by J. A. White
As Cordelia turned the first corner, she nearly collided with Dr. Roqueni.
“Sorry!” Cordelia exclaimed.
“No worries,” Dr. Roqueni replied with a smile. Even this early in the morning she managed to look sleek and stylish, with a gray pencil skirt, navy blue blouse, and paisley-framed glasses. “You’re here bright and early. Chorus rehearsal?”
Cordelia nodded, jumping at the ready-made excuse.
“Hmm,” Dr. Roqueni said with a thoughtful expression. “But now that I think about it, chorus doesn’t start for another twenty minutes.”
“My dad had to drop me off extra early, so he could get to work on time,” Cordelia said. That part, at least, was true. “I know students aren’t supposed to be in the building this early, but it’s freezing outside.”
“Tell me about it,” Dr. Roqueni said. “I’ve never gotten used to the weather here. I feel like I spend November through March in a constant state of shivering. How’s this? I’ll let you remain in the warmth, but in exchange you keep me company on my morning walk-through, at least until your rehearsal begins.” She added, as way of explanation: “I like to check the building out before everyone arrives, make sure there’s nothing that requires my immediate attention.”
“Sounds great,” Cordelia said. She liked the idea of hanging out with Dr. Roqueni, and there would still be plenty of time to perform her experiment before the other students arrived.
“It’s hard to believe we’re already two months into the school year,” Dr. Roqueni said, walking at a rapid clip. Cordelia had to hustle to keep up. “How’s Shadow School working out for you?”
“Good.”
“Have you made any friends? I see you with Agnes Matheson a lot.”
“Agnes is great.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that,” Dr. Roqueni said. “That girl can use a friend. You still miss sunny California?”
“Every day. Things were . . . simpler there.”
“I feel you,” Dr. Roqueni said with a wistful look. “Before I started working at Shadow School I was living in Paris. My favorite place in the world. I couldn’t imagine ever leaving it.”
“Why did you?”
“Family obligation,” Dr. Roqueni said. “We don’t always get to pick the life we lead, Cordelia. Sometimes it gets picked for us. You must understand that as well as anyone.”
They continued to walk through the halls, talking about this and that. Just outside one of the language arts classrooms, Dr. Roqueni noticed an essay that had fallen from a bulletin board. She picked it up, nearly touching the foot of the ghost standing there, a young girl wearing a Little League uniform with Bearcats scrawled across the chest.
“Now where does this go?” Dr. Roqueni asked, oblivious to the girl.
Cordelia swallowed, doing her best to ignore the ghost.
“Over there,” she suggested, pointing to a vacant spot on the board.
“Perfect,” Dr. Roqueni said. She dug a pushpin out of her pocket and reattached the essay. “I’m telling you, half my job is keeping these bulletin boards up and running.” She glanced down at her watch. “Thank you for keeping me company, Cordelia. Now I believe you have a chorus practice to get to.”
“It was nice talking to you,” Cordelia said, waving goodbye as she headed down the hallway.
“Cordelia?” Dr. Roqueni called after her. “The music room is the other way.”
“Duh,” Cordelia said, switching directions. “Sorry about that. Still learning how this school works, I guess.”
Dr. Roqueni smiled.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “You’ll get it eventually.”
After two flights of stairs and one wrong turn, Cordelia finally approached the woman staring at herself in the antique mirror. The electric sconces hadn’t been switched on yet, so Cordelia had to make do with curtain-muffled sunlight. It was enough to see the intense look of frustration on the ghost’s pale face, as though her own reflection was a puzzle she couldn’t solve.
Cordelia pulled a makeup kit from her stuffed backpack.
