The Backstagers and the Ghost Light

by Andy Mientus

  Jory opened his eyes slowly. Even that small action seemed to take the effort of lifting a car. His vision was blurry, but he began to get his bearings.

  The auditorium was a total wreck. There was debris everywhere, but now instead of flying through the air, it all lay lifeless on the stage floor. There was something else lying lifeless among it. Jory blinked a few times as a shocking sight came into focus—it was Jory himself. He was buried among the rubble, eerily still. Jory stared at himself, trying to figure out exactly what he was seeing, when he heard a gasp. It was Sasha, trying to lift a piece of wood that had pinned another, inert, Sasha. As the dust settled around him, Jory could see all of his friends struggling to free themselves from the rubble.

  “Is everyone okay?” Reo asked, gliding into the center of the space.

  “Most definitely NOT, dude!” Beckett replied, pulling on his own arm. “Why am I outside of my body?!”

  “We all are!” Aziz cried, staring at his own body just below him.

  “Yeah,” Reo said, forlorn. “I think . . . we died.”

  “WHAT?” Sasha shouted. “If I died, my mom will KILL ME.”

  “But why are we still here?” Hunter asked, drifting into focus.

  “Unfinished business,” Chloe said, her silver hair flowing around her as if she were underwater. “Guys, I think we’re ghosts.”

  “This . . . this is impossible,” Jamie said as he examined his own hands.

  “So is flying, but we’re all doing it,” Reo said.

  Looking down, the Backstagers noticed that they weren’t standing on the ground above their bodies, but were actually floating a few inches off the stage. They also began to realize for the first time that while the bodies on the ground were fleshy and solid, their new forms were more like smoke or gauze—indistinct and fluid.

  “I’m really sorry,” Reo said. “I failed us.”

  Jory shook his head. “You did your best. We wouldn’t have made it as far as we did without you.”

  “And if our goal was to find a good ghost,” Sasha explained, “we actually have EIGHT good ghosts now!”

  “He’s right,” Hunter said. “We’re still here for a reason. We may not have made it out alive, but this thing is bigger than us, and what kind of Backstagers would we be if we didn’t keep fighting, even if it kills us? Even AFTER it kills us?”

  “Genesius Backstagers never quit,” Timothy replied. “I’m in.”

  “Same here,” said Jamie. “We’re all ghosts, but we’re all together.”

  “And if we’re already dead, then we can’t lose, can we?” asked Aziz.

  “And, guys,” Jory said, pointing across the auditorium, “I think we better hurry.”

  A shadowy slice hung there above the orchestra seats: a rip through the fabric of reality. Two ghost claws protruded through the crack, trying to pull it apart from either side. As the crack widened, they could see the red eyes of the Arch Ghost gleaming hungrily from the darkness beyond.

  “It’s about to break through!” cried Beckett.

  “Not while I’m haunting this theater,” Chloe said as she flew up into the air in an impossibly cool, action-movie kick and slammed her sneaker into one of the spindly ghost fingers. The Arch Ghost hissed from the other side of the crack.

  “Oh, no you don’t!” Beckett cried as he picked up a broken piece of cable from the rubble and cracked it like a whip at another ghost finger. The finger recoiled back into the portal.

  The ghostly Backstagers all shared a look—they knew what they had to do. At once, they charged toward the lip of the stage, leaped, and took flight toward the portal like a pack of superheroes armed with two-by-fours, prop torches, music stands, and power drills. When they made impact with the portal, they completely overpowered the Arch Ghost, sending it screaming deep into the dimension from whence it came.

  Unfortunately, they also overpowered the portal itself, and it tore further open and swallowed the lot of them up as if they were a team of sledding dogs crashing through thin ice. They plummeted out of their own dimension into that of the Arch Ghost before the portal snapped closed again, trapping them in that alternate world and plunging the Genesius auditorium into darkness.

  When they landed on the other side of the portal, the Backstagers found themselves on the stage of the Arch Theater, at the gaping mouth of an injured and furious Arch Ghost.

