by E. E. Holmes
“Still not answering to that,” I said. Iggy laughed raucously. I could hear Oscar shushing him in the background.
“Alright, I got your picture of the T-shirt hawker, so we’ll be keeping an eye out for her. Any luck with the com system?” I heard a click; Iggy had switched me to speakerphone.
“Yes. I found one of the plants!” I cried excitedly, before remembering to lower my voice. “She was wearing a small silver earpiece that said ‘Fuji TZ-90” on it.”
Dan whooped loudly with excitement. “How the hell did you manage to find that out?” Iggy asked incredulously.
“Who cares!” I said. “Does that help you or not?”
“Hell yeah, that helps!” Dan shouted. “Those earpieces work on a radio frequency. If we can find it on the scanner, we can hijack it—or at the very least record it.”
“How do you hijack it?” I asked.
“You just use another device on the same frequency. It’ll disrupt their signal and send whatever we’re broadcasting through to Freeman’s devices.”
“Yeah! Instead of hearing info from his staff, he’ll be jamming out to my favorite playlist!” Iggy said with a laugh.
I fought down the urge to literally jump with joy. “This is incredible! Just imagine Freeman standing up there in front of the audience with no idea who any of them are or why they’re here! He’ll be screwed! He’s going down in flames!”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Jess,” Iggy cautioned me. “There’s still some major hurdles to overcome. We’ll get back to work here. If we find that frequency, we’ll let you know! In the meantime, text any more pictures you get of Freeman’s team.”
I made an attempt to calm myself, but the smell of victory was already strong in my nostrils.
5
The Ghost Oracle
OUR SEATS AT THE BARDAVON THEATER HAD BEEN CAREFULLY CHOSEN. Hannah and I sat in the house right dress circle box closest to the stage, where we had an excellent view of the entire audience in both the orchestra and the balcony. Our seats gave us a very unique perspective of the stage; we would be watching Freeman from the side, almost at a ninety-degree angle to the rest of the audience, but with the added bonus that we could see deep into the stage right wing. Watching the crew members in the wing would add an entirely new element—and source of information—to the show. Finn was seated in the dress circle box directly across from us on house left, where he could see deep into the stage left wing. If we craned our necks, we could even see a section of the catwalk above the curtain line. For “obstructed view” seats, we had a fairly unobstructed view of pretty much everything.
And of course, we had an added weapon: Any nook or cranny we couldn’t see from our seats could be handled by Milo’s special brand of ghostly reconnaissance. The last we’d checked, Milo was hovering near the dressing rooms, hoping to catch a glimpse of any special tricks Freeman might be employing.
“Only about five minutes now,” Hannah whispered to me.
“I know,” I said, looking up from my phone, which I was checking obsessively every few seconds. “I can’t believe Iggy hasn’t updated us yet. How are we supposed to know if they’ve found that frequency?”
Hannah just shrugged. One of her knees began bouncing, venting some of her nervous energy, as she reached out to Milo. “Milo? How’s it going? Did you find Freeman?”
“No, he’s not here yet.” Milo’s voice filled our heads simultaneously; we’d learned recently that he could connect to both of us at the same time, like a spirit version of speakerphone. “I overheard two of the crew members waiting by the door, and they said Freeman never arrives at one of his shows until just before it starts. They’re actually going to broadcast him driving up and walking into the theater in real time! I bet he does it to boost his own cred—he can’t possibly know anything about his audience if he’s only just arrived, right? I’m outside now near the stage door, waiting for his car to show up.”
This information only ratcheted my tension even higher. This guy couldn’t be allowed to continue getting rich off of other people’s grief. It had to end tonight, or we might not get another chance. Plus, if we didn’t take Freeman down now, I’d have to see his smug, sanctimonious face on television every week. In the long run, I suppose this last part was the least of our concerns, but it added fuel to my resolve.
“Wait, something’s happening out here,” Milo said suddenly, quite literally breaking into my thoughts. “Security just opened the door, and now there are three camera guys. He must be about to pull up.”