It had been a gift from her aunt Eileen, a successful real estate agent who seemed impatient for her only niece to hit adolescence. The kit was still in its shrink wrap. Cordelia unwrapped it now and removed a tube of lipstick, which she rolled toward the woman in front of the mirror. The ghost glanced around with a confused look, as though she had heard her doorbell ring but found only an empty porch when she opened the door. She reached down for the lipstick. Her hand didn’t pass through the silver tube, but she wasn’t able to curl her fingers around it, either. It was as though her hands were frozen solid. The best she could do was nudge the lipstick with her fingers.
The woman huffed in annoyance and returned to studying her reflection.
It’s close to what she needs, Cordelia thought. But not exactly right.
Cordelia tried an eyeliner pencil, with the same result, then a bottle of pink nail polish. This time, the ghost’s hand passed right through it. Her lips tightened, as though she suspected someone was playing a cruel trick on her, and she took a few angry steps toward Cordelia.
The nail polish is completely wrong, Cordelia thought. Getting colder.
She stood perfectly still and forced herself to look away until the moment passed. Once the woman returned to studying her reflection, Cordelia decided to give it one more try. She got as close as she dared and slid a blush compact across the floor. The ghost smiled with delight and snatched it up as deftly as any living person. She removed the brush and instantly started applying it to her ashen cheeks.
Duh, Cordelia thought. She’s so pale. Of course blush is what she would want first. I have to be more observant.
The black triangle appeared a few moments later. When the door slid open this time, it wasn’t firelight that filled the room but the bright, pulsating lights of a party. While Newspaper Man’s lights had been warm and peaceful, perfect for reading a leather-bound book on a snowy winter evening, these lights promised dancing and excitement. Cordelia thought she might have even heard a thumping bass line in the distance.
They’re going to different places, Cordelia thought.
The woman floated upward and vanished. There was so much that Cordelia still didn’t understand, but one thing was for certain: Newspaper Man hadn’t been a fluke. She had figured out how to help the ghosts.
“Who’s next?” she asked.
9
Brightkeys
The three children met behind the school during recess. Benji didn’t like missing his soccer time, but Agnes attended a gifted-and-talented program at the local college after school and couldn’t stay past dismissal. Besides, Cordelia didn’t want to wait that long to tell them the good news about Blush Lady. The moment they were alone, she relayed the morning’s events in a rush of triumph. She expected congratulatory words and high fives, perhaps a brief smattering of applause.
Instead, her friends stared at her with marked disapproval.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Benji said, kneeing his soccer ball into the air. “It was way too dangerous.”
“I agree,” Agnes said. “There’s so much about these ghosts we don’t understand. What if the woman had attacked you when you didn’t give her the correct item?”
Benji nodded.
“We need to make decisions as a group from now on,” he said.
Cordelia looked from Benji to Agnes with disbelief.
“Well, I’m glad you two are getting along,” she mumbled.
Cordelia exhaled a plume of cold air and pulled her woolen hat over her ears. It wasn’t even Thanksgiving yet, and the temperature had already dropped below anything she had ever experienced. She was bundled up with a winter coat, a scarf, and gloves. Agnes was wearing a light jacket. Benji was wearing shorts.
There’s something wrong with them, Cordelia thought, shivering.
“What’s done is done,” Agnes said. “And trying to free another ghost was definitely the next logical s
tep. In an experiment, you always test your hypothesis multiple times to make sure your conclusion is correct.”
“What did we learn, exactly?” Benji asked while juggling the soccer ball with alternating feet. “Each ghost needs a special object in order to send them into—whatever waits for them past the triangle?”
“I think it’s a different place for each ghost,” Cordelia said. “Whatever makes them happy. The man with the newspaper wanted a quiet place to read. The woman wanted somewhere fun and exciting.” Cordelia smiled, the name coming to her all at once. “The triangle takes them to their bright place. Or just . . . Bright. That’s catchier.”
“I like that,” Benji said. “As long as we’re naming things, what about the objects that send these ghosts along their way? We’ll need a special name for those as well.”