  “YOU THINK BREAKING MY FINGERS WILL STOP ME?” it roared as a hundred new claws grew from its back. It flexed its thousand new razor-sharp fingers. “YOU ARE IN MY DOMAIN NOW, WHERE I AM AT FULL POWER. WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU CAN DEFEAT ME, THE FIRST GHOST, WHO RULES ALL OTHERS?”

  “You think this is your domain?” Timothy asked with a laugh. “You’re in the theater now, and you’re messing with the best Backstagers in the business.”

  “And don’t forget, you killed us and we are still here fighting you,” Aziz said defiantly. “From where I’m standing, it looks like we have nothing left to lose.”

  “YES, I’VE ALREADY CLAIMED YOUR BODIES. NOW I SHALL CLAIM YOUR SOULS!”

  Jory winced at this, but he knew they had reached the point of no return.

  “Everyone at places?” Jamie shouted, swinging his intercom pack around on its wire like a medieval weapon. “Then let’s go!”

  They charged the Arch Ghost as it thrust its hundred claws toward them.

  Aziz had picked up a plank of wood that he deftly swung, bludgeoning claw after claw away.

  Jory had a bolt of fabric that he twirled about, shielding and deflecting the groping claws like a bullfighter. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a claw dive for Hunter, who was using his fire extinguisher to blast each attack away. Jory leaped into the path of the reaching fingers and swatted them away. Hunter shot Jory a grateful wink and continued the battle.

  Jamie was particularly adept with his intercom pack, swinging and bashing away claws at impressive distances. Later, Timothy would remember to swoon over his boyfriend-turned-action-hero, but for now, he was busy dodging strikes and trying to think of a plan.

  Reo tossed his wide-brimmed hat like a boomerang. As it soared about the theater, it took out several claws in one graceful strike before returning to its owner. It was a move Reo had daydreamed when he drew himself as an anime superhero but couldn’t imagine actually pulling off. In the spirit world, it seemed that thought and belief mattered more than what was actually possible in the regular world.

  Sasha came barreling toward the Arch Ghost at incredible speed armed with his prop torch. He batted a few descending claws aside with its handle, but when he switched the flame on, the arms of the Arch Ghost seemed to fizzle and dissolve around him.

  “The light!” he shouted to his comrades. “It hates the LIGHT!”

  Timothy looked up from a ghostly wrist he was strangling to see that Sasha was right.

  “Beckett! Chloe!” he shouted. “You’re our electrics kids. Fix that ghost light, fast! We’ll fight him off!”

  Beckett turned to Chloe and she shouted an affirmative “Copy!”

  As the others fought off the Arch Ghost’s army of claws, Beckett and Chloe darted into the wings to make a quick plan.

  “I’ll take stage left, you take stage right,” Chloe whispered. “There’s got to be a replacement bulb in here somewhere. Once we find it, it’s a simple install job.”

  “Give a shout if you find it. And be careful. This place has a mind of its own,” Beckett replied.

  They split up and began searching. The wings of the Arch Theater were full of mysterious artifacts. Boxes and boxes of ancient-looking goblets, daggers, candles, and shields may have been props or may have been actual antiques from some lost civilizations—there was no way to know for sure.

  Chloe frantically dug through a rack of containers that seemed to hold every kind of theatrical light, from the flame and mirror setups of antiquity up to the most modern intelligent lamps. Unfortunately, no lightbulbs. She thought she was at least in the right department, but
when she examined the next rack, all of its containers had Greek masks, stone faces elaborately expressing comedy or tragedy. Confused, she returned to the previous rack to see if she had missed something, but now the containers no longer held theater lights—they were full of ropes and wires. The Arch Theater was toying with her.

  Meanwhile, onstage, the other Backstagers were struggling to deal with the attacks of the Arch Ghost. As soon as they defeated one wave of its talons, another would appear. The Arch Ghost seemed to have limitless power, and the Backstagers, even in their elevated spirit form, were getting tired.

  Hunter had just blasted away a shadowy hand when he saw yet another approaching. He pointed his extinguisher and fired, but no juice was left to drive the hand away. The talon grabbed the tool from Hunter and cast it away into the darkness.

