by J. A. White
“Why not?” Dr. Roqueni asked. “The snatchers have settled back to their regular routine now that you’ve stopped disturbing the ghosts. We can take all the time we want. Unless”—she gave Cordelia an appraising look—“there’s a particular ghost you want to save, isn’t there? That little boy you’re always talking to?”
Cordelia tried to hide her surprise that Dr. Roqueni knew about the boy.
“So what?” she asked.
“So time is of the essence for you—not for me. You tell me where the office is, however, and perhaps I can be convinced to work faster.”
“Who cares about the stupid office?” Benji asked. “Don’t you want to help the ghosts?”
“Of course I do!” Dr. Roqueni snapped. “But I also have some pride, Mr. Núñez. I may not be the best Shadow in the world, but I’m still a Shadow. And I won’t be told what to do in my family’s home.”
Cordelia considered their next step. If she told Dr. Roqueni the location of the office, she had to trust the principal to do the right thing and help them. But what if she doesn’t? Cordelia thought. What do I do then?
Mr. Ward took a step forward. He sniffled once and met Cordelia’s eyes.
“Can this box of yours really trap those monsters?” he asked.
“I think so.”
“I’ll build it, then,” he said. “For Dave.”
Dr. Roqueni looked livid at this unexpected betrayal.
“How could you—?” she began.
“Come off it, Aria,” Mr. Ward said. “You were going to end up helping them and you know it. I’m just moving things along. Besides, I’m starving. I was on my way to town to grab some grub when you yanked me in here. You want something?”
Dr. Roqueni managed to look indignant for another few seconds, but then the anger faded from her face like a passing storm.
“Chicken salad on wheat,” she said. “Lightly toasted.”
Mr. Ward nodded. “These kids are crazy, Dr. Roqueni,” he said, tapping Agnes playfully on the head with the plans as he left. “I kind of like ’em.”
24
Night School
Mr. Ward finished the first ghost box two months later. Cordelia, Benji, and Agnes went down to his workshop to check it out. It looked like something one might use to ship a statue across the ocean, save for a reinforced glass window that was the size and shape of a porthole. Although the box looked simply constructed, Cordelia knew better. She had seen what lay hidden between the wooden panels, a cityscape of intricate carpentry that Mr. Ward likened to the inner workings of a clock.
By the time April came around, Mr. Ward had completed the second box and was well into the third. Agnes insisted they continue to patrol the school and make note of which ghosts had vanished and which remained untouched, just to see if the ghost snatchers were doing anything differently. As far as they could tell, it was business as usual. The snatchers didn’t suspect a thing.
For the first time, Cordelia started to grow optimistic about their chances.
Then the ghost snatchers came for the boy again.
She found him the next morning huddled in the corner of the library, staring into space. Cordelia had to squint her eyes in order to see him. He was barely visible, like the faded pencil marks of an erased word.
A few minutes later, Cordelia barged into Dr. Roqueni’s office.
“We need to move faster!” she exclaimed, pacing back and forth. “If they come for the boy one more time, he’ll be gone forever!”
“Sit down, Cordelia,” Dr. Roqueni said. “Do you want—”
“If you offer me a cup of tea I’m going to scream!” Cordelia said. She dug her hands into her hair and scratched at her scalp. “We have two boxes ready to go. What if we use them on Geist and Whistler? That should be good enough to stop them for now.”
“We’ve talked about this,” Dr. Roqueni said. “It’s best to capture all three at once. Otherwise we sacrifice the element of surprise.”
“Well, we have to do something,” Cordelia said. She threw her head back in frustration. “If I could figure out what his stupid Brightkey is I could save him right now!”
“And risk the snatchers’ wrath? We both know that’s a terrible idea.”
“Well, I don’t have any other ones!”
“I do,” Dr. Roqueni said. “Bring the boy down to Mr. Ward’s office at lunch. He can help us test out the ghost box and see if it actually works.”
“I don’t see how that helps him,” Cordelia said.
“Once the door is closed and locked,” Dr. Roqueni said, “the boy won’t be able to get out. On the other hand, the ghost snatchers won’t be able to get in. He can sleep there at night, safe and sound.”
“Oh,” Cordelia said, finally taking her seat. “That’s a good idea.”
“Thank you,” Dr. Roqueni said. She folded her hands together and leaned forward. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but this little boy of yours haunted the gym at first, didn’t he?”
Cordelia nodded.
“Yet he hasn’t remained trapped like the other ghosts. He can go anywhere he wants now. Have you ever wondered why?”
“I was curious when it first happened,” Cordelia said. “But I guess I sort of got used to it since then.” She remembered how the boy had responded when she asked him about it in the boiler room. “He said that I was the reason, which makes no sense at all.”
“Actually, it makes perfect sense.”
“Huh?”
“You talked to him,” Dr. Roqueni said. “You showed him warmth and compassion, and he came to care for you in return. The connection between you grew stronger than the archimancy that held him in place. In short, he started haunting you, not the school. It’s not the first time such a thing has happened here.”
Cordelia knew that Dr. Roqueni was right. She felt it in her bones.
“If that’s the case, can he leave and come home with me?” Cordelia asked, hope rising.
“I’m afraid not,” Dr. Roqueni replied. She offered an encouraging smile. “But all we need to do is keep him safe a little while longer. We’re almost at the end now.”
April turned to May, and the students of Shadow School shed their jackets like cicada husks. Mrs. Aickman held class outside and recited tragic nature poems. Ms. Perez organized an art show with an ice cream party afterward. Mr. Bruce’s jerseys sprinted toward the home stretch of Us and Vs.
As the day neared when they would finally execute their plan, the kids tried to figure out a way to get the snatchers inside the boxes. The main problem was that they couldn’t touch their foe, so grabbing or pushing them was out of the question. Benji suggested using a ghost as bait and then waiting for the right moment to slam the door shut, trapping both the ghost and snatcher inside. This made sense in theory but raised a host of other issues. How would they get the ghost inside the box? Wasn’t it cruel to trap an innocent spirit? How could they anticipate the ghost snatchers’ location and know where to place a trap?
Just a few days before Mr. Ward completed the final box, Agnes came up with an idea. They met in Dr. Roqueni’s apartment after school to discuss it.
“The snatchers only peel one ghost a day,” Agnes said. As she talked, she served them chocolate mint brownies that she had baked for the occasion. “And it’s not at random. I charted the ghost vanishings by location and began to see a definite pattern to their movements. Since some people weren’t consistent about recording their data”—she shot Benji a pointed look—“I can’t make as precise a prediction as I’d like, but I’ve gotten pretty good at guessing which ghost is going to be their nightly target. At least, I can get it down to three possibilities.”
“So we have a one-in-three chance of knowing where the ghost snatchers are going to be?” Dr. Roqueni asked with a dubious expression. “You sure about that?”
“Please,” Benji said. “It’s Agnes.”
“I trust her,” Mr. Ward said, brushing some crumbs off his beard. “Anyone who can make brow
nies this good is clearly a genius.”
Agnes flashed him a mischievous grin.
“I added crème de menthe,” she said. “That’s alcohol!”
“All right,” Dr. Roqueni said. “We’ll go with Agnes’s plan. It’s definitely a lot easier than running around the school hoping to come across the ghost snatchers. We can pick one of the three possibilities and bring all the ghost boxes to that location. If we’re unlucky the first night, we’ll try again. One in three is pretty good odds. We’re bound to get it right eventually.”
The others nodded in agreement—except for Cordelia.
“That’ll take too long,” she said. “We should divide and conquer—split into three teams, each with one box. This way one of us is sure to find them.”
“It’s safer to stay together,” Dr. Roqueni said.
“But what if we don’t find them the first night? Or the second or third or fourth?”
“Then we’ll keep trying until—”
“We’re kids, Dr. Roqueni. We can’t just hang out at the school all night whenever we feel like it. What time do the ghost snatchers usually do their thing, anyway?”