They debated it for a while. Agnes favored GFOs—“ghost-freeing objects”—but Cordelia and Benji thought that sounded like a standardized test. Since the objects unlocked the Bright, Cordelia suggested “keys” instead, which Benji amended to “Brightkeys.” The moment he said it, the three friends knew they had found their winner.
Agnes clapped her hands together. “This is so much fun!” she exclaimed. “Naming things is important. It’s another way to stay organized. I’ll add a column marked ‘Brightkeys’ to the table I made on Google Docs.”
“You made a table?” Cordelia asked.
“The most important part of any long-term experiment is staying organized from the get-go,” Agnes said with a serious look. “I’ll share the doc with both of you, so you can add information as you gather it. There’s a row for each ghost, along with the most important data points: location, clothing, age, physical appearance, observable actions. Judging from our first two test cases, these spirits are definitely trying to drop as many hints as possible about their Brightkeys. A man with a newspaper needs glasses. A woman looking in the mirror needs makeup. Pretty obvious.”
“They’re looking for help,” Cordelia said. “Like a shipwrecked sailor lighting flares and waving his arms back and forth.”
“Or maybe it’s not in their control at all,” Benji suggested. “Maybe someone’s trying to help them, like a guardian angel.”
“Do you think all the Brightkeys will be as easy to figure out as the first two?” Agnes asked.
Cordelia and Benji shook their heads in unison.
“The man in the gray suit is just looking out the window,” Benji said. “That’s not much to go on. He could want anything.”
“Same thing with the boy in the gym,” Cordelia added. “He’s wearing pajamas, which gives me some ideas, but I’d have to try them out to be sure.”
Cordelia caught Agnes looking at them with a twinge of envy in her eyes, as though they were describing a party to which she hadn’t been invited. She can’t see the ghosts, Cordelia reminded herself. We have to be careful what we say so she doesn’t feel left out.
“You think this will work for every ghost?” Cordelia asked Agnes, tossing her a question so she could be included. “Do they all have Brightkeys?”
“Let’s assume so until we learn otherwise,” Agnes said. “It’s just a matter of figuring it out. That’s why you need to be as detailed as possible when you describe them.” She looked down. “That’s the only way I’ll be able to help you.”
“I could try drawing them,” Cordelia suggested.
“Great,” Agnes said. “You do that, and Benji can fill out the table.”
“There’s homework now?” Benji asked. “These ghosts are the worst.”
“Sorry,” Agnes said. “Cordelia told me I was in charge of ‘figuring stuff out.’ And if we really want to understand what’s going on, we need to gather as much information as possible. That’s the only way we’ll see if there are any patterns to all this.”
“I think it’s an amazing idea,” Cordelia said.
Agnes blushed.
“One more thing,” she said. “One of you mentioned that certain ghosts are opaque while others are translucent?”
“Wasn’t me,” Benji replied. “I don’t even know what those words mean.”
“You can see through some ghosts, but not all of them.”
“Oh,” Benji said. “That was me. Yeah, the ghosts tend to gradually disappear for some reason. Like the girl on the third floor, wearing the bicycle helmet? She’s faded a little since September. And when I came back after the summer there were a few ghosts that were completely gone.”
“That’s good, right?” Cordelia asked. “That means they escaped on their own.”
“I’m not sure,” Benji said. “Newspaper Man went to a good place. You could feel it when he passed through the triangle. The ghosts that disappear, though—they don’t seem so happy about it. Almost like they’re sick.” He threw his hands into the air. “But that doesn’t make sense, right? How can a dead person get sick?”
“It’s useless trying to draw any conclusions yet,” Agnes said. “We need more specific data first. Let’s use a scale to identify each ghost’s stage of visibility, so we can see which ones are getting close to the end. Something simple. How about one to three, with one being they look like you and me, and three being they’re almost invisible.”
“We should probably focus on helping the threes first,” Cordelia said. “Since they’re the closest to disappearing completely.”
Agnes nodded. “I’ll add a column to the table,” she said.
