The Ghost Light Page 9

  CHAPTER

  16

  “VIVIEN’S UNDERSTUDY LOCKED her in this room on opening night, and she never came back for her?” Maggie gasped. “How long do you think she was trapped down here?”

  Rebecca pointed at the walls of endless lipstick-red tally marks, and Maggie swallowed thickly. “We should go back upstairs.”

  Rebecca pushed the door, but it didn’t budge. The girls looked at one another. “There’s no way this door can be locked—we broke off the padlock. It must just be stuck.” Rebecca grabbed the handle and shook it violently. Nothing happened.

  “Or maybe Vivien locked us in,” Maggie said anxiously. “Clio, does your aunt know we’re down here?”

  Clio grimaced. “She knows we’re at the theater, but that’s about it. I’ll text her.” She pulled out her phone and swore under her breath. “No signal. Of course!” Clio tapped futilely at the home screen.

  Maggie fought a rising panic. “How are we gonna get out of here?” She opened the vanity drawers and started rummaging through them.

  “What are you looking for?” Rebecca asked.

  “I don’t know!” A lipstick tube bounced out of a drawer and rolled along the floor. Maggie turned to the clothing rack, shoving aside the fur and capes.

  Rebecca shouted and pounded on the door.

  Tanya raised her voice above the panic in the room. “Guys, just chill for a second.” But nobody was listening. Finally, she put two fingers in her mouth and let out a piercing whistle. Everyone stopped and stared at her.

  “I didn’t know people could really whistle like that in real life,” Maggie whispered, stunned. “I thought it was just on TV.”

  “Yeah, well, it took a lot of practice,” Tanya said. “Now, look, don’t take this the wrong way, but if and when the Zombie Apocalypse comes, I definitely don’t want to be stuck with any of you. We’ve been in this room for less than five minutes, and you’re already panicking.” She pointed to a corner of the room. “In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a huge hole in the wall.”

  “Oh. Right.” Clio looked sheepish. “But how do you know it leads anywhere?”

  Tanya shined her flashlight into the cavity. It opened into a pipe-filled tunnel. “Vivien obviously must have gotten out of here somehow.”

  “No thanks to Norma Desmond,” Maggie said. “I can’t believe she locked Vivien down here and never came back for her!” She bent down and began tidying up the evidence of her frantic search, putting everything back into the vanity drawers. She picked up an old news clipping that showed a fresh-faced Vivien, eyes shining with excitement, posing in front of the Twilight’s marquee. MISS VANE “HONORED AND THRILLED” TO MAKE STAGE DEBUT AS LADY MACBETH, the headline read. The article went on to detail the time and work the actress had put into the role, and it ended with a quote from Vivien that made Maggie’s breath catch in her throat: I’ve been dreaming of this moment ever since I was a little girl. Maggie shook her head angrily. “I don’t care how much Norma wanted her chance to ‘shine.’ I think what she did was unforgivable.”

  “Remember, opening night was a total disaster, and the theater closed the next day,” Tanya replied. “I don’t think Norma left her here on purpose.”

  “Like that makes it any better?” Maggie asked. “What an awful way to die.”

  “Or not die,” Rebecca said, touching the red lines that marked the days Vivien had spent trapped and alone.

  “But if she can’t still be alive and she isn’t dead, then what is she?” Clio asked. “And how did she end up this way?”

  Maggie smoothed the clothing rack. “I think she’s kind of like … a ghoul. She was supposed to die, but something trapped her spirit inside her body and kept her here. I just wish we knew what.” She pushed some satin hangers aside to make room, revealing a nook in the stone wall behind.

  “What’s that?” Tanya asked. She helped Maggie roll the rack out of the way to get a closer look. The nook was piled with dead flowers, melted candles, and torn shreds of fabric and leather that were arranged like offerings.

  Maggie recognized the strips of black crocodile-print leather and heavy red velvet immediately, and she was pretty sure she knew where the fluffy white faux fur came from. “I think these are Emily’s missing things,” she said, holding up the strips.

