by J. A. White
Dr. Roqueni was getting closer. It was only a matter of time before she found them. I’ll distract her, Cordelia mouthed to Benji. You get help. Benji shook his head.
“I realize now that I should have told you the truth from the beginning,” Dr. Roqueni continued. “Would you like to know why Shadow School has so many ghosts? After his beloved wife died, Elijah dedicated himself to the study of haunted houses.” She paused a moment to straighten a hanging windowpane on a Tudor-style house. “He made these models of them with his own two hands. You see, Shadow School was designed to be a—”
“Haunted house,” Cordelia said, ignoring Benji’s objections and stepping out of their hiding place. “It’s called archimancy. Mr. Derleth already told me all about it.”
As Cordelia talked, she moved toward the opposite end of the attic. Dr. Roqueni carefully followed her progress. Keep looking this way, thought Cordelia. That will give Benji a chance to escape.
“Our newest faculty member sure has a keen interest in local history,” Dr. Roqueni said, stepping to her left and cutting off Cordelia’s most direct path to the exit. “But I doubt he knows the whole truth. After Elijah built Shadow School, he invited the most prominent psychics and paranormal experts from around the world to live here. Most of them shared Elijah’s vision. They longed to learn more about the mysteries of life after death and maybe bring comfort to those grieving over their loved ones.” Her expression grew dark. “But there were others with far less noble ideas about how the dead could be used. Profit. Revenge. Power. Elijah decided that archimancy was too dangerous and set fire to his office, destroying all his journals and blueprints. Only something went wrong, and Elijah got trapped in the room as well. He died protecting his secrets.”
“The attic seems fine now,” Cordelia said.
“It was repaired in secret,” Dr. Roqueni said. “We needed a place to watch over the school without being disturbed.”
“We?”
Dr. Roqueni raised her chin and fixed Cordelia with a regal look.
“Elijah was my great-great-grandfather,” she said. “I’m a Shadow.”
Cordelia gasped in surprise: No wonder she knows so much. From the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of Benji sneaking through the attic. He paused a moment to look back at her with concern and slipped through the door. Cordelia tried to mask her relief.
He’ll be back with help soon, she thought. I just have to keep Dr. Roqueni talking until then.
Hopefully she could learn some answers.
“Is that why you don’t want me to help the ghosts?” Cordelia asked. “So you can study them?”
“Not at all,” Dr. Roqueni said, approaching her. “Why don’t you come into the living room? I’ll make tea and tell you the entire story. I promise you’ll feel differently about the ghosts by the time I’m done.”
Cordelia slid to her right, trying to keep as much of the attic junk as possible between Dr. Roqueni and herself. She was afraid that the moment she let her guard down, the principal would reach out and grab her.
“Tell me your story first,” Cordelia said. “Then I’ll decide if I want any tea.”
“As you wish,” Dr. Roqueni said with just the hint of a smile. “I was twenty-nine when my uncle Darius told me that I was to be the new principal of Shadow School. There were other Shadows all around the world—our family tree has spread wide and far since Elijah’s days. But I was the only one with the Sight.”
“You can see ghosts?” Cordelia asked.
“To a certain extent,” Dr. Roqueni replied. “I can’t see ghosts in the outside world—that’s a rare gift indeed—but I have just enough talent to see the ones in Shadow School. The spirits are closer here. Magnified.” She shrugged. “But I had no interest in the family business. I had just received my doctorate in art history. I wanted to travel the world, not live in a creepy old school. My mother begged me to help the family, though, and I finally gave in. I figured I’d do it for a year or two, just to make her happy. Then I’d start my real life.”
Dr. Roqueni’s eyes took on a glazed, faraway look. Cordelia had seen the same expression in her mother’s eyes when she talked about her teenage dreams of becoming a dancer: the bittersweet look of what might have been.
