tanya bent forward and started reading aloud. “Okay, so when Vivien Vane didn’t show up, her understudy, Norma Desmond, took her place. But it says here that Norma did a good job.” She looked up. “What was the problem?”

  “Keep reading,” Mr. Dubois commanded.

  Tanya’s eyes went back to the page. “Oh … oh! Wow. Okay.”

  “What does it say?” Maggie demanded.

  “Halfway through the play all the cigarette smoke from the audience set off the brand-new, state-of-the-art sprinkler system, drenching the stage and the guests. It shorted out the electrical system, and the entire theater went dark. There was a panic, and a few people were trampled in the push for the exits.” She looked up at Maggie. “But nobody was killed. Just minor injuries.” She looked back down at the clipping. “They had to refund everyone’s tickets and close the theater for repairs. It was a huge loss.”

  “But that’s not all.” Mr. Dubois turned the page. The dateline of the next article was also October 25, 1929, but the headline was much larger, the heavy black letters spanning the page: WORST STOCK MARKET CRASH IN HISTORY.

  It didn’t mean anything to Maggie, but Tanya’s eyes were wide. “This was the start of the Great Depression, right?”

  Myles nodded. “Both Faust and his brother-in-law had leveraged all their stock holdings to build the theater. When the market crashed, they lost everything. After their ill-fated opening night, the theater was never able to reopen.”

  Maggie’s jaw dropped. “Never?”

  “The Great Depression and the war kept it shuttered through the forties. In the 1950s there was a resurgence of interest in old movie palaces, and various entrepreneurs tried to reopen the Twilight, but every effort ended in failure. Not one single production ever lasted more than one night.”

  Tanya blinked. “Wait. Not even one? How is that possible? The mathematical odds against that happening are enormous.”

  Mr. Dubois gave an elegant shrug. “Curses don’t care about math.” He flipped through page after page of the scrapbook, and Maggie watched the headlines flash by. MOVIE FLOP CLOSES AFTER ONE DAY (1957). MAGIC SHOW MISHAP HORRIFIES AUDIENCE (1970). CONCERT CUT SHORT WHEN POP STAR’S HAIR CATCHES FIRE (1983). The list went on. Tanya pulled out her camera and snapped photos of the headline pages.

  “So the curse is real,” Maggie breathed. She shot a triumphant look at Tanya and noticed that familiar expression of grudging acceptance on her friend’s face.

  “Well, there obviously must be some reason I have turned down every invitation to perform at the Twilight. As sought-after a performer as I am, you can imagine what a sacrifice this was for me.”

  Maggie looked around the ramshackle apartment, with its yellowed posters and out-of-date furniture. It didn’t look like many people were beating down his door. “Why did you agree to work with the new theater company, then?”

  Mr. Dubois sighed heavily. “I was offered the part of Macbeth first, you know.” Maggie nodded along, but she doubted it. He was about forty years too old to play the lead.

  He sat up straighter and put his hand to his heart. “‘Alas,’ I said to the director, ‘Irene, you know I can’t possibly set foot on the Twilight stage as a performer. Please stop begging me!’ But she wouldn’t relent, so I finally agreed to act as the assistant director as a favor to her. I was foolish and naive enough to think that perhaps I could avoid the theater’s curse, but once I saw the ghost light was extinguished…” He sighed dramatically. “I knew the production was doomed. I had no choice but to bow out gracefully.” Maggie almost laughed out loud. His exit had been anything but graceful.

  Tanya looked down at the notes she had been taking. “Where do you think this curse came from? I mean, what do you think would cause it?”

  Mr. Dubois took a deep breath and closed his eyes, thinking. “I can think of only one reason.”

  “What is it?” Tanya asked.

  But Maggie figured out the answer before he even spoke. She understood the hunger for fame, and she knew that there was nothing on earth that could make an actress willingly walk away from a chance at stardom. Maggie couldn’t begin to guess what had transpired on that ill-fated opening night, but she did know one thing: Something terrible had happened to Vivien Vane, and the curse was her revenge.

  CHAPTER

  15

  LATER THAT NIGHT Kawanna handed Clio a set of keys and put her hands gently on her niece’s head. “Explore all you want, but at least promise me that you’ll be careful.” She had more lines around her eyes than Maggie remembered, and a few gray hairs had begun to thread their way through her dreadlocks, but Maggie was relieved to see that her nails were freshly painted red, with a tiny silver knife on each nail.

  “We will,” Maggie promised. She pointed at Kawanna’s hands. “I love them!”

  Kawanna waggled her fingers. “Bloody daggers! Getting ready for opening night next week!” She gave a last wave to the girls and swept back through the double doors to the auditorium.