  “That’s disturbing,” Rebecca said. She looked closer. “What is this, some kind of creepy shrine?” She shined the beam of her flashlight over a tile mosaic that covered the back wall of the nook. It showed a clearing with red-leaved trees arching over an outdoor stage. There was a white throne in the center with a figure on it, but the features were obscured by a fistful of dead roses and daisies leaning against the wall. Rebecca pushed the flowers aside and leaned in for a closer look. Suddenly she jumped back with a gasp and dropped her flashlight like it was on fire.

  “What’s wrong?!” Maggie cried. Rebecca pointed wordlessly. The figure on the throne had a long dress and a silver ram’s-horn crown. Her blue skin glinted with diamond-chip stars. Instead of hair, jointed brown spider’s legs pointed out from her head at odd angles. It was the Night Queen.

  “Oh, please, no. Not again,” Maggie said, shaking her head. “What is this doing here?”

  “What do you think?” Clio asked hollowly. “The Night Queen is behind this somehow. She has to be.”

  “Hey, we don’t know that for sure,” Tanya said encouragingly, but her voice lacked conviction. “Maybe it’s just a coincidence. Maybe it’s just … um … a really cool piece of art. You know, hidden all the way down in this … basement.” The others just stared at her. “Okay, yeah, no, the Night Queen is definitely involved. It doesn’t take a rocket science degree to make that connection.”

  “So not only do we have to figure out how to protect Emily—and the whole theater—from this stupid curse, but now we have to worry about the Night Queen again, too?” Maggie said. “Oh, that’s just perfect.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She still had nightmares about their previous run-ins with the undead queen. Maggie would awaken in a cold sweat, certain she could feel the grip of rotten hands dragging her down. And as brave a face as the other girls had tried to put on, now she knew they still had nightmares, too.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Clio said quietly. She clicked on her headlamp and led the others through the hole in the wall. They followed the pipes where they led back to the main tunnel and the staircase. No one spoke as they made their way down the spartan hallway and back into the frayed elegance of the Twilight’s lower levels. The details of the old theater began to take on new meaning as the girls passed through the empty rooms; the Night Queen’s touch seemed to be everywhere they looked. Rebecca pointed wordlessly at the inlaid wooden owls on the double doors that led to the cocktail bar. And the carpeting beneath their feet: Was that a pattern of intertwined maple leaves?

  As they walked back upstairs Maggie found she no longer cared if her friends still doubted her. The enormity of what they faced descended like a heavy weight upon her shoulders, blocking out everything else. Learning the identity of the woman in red had made everything seem way less scary for a while, and Maggie had started to feel a kind of pity for Vivien and the awful events that had led to the Twilight’s curse. But now that she realized the Night Queen was involved, Maggie felt only fear again. If the girls couldn’t break the Night Queen’s hold over Vivien, then everyone at the theater was in serious danger, especially Emily.

  CHAPTER

  17

  THE GIRLS MET at Creature Features on Sunday morning, where their usual platter of doughnuts was waiting on the counter, along with a pot of Kawanna’s famous jasmine tea. The theater’s blueprints were rolled out on the floor, and a stack of old books sat on the Persian carpet nearby.

  Never one for punctuality, Maggie was the last to arrive, and the other girls were already leafing through a few open books on the counter while they nibbled their breakfast. It was late enough in the morning that Kawanna wasn’t wearing
her usual morning meeting robe and slippers. Instead she had on a pair of boyfriend jeans with a white linen tee and a silver and turquoise squash-blossom necklace. Her hair was twisted up in an orange-and-turquoise print headwrap. She had dark circles under her eyes, but she gave Maggie a bright smile.

  Maggie plucked her favorite pink-frosted doughnut from the tarnished silver platter and took a huge bite before resting it on one of Kawanna’s spiderweb-patterned cloth napkins. “Please tell me you’ve already come up with a plan,” Maggie said half-jokingly.

  Tanya grinned and shook her head. “I wish. But Clio and Kawanna did find something that might be able to help us.”

  Clio looked up from the book she was reading. “Do you know the legend of Theophilus of Adana?”

  “Seriously?” Maggie looked at her. “Why are you even asking?”