“It varies,” admitted Dr. Roqueni. “Sometimes they come out the moment the sun goes down. But it could also be much later than that.”
“Exactly,” Cordelia said. “If we really want to make sure this is going to work, we need to stake out the school all night. We can probably come up with a cover story once—maybe even twice—but that’s about it. Our parents aren’t stupid.”
“Then Mr. Ward and I will do it ourselves,” Dr. Roqueni said.
“Mr. Ward can’t even see the ghosts,” Agnes said. “No offense.”
“None taken,” Mr. Ward said. “Though to be fair, in the past I’ve heard a rattling noise late at night. Aria tells me that’s their cart.”
Strange that he could hear it at all, Cordelia thought. It brought to mind another oddity—how the flashlight she had thrown at the ghostly cart had clanked off its surface, as opposed to passing through it. Cordelia almost brought this up, then decided it was more important to settle on a plan of attack.
“What do you say, Dr. Roqueni?” Cordelia asked. “One night. That’s all we need. We’ll tell our parents we’re sleeping over at each other’s houses.”
“That only works in movies,” Benji said.
Dr. Roqueni gave Cordelia a sympathetic look.
“I know you’re worried about the boy,” she said. “But there’s no rush anymore. He’s safe, remember?”
“It’s not just the boy,” Cordelia said. “It’s all of them. Each day that passes is another ghost that will never know its Bright. We’ve waited long enough, Dr. Roqueni. We need to help them!”
Dr. Roqueni held Cordelia’s gaze for a few moments. Finally, she sighed.
“What do you have in mind?” she asked.
That evening, Cordelia, Agnes, and Benji told their parents about a very exciting field trip: they were going to stay overnight at a science museum in Concord! Their parents thought it was unusual that this was the first time they had ever heard of it, but a long email from Dr. Roqueni quickly put their suspicions to rest. It’s a lot easier to lie to your parents when the principal backs up your story, Cordelia thought.
When the day of the supposed field trip arrived, Cordelia kissed her parents goodbye and boarded the school bus carrying a duffel bag packed for an overnight trip. Inside were pajamas and a pillow, which she wouldn’t need, and a small object that she had found in her mom’s old camping gear, which she definitely would.
At five p.m., when all the students lingering after school had finally left, Cordelia and Agnes retrieved one of the ghost boxes from Mr. Ward’s workshop, rolled it onto the old gated elevator, and pushed it down the second-floor hallway. The wheels at the bottom had been well oiled, but the box was still heavy and cumbersome, causing the girls to weave back and forth. After a few mishaps, they managed to maneuver the box through the doorway of room 206. The classroom looked as though it hadn’t been used in years. There were no desks or chairs, and the walls were bare except for a few inspirational posters featuring smiling children whose clothes must have been the height of fashion three decades ago. A single sentence was scrawled across the chalkboard: I’M ALWAYS COLD NOW. Cordelia tried not to think about who might have written it.
They pushed the ghost box to the center of the room. Cordelia took a moment to wipe the sweat from her brow, then slid the heavy-duty barrel bolt to the left. The door, which could only be locked from the outside, popped open. The box was empty, with enough standing room for two medium-sized adults.
“It reminds me of one of those trick boxes magicians use to make pretty women disappear,” Agnes said.
“Same idea,” Cordelia replied. “Only with creepy dead guys.”
She waved to the boy, who had been in the room since early that afternoon. He was standing next to a frazzled-looking ghost dressed for a long hike: boots, jeans, waterproof coat, backpack. The dead woman spent most days frantically searching every corner of the room with a desperate, confused expression, but the boy’s presence had calmed her somewhat. Cordelia could see his lips moving. Though she couldn’t hear the words, she knew he was trying to convince the ghost to help them.
“How’s it going?” Cordelia asked the boy.
He gave her two thumbs-ups. Or, at least, Cordelia thought he did. She could barely see him at all.
“Let’s get her inside,” Cordelia said.