  “Where’s Juniper?” Rebecca asked. The girls sat on the landing of the grand staircase in the Twilight’s lobby with a theater blueprint spread out on the floor in front of them.

  “They’re not working on any of Emily’s scenes, so she didn�
��t have to be at rehearsal,” Maggie said. “The rest of the cast is in there.” She pointed to the closed sets of double doors leading to the auditorium. “And hopefully, that’s where all the spooky stuff will stay tonight.”

  “So we have the rest of the theater to ourselves to explore?” Clio asked. She stood up to examine the multitiered dry crystal fountain on the landing. Her finger brushed a line of dust off the gold basin, and she wiped her hand on her jeans, careful to avoid the embroidered flowers that twined up one leg.

  “Hey, don’t forget we’re not here for fun,” Maggie said.

  “‘Not here for fun’?” Rebecca folded her arms and narrowed her eyes. “All right, who are you and what did you do with the real Maggie?” she joked.

  “You guys, I’m serious. We have to find out what cursed the Twilight. Mr. Dubois said it must be revenge for something, and it’s definitely connected to Vivien Vane. I think Vivien is targeting Emily because she’s playing the role that Vivien was meant to play—Lady Macbeth. We have to protect Emily and Juniper, and maybe by figuring out what happened to Vivien, we can find a way to break the curse before it’s too late.”

  “But I don’t understand how she can still be alive,” Rebecca said. “I mean, she’d be like way over a hundred years old by now!” She squatted over the blueprint, the loaded pockets of her fitted black cargo pants straining with the gear she had packed for a night of urban exploring. Instead of her signature stylish high-tops, she wore an old pair of classic black vans with holes in the toes.

  “Well, according to Ethan she’s definitely not dead,” Clio said, dusting off the hem of her blush-pink linen top. “I wish he were here tonight, too. He wanted to come, but his family’s heading out of town early tomorrow morning, and he had to pack.”

  “Where are they going?” Rebecca asked.

  “His mom finished her PhD, so their family is celebrating with a trip to Maui,” Clio answered. “They won’t be back until after opening night.”

  “Bummer,” Maggie said. “Even though Vivien’s not a ghost, it would be nice to have him around to help anyway.”

  Tanya tapped the blueprint with one finger. “We may not know what Vivien is, but we do know that she walked into the Twilight on opening night and was never seen again. Somewhere in this theater there must be a clue about what happened to her. All we have to do is find it.”

  “But this place is huge,” Clio said. “Where do we start?”

  “I was thinking about that,” Maggie said. “Remember when I found Juniper on the stairwell headed down to the basement? There must be something down there. And this time I came prepared.” She pulled a glittery pink headlamp out of her new silver, quilted backpack and put it on. It matched perfectly with her black PART UNICORN T-shirt and pink and black star-print leggings.

  “Very stylish,” Tanya said drily. She strapped on a simple black headlamp and clipped an extra flashlight to the belt of her boyfriend jeans. She slipped a small hiking backpack over the shoulders of her FEMINIST T-shirt and stood up. “All right, Mags, show us where to go.”

  Maggie stood up straighter. Finally. A chance to be in charge. The others followed Maggie down the stairs. She paused in front of the dark doorway to the nursery.

  “What’s in there?” Clio whispered.

  “That’s the creepy nursery,” Maggie whispered back.

  “Should we check it out?” Clio asked.

  Maggie shuddered. “Not if we don’t have to.” She pushed open the fire door and flipped on the basement stairwell lights. The bare bulbs were sparsely placed, and several were burnt out, so the way downward was shadowy and treacherous, occasional pools of yellow light beckoning like oases. Maggie pointed down to the first landing. “That’s where I found Juniper last time.” She gripped the painted metal handrail tightly and started down the staircase, her friends following closely behind.

  They reached the landing and stopped. The flight of stairs below them was unlit. Maggie looked into the inky darkness with trepidation. What was waiting for them down there? She felt frozen in place.

  “Okay, everybody. Headlamps on.” Tanya switched on her own and patted Maggie on the shoulder. “You still leading the way?”

  “Um, yeah. Sure.” Maggie gulped and tried to pry her fingers from the handrail, but she couldn’t seem to make herself let go.

  Clio looked at Maggie’s anxious expression. “Actually, why don’t we let Tanya go first?”

  Maggie turned to look at Clio. “Why?”

  “She and her family go camping and hiking all the time. You know how good she is at that outdoorsy stuff.”

  “But we’re not outdoors,” Maggie said.

  “You know what I mean. That walking-around-in-the-dark kind of stuff.”

  Maggie bristled. “And I’m not?”