  “Okay, well, you never know.” Clio twisted her silver ring around her finger, choosing her words carefully. “In it this priest, Theophilus, makes a deal with the devil: his soul in exchange for a job he really wanted.”

  “He sold his soul for a job? That is truly pathetic.”

  “Anyway, it’s the earliest known legend of a person making a supernatural deal with their soul. And since then there have been tons of stories, plays, and movies about that idea. And at least a few rumors about real people doing it, too, like this old blues musician, Robert Johnson. People said he couldn’t play guitar, like, at all, and then one day he was suddenly amazing at it.”

  “Okay,” Maggie said. “So where does the Night Queen fit in?”

  “Well, last night my auntie and I started doing a bunch more research on the theater’s history. Remember that guy, Graham Reynard Faust, the one who built the theater?”

  “Yeah,” Maggie said. “He was that rich guy who lost all his money.”

  “Sure, but he didn’t start out rich,” Clio said. “When he first showed up in Piper he didn’t have a penny to his name, and nobody had ever heard of him. But then he disappeared for a little while, and when he came back he suddenly had all this money and plans to build the theater. Nobody could ever figure out where the money came from.” She searched through a pile of papers and pulled one out. “And some people said he cut a lot of corners to build the Twilight in record time. There were some accidents during construction, and a few of the workers were never heard from again. Some folks in town wanted to open an investigation, but nothing came of it. It was like all of a sudden, nobody could touch him.”

  Rebecca grabbed Maggie’s arm and pulled her over to the blueprints on the floor. “Okay, now, close your eyes for a second and think. Describe the curtains on the Twilight’s stage.”

  Maggie thought for a moment. “Midnight blue … with silver stars.” She opened her eyes and saw Rebecca’s brown eyes sparkling back.

  “And last night we all noticed the owls on the doors to the bar, and the maple leaf pattern on the carpet, right?”

  “Right.”

  “That wasn’t just a coincidence. There are more owls and maple leaves in the fancy carving around the stage.” She pointed to a plan drawing of the grand staircase. “And look at this sketch of the grillwork on the staircase. Ram’s horns.”

  “Once you know to look for it, it’s everywhere,” Tanya continued. “The Stardust Ballroom had the ceiling painted to look like the night sky. The old restaurant was called the Moonlight Serenade.”

  “So what are you saying?” Maggie asked. “Do you think this Graham guy made some sort of deal with the Night Queen, and then came back and built this whole theater for her?”

  “Uh-huh.” Clio pushed up the sleeves of her fox-print shirtdress and picked up a chocolate-frosted doughnut. “And it’s not the first time it’s happened in town. Aunt Kawanna and I were looking through Miss Pearl’s papers again last night—”

  “Is that the name of the lady who used to own your shop?” Maggie asked.

  Kawanna nodded. “There were several other stories in the town’s history of people who disappeared for a while and came back with unexplained money or talents.” She folded her arms and raised one eyebrow. “One of them was a clockmaker—”

  Maggie’s eyes widened. “OMG, the clock we found at the old Plunkett mansion! I’m so glad we got rid of that thing!”

  “Exactly! And we think the theater might have been built with some kind of similar purpose. Listen to this,” Clio said. She opened to a marked page in a slim, red leather-bound volume and read aloud:

  They build a temple to the Queene

  Upon its walls her marks be seen

  The icy light of fullest moon

  Then opens up the mortals’ doom

  And power faint becomes a flood

  With sacrifice, a toll of blood.

  “Whatever that means, it sounds really bad,” Maggie said. “Doom? Blood? Sacrifice?”

  “I know,” Tanya said. “The poem suggests that the theater was supposed to become some kind of power center for the Night Queen. ‘Power faint becomes a flood.’ Not only would it allow her to come into our world whenever she wanted, but it would also let her stay here.”

  “No!” Maggie cried.

  “Lucky for us, it doesn’t seem to have worked right. Or at least, not yet. Clio thinks something might have gone wrong the night the theater opened,” Rebecca said.

  “Are you kidding?” Maggie grabbed another doughnut. “Everything went wrong that night!”