The boy guided the hiker to the ghost box. She hesitated for a moment, perhaps second-guessing her decision, so the boy mouthed a few final words of encouragement and pointed to Cordelia. The hiker looked at her with great hope. He told her what I did for the other ghosts, Cordelia thought, feeling more pressure than ever. Now she’s counting on me to do the same thing for her.
The ghost stepped inside the box and folded her arms across her chest. She looked like a body in a coffin—which wasn’t, Cordelia supposed, too far from the truth. “Thank you,” Cordelia said, leaving the door open so the hiker remained visible to anyone who could see her. She wouldn’t be very effective bait otherwise.
Cordelia got down on one knee and faced the boy.
“Good job,” she said. “But now you have to convince the other two ghosts to do the same thing. You know the one with the cowboy hat on the fourth floor?”
The boy nodded.
“Go to him first. Benji and Mr. Ward will be there, too. Dr. Roqueni is on the first floor, with a ghost of a little girl about your age, wearing rain boots. You know the one I’m—?”
The boy nodded brightly, giving Cordelia the impression that he and the girl were old friends. She imagined them playing hide-and-seek together in the darkened hallways.
Cordelia held her hands out, palms up, and the boy placed his own hands just above hers. It was their way of holding hands without touching.
“Once the ghosts are inside those boxes, you find a place far away from all this and hide,” Cordelia said in a firm voice. “No playing hero this time around. I don’t want you anywhere near the ghost snatchers when they come.”
The boy gave her a military salute and vanished through the wall.
“What now?” Agnes asked.
Cordelia took a seat behind an old file cabinet. It wasn’t the best hiding spot in the world, but it would have to do. She was counting on the fact that the ghost snatchers didn’t see the living very well.
“We wait,” Cordelia said. “If the ghost snatchers come to us first, we text the rest of the gang. Everyone rushes over here with their ghost boxes.”
“That’ll take a few minutes,” Agnes said. She rotated her shoulder in its socket. “Those things are heavy.”
“Don’t worry,” Cordelia said. “The first ghost snatcher—Lenny—is a slowpoke. He takes a while to set up before calling the other ones. We should be okay. Besides, for all we know, we might be the ones rushing to help them. There’s only a one-in-three chance that the ghos
t snatchers will come to us first.”
Agnes toyed with the whistle tied around her neck. They all wore one. It was for emergencies only. If any of them blew it, that meant they needed immediate help.
“I’m nervous,” Agnes said.
“Me too,” replied Cordelia. “These guys are scary.”
“Not that. I’m worried that when things start happening, I won’t be able to help. Like in Elijah’s office.”
“You’ll do great,” Cordelia said. “Like always.”
She removed the leather pouch she had found in her mother’s old stuff and tossed it nervously from hand to hand. I hope this does the trick, she thought, settling against the wall. Before long, the sunlight streaming through the window began to fade. Night was falling fast.
25
Whistling in the Dark
Cordelia and Agnes remained vigilant for the first few hours, fear doing more to keep them alert than caffeine ever could. In time, however, the silence and monotony began to wear on them, and both girls found themselves growing exhausted. Around midnight, Agnes curled up on the floor, just “for a minute or two,” and almost immediately fell asleep. In order to avoid the same fate, Cordelia remained in constant motion: rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet, doing jumping jacks, circling her arms. She couldn’t sit down. If she had, the temptation to close her eyes would have been too great to resist.
There was a rattling noise in the distance.
At first, Cordelia thought it was just her imagination, a standing dream that would soon dissipate like a mirage. She took a few steps toward the open door and listened carefully. Instead of vanishing, the sound grew louder.
It was the ghost snatchers’ cart—and it was coming fast.
Cordelia bent down next to Agnes and shook her shoulder. “They’re here,” she whispered. “Get up, get up!” Unlike Cordelia—who was a groggy, grumpy riser—Agnes was wide awake the moment she opened her eyes. She brushed away a few strands of hair that had fallen loose during her nap and took stock of the situation.
“I hear something,” she said, furrowing her brow. “Like a broken shopping cart. It sounds really far away to me.”