“So here I was, stuck in Shadow School, playing caretaker to a bunch of dead people. I was angry, miserable, and bored. Since I didn’t have anything better to do, I started watching the spirits. Uncle Darius had warned me not to disturb them—‘Just get the living out by nightfall and let that old building do its thing,’ as he put it. Thing was, my uncle was five hundred miles away, and I figured I knew a lot more than he did anyway, with my fancy college education. I noticed how all the ghosts seemed to be seeking some sort of personal object. Their appearance provided a careful observer all the clues she needed. Sound familiar?”
“We call them Brightkeys,” Cordelia said.
“That’s lovely,” Dr. Roqueni said with a genuine smile, and despite everything Cordelia blushed at the compliment. “Not even Elijah could explain why the ghosts offered clues to their own salvation, incidentally. I’ve always believed that some entity, one with a sense of fair play, learned how Elijah had corrupted the natural order and intervened. In any case, one night I gave this barefoot little ghost a new pair of shoes, just to see what would happen. Lo and behold, she vanished into the light. That felt good, let me tell you. I was helping the dead move on from a terrible, lonely existence. What could possibly be wrong with that?”
Dr. Roqueni gazed out a dormer window, lost in her story. Cordelia inched closer to the exit.
“I soon learned that I wasn’t the only one at Shadow School who could see the ghosts,” Dr. Roqueni said, her back facing Cordelia now. “A man named David Fisher had the Sight as well. We worked together to free as many ghosts as we could, never stopping to think about the—”
Cordelia took off, nearly colliding with a model of a Gothic manor before bursting through the door and into the hallway of the apartment. Benji was standing in the living room with his hands on his knees.
“Got . . . help,” he managed, out of breath. Mr. Ward entered the apartment. Cordelia was usually frightened of the huge custodian, but this time his intimidating presence made her feel safe and secure.
“Why are you here?” Dr. Roqueni asked with a sharp tone.
“The boy begged me to come,” Mr. Ward said. “Told me his friend was in trouble.”
“Did he tell anyone else?” Dr. Roqueni asked.
Mr. Ward shook his head. “School’s empty this time of day,” he said.
“That’s fortunate,” Dr. Roqueni said. “Otherwise we could have had a real problem on our hands.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Mr. Ward said.
He closed the door and locked it behind him.
18
Cordelia Makes a Decision
Cordelia and Benji sat nervously on the edge of the couch while Dr. Roqueni set the kettle to boil in the kitchen. Mr. Ward leaned against the door with his huge arms crossed, making it clear that there was no point trying to escape.
“You sure it’s a good idea to be telling them all this?” Mr. Ward called out to Dr. Roqueni in the kitchen. “What if they tell their parents?”
“Their parents won’t believe them,” Dr. Roqueni replied over the sound of a screeching tea kettle. “Besides, I wanted to tell them everything as soon as I figured out what they were up to. You convinced me it was a better plan to scare them off instead.”
“I wasn’t sure they would listen,” Mr. Ward said with a defensive tone. “It’s the helpful types who always have the biggest stubborn streaks.” A mournful look softened his features. “Just like Dave.”
Is he talking about David Fisher? Cordelia wondered, remembering the horrible rumor about what Mr. Ward had done to the custodian. Is he going to do the same thing to us?
The fear must have been evident on her face, because Mr. Ward shook his head in disgust.
“I know
what people say,” he grumbled. “I chopped up his body and tossed the pieces in the furnace, right? It ain’t true. None of it. Dave was my best friend in the world. I never would have hurt him. We argued that last night because—”
Dr. Roqueni re-entered the room with a small serving tray holding a teapot and three cups.
“That’s enough, Chris,” she said, placing the tray on a coffee table. “None of this will make any sense if I don’t start from the beginning.” She poured Cordelia a cup of tea and handed it to her. “Chamomile. It’ll calm your nerves.”
Cordelia took a tiny sip. The tea was hot with a fragrant aroma. She didn’t love the taste, but she had to confess that it immediately settled her churning stomach. Dr. Roqueni poured cups for Benji and herself and settled into the love seat opposite them.