“More homework,” Benji muttered.
“Stop whining,” Cordelia said. “We’re the only ones who can help these poor people. We have to.”
Benji’s expression turned solemn. “I know,” he said.
A silence settled over the group as they pondered the sheer responsibility of this new undertaking. This wasn’t like finishing a book report by its due date or remembering to put your yogurt container in the recycling bin.
We can’t mess this up. It’s too important.
Cordelia wished there was a grown-up who could tell them whether or not they were doing things the right way. Maybe I should try my parents again. Or Dr. Roqueni. More than likely, the principal wouldn’t believe them. It might be even worse if she did; the adults would immediately take over, and the children would be ushered away “for their own good.” Cordelia didn’t want that. All this ghost stuff was overwhelming and terrifying, but for the first time, she felt excited about her new life.
10
Lunch
In the next few weeks, they freed eight more ghosts.
Sometimes, the Brightkey was hard to miss. The old woman making sweeping motions in the auditorium really did need a broom; the moment she touched the one Cordelia left her, a black triangle snapped into existence, spreading golden shafts of sunlight across the stage. Other Brightkeys required a sharper eye but were still fairly obvious. A young girl haunting a third-floor supply closet wore a backpack festooned with stuffed elephants, and after noticing a plastic clasp where another one used to hang, Cordelia left a replacement. The girl smiled with delight and added it to her collection. Her Bright was the greenish-yellow of African grasslands.
Cordelia and her friends celebrated each time they freed a ghost, usually with ice cream sandwiches purchased from the cafeteria vending machine. Their happiness came in different hues. Benji felt a calming relief knowing that there was one less ghost to pass in the halls. Agnes experienced the intellectual satisfaction of successfully solving a puzzle. Cordelia’s happiness was the strongest of all, perhaps because it was such a new experience: the pure joy of having done something good without expecting anything in return.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t always that easy.
Some ghosts revealed no obvious clues about their Brightkeys. The man in the gray suit. A teenager with a sullen expression sitting on the floor of the main office. A tall woman taking a nap.
What do they need? Cordelia wondered, staring up at her ceiling during sleepless nights. How can I help them?
The grou
p’s successes brought Cordelia a brief feeling of elation, but their failures could plunge her into a bad mood for days.
They cataloged all the ghosts according to Agnes’s visibility scale and tried to focus as best they could on the threes, those that seemed closest to leaving the world forever. One of them was a high school girl who was difficult to see unless you already knew she was there, like a constellation in the night sky. Since she was wearing shorts and sunglasses, they figured that maybe the girl’s Brightkey would be something from the beach. The kids ransacked their own possessions—something they were doing quite often these days—and left the girl a half-used tube of sunscreen, a bathing suit, and a towel. Her hand passed through the sunscreen, not even nudging it the slightest bit with her ghostly fingers. She ignored the other two items altogether.
At the time, Cordelia didn’t feel particularly dissuaded. They rarely nailed the Brightkey on the first attempt. She was certain they would figure out a better approach once they had a chance to brainstorm.
The next day, the girl was gone.
Cordelia had no idea what that meant, exactly. Gone. But it was far different from when the ghosts passed into the Bright. To Cordelia, it felt as though the girl had died all over again. Except this time, it was her fault.
When Cordelia and her dad drove to school one mid-December morning, there was a thin layer of snow on the ground.
“So how are things going with Mrs. Machen?” Mr. Liu asked. “You’ve been getting a lot of extra help recently, but your grades don’t seem to be improving.”
Cordelia was glad her dad was so focused on the road. Otherwise he might have seen the panicked look that flashed across her face.
“It’s helping a lot,” she said. “I know my grades still aren’t great, but without the extra help I’d probably be failing completely.”
“Maybe we should set up a conference with your teacher to talk about it.”
“No,” Cordelia said, a hair too fast. “That’s okay. I’ve got it under control.”