by Sarah Rubin
We’d only been gone half an hour, but with a few lighting rigs and a lot of spotlight bulbs, Pete had transformed it from a plain white box full of glass cabinets to a sleek stylish room full of treasure. Clear white light shone down on to each display. If I thought a glass case made the original script look good, a glass case and a spotlight made it look ready for the red carpet.
Besides the spotlight, Pete had also set up some general lighting, creating a subtle path through the display, leading from one case to the next in a large loop and finishing at the replica of the Midnight Star.
‘Nice job, Pete,’ Kevin said.
Pete beamed. ‘My pleasure. This is a great display. Linda’s going to love it.’ His eyes swept over the room, drinking in all the gaudy details and came to rest on the Midnight Star replica. Pete sighed. ‘It’s too bad it isn’t the real one.’
Something stirred in the back of my mind. Pete knew all about the history of the Beryl.
‘Do you think the Star’s still here?’ I asked as casually as I could.
Pete ducked his head and rubbed the back of his neck with one hand; the other rested on his hip. He looked more embarrassed than suspicious. ‘It might be,’ he said. ‘I like to think it is. But if Franklin Oswald didn’t find it, I don’t think anyone ever will. That man searched this building from top to bottom. He tore down the whole set looking for hiding places.’ Pete blushed a shade of red so deep it was almost purple. ‘I checked too, when I put the set back together.’
Something clicked in the back of my mind.
‘You said the safe was part of the original set. Did you notice anything odd about it after it fell? Maybe like a secret compartment?’
I ignored Kevin’s raised eyebrow and waited for Pete.
‘I thought that might be the hiding spot too! But it was just a box. Why? Do you think the necklace is still here?’
‘No,’ I said. I hated to disappoint him. ‘I was just curious.’
Pete waited for a moment to see if I was going to change my mind and tell him the necklace was still there and I knew where it was hiding. I didn’t. If Pete had checked the whole set, that disproved my theory that the diamond was hidden there. Unless he’d missed something.
A chill passed over me as I watched Pete pack up his tools and leave the lobby. I didn’t want to believe that Pete could be the one behind the problems at the Beryl, but I couldn’t rule him out. I remembered the cold strong hands pushing me towards the edge of the stage in the dark and shuddered.
But no, I shook my head. It couldn’t be Pete. He could have the set to himself any time he wanted. He didn’t need to sneak into the Beryl at night and search it again.
I growled.
If Kittie Grace had stolen the Midnight Star and hidden it onstage, she’d done a good enough job to fool the police and everyone who’d ever searched for it since. I couldn’t just assume Pete would have found it if it was there.
I had to search for it myself.
I waited until Frank and the cast stopped for lunch, before slipping into the empty auditorium, Kevin close on my heels. My stomach growled loudly.
‘What are you doing?’ Kevin asked as I jogged down the aisle. I shivered slightly as I skirted the pit and vaulted up on to the stage. It looked deeper and more dangerous than ever.
‘Let me know if anyone’s coming,’ I said to Kevin.
I closed my eyes, trying to remember what I’d heard the night I’d surprised the intruder.
‘What are you—’
I held up my hand and cut Kevin off.
It had been dark, and I’d heard a sound from the stage. Like someone pulling nails out of a plank of wood. I’d thought the intruder was messing with the set, but it had been fine when the lights came on. I thought that was because I’d scared them off, but maybe not.
There had been footsteps, muffled at first like they’d been over carpet, and then louder. I moved backwards until the sounds matched, hoping that Kevin would shout if I was about to step off the edge of the stage. There. The floor didn’t change under my feet, but the sound did. I opened my eyes.
I was standing upstage centre, the false wall between the sitting room and the hallway to my left. I tapped my foot on the floor; it sounded hollow.
I crouched down and ran my fingers over the floorboards. It was an old stage, the floor made of strips of painted wood instead of one large flat piece of plywood. My fingers found it before my eyes, a crack that was a little larger than the others, and when my fingers followed it the crack traced a perfect square. On one side faint scratch marks showed where someone had tried to prise it open.
Pete kept a spare toolbox in the wings for set emergencies. I rifled through it and found a crowbar and then ran back to centre stage.
‘What are you doing?’ Kevin asked from behind me and I jumped clear off the ground.
‘You’re supposed to be keeping a lookout,’ I said, trying to shove my stomach back down where it belonged.
‘No one’s coming.’
I knelt down and tucked the thin end of the crowbar into the crack, using it as a lever. There was a horrible screeching sound, just like the one I’d heard two nights ago.
A large dark square yawned open beneath us.
I leant into the darkness. I could see a small square of dark ground about a metre and a half below me, but nothing else.
Kevin pulled me back. ‘Are you kidding me?’ he asked. ‘If we were in a movie, this is the part where the whole audience would be screaming don’t go down there!’
‘This isn’t a movie,’ I said, but when I looked down into the darkness my stomach quivered. If there were such things as ghosts, this is exactly where they’d hide. I swallowed hard, I wasn’t about to tell Kevin I was scared of something I didn’t even believe in. I swung my legs into the hole and half slid, half jumped into the darkness below.
I landed with a small thump. The light from above barely touched the gloom, so I held up my phone for illumination. The space under the stage was too low to be called a room. I had to keep my head slightly ducked to avoid hitting the ceiling. The smell of soot hung in the air more strongly than anywhere else in the theatre.
Kevin landed with a thud behind me. ‘What is this place?’
I shrugged, squinting through the darkness. The ceiling had several rusted hinges along the edges that made it look like once a much larger portion of the stage floor could open.
‘They might have kept sets here, or used it as another entrance for actors?’
Kevin shifted to get a closer look at the hinges.
‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Don’t move.’
I swept my phone low to the ground, lighting up the floor. A thick layer of dust covered the room from wall to wall. There were small scuff marks and footprints where Kevin and I had landed, but nothing else. I couldn’t see all the way to the end of the room, so I took some quick photos of the undisturbed dust.
‘What are you doing?’ Kevin held on to my shoulder for balance, doing his best impression of a statue.
‘No footprints,’ I said. I checked the pictures and then started to walk away from the trapdoor’s square of light, keeping close to the wall. I counted my steps as I went. Cobwebs brushed against my face and I tried not to imagine gigantic spiders hiding in the dark.
‘So?’ Kevin stayed put, