by Kat Shepherd
He looked up in surprise. “Oh. Thanks, but I’m not quite there yet. I’m still on book.”
“What part are you playing?” Maggie asked.
“Duncan. He’s the king.”
Maggie clapped her hands together. “Cool! That must be a really big part.”
Alan smiled self-deprecatingly. “Not really. I get stabbed almost immediately.”
Maggie looked horrified. “Whoa. I don’t know if I would want to play someone who gets murdered.” She thought for a moment. “Although it might be fun to die in a play. I would make it super dramatic!”
“That would be fun. The audience doesn’t see Duncan get killed, but there are plenty of other parts that get to die gruesomely onstage.”
“Really?!”
“It’s a very stabby play,” Alan said. “Tons of blood.”
“Oh, wow. No wonder everyone thinks it’s bad luck.”
Alan laughed. “I wouldn’t be too worried about that. It’s just another old superstition that doesn’t really mean anything.”
“So you don’t believe it? But you’re an actor!”
Alan shrugged. “Actually, I work at the bank. This is my first play.”
Maggie blinked. “So you’re not, like, a professional actor?”
“Most of us aren’t.” Alan pointed at the man practicing his swordplay. “Jeremy over there is a professor at the college.” He pointed to a petite woman with her gray hair cut in a bob. “And Helen is a retired zookeeper. Acting is just something we do for fun.”
Maggie felt her heart sink a little bit. “Oh.”
Seeing Maggie’s face, Alan closed his book. “It’s hard to make a living from acting, so lots of people who love theater work at other jobs and act in their spare time. But it doesn’t mean we don’t have talent. There are a few folks here who’ve done it professionally, like Kawanna.” Maggie nodded. “And Emily was an actress in New York. She did a lot of commercials and TV shows, and she even taught improv comedy.”
“Really?” Maggie asked. “I didn’t know that!”
Alan smiled. “And I don’t think you’ve met Myles yet. He’s our assistant director. He spent his life as a working stage actor until he retired and moved to Piper. He’s a real character and chock-full of stories.”
“Wow.” Maggie felt her heart lift back up again.
Alan pointed to a white-haired man striding forcefully down the aisle toward the stage. “Oh, there he is now.” Myles Dubois had a pointy goatee and was dressed all in black and wore a beret and horn-rimmed glasses.
Irene, the director, hurried after Myles, her face etched with worry. “But Myles, you can’t just quit! Please, we need you! You’re the most experienced member of our company!”
Myles stomped up the stairs to the stage, his battered, expensive-looking boots pounding on the floorboards. His voice projected through the vast room. “I’m sorry, but my decision is final. I simply cannot work under these conditions.”
By now everyone in the theater had turned to watch. Maggie plucked at Alan’s sleeve. “What conditions? What’s he talking about?” she whispered.
Alan frowned. “I don’t know. Everything seems fine to me.”
“Irene.” Myles closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He slowly opened them, and his gaze raked across the audience of curious onlookers. “I had my reservations about taking any job in the Twilight, but I put them aside out of respect for you.” He dipped his head and made a small sweeping hand gesture as though he was taking a bow. “But I was the first to arrive at the theater this afternoon, and it was dark.” He paused for emphasis. “Completely dark.”
Irene’s green eyes narrowed in confusion. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I understand.”
“You must know perfectly well what I’m talking about.” Myles pointed imperiously to the bare light bulb that stood on a stand in the center of the stage. It was the one Maggie had seen flicker out on her first day at the theater. The bulb was still not working. “Everyone knows the ghost light must be kept on when the theater is dark, and it wasn’t.”
“That’s the ghost light?” Maggie whispered to Alan. “What is he talking about?”
“Beats me,” Alan said. “I’ve never heard of it.”
Myles folded his arms and looked down his nose at the director. “Honestly, do none of you have any respect for tradition at all? Where’s Kawanna? She’ll understand.”
Irene ran her hand through her short gray hair. “She’s at town hall filing some paperwork. I assure you the light was working last week, but we seem to be having electrical problems. I’m sorry it wasn’t on when you arrived today, but we’ve added it to the repair list we’ve given the contractors. Obviously everyone’s safety is our top priority. We will be sure to leave other lights on in the meantime until we can get it fixed.”