But we didn’t need Milo to tell us things were starting. Even as he spoke, the lights in the theater dimmed. The curtain rose, revealing a large screen. An eerie, synthesizer-heavy soundtrack began to blast from the speakers; a booming baritone voice worthy of movie trailer voiceovers began speaking.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the one place in the world tonight where the veil between the living and the dead can be lifted, where the mysteries of the beyond can be penetrated. Welcome to the one place where true peace can find each and every one of you. Welcome to the GHOST ORACLE LIVE!”
The crowd leapt to their feet, shrieking wildly, throwing their arms in the air. Some of them were already sobbing in the hope of being called to the stage to experience Freeman’s “talents” for themselves. The screen lit up with the familiar opening of Freeman’s show—a montage featuring Freeman with various families as his words made them break down over and over again. Sickening.
A picture-in-picture image appeared in the top corner of the screen, showing a black stretch limousine rolling up in front of the theater. As the theme song came to a close, the picture-in-picture took over the whole screen. The live feed showed Freeman exiting his limo and striding confidently through the stage door; his own crew members, all of whom were wearing headsets, applauded wildly as he made his way through the backstage area. Freeman’s face was so smug I wanted to slap the smile right off it.
I looked down at my phone again, panic setting in. “Damn it Iggy, we’re running out of time! Give me some good news!” I muttered.
Then the door to the backstage area opened and a cameraman backed into the wing. He was followed by Freeman, who we could now see was a full head shorter than almost everyone he passed—although this was minimized on-screen by the camera’s low-angle shot. As if on cue, Freeman paused for just a moment, closing his eyes and performing his signature fingers-to-his-temple gesture. The crowd went wild.
“These poor saps,” I thought to myself, as I waited for the slightest hint of what I really wanted to see: A second later Freeman obliged. Using his signature gesture as cover, he subtly slid his thumb up and touched it, ever so briefly, to the opening of his ear.
Hannah didn’t need the sharp jab to her ribs I gave her. “I saw it, I saw it!” she hissed, as we both continued applauding along with the crowd. “He’s got the earpiece in, Jess!”
“Which won’t matter at all if we can’t screw with it!” I whispered back. I looked out across the theater and found Finn’s gaze. He nodded grimly while bringing a finger up to his ear. He hadn’t missed it either.
“Well, this is it,” I said to Hannah. “I’m giving Iggy ten minutes and then we’re moving on to Plan B.”
Hannah whimpered, “Come on Iggy! I really don’t like Plan B!”
A deafening roar exploded through the theater as the “oracle” himself finally walked out onto the stage, grinning from ear to ear and waving manically to his adoring masses.
“Good evening my friends!” he called in his melodic voice—a voice honed, as I knew from my research, during his three years at an acting school in Los Angeles. “Welcome! I want to welcome all of you to the Ghost Oracle Live! Thank you for tuning into the show, and thank you for being here tonight! I know you’ve all seen what I can do—but what you really want is to experience the miracle for yourselves, am I right?”
More thunderous applause, more shouting and screaming. Still no text from Iggy. My mouth was
starting to go dry.
“Milo? What are you doing?” I asked through our connection.
“I’m checking out all these crew members. One of them has got to be the person who’s going to feed him the info,” Milo answered. “Tons of them are wearing headsets, but it seems like they’re talking with each other, not with Freeman.”
“Yeah, stagehands have to communicate so they can coordinate the lights and stage effects; Iggy warned us about that. He said if the headsets have cords, we don’t have to worry about them—they’re on a closed circuit. It won’t be what Freeman is using.”
“You could’ve told me that ten minutes ago!” cried Milo. “I wouldn’t have wasted all that time!”
“Sorry, sorry, I forgot,” I said. “If you don’t have any luck there, more crew members are in the tech booth way up in the back of the theater.”
Milo sighed dramatically by way of a reply.
