Shadow School #1

by J. A. White

  “I guess not,” Cordelia said. “So who?”

  They thought about this. On TV, a pop star performed her latest hit in front of the massive crowd in Times Square. She looked cold.

  “Let’s focus on what we know for sure,” Agnes finally said. “Whoever gave you that note definitely knew what we’ve been up to with the ghosts. Did you guys tell anyone besides me?”

  “No one,” Cordelia said.

  “Me either,” said Benji.

  “Then someone must have seen you send a ghost into the Bright,” Agnes said. “Like I did the first time. Who could that be?”

  Cordelia considered the question for a moment before answering.

  “Mrs. Machen is always around after school, making her packets. She’s given us a couple of suspicious looks.”

  “I think that’s just her regular look,” Benji said.

  “And since I talk to the boy almost every day, I guess Mr. Bruce could have seen me at some point.” Cordelia paused. “We shouldn’t rule out Mr. Derleth, either. He knows an awful lot about the school, and I have this feeling that he’s hiding something. Plus, he was in Shadow School that night. Kind of a strange coincidence.”

  “In conclusion,” Benji said, “we have no idea who locked you in the boiler room or why they want us to stop freeing the ghosts. Is there anything we do know?”

  “I know I’m tired,” Cordelia said, yawning.

  “It’s almost midnight,” Agnes said. She turned up the volume on the TV. “Try to stay up just a little while longer.”

  Benji blew a noisemaker in Cordelia’s face.

  “That’s what’s going to happen every time you close your eyes,” he said. “Annoying, isn’t it?”

  “You’re annoying,” said Cordelia. She tried to grab the noisemaker from his hand, but Benji was too quick, so she smacked him with a pillow instead.

  “That’s better,” Agnes said, smiling.

  In the end, Cordelia managed to stay awake until midnight. The old year died. A new one was born.

  16

  The Search

  On the morning they returned to school, Cordelia flew off the bus and ran straight to the gym. Much to her surprise, Mr. Bruce was already there.

  “Good morning,” Cordelia said, trying to hide her annoyance. The gym teacher, who was going retro with a Milwaukee Braves jersey today, usually hung out in the teachers’ lounge until homeroom ended. “How was your break?”

  “Short,” Mr. Bruce said. “How about you?”

  “Great,” Cordelia said. The boy had stopped crying weeks ago, so there was no way to tell if he was there without actually looking. “I think I might have dropped something behind the bleachers. Okay if I check?”

  “I took a peek this morning,” Mr. Bruce said as he placed orange traffic cones around the gym. “Nothing back there but dust. You’re buddies with Benji Núñez, right?”

  “I guess.”

  “Spring soccer sign-ups are soon,” he said. “Think you can mention it? I’d love to have him back on the team. It’s a shame to let all that talent go to waste.”

  “I’ll pass it along,” Cordelia said. “The thing I dropped behind the bleachers—it’s an earring. Super small. You might have missed it.”

  Mr. Bruce shrugged.

  “Knock yourself out.”

  “Thanks,” Cordelia said. She crossed the gym at a run, eager to see the boy’s smiling face.

  He wasn’t there.

  Cordelia checked the gym three more times that morning, with no luck. By lunch she was in a state of panic. She sat across the table from Benji and Agnes, ignoring her food completely. She felt too queasy to eat.

  “We have to find him,” she said.

  “Why?” Benji asked. He was wearing a new hoodie that looked exactly like his other hoodies. “You said the kid could go anywhere he wants to now. How long was he trapped under those bleachers? If I was him, I’d never step foot inside that gym again!”

  “You don’t understand,” Cordelia said. “Even if the boy was out and about, he would have gone back to the gym the moment he saw people in the school again. He’d know that’s where I’d look for him.” She felt tears coming on and squeezed her eyes shut. “Something’s wrong.”

  Agnes leaned over and put her arm around her shoulder.

  “I’ll make you brownies tonight,” she said. “With coconut.”

  “And I’ll help you look after school,” Benji said. “You in, Ag?”