“Good God, Irene, do you think I’m some fragile old fool who’s worried about stumbling over something in the dark?” Myles’s voice boomed across the theater. “The ghost light isn’t for us! And now that you’ve been careless enough to let it go out, I can only imagine the bad luck that’s going to rain down on this place.”
“Bad luck? Surely you’re joking,” Irene said.
Myles’s fingers made a swirling gesture around his face. “Does this look like a face that jokes?” His steely gaze swept the room. “The ghost light is a sign. This building is cursed. And each and every one of us is cursed now, too.”
The theater went as silent as a grave, and Maggie could have sworn she saw the stage lights dim.
CHAPTER
6
AFTER A MOMENT of stunned silence, nervous laughter rippled among the cast and crew. Maggie leaned over to Alan. “This is like a prank, right?”
Alan shook his head. “Myles Dubois does not play pranks. I’ve never even heard him crack a joke.”
Myles bristled at the scattered laughter and disbelieving faces around him. “You really are a bunch of fools. I should have known better than to join a company of amateurs.” His voice dripped with scorn. He flounced off the stage and into the aisle. “You mark my words. You’ll all be sorry.” Myles slammed through the door, barely avoiding Emily, who had just arrived. Emily jumped backward and pulled Juniper out of the way just in time.
The cast and crew erupted in a buzz of flurried questions. Emily slid into the seat next to Maggie, pulling Juniper onto her lap. “What was that all about?” Juniper waved to Maggie.
Alan leaned forward. “Oh, you know how Myles can be. He went on about some kind of ghost-light thing, insisted we were all cursed, and quit the production. You know, the usual.”
Maggie reached into her babysitting bag and handed one of her old dolls to Juniper to play with. “Wait, so he’s done this before?”
Alan’s mouth twisted into a wry smile. “Well, the curse is new, but he’s been threatening to quit since the first day of rehearsal.”
Emily sighed and shook her head. “I hate to say this, but maybe it’s for the best. Poor Irene was bending herself into pretzels trying to keep him happy.” She gave Juniper a squeeze and kissed her forehead. “You ready to play with Maggie while Mommy goes to work?” Juniper nodded, and Emily slid the little girl off her lap and stood up. “Oh, and can you let me know if you happen to see my black leather tote bag around? I can’t find it anywhere, and I think I must have left it here at the last rehearsal.”
“We’ll definitely keep an eye out for it.” Maggie took Juniper’s hand. “Kawanna said there’s an old nursery downstairs, so I thought it might be fun to play there today, if that’s okay.”
“Sounds great,” Emily said. “See you soon!” She and Alan picked up their scripts and joined the other actors gathered on the stage while Maggie led Juniper out into the lobby.
“The nursery is just down these stairs.” Maggie held Juniper’s free hand as the little girl clutched the tarnished brass banister and walked carefully down the carpeted grand stairwell that led to the Twilight’s lower level. “Did you kno
w there’s supposedly a restaurant and even a ballroom down here, too? I haven’t seen them yet, but if they’re nice inside, maybe next time we can invite some friends and have a dance party!”
Maggie followed the sign at the bottom of the stairs, which pointed past a frosted glass door. “Ladies’ Lounge,” Maggie read on the door as she walked past. “I’m guessing that’s just the bathroom? Everything was so much fancier back then.”
The door to the nursery was open. Maggie flipped on the light, expecting to see a bright, cheerful space like the childcare room in the basement of St. Paul’s, the church where she went with her parents. Instead she found herself in the doorway of a dim room with a low ceiling painted to look like the inside of a striped circus tent. The once vibrant colors had darkened to a grim mustard and maroon, and they met at a brass elephant chandelier hanging at the ceiling’s center. The elephants’ trunks arched out gracefully from the fixture’s base, each supporting a flame-shaped amber bulb.
The circus theme continued in the dingy murals along the walls, where leering clowns and acrobats swung from trapezes and leaped through flaming rings. Painted crowds looked on, their mouths gaping in perfect, round Os of wonderment. A sad bear on a bicycle made his unsteady way across an open field, and a monkey in a tutu crouched atop a swaybacked horse that jumped listlessly over a hurdle. “Jeez, this is a one-way ticket to Creeptown,” Maggie said softly. “They must have had a really different idea of what kids liked back in the 1920s or whatever.” She looked down to ask Juniper if she wanted to leave, but the little girl wasn’t next to her.
A dollhouse replica of the theater sat on a low, lacquer table across the room, and Juniper knelt in front of it, fascinated. She held up a blond doll that lay on the stage. “Look! This one’s Mommy!”
“Oh, so you want to stay down here?”
Juniper grinned. “Of course! Look at all these toys! Can we play here every day?” She walked her doll across the stage and made it take a bow.
“Sure, I guess.” Maggie ran her hand over an open crate filled with neatly stacked wooden blocks and peered into a bin of tin trucks. She picked up a dented red fire engine and spun one wheel. The wheel squealed as it turned on its axle, and Maggie dropped it back in the bin. She wandered over to a puppet theater next to a cloudy, wall-mounted mirror in the corner. The puppet theater’s painted curtain matched the one upstairs: midnight blue with sparkling silver stars. A few puppets sagged over the edge, and Maggie lifted the head of the nearest one and brushed aside the sticky, coarse hair to reveal a grotesque face with a ruddy, bulbous nose and pointed chin. “OMG, nightmare alert!” she cried, dropping the puppet like a hot pan. “Seriously. What was wrong with people back then?”
Near the dollhouse Maggie spied a wicker basket with a few holes in its sides. She bent over and peeked in, but she recoiled quickly at the musty smell emanating from the shredded stuffed animals tucked inside. “Oh, gross! I think the mice might have taken this one over.” She picked it up and held it at arm’s length. “I’m just going to go dump the whole thing in the trash can in the lobby. Do you want to come with me?”
Juniper didn’t answer. She had found another doll, this one with dark hair and a beard. She sang to herself, dancing both dolls across the stage. Maggie put the basket down and tapped the little girl on the shoulder. “Juni.”
The little girl barely looked up, still focused on the dolls. “Yeah?”
“I said I’m going to go throw this away. Will you be okay playing here for a minute, or do you want to come with me?”
“I want to stay here. I’m busy,” Juniper answered.
“Okay, Juni, you do you. I’ll be right back.” Maggie left the nursery door open and carried the basket gingerly in front of her. “Please don’t let there still be mice living in here,” she said under her breath as she trotted up the stairs. “Or worse … rats!” The lobby was quiet, and Maggie made a beeline for the nearest trash can, lifted up the top, and dumped the basket and its contents inside. “Oh, grossgrossgrossgrossgross!” She clapped the cover back on the trash can, careful not to look too closely in case there were a few squirming rodents at the bottom.
Maggie hurried back downstairs, her skin still crawling. “I definitely need to wash my hands.” She popped her head back in the nursery. “Hey, Juni, time for a bathroom break. Let’s go!”
Juni’s back was to Maggie. She had put other dolls in the audience seats, and the blond doll stood in the middle of the stage. Maggie could hear the girl whispering to herself. She smiled, remembering being little and all the times she had been so caught up in her pretend games that a meteor could have landed in her room and she wouldn’t have noticed. Maggie drew closer to hear what she was saying.
Juniper’s whispering voice was sharp with intensity. “The sleeping and the dead are but as pictures. ’Tis the eye of childhood that fears a painted devil.”
An alarm bell went off somewhere in Maggie’s mind. These weren’t things a four-year-old would say. “Juni?” The little girl didn’t hear her, and Maggie put her hand on Juniper’s shoulder. “Juni!”
The little girl’s wide brown eyes blinked and looked up at Maggie. “What?”
“What were you talking about just now?”
Juniper’s face softened into an easy smile. “I was doing the play! Mommy was saying the lady’s part.”
Maggie relaxed, realizing the little girl must be quoting lines from Macbeth. “I know your mom’s been practicing a lot, but you’re a pretty smart kid to remember all those hard words, too.”