Freeman, meanwhile, was still buttering up his crowd. “…the only way I know how, and that’s to help people. To help you. That’s how the Ghost Oracle first began. And that’s how we’re going to begin right now. But please, I need complete silence while I connect with the spirit world.” I wondered if anyone else noticed that Freeman never quite allowed his right ear to face the audience; he always kept his head, or his body, carefully angled away from the crowd.
Freeman may as well have pulled out a remote control and muted the crowd. The silence that fell was absolute. I could feel the tension in the crowd’s stillness, as though every person in the room was channeling their hope of being chosen into the intensity of their silence. On stage, Freeman stood with one hand raised up in the air and his other pressed against his temple in his trademark position. His lips were moving as if he were actually talking to visitors unseen.
My phone vibrated loudly in my lap. I glanced down at it and saw a text from Iggy lighting up the screen. No luck with the frequency. Will keep trying, but time for Plan B.
I turned to show Hannah, but then Freeman’s head shot up and he called out over the crowd.
“I have a message for Jess.”
§
I froze. “He doesn’t mean me,” I told myself. “He can’t mean me. There’s probably a dozen other ‘Jesses’ in this theater right now.”
“This message is for Jess… I’m getting a ‘B’ last name… a ‘B’…”
My mouth turned from dry to parched. My palms began to sweat as I thought, “Please, no. This wasn’t part of the plan. Please, say any name other than…”
“Ballard! I’m getting Ballard. Is there a Jess Ballard in the audience here tonight?”
Hannah actually screamed, then clapped her hand over her mouth when she realized her mistake. The audience began applauding again as a spotlight followed Hannah’s scream and dazzled us with its hot, relentless beam.
“Oh my God,” I said. “Oh my God. How?”
“The selfie!” Hannah squeaked. “You posted that selfie online!”
“There she is! That’s her right up there! Come on down here, Jess, someone’s got a message for you… and we’re all going to hear it tonight!” Freeman called, extending his arms out to me as though he expected me to leap into them from the balcony.
I put up a hand to shade my eyes from the blinding spotlight; I waved my other hand in the air, just to acknowledge the crowd. Then I turned to Hannah and pulled her into a hug so I could whisper into her ear, “Plan B! There’s no time to wait for Iggy! Plan B!”
I pulled away from her and kissed her on the head, meeting her horrified eyes for just an instant. “You can do it,” I told her.
I stumbled out of our box, with my legs shaking like mad, and started descending the narrow staircase leading to the orchestra level. As I did, I tuned into my connection and heard Milo cussing his head off.
“Girl, you have got to be kidding me! How many damn selfies were on that Facebook page? How many interviews did they do in that line? And they picked you? Sweetness, you’d better start playing the freaking lottery!” he shouted.
“Yeah yeah, there’s no time for your sass, Milo!” I thought-spoke to him. “Plan B, go!”
Milo groaned. “Why can’t we ever do things the easy way? Okay, so I might be a bit of a drama queen, but this is not my thing!”
“Stop whining and get ready! Go to Hannah, she’s freaking out already,” I replied.
“Shit, okay, I’m on it. Hannah, I’m coming, sweetness,” Milo said, and I took a deep calming breath. Hannah would be able to carry out her part in the plan as long as she had Milo with her—hell, this wasn’t even nearly the most dangerous thing we’d ever faced. All she needed was Milo at her side, like a spirit security blanket, and Hannah could do anything.
One of Freeman’s crew members stood at the bottom of the stairs; he reached out a hand to assist me down the last few steps.
“Congratulations! Very exciting for you. Right this way, please, miss—and do watch your step,” the man said, grabbing my arm and forcefully steering me into the aisle.
Faces were grinning at me maniacally from every direction, accompanied by unrestrained applause and shouting. It was nothing short of disturbing to see the fervor of Freeman’s audience; some people were actually reaching out as I passed them, as though something magical was going to rub off on them if they touched me. The man escorting me actually had to fend a woman off with his forearm; only then did I realize that he wasn’t just here escort me to the stage, he was here for my protection as well.