  “I promised my parents I’d do a board game marathon with them,” she said. “I know it’s kind of dorky, but—”

  “Nah,” Benji said. “It’s nice.”

  “Besides,” Agnes said, rolling a tater tot from one side of her tray to the other, “it’s not like I can really help you look for him.” Her expression grew worried. “What if the person who locked you in the boiler room sees you? Remember what the note said? ‘Stop helping them.’”

  “I don’t care,” Cordelia said.

  “I think that’s a warning not to send ghosts to the Bright,” Benji said. “This is strictly search and rescue. Should be fine.”

  “We haven’t actually freed a ghost in a long time,” Cordelia said. “I miss it. Do you think maybe we could—”

  “It’s riskier now than ever,” Agnes said, keeping her voice to a whisper.

  “You’re right,” Benji said. “But I liked helping the ghosts. For the first time in my life, I felt like I was doing something good. Not helping-my-mom-with-the-dishes good. The real deal.”

  “Me too,” Cordelia said.

  “It feels wrong just stopping because someone told us to. Like giving up. But I keep asking myself: What exactly have we gotten ourselves into? There’s so much we don’t understand. I’m scared that we’re going to do something incredibly stupid and not realize it until it’s too late.”

  “Let’s find the boy first,” Cordelia said, “and see what happens.”

  Auditions for the spring musical were being held after school that day, giving Cordelia a ready-made excuse to stay—though she had to promise to text her mom every half hour. Considering everything that she had put her through, Cordelia thought this was more than fair.

  She met Benji at the lockers.

  “Come on,” Cordelia said, grabbing his arm and pulling him along. “We only have seven minutes to get to the copy machine!”

  “Don’t you want to search the classrooms?” Benji asked.

  “No need. The boy’s not going to hide in such an obvious spot.”

  “What about that secret passageway you found?”

  “Possibly,” Cordelia replied. “But let’s try the attic first. I told the boy what happened to Elijah Shadow, and all the weird sounds that people have heard up there, and he seemed really into it. Now that he can roam about the school, the attic seems like a place he’d explore.”

  They passed through a crowd of students heading for auditions. Cordelia knew most of them by sight if not by name. She smiled at Brandon Peake, an agreeable boy who she sometimes sat with on the bus. Brandon gave her a friendly wave in return, totally unaware that an old woman wearing a hospital gown was standing right behind him.

  “The attic’s locked,” Benji said.

  “Not to the boy,” replied Cordelia.

  “I was talking about us.”

  Cordelia grinned. “Don’t worry. I have a plan.”

  “That’s exactly why I should worry,” Benji said.

  The copier was in a tiny room that also housed a laminating machine, spools of colored paper for bulletin boards, and a paper cutter armed with a long sharp blade. A massive wrought-iron clock with roman numerals covered the far wall. Its ticking only emphasized their need for haste.

  Cordelia knelt in front of the copier and unzipped her bookbag while Benji watched the hall for teachers. The room was off-limits to students unless you had special permission.

  “You going to tell me what you’re doing?” Benji asked.

  “Nope,” Cordelia said
. “You’ll only try to talk me out of it.” From her bag she removed a short stack of paper taken from her family’s printer. Each sheet had been carefully crumpled and torn. Cordelia placed the entire pile in the copier tray, set the number of copies to fifty, and pressed the Copy key. In just a few seconds, the copier began to emit strange noises as deep within its inner workings paper crumpled and jammed. All sorts of lights began to flash. Cordelia reopened the tray, grabbed the remaining doctored sheets, and tossed them into the recycling bin. She didn’t want anyone figuring out that the copier had been jammed intentionally.

  “Why?” Benji asked, his face aghast.

  “Three minutes until Mrs. Machen gets here,” Cordelia said, checking the clock. “We have to get to the main office and wait. When Mrs. Machen sees that the copier is broken, that’s where she’ll go. Mrs. Flippin is the only one who can fix it. It’ll just be her in the office this time of day. When she goes upstairs, we’ll take the extra set of keys in her desk drawer.”

  “I don’t know, Cord,” Benji said. “Sneaking around after school is one thing. Stealing keys—”

  “Borrowing.”

  “—is another.”

  “It’s just half an hour,” Cordelia said. “Not even. We’ll have them back before she even knows they’re missing.”

  Benji didn’t look reassured. “If we get caught, just promise you’ll send my spirit into the Bright,” he said. “Because my parents will kill me.”

  They found a spot where they could watch the office door without being seen, and waited. Ten minutes later, Mrs. Machen stormed into the office. When she came back, it was with Mrs. Flippin, an older receptionist who somehow knew the name of every student and always had a kind word for everyone.

  As soon as the adults were out of sight, Benji and Cordelia slipped into the office and snagged the keys. They were on a little ring with a photo of Mrs. Flippin’s adorable grandkids, which made Cordelia feel guiltier than anything else she had done.

  They ran up the stairs.

  Compared to the rest of the school, the fourth floor’s appearance was relatively simple. The walls were painted white, the wooden floors unpolished. The only adornment were the mirrors that lined both sides of the hall. These varied in size and shape, though most had gilded frames. A number of mirrors were concealed by long black curtains, as though a vampire were coming to visit.

  “I wonder why some of them are covered up,” Cordelia said.

  “It’s to protect us,” Benji replied, as though the answer were obvious. “No one ever told you?”

  “Told me what?”

  Benji lowered his voice to a whisper. “If you see your reflection in one of the covered mirrors, it means you’re going to die.”

  Cordelia felt her stomach clench. Just a few weeks ago she had peeked beneath one of the black curtains. I remember thinking how clear my reflection was, she thought.

  Benji burst into laughter.

  “You made that up, didn’t you?” Cordelia asked.

  “Just because you believe in ghosts doesn’t mean you have to believe in everything!”

  “Good advice,” Cordelia said. “Also, I hate you.”

  There was only one way to get to the attic: a dimly lit set of stairs that squeaked beneath their feet. The door at the top was charred at its corners. A yellowed sign warned any potential trespassers of the dangerous conditions beyond this point.

  “You sure about this?” Benji asked. “They don’t put signs like that up without a good reason.”

  “Let’s at least take a look. If it seems too dangerous, like we’re going to fall through the floor or something, we’ll come right—”

  “Shh,” Benji said, holding a finger to his lips. “You hear that?”

  Cordelia listened. Behind the attic door she heard the flicker and whoosh of flames. She placed her palm flat against the door and quickly withdrew it.

  “It’s hot,” she whispered. “Just like Mason said.”

  “I don’t know about this,” Benji said. “What if Elijah Shadow is waiting in there for us?”

  “So what?” Cordelia asked. “We’ve met loads of ghosts before.”

  “Something tells me this is going to be different,” Benji said.

  There were at least twenty keys on Mrs. Flippin’s key ring. Benji found the winner on the very first try.

  It’s almost like something inside can’t wait for us to enter, Cordelia thought.

  They opened the door.

  17

  The Attic

  They stood in silence, too stunned to speak. Cordelia blinked several times in rapid succession, wondering if her eyes were playing tricks on her.

  “Umm,” Benji said. “Are you seeing this?”

  “Seeing—yes. Believing? No.”

  The attic was nice. It looked more like a posh apartment than the top floor of a haunted school: hardwood floors, brightly painted walls, chic furniture. There wasn’t a hint of fire damage.

  “I don’t get it,” Benji said. “This place should be falling apart.”

  “Someone must have fixed it up.” Cordelia started to close the door and saw a metal box hanging from the other side. “What’s this thing?”

  Benji touched it with his fingertips and jerked back his hand.

  “It’s a heater,” he said, blowing on his fingers. “That’s why the door’s hot. I wonder . . .” He took a single step out of the apartment. Cordelia heard the roar of flames behind her. They were coming from a large speaker hanging from the wall.