  “I don’t know; I’m sure you’re great at it, too. You can go first if you want to.”

  Maggie didn’t want to go first. At all. She considered both the outdoors and the dark to be hazardous environments she should avoid at all costs. Both created too many opportunities to walk face-first into a spiderweb. “It’s okay. Tanya can take the lead. Just this once.”

  “I’ll go last and make sure nobody falls behind,” Rebecca offered. The group slowly made their way down the second staircase until they reached the bottom. Tanya played her flashlight beam over an arched tunnel that branched in several directions. The walls and ceiling were made of stone and seemed to be much older than the rest of the theater.

  “It’s like a labyrinth down here,” Rebecca said. “Which way do we go?”

  “Good question,” Tanya said. “Should we split up?”

  “Are you kidding?! No way!” Maggie grabbed Tanya’s arm. “We could get lost down here, or worse! Besides, we still don’t know where Vivien is. We have to stick together.”

  Tanya sighed. “Fine.” She pointed to the tunnel’s main branch. “Let’s go that way.” They followed it, pausing to point their flashlights into the arched doorways they passed. The first few looked like storage rooms, with old cartons of stage lights, stacks of colored gels, and snaky piles of orange extension cords. As the tunnel moved downward, the chambers along it were empty. Tanya was moving quickly now, but she stopped abruptly.

  “What is it?” Maggie asked.

  “Look.” Tanya’s headlamp reflected off a pool of water that stretched as far as the light could reach. “The river must have flooded this part of the tunnel. Let’s turn back and try another one.”

  This time they followed the route that branched to the left. The storage rooms along this route held an odder assortment of items. In one Maggie noticed a purple-and-black box with slots in it, the kind a magician would use to saw someone in half. She noticed a large rusty stain at the bottom of the box, near one of the sawing slots. She remembered the Register’s headline about the ill-fated magic show, and her stomach twisted. “We should keep going.”

  The final storage room at the tunnel’s end was different. Instead of an open archway it had a heavy metal door with a rusted iron padlock. “Why does this one have a door?” Clio asked, tugging on the padlock.

  “Probably to keep people from finding whatever’s inside.” Tanya reached into her backpack and pulled out a small J-shaped crowbar. “Which is why I brought this.” She threaded the notched end of the crowbar into the lock’s loop and pulled on the handle, straining against the lock until it snapped open.

  “Whoa,” Maggie said. “I was totally about to make fun of you for bringing a crowbar, but never mind.”

  “Never underestimate the power of physics,” Tanya said with a grin. She dropped the crowbar back into her pack and gently pulled open the door.

  The beams of their flashlights revealed a small chamber with a stone floor, covered by a threadbare Persian rug. There was a long, narrow table near the doorway with a tarnished silver candelabra in the middle. Mountains of candle wax covered the table’s surface. Clio picked up a book of matches sitting on the table’s edge. Magg
ie could see a green horseshoe and the words GOOD LUCK CLUB printed in red on the matchbook’s cover. Clio lit the pale-pink candles, revealing more of the chamber.

  A sagging red and gold brocade divan was pushed against one wall, a pile of stained silk pillows clustered along one end. A vanity with an angled gold mirror and a torn red velvet stool took up the opposite wall. Maggie could see pasty stage makeup laid out in front of the mirror, and one of those old-fashioned cut-glass perfume bottles. There was a wheeled clothing rack shoved in next to it with moth-eaten fur coats and velvet capes draped haphazardly on the old satin hangers. Waxy red tally marks covered every wall from ceiling to floor. Curled, yellowed posters for the Ziegfeld Follies and other old shows hung like peeling skin, and mummified bouquets of roses, dried and black, sat in vases on every available surface. In one corner of the room the wall had begun to crumble, leaving a dark hole behind. “What is this place?” Rebecca whispered.

  “It looks like a dressing room,” Clio said. She picked up one of the cards tucked into the vanity’s mirror and read it aloud. “To Vivien: Best wishes for a dazzling opening night. Cecil B. DeMille.” She put the card down, puzzled. “Why was Vivien’s dressing room all the way down here?” She looked again at the door. “And why was it locked from the outside?”

  Clio noticed another note, this one fastened to the wall with the tip of a knife. She pried the knife out of the wall and read the note: “Vivien—I’m sorry. It’s my only chance to shine. —Norma.” She looked up. “Norma Desmond was her understudy, and it’s dated October 24, 1929, the opening night of the Twilight.”

  Just then, the door swung shut with a clang. Rebecca jumped back, and her headlamp revealed deep scratches in the door’s surface.

  Her eyes widened with fear. “This wasn’t Vivien’s dressing room. It was her prison.”