Instinctively, my eyes searched for Finn up in his seat, but it was empty—meaning that Finn must now be in full Caomhnóir mode. In the next second, a commotion on the floor caught my eye: Finn was in a heated altercation with a security guard stationed by the stage. Finn kept pointing to me, and I could tell that—if he didn’t calm down—he was going to be thrown out before we could even get Plan B underway.
“Milo!” I called through our connection. “For Christ’s sake, pop over to Finn and tell him tone it down before he gets himself kicked out of here! We need him to be able to expel the spirits if things go south!”
“Ugh, that boy!” Milo said. “When’s he going to learn?”
I was so focused on Milo and Finn that I hadn’t noticed that my escort was now trying to wrangle me up a set of stairs that led onto the stage. Willing myself not to flip out, I refocused on my own situation and put one foot in front of the other.
I talked myself down from my panic. Worst case scenario was that Freeman would deliver a bullshit message from a grandmother who I’d completely made up. All I had to do was nod along and smile, and maybe squeeze out a few tears if I could manage it. No big deal, right?
This was just a minor alteration to Plan B. Either the plan would work, or we’d just have to come up with a new plan and try again another day, at another event. But as I reached the top of the stage stairs and turned to the audience, I felt a surge of fierce emotion I couldn’t even identify. All I knew was that our plan was going to work—and it was going to work tonight.
“Jess! Welcome to the stage!” Freeman announced. He strode toward me with his arms extended as if he fully intended to hug me. I took a step back involuntarily, but then planted myself firmly in place. I had to play along.
“Thank you,” I said. Almost instantly, a crew member trotted onto the stage and thrust a handheld microphone at me. “Thank you,” I said again, taking care to speak into the microphone this time.
“Jess, I know you’re here today because—like so many of our audience members—you’re hoping to hear from someone who’s no longer with us, is that right?” Freeman asked.
“Uh, yeah, that’s right,” I answered.
Up close, I could see that Freeman was wearing thick pancake makeup. Pearls of sweat were already beading up along his hairline from the heat of the stage lights. A tiny microphone was clipped his lapel. His damn Nehru collar mocked me.
“And who have you brought with you today to share in this miraculous experience?” Fr
eeman went on. He was grinning at me in a way that made him look like an insane Cabbage Patch doll.
“My twin sister, Hannah,” I said, pointing unnecessarily to the dress circle box. The spotlight found Hannah again, but she didn’t wave or smile. She was sitting very still with her eyes closed, and—although no one else in the theater could see him—Milo was right beside her. Anyone in the audience would have thought Hannah was praying, but I knew better. An energy was beginning to stir, a subtle shifting of the air.
My panic gave way to a thrill of excitement. Hannah was Calling. “You want to make contact with spirits, Freeman? Fasten your freaking seatbelt.” I thought to myself.
“Now, Jess, I’m going to establish contact, and see just who it is that’s trying to get in touch with you,” Freeman said, with a rehearsed gentleness in his voice. He had traded his grin for a look of intense concentration.
“Okay,” I replied, in a tense voice that played right into Freeman’s theatrics.
Freeman put one hand on my shoulder and the other to his temple, and then squeezed his eyes shut. We stood that way for several tense moments of utter silence.
And then it started.
A chill began to creep beneath my skin and into my bones. The stage lights above our heads began to flicker rapidly, as though a surge of electricity was running through them. Gasps rose up in the audience.
Freeman opened his eyes and looked up, clearly startled, but he recovered almost at once. “Either we’re having some technical difficulties or someone is very impatient to speak with you,” he said with a slightly tense laugh. A few audience chuckles met his words.
He closed his eyes again, “Jess, I’m getting a maternal figure, someone elderly. Did you lose your grandmother in the last few years?”
“Yes,” I said, giving Freeman an “aw shucks” smile. “Gee, I was hoping it might be her.”
“Well, you were right!” Freeman said as a violent shiver rocked his frame; the coldness from Hannah’s Called spirits was starting to penetrate the heat of the stage lights. His smile slipped. “And… uh… did you have a special nickname for your grandmother?”