Juniper shrugged. “She says them all the time. She’s always whispering.” She held the doll up to her ear. “Whisper, whisper, whisper. It gets annoying.”
Maggie gently guided Juniper out of the room. “All moms can be annoying sometimes. Now let’s go take our bathroom break and check on the rehearsal upstairs. We can come back and play in a little while, okay?” Juniper didn’t really seem to be listening, so Maggie simply shepherded her down the hall toward the frosted glass door she had seen earlier. She swung open the door and switched on the lights.
The ladies’ lounge was a well-preserved round room with a richly patterned carpet. The pink walls were lined with sixteen mirrored vanities built into gold-paneled nooks along the perimeter. Gold molding trimmed the creamy ceiling, and a small crystal chandelier hung from a rosette in the center. A thick layer of dust lay on everything. At the far end of the room was a doorway with a sign that said RESTROOMS. “Wow,” Maggie breathed. “It’s like being inside a jewelry box. Just imagine how pretty it will be when it’s all cleaned up!”
Juniper ran to the center of the room and twirled, giggling as she watched herself reflected in the mirrors that surrounded her. “Hang on,” Maggie said, and ushered the little girl through to the long hall of marble-floored restrooms. Instead of stalls, the toilets were tucked into tiny compartments with pink doors that stretched from floor to ceiling. Maggie’s footsteps echoed as she checked the compartments until she found one with toilet paper and a door that could open and close easily. “Okay, here you go. I’ll see you at the sinks in a second. Let me know if you need any help.”
The sink room had black marble walls and yellow sinks, and the cracked tile floors were a simple geometric mosaic. Juniper came skipping in a moment later. “This is the prettiest, prettiest,” she sang.
“For sure, Juni. I can’t even decide which part I like best, but I think maybe the room with all the mirrors.”
“Me, too! It’s so pretty, pretty, pretty,” Juniper sang as she pranced and spun her way through the lounge. She sat down at one of the vanities and made faces in the mirror. “Let’s pretend we’re fancy ladies getting ready!” She leaned forward and pursed her lips at her reflection. “I am very fancy, and I must get ready,” she said, her voice deepening. “I must have my diamonds and jewels!”
Maggie sat at the vanity next to her and imagined what it must have felt like to have been a guest at the theater the night it opened, when the loun
ge was crowded with elegant women in gorgeous clothes, powdering their noses or doing whatever ladies did back then. She pulled open the vanity’s drawer and discovered a golden lipstick tube and matching compact inside, each monogrammed with a V. “Cool! Look what I found!” She looked at the tube’s label, PHANTOM RED, and unscrewed the lid to reveal a waxy stick in deep vermilion. The lipstick had a rancid smell, so she quickly recapped it and put it back in the drawer.
“Watch me, Maggie!” Juniper was back in the center of the room, twirling with dizzying speed. She pointed at the mirrors as she spun. “Look! Junis everywhere!”
Maggie laughed. “It looks pretty awesome.” Juniper’s pink dress and blond hair blended with the pink and gold of the room, and her reflection bounced among the mirrors, refracting like a kaleidoscope.
Maggie caught the scent of perfume, and she bent down to pick up a few dried rose petals she noticed on the floor under the vanity. She held them to her face, but she didn’t smell anything.
Something in Juniper’s reflection changed, and Maggie’s eye was drawn to the mirror again. Next to the spinning girl stood a woman in a red gown, her arms encased in long, white elbow-length gloves. Her face was obscured by a red hat and a heavy net veil.
Maggie smiled. “Oh, are they already doing the costume fittings?” she began to ask, but the question died in her throat when she turned around.
The woman had disappeared, and Juniper still spun across the floor as though she had never been there at all.
CHAPTER
7
JUNIPER STOPPED SPINNING. “What did you say?”
“Oh, sorry, I was talking to someone else.” Maggie looked around. “Wasn’t there a lady in here a second ago, wearing a costume? I thought I saw her in the mirror.”
“Lady, lady, lady…” Juniper sang, dancing toward the door. “Lady in the mirror…” She hopped on one foot.
“Let’s go back upstairs and check in with your mom,” Maggie said distractedly. She glanced around the room. Where had the woman gone?