  Hunter looked around for something—anything—to defend himself with, but before he could act, he was snatched up by the giant claw and hoisted into the air. Jory could only watch from afar, busy as he was fighting off his own attackers, as Hunter was pulled into the belly of the Arch Ghost, disappearing into its shadowy blackness.

  “Hunter, NO!” Jory cried as he threw down his fabric shield and sprinted with full force toward the Arch Ghost. He dove after Hunter into the Arch Ghost’s massive form, vanishing into the dark.

  Timothy and Jamie were back to back, both fighting off the claws and defending each other. Jamie swung his intercom pack into at least a dozen foes before the Arch Ghost learned his strategy and caught the pack like a baseball. Jamie’s eyes widened as the claw then tugged the pack, wire, and Jamie along with it up into the air. Timothy turned just in time to grab Jamie’s sneaker and start a tug-of-war with the ghost. The match was a short one, however, as more claws quickly swept Timothy up by the ankles and carried them both into the black belly of the Arch Ghost.

  The ghost seemed to grow in size and power as it overtook each Backstager. Soon, the remaining warriors didn’t stand a chance.

  Sasha cowered beneath his torch, which provided a thin barrier of protection. The Arch Ghost reached for him, but its arms dissolved again and again as they hit the light. This was a clever ghost, though, and it managed to snatch Sasha up by plunging a claw into the stage floor and grasping up beneath him. Sasha was so startled when he felt the cold, sharp fingers wrap around his tiny leg that he dropped the torch, extinguishing its light and leaving him defenseless against his attacker. He was soon pulled in with the others.

  Reo took out throngs of the claws before the ghost got wise and caught his hat. Reo had another trick up his sleeves—literally. When the claws rained back down upon him, he tossed a handful of something he had been concealing in his sweater—the sea salt left over from their magic circle.

  The grains of salt hit the shadowy hands like acid rain, turning them instantly to dust. His plan bought him enough time to look around and notice that he was the last Backstager standing. He also noticed for the first time how the Arch Ghost had grown impossibly tall, filling the entire Arch Theater with shadow. It smiled a sinister red smile at Reo as a thousand new claws filled the air around it. Reo slowed his breathing and pulled out a silver chain hanging around his neck, revealing a silver star necklace that had been hiding beneath his shirt. It was a pentagram, the five-pointed star of protection. He held it tightly and closed his eyes as the claws descended all around him.

  In the wings, Beckett rummaged through crate after crate of theatrical bric-a-brac, searching for the bulb. Like Chloe, he had quickly discovered that the boxes would change their contents as soon as their lids were replaced, so rather than moving between boxes, Beckett now searched one single crate over and over again. First it was mic belts, then it was scripts, then it was thread, then it was makeup. Every time he replaced the lid and pulled it off again, a new heaping pile of equipment appeared before him. Eventually, he stopped searching through the piles at all but could just judge at a glance if he was even looking at lighting department stuff.

  He lifted and dropped the lid again and again as if he were clicking through slides on a projector: curtains, plywood, power tools, pointe shoes, coffee, gaff tape, lightbulbs. LIGHTBULBS! He stopped and threw the lid aside, rummaging through the bulbs. There were colorful fairy lights, twisty eco bulbs, tiny desk bulbs, antique Edison bulbs, and—at last!—a large plain white filament bulb—exactly right for a ghost light.

  “Guys! I got it!” Beckett shouted.

  He was met with an eerie silence.

  “Guys?”

  He saw his breath plume out in front of him as the temperature suddenly dropped to below freezing. Beckett turned slowly. At his back were a dozen outstretched ghost hands, hanging silently in the air, ready to pounce. Beckett screamed as they shot down at him, swallowing him up and shattering the bulb on the stage floor.

  Chloe was completely lost. She had followed a rack of crates far into the wing, checking each for the bulbs to no avail. When she looked back, she couldn’t see the stage but only an endless row of crates extending into nothingness. She looked in the direction she had been heading and saw the same. Somehow, she had entered a deeper part of the Arch Theater that had lost the form of a functional stage and was now just the idea of storage—storage as far as the eye could see or the mind could comprehend.