  “Yeah, but it’s possible that something went wrong for the Night Queen, too,” Clio answered. “Faust intentionally planned the opening night of the theater for a full moon. Because according to the poem, in order to harness the kind of power the Night Queen needed to make the theater hers forever, there needed to be … um … a … sacrifice during the full moon.”

  Maggie stared at Clio, speechless. Finally she found her voice. “And this Faust guy was totally okay with that?” She felt sick.

  Tanya sighed. “Maybe he didn’t know.” She opened her laptop and pulled up photos she had taken of the headlines from Mr. Dubois’s scrapbook. “I think the Night Queen didn’t plan for Vivien’s understudy just to lock her up for a few hours. I think she expected Norma to do something more, um, permanent. And when she didn’t, the queen was hoping that the other accidents that night would give her what she wanted. But no one died, and she lost her chance.”

  “But then why did she keep Vivien alive as some kind of weird ghoul? Why didn’t she just let her die so she could get what she wanted?”

  “Because Vivien wouldn’t have died on the full moon. It has to be on the full moon.” Tanya scrolled through the newspaper headlines she had photographed. “I looked up the dates of every accident at the Twilight, and every performance has been during a full moon.”

  Maggie looked over at Kawanna, who had put down her cup of tea, her face ashen. “What’s wrong?” Maggie asked her, but Clio’s aunt didn’t answer.

  Rebecca glanced briefly between the two of them, but her attention went back to the papers in front of the girls. “We think the Night Queen has been using Vivien to cause all the accidents at the theater. She’s kept her around all this time, stoking her anger, certain that her need for revenge would make her finish the work that Faust started,” Rebecca said. “But Vivien never has. She came close, and people got hurt, but she’s never brought herself to take a life.”

  “But that’s good, isn’t it?” Maggie asked. “It means that Vivien isn’t fully under the control of the Night Queen. There’s still hope.”

  “Sure,” Clio said. “But things are different this time around.”

  “Why?” Maggie asked, but before Clio could respond the answer dawned on her. “It’s because they’re performing Macbeth, isn’t it? The same play that destroyed Vivien.” Maggie imagined what it must feel like for an actress to be forced to watch someone else perform a role that was stolen from her, knowing she would never have a chance at glory. The idea was so painful it almost didn’t bear thinking about. “Every time Emily steps on stag
e, I bet Vivien must see Norma. She sees the person who betrayed her. I know I would.”

  Clio nodded. “I think you’re right.”

  Maggie took a deep breath. “Okay.” Her mind worked, trying to find a solution. “So the Night Queen is banking on Emily being the sacrifice. But maybe if we just stick to Emily and Juniper like glue during rehearsals, they’ll stay safe. And as long as we keep everyone out of the theater during the full moon, then we can keep it out of the Night Queen’s hands. And after the performance is over we’ll just let the city tear down the Twilight like it planned.” Maggie turned to Kawanna. “You’ve been really quiet, Kawanna. What do you think? Could it work?”

  Kawanna swallowed thickly. “Maybe,” she said. “But there’s just one problem.”

  “What is it?” Maggie asked.

  “Macbeth’s opening night is Friday.” Kawanna pointed weakly to the wall calendar that hung near the register. The square for Friday was circled in bright-red ink, with the words MACBETH OPENING written in all caps. But it was the tiny printing at the bottom of the square that caught the girls’ attention.

  Friday was also the date of the next full moon.

  CHAPTER

  18

  JUNIPER WAS WITH her father on Monday night, so Maggie didn’t have to babysit, but she and her friends went to dress rehearsal just the same. Emily popped by their seats to say hello and deliver a card that Juniper had made. It showed a drawing of Juniper and Maggie holding hands, and inside was scrawled I miss you! Love, Juni. “Aww,” Maggie said. “Tell that little Junebug that I miss her, too.”

  “She’s already asked if you can come and babysit at our house once the play is finished,” Emily said with a smile. “It’s not quite as glamorous as the Twilight, but we do have a very good dress-up collection!”

  Maggie grinned back at her. “That sounds perfect. I’m in!” Emily slipped away to change into her costume, and Maggie’s smile faded. She clutched the little girl’s card tightly in her hand, praying she could find a way to keep them all safe.