“My dad is picking me up soon,” Cordelia said. “He’ll know something’s up if I’m not outside.”
“This won’t take long,” Dr. Roqueni said. “I just need to finish my story.”
“And then you’re going to let us leave?” Benji asked dubiously.
“Yes,” Dr. Roqueni said. “What you do after that is up to you. But I think you’ll come to see things my way.”
She took a sip of her tea, cradling the cup in both hands for warmth.
“I’ve left out an important part of my story,” she said. “The ghost snatchers. They only come at night. Did you see them?”
Cordelia nodded.
“There are always three,” Dr. Roqueni said. “The younger two get replaced from time to time, but their roles remain the same. There’s a worker who pushes the cart and sets things up before the other two arrive. That’s Lenny, these days. And then a second custodian who hypnotizes the ghosts and makes sure they stay still while the deed is done. We named this one Whistler, for obvious reasons.” Dr. Roqueni shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “And finally, there’s the leader, the man with the piercing green eyes. He never changes. No one knows what his real name is—or if he’s even human, to be honest. The Shadow family has always called him Geist.”
“They’re awful,” Cordelia said. “They hurt the ghosts.”
“Yes, they do,” Dr. Roqueni said. She looked down into her teacup. “And part of my job as principal of Shadow School is to help them do it.”
Cordelia’s eyes widened.
“You help them?” she asked.
“I make sure the school is empty at night,” Dr. Roqueni said. “They like it better that way. I imagine from their perspective the living are like a bunch of gnats flying around—hard to see but still annoying.”
“How could you do that?” Cordelia asked, half rising from her seat. “You know how helpless the ghosts are! You should be trying to—”
“There’s been an unspoken agreement between the ghost snatchers and Shadows for decades,” Dr. Roqueni said in a firm voice. “We leave them alone. They leave us alone.”
“But they’re hurting the ghosts!” Cordelia exclaimed.
“And helping us,” Dr. Roqueni said. She leaned forward and poured herself a fresh cup of tea. “The word ‘custodian’ has multiple meanings. In this case, I mean it in the sense of ‘guardian’ or ‘protector.’ As you must have realized by now, new ghosts are always arriving here in Shadow School. Uncle Darius told me that without the ghost snatchers, their numbers might escalate out of control. He wasn’t clear about what might happen then, only that it would be extremely dangerous. ‘We don’t like the ghost snatchers, but they’re a necessary evil,’ he told me. ‘Just like bats keeping a mosquito population under control.’”
“Ghosts aren’t mosquitos,” Cordelia snapped. “They’re people.”
“I thought the same thing when I first arrived here,” Dr. Roqueni said. “My pity for the trapped spirits who walk these halls overrode my good sense. That’s why David and I helped them, despite my uncle’s warning. Well, of course the ghost snatchers didn’t like that. They’re extremely territorial. I should have thought it through first. But I was young and so sure I was doing the right thing.” She fixed Cordelia and Benji with a pointed look. “You two know how that is, don’t you?”
Cordelia felt her face grow warm.
“Geist warned us first,” Dr. Roqueni said. “I was awoken by a crash in the middle of the night and found all my furniture flying around the living room. When that didn’t scare me off, he used his powers in the cafeteria. It was just like what happened to your grade, only worse, because back then we used hard plastic trays and not the foam ones. I stopped freeing the ghosts after that. I wasn’t worried about myself. I was worried about the students. But David didn’t want to stop. He felt that being able to see the ghosts imparted a certain duty.”
“I tried to talk him out of it,” Mr. Ward added with a regretful look, “but both of us have a short fuse, so we just ended up screaming at each other. That was the last time I ever saw him.”
Using this new information, Cordelia reconsidered the rumors she had heard about the custodian. The two men argued, just like everyone said, but not because Mr. Ward hated David Fisher. It was because he was worried about him.
