The Ghost Light

by Sarah Rubin

  She stood up and turned to the dresser without looking at me. Her body language was about as subtle as an elephant in a swimsuit. It practically shouted you’ll see, and then you’ll be sorry.

  ‘So?’ Kevin asked when we were safely down the hall. His face was pink and paint-free and glowed like something out of a soap commercial. ‘What do you

  think?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About Kittie Grace?’

  I rolled my eyes and kept walking. The dressing rooms were on the west side of the Beryl, so we had to go back through the theatre before we could start sorting out the storeroom for Mom.

  ‘I think there are no such things as ghosts,’ I said.

  ‘Come on, Alice. I thought you were going to keep an open mind. Kittie Grace sounds super-spooky.’

  ‘Vivian could make a loaf of bread sound spooky. The only new fact she told us was that her heel broke. But if it was a shoe from the original production’ – I did a quick calculation – ‘it was at least ninety years old.’

  ‘OK, but what if it wasn’t an accident? You know, what’s the probability of that many “accidents” happening in one show?’

  Kevin raised an eyebrow as if to say checkmate. I should have never offered to tutor him in maths. But he had a point. If the safe wasn’t an accident, there was a good chance the shoe wasn’t either. I needed to talk to Pete. If the stage manager had a reasonable explanation for why the safe was loose, maybe I could put this whole case to bed.

  I shouldered open the door into the theatre and blinked. The stage lights were on now. Pete must have been in the lighting booth getting ready for rehearsal. And the area bustled with activity.

  Mom and Linda stood next to lobby doors at the top of the house as a quartet of removal men tried to manoeuvre a very large ball of bubble wrap into the room. Linda held the door open with one hand and held her smartphone in the other, typing furiously. Jarvis, the creepy caretaker, leant against the wall, watching them with a fierce scowl. He didn’t trust outsiders. Actually, he didn’t trust insiders much either. The way he watched the cast and crew made him look like a cop at a cat burglar convention.

  Della caught sight of us and waved Kevin and me over.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I asked, nodding to the doorway.

  ‘Irinke,’ Della said with a heavy accent. ‘She bought us a chandelier at the Liberty Ball silent auction last night.’

  One of the removal men stumbled slightly and the package slipped dangerously close to the floor.

  ‘Careful with that!’ screeched a voice from outside the door. That’s Austrian crystal!’

  I took a step to one side and caught sight of Irinke in the doorway behind the removal men, wrapped head to toe in grey-blue fur. Her hand clutched the neck of her coat like a jewel-encrusted claw. Della said Irinke was a direct descendant of the dukes of Transylvania. I didn’t think it was that impressive, since Transylvania wasn’t a separate country any more. But I guess royalty is for ever.

  Mom moved out of the doorway and took Irinke by the arm, trying to keep her calm. It didn’t work.

  ‘I said, be careful!’ Irinke shrieked again, making everyone in the room jump. She twisted her arm out of Mom’s grasp in a surprisingly lithe motion.

  Linda winced, but her thumb on her smartphone didn’t slow down. ‘Irinke, you really didn’t need to go to all this trouble,’ she said as the men finally angled the parcel through the door.

  ‘Nonsense. I insist. You can’t reopen this beautiful building without an equally beautiful chandelier.’ Irinke slid into the theatre. ‘Ashley, Ashley,’ she snapped and a small rabbit-faced man stepped out of her shadow. ‘Make yourself useful and watch them.’ She gestured at the removal men.

  Ashley jerked his head in a small nod and started to walk away.

  Irinke cleared her throat and he stopped.

  ‘Is there something else, Auntie Irinke?’

  Irinke looked at him the way you look on your shoe after you step in dog poo. ‘My coat.’ She held out her arms and Ashley rushed to assist. Then he folded it over his arm and walked back to the removal men.

  ‘I’m so sorry, I promised his mother I’d look after him. But he’s useless, really,’ Irinke said to the room in general. If she noticed the uncomfortable silence, she didn’t care. She clapped excitedly as the removal men began to unwrap the first layer of bubble wrap.

  ‘As soon as I saw this at the silent auction, I simply had to win it for you. It’s not as grand as the chandelier at the Palace of Arts. I danced there, in my youth.’