  “There must be some kind of sensor,” Benji said as he closed the door behind him. “Like those houses at Halloween that make creepy sounds when you go trick-or-treating.”

  “The attic isn’t haunted at all,” Cordelia said.

  She searched the living room, wondering what it all meant. The furniture was clean, the floor immaculate. Even the curtains looked ironed. Several paintings hung from the wall, mostly landscapes. Cordelia recognized one of them from a book of famous artists she owned, though she couldn’t remember the painter’s name.

  “Does someone live here?” Benji asked.

  “It sure looks like it. That’s probably why they worked so hard to scare people away. They don’t want anyone poking into their business.”

  She passed beneath the archway on the other side of the room and entered a fully functional kitchen. There were a few dishes neatly stacked in the sink and a bowl of fresh fruit on the counter.

  “We should go,” Benji said. “I don’t like this.”

  Cordelia shook her head. “We need to find out who lives here,” she insisted. “If they’re trying to keep people away, it means they have something to hide. It’s probably the same person who locked me in the boiler room.”

  “Exactly!” Benji said. “They’re dangerous! And they’re not going to be happy if they come home and find us.”

  “Then we better make it quick. Let’s start in the living room. Look for—I don’t know. Photos? Mail? Anything that will help us figure out—”

  The fake flames whooshed to life, making both of them jump. A key slid into the lock. The doorknob turned. Cordelia, frozen in fear, would have stood there until the front door opened if Benji hadn’t yanked her down the hallway. They dove into a tiny bedroom with nowhere to hide.

  Cordelia heard the door shut.

  We’re trapped, she thought.

  Fortunately, the footsteps were headed away from them, toward the kitchen. Cordelia heard running water. Using the sound as cover, they crept out of the bedroom to a door at the end of the hall. It opened onto a vast area that looked more like a proper attic, with plywood flooring and a sloped ceiling. In addition to antique school desks, standalone chalkboards, and enough overhead projectors for the entire state of New Hampshire, dozens of massive dollhouses sat atop white pedestals. They varied greatly in style, from a simple ranch with a white picket fence to what appeared to be some kind of castle.

  Benji met Cordelia’s eyes and shook his head: I don’
t want to go in there! No way!

  She shrugged: What choice do we have?

  In the kitchen, the sound of running water came to an abrupt stop. Cordelia shoved Benji into the attic and closed the door behind them, cutting off the light from the hallway and plunging them into an even deeper darkness. They searched for a good hiding place, Cordelia wincing at every creaking floorboard. At one point she thought she heard footsteps and turned quickly, knocking over a dusty globe with her elbow. Benji caught it before it hit the floor.

  “Careful,” he whispered.

  They settled behind a table propped on one side. The pedestal next to them bore a stone farmhouse that filled Cordelia with a vague sense of unease. The level of detail was awe inspiring. Individual stones had been painstakingly slotted into place, and each window was made from real glass. Cordelia could even see a tiny keyhole in the front door.

  It looks totally different from Shadow School, she thought. But for some reason it reminds me of it just the same.

  With a burst of insight, she grabbed Benji’s shoulder and whispered in his ear.

  “They’re not dollhouses!”

  Before Cordelia could explain further, the attic door swung open. Dr. Roqueni stood there, framed by a rectangle of light. She didn’t look happy.

  Not her, Cordelia thought, feeling a stab of betrayal. Benji pulled her behind the table and held a finger to his lips.

  “I know you’re here, Cordelia,” Dr. Roqueni said. She entered the attic but left the door open behind her. “Are Benji and Agnes with you? No matter. You can all come out now. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  Cordelia and Benji remained still. Their hiding place was deep in the shadows, beyond the reach of the hallway light spilling across the attic.

  “I apologize for locking you in the boiler room,” Dr. Roqueni said, checking beneath a desk. “I came back to open the door, but you had already found your way out through the hidden passageway—which I have since sealed up, incidentally, so no more snooping. You were never in any real danger. I just wanted to scare some sense into you so you’d stop freeing the ghosts.”