“Since David’s disappearance, I’ve been a model Shadow,” Dr. Roqueni said, straightening. “I gave up my childish dreams and dedicated myself to keeping the ghost snatchers happy. And that was working out just fine—until you two came along.”
Benji hung his head.
“I don’t want anyone getting hurt because of something we did,” he said.
“But I don’t want to stop saving the ghosts, either!” Cordelia exclaimed. “Why should they have to suffer? There must be a way to stop the ghost snatchers!”
“There’s not,” Dr. Roqueni said. “All we can do is give them what they want so they don’t harm the living.”
“Well, that stinks!” Cordelia exclaimed.
The worst part was she could see Dr. Roqueni’s point. Logically speaking, it made more sense to value the living than the dead, and if she kept helping the ghosts, someone at Shadow School was going to get hurt—or vanish.
But if I don’t help the ghosts, they’ll never find their Brights, Cordelia thought. They’ll be sitting ducks until the ghost snatchers get them.
Cordelia thought of the boy, still lost or hiding somewhere in the school. How could she just abandon him?
“I appreciate your position, Cordelia,” Dr. Roqueni said. “You’ve come to care for the spirits of Shadow School. Your feelings do you credit. You are, however, only eleven, and not used to dealing with such difficult decisions, so allow me to make it simpler. My family might not be as wealthy as they used to be, but they still have connections. You said your father lost his job in San Francisco, correct? That’s why you had to move?”
“So what?” Cordelia asked.
“What if I told you that just a few words whispered in the right ear could get his old job back? Or a better job? Imagine that. You could move back to California and leave this place forever.”
The offer, so sudden and unexpected, staggered Cordelia.
“You could do that?” she asked.
“All it would take is a single phone call,” Dr. Roqueni said. She flashed a smile at Benji. “I’m sure I could do something to help your family as well. Your parents work so hard, and then there are your little sisters to think about. Don’t they deserve—”
“Leave my family out of this,” Benji said, with a sharpness to his tone that Cordelia had never heard before.
“As you wish,” Dr. Roqueni said. “However, you should also know that if you ignore me and free even one more ghost, I will be forced to place a phone call to a different branch of the Shadow family. In this particular scenario, the consequences for you and your loved ones will not be pleasant. Jobs can be lost, mortgages foreclosed. I would hate to do that. But if you won’t listen to reason—what choice do I have?”
If Dr. Roqueni was truly reluctant to make such a phone call, Cordelia doubted it was because she had their best interests at heart. Rather, she
suspected the call would be viewed by the other Shadows as a failure on Dr. Roqueni’s part, an admission that she couldn’t handle things on her own.
“I won’t go near the ghosts again,” Benji said.
“Cordelia?” Dr. Roqueni asked.
“Fine,” she hissed through clenched teeth.
“Then it’s settled,” Dr. Roqueni said, clapping her hands together. “I’m glad you two have come to your senses. That makes everything so much easier.” She nodded to Mr. Ward, who opened the front door. “I’m sure your parents are waiting outside by this point, so you’d better go before they start wondering where you are.”
Cordelia was about to exit the apartment when she turned back with one last question.
“What happened to David Fisher, anyway?”
Dr. Roqueni shared a look with Mr. Ward.
“That’s one mystery that we try not to dwell upon, though we have a few guesses.” Dr. Roqueni’s face darkened. “If you really want to know, keep freeing the ghosts. You’ll find out what happened to David Fisher in no time at all.”
19
The Difference Between Them
They found the boy four days later. He was hiding in the reference section of the library, couched behind a corner bookshelf packed with dusty encyclopedias. The moment she saw him, a heavy weight leaped off Cordelia’s chest. She had begun to fear the worst.
“Hey there,” Cordelia said. She pressed her head against the wall, trying to get a closer look, but it was dark behind the shelf, and the boy was backed against the corner. “You can come out now. It’s safe.”
The boy turned away from her.
“Did we find him?” Agnes asked Benji, keeping her voice as quiet as possible. The other students in the library were already giving them curious looks.
“We found him,” Benji said.