  I rolled my eyes. Irinke never missed a chance to tell people she used to be a ballerina.

  ‘But it is perfect for this space. Wait till you see it. You won’t be able to contain yourself. The men will install it, so there’s nothing to worry about.’

  Linda smiled graciously, then she spotted me. ‘While we’re waiting, Irinke, let me introduce Alice. She’s the girl I was telling you about before. Virginia’s daughter.’

  ‘Alice, my darling,’ Irinke said, drawing out the word darling like it was toffee. ‘Linda tells me you are the lucky child who gets to go treasure hunting through the Beryl’s past.’ Irinke’s eyes glittered under heavy lids. I could feel Kevin perk up beside me at the word treasure.

  ‘I haven’t found anything yet,’ I said quickly. There was something about the way she watched me that made my skin crawl.

  ‘Don’t sell yourself short, my dear. The first rule of theatre is self-promotion.’ She stepped a little closer to me and the heavy scent of her perfume filled my nose. ‘Self-promotion and presentation. I was just telling Linda that my jeweller has a few spare display cases she’s offered to let us use. For your display. Isn’t that wonderful?’

  To be honest, I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I didn’t even know if there’d be anything worth presenting.

  Linda answered before I had a chance to speak. ‘You do too much for us, Irinke,’ she said. ‘How will we ever be able to repay you?’

  ‘It’s no worry. I’m happy to do what I can for this beautiful old building. I do so want to see it returned to its past glory.’

  Linda beamed. ‘I’m sure Alice would be happy to give you a tour. Once she and her friend have cleaned it up a bit, of course.’

  Irinke turned to me, her lips quirked up into an odd smile, like she’d seen something funny but she was the only one who got the joke. ‘Thank you, my dear. I would enjoy that very much.’

  ‘Well, I guess we’d better get started then,’ I said, backing away. Irinke gave me the creeps.

  She smiled again and nodded, granting me permission to leave. I practically bolted, with Kevin close on my heels.

  ‘Who was that?’

  ‘That’s Irinke Barscay,’ Della said, and I jumped.

  ‘Della!’ I said, trying to stuff my heart back into my chest.

  ‘Don’t mind her,’ Kevin said. ‘We just found out about the ghost of Kittie Grace.’

  Della’s face went waxy and pale. I could have killed him. Kevin thought ghost hunting was fun, but Della was really scared.

  ‘He doesn’t mean it,’ I said hurriedly. ‘Vivian thinks Kittie Grace is out to get her because she took her part in the play. But she’s wrong.’

  Della sniffed. ‘Are you sure? Do you have proof?’

  I sighed. I hadn’t wanted to tell Della about the gouges in the floor, not until I’d talked to Pete. But it was the only way I could think of to make her see that whatever was causing the problems, it was someone with a body.

  ‘Look, you know I don’t believe in ghosts,’ I said. Della opened her mouth but I kept talking before she could interrupt me. ‘But I do believe in you, Della, OK? I’m keeping an open mind and gathering real facts. Someone tampered with that safe. And you aren’t the only one who’s noticed things going wrong. I’ll get to the bottom of it, I promise. But you only asked me to look into it last night.’

  Della’s shoulders slumped and my sister suddenly looked very
tired. I hadn’t realized how much this show meant to her. I felt a sudden rush of anger at whoever was making my sister feel so scared.

  There’s only four more days till opening night,’ she said. ‘You need to figure out whoever, whatever, is doing this and stop them before it’s too late.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I will.’

  The storeroom was at the very back of the theatre where the fuel for the Beryl’s dangerous gas-powered lights had been kept back in the 1900s. After the fire, I guess someone figured it would be more use as a store-room, but they hadn’t gotten rid of the network of pipes that carried the gas to the stage.

  ‘Wow,’ Kevin said from behind me. ‘Movie stars and ghosts, this is the best holiday ever.’

  I shot him a look that said keep your voice down. The remnants of the engineers’ DO NOT ENTER tape fluttered from the wall and the smell of soot grew stronger along with the scent of new wood and paint. Kevin lowered his voice and kept talking.