  She had no idea how to return, but she figured she would worry about that when she found the bulb. She opened more crates. Chalk. Cough drops. Fog machines. Water bottles. Staff paper. Pencils. Each new box mocked her. She was getting frustrated. Granola bars. Staples. Rope. Pencils again. She crumpled on the ground in tears.

  “SHOW ME WHAT I’M LOOKING FOR!” she shouted to no one.

  She couldn’t hold back anymore and sobbed. She had made such a terrible mess of everything. She’d literally gotten a bunch of people killed and possibly put the world in danger from a force she was not nearly strong enough or smart enough to combat.

  After a few heavy sobs, she started to collect herself, but the sounds of her crying still echoed around the space. She sat upright, confused.

  Now she wasn’t crying at all but could hear the unmistakable sound of a girl in tears. It was near.

  She looked through a few boxes. More theater stuff, but no tears. She zeroed in on the sound a few boxes away. She looked inside—only sandbags. She pulled the box out from the rack and found behind it a little girl, maybe about nine years old, cowering in the dark. Her curly hair, pulled into pom-poms, obscured her face.

  “Phoebe?” Chloe gasped.

  CHAPTER 17

  “I’m scared.”

  “Me too.”

  “I’m lost.”

  “Me too. But it’s me, Chloe.”

  “Who?”

  “Don’t you remember, silly? Your sister, Chloe.”

  “ . . . Chloe.”

  “Yes.”

  “I think . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “I think I remember.”

  “Good! I remember you. I miss you.”

  “I don’t remember me.”

  “No?”

  “Not really.”

  “Your name is Phoebe.”

  “Oh . . . Yes.”

  “You are nine years old and you love acting onstage very much and your sister loves you very much.”

  “Onstage.”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that where we are now?”

  “No, we’re backstage, somewhere.”

  “I don’t like it here.”

  “Me neither.”

  “How did I get here?”

  “Well, you left us, your family. You left us behind. And maybe you got lost? Trying to find your way back onstage, I bet.”

  “I left?! I’m sorry.”

  “No, don’t be sorry. You didn’t have a choice. You couldn’t stay anymore. We were all so sad.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be.”

  “I don’t understand why I would leave. I don’t like being alone.”

  “You’re
not alone. Not anymore.”

  “No.”

  “Because your sister is here now.”

  “Chloe.”

  “Yes.”

  “I . . . I remember.”

  “Yes? What do you remember?”

  “I remember a tree . . . and a slope . . . white . . . cold.”

  “And a sled?”

  “Yes!”

  “Yes, sledding in the backyard. School was canceled for the day and the day seemed to last a year.”

  “Yes! We rode the sled down the hill by the tall tree. Over and over. And then . . . someone called.”

  “Mom?”

  “MOM! Yes. Mom. I remember.”

  “And she made us hot cocoa and all the snow was still stuck in your hair when we came inside, into the warm.”

  “Yes! I was feeling better that day.”

  “You were.”

  “Yes. I was feeling much better. It was a few weeks before we found out . . . oh.”

  “But before that! Before that time! What do you remember?”

  “And then I wasn’t feeling better anymore. I just felt worse and worse . . .”

  “Phoebe, hey! Stay with me! Before all of that, can you remember anything else? Can you remember your dance recital?”

  “ . . . Dance?”

  “This was a year or so before the snow day. You were making your debut onstage, dancing. At Penitent Angels, remember?”

  “ . . . I . . . I don’t know.”

  “Mom and Dad were bickering because Dad made us late picking out a tie and Mom was like, ‘All of your ties are the same,’ and he was like, ‘Not when my daughter is performing onstage. I need to look my best,’ and Mom was like, ‘To look your best, we need a time machine,’ and we all laughed so hard.”

  “Yes! Time machine, yes!”

  “And you went and danced and we watched and applauded and you were so amazing and then we all went to dinner and you got to pick the place. Do you remember what you picked? Phoebe? Can you remember?”

  “ . . . Pizza?”

  “Of COURSE you did! Every chance you got!”

  “I remember!”