  ‘I wonder if we’ll see it? Maybe we should stake out the theatre at night?’

  ‘No, because there isn’t anything to see.’

  ‘Spoilsport.’

  I stopped in front of the storeroom door. The words GAS HOUSE were painted across it in faded gold letters. Kevin snorted and I fished out my key quickly before he could start cracking jokes. The lock stuck and I had to jiggle the handle a few times before it turned. The hinges were ancient and creaked horribly.

  Inside, it looked like a bomb had gone off. Boxes, trunks, hatboxes, garment bags, bits of sets, paintings and playbills, old mouldering make-up and annotated scripts. It had all been shoved in through the door and left wherever it landed. Everything was coated in greasy layers of soot and cobwebs that seemed to seep into my skin.

  ‘Why do I always end up in places like this when we hang out?’ Kevin asked.

  ‘I guess you’re just lucky,’ I said. ‘At least there’s no rotten food, right?’ I lifted the corner of one of the trunks and a puff of ancient dust wafted out.

  Kevin wrinkled his nose and shuddered. Thank goodness for small favours,’ he said. ‘You’re going to tell Matthew Strange how helpful I am, right?’

  ‘I thought you agreed, no stalking.’

  ‘I’m not stalking. I’m part of the crew. Besides, I gave him first aid. We’re practically best friends now.’

  I bit back a smile. I had to admit, having Kevin around made the Beryl a lot more entertaining.

  I took a deep breath, and immediately regretted it. A fun little job, my foot. We’d need a year to sort through all this. And a hazmat suit. And Mom wanted a lobby display by opening night? I shoved my dismay back into my shoes. Standing around moaning wasn’t going to help. We’d just have to do our best and hope we got lucky.

  ‘Pick a box and start sorting,’ I said. ‘We’ll put anything good on that table over there, and the rest can go in the back corner.’

  ‘Table good. Corner bad. Got it.’

  I dug through my bag and pulled out a notebook and pen so we could catalogue our findings and label the boxes we’d already searched. If I had my phone, I could have taken pictures. I ground my teeth.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Kevin asked as he hefted a canvas shoe box on to the table in front of me.

  ‘I can’t believe I lost my phone.’

  ‘Your dad knows the police, can’t he get them to track it down for you?’ Kevin blew a cloud of dust off the top of the box and lifted the lid.

  I was expecting a pair of shoes. Instead, the box was full of papers – business letters and bills, all yellow and brittle under my fingertips. It would probably be interesting to a theatre historian, but I didn’t think it had the ‘pizzazz’ Linda was looking for.

  ‘The police have more important things to do than find my mobile,’ I said as I thumbed through the papers. We were going to need another pile for the things that were too boring for the display, but not bad enough to toss.

  ‘I guess it’s up to us then.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ I pulled the last stack of papers out of the box. They looked like some sort of loan agreement for something called the Midnight Star. I stuck them in the ‘boring’ pile.

  ‘You said you’ve already cleaned the front of the theatre three times. So the spray-painting brat keeps coming back. If that’s true, then all we need to do to get your phone back is be there the next time he strikes.’

  He was right. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t figured it out myself. I’d been so busy trying to convince Della that ghosts weren’t real, I hadn’t given the graffiti bandit more than a passing thought.

  ‘Besides,’ Kevin said, clearly loving his new role as lead detective, ‘don’t you want to know why he keeps tagging the Beryl? It’s not normal to keep coming back to the same spot. It isn’t even normal graffiti. I mean, “Beware the Curse”. What’s that all about?’

  I shrugged. ‘He probably just saw the name of the play on the marquee out front and thought it would be funny.’

  Kevin didn’t look convinced.

  ‘But you’re right, we should try to catch him. I’m sick of scrubbing bricks.’

  Kevin staggered and clutched at his chest like I’d shocked him into a heart attack.

  ‘Come on, these boxes aren’t going to unpack themselves,’ I said, before he could get too carried away.

  Kevin grinned and grabbed another box, dragging it to the centre of the room. ‘Oh, this one’s heavy. I’ve got a good feeling about this.’

  The box was full of moth-eaten costumes, most of them were more holes than fabric. Although one blue ballgown had just about survived, if you could ignore the smell. The box after that was full of dirty rags and it got worse from there. Strips of musty fabric, melted stubs of candles, cast-off cuts of wood, old dried and crusted tins of paint, everything covered in soot and grime. In one corner, we found an old feather pillow and a pile of blankets that had become infested with mice sometime in the past century. The mice were long gone, but several tiny skeletons remained. I shuddered violently as I kicked those into the ‘to be burnt’ pile.

  The pillow felt too heavy against my foot and made an odd scraping sound. I picked it up by the corner, trying to touch as little of the filthy fabric as possible. A leather notebook smacked the floor with a sharp clap and a cloud of dust.

  ‘What’s that?’ Kevin asked.

  ‘It looks like a journal.’

  The pages were brittle, but not singed or sooty. The inside cover bore the name Franklin Oswald, 1927–1978 in small cramped cursive letters.

  I flipped a few pages and tried to read.

  I know it’s still here. It must be here. If I had help it would take less time to search, but they can’t be trusted. None of them can be trusted. They say the fire started it all, but I know what really happened. It was one of them. I’ll find the Star myself. And once I find the Star, I’ll rebuild and everything will be as it should.

  Behind me, the door opened with a horrible screech of rusty hinges and I jumped, closing the book with an audible snap.

  ‘Sorry, Alice,’ Pete said. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you. Della told me you’d be here . . .’ His voice trailed off and he stared into the room.

  The Beryl’s stage manager was a large man with a shiny bald head and a walrus moustache. He wore black jeans and a black T-shirt. The slogan Keep Calm and Let the Stage Crew Handle It stretched tight across his belly.

  ‘Have you found anything yet?’

  Kevin snorted.

  ‘Nothing good,’ I said.

  Pete’s eyes darted from one pile of boxes to the next, sparkling with dreams of finding original set pieces and bringing them back to the stage.

  ‘Do you want to open a box?’ I asked. It would be a lot easier to grill Pete about the accident with the safe if he was distracted by digging for historic gold.

  Pete looked at me like I’d offered him a winning lottery ticket. ‘Can I?’ He didn’t wait for me to answer, just barrelled into the room, drumming his fing
ers together as he weighed his options. He finally settled on a large crate near the door, sliding it across the floor towards the table. ‘Oooh, it’s heavy,’ he said and cracked open the lid.

  ‘Whoa,’ Kevin said. ‘It looks like a robot died in there.’

  The box was full of metal tubes and cylinders and cracked rubber tubing. Loose nuts and bolts rattled in the bottom of the box, and scraps of scorched hessian were tucked between the gaps.

  ‘No way,’ Pete said, staring into the box with his jaw hanging open.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s a limelight. An original limelight.’ Pete started unloading the box like it was a Christmas stocking. ‘It’s all here. Even the lime.’ He held up what looked like a small cube of brownish salt. ‘See, the gas would go through these tubes and then when the flame reacted with the lime you’d get a brilliant white light. This was before electricity, of course.’

  Kevin gave me a look over the top of Pete’s head, asking if he was normal. I shrugged. Pete was passionate about preserving the history of the Beryl. He’d rebuilt the set of The Curse using as many original pieces as he could salvage and faithfully recreating anything he couldn’t.

  ‘So, Pete,’ I asked casually, ‘how’s the set? Could you fix everything after the accident OK?’

  Pete stopped unloading the box and looked at me. Thank you, Alice. You know, you’re the only one who’s asked. Everyone is always so concerned about the actors, but no one ever gives the set the credit it deserves.’

  I nodded sympathetically and waited for him to continue.

  ‘It wasn’t tough to fix, just a bit of gorilla glue. That safe was from the original 1927 set. They knew how to build things back then. Solid as a rock.’

  I cringed, imagining a rock crashing down on Matthew Strange’s head.

  ‘Was that why it fell? Wasn’t it glued down?’ Kevin asked.

  ‘Of course it wasn’t. It was nailed down. Everything on the top level is.’ Pete stopped suddenly, his mouth hanging open. It just hit him: if the safe had been nailed down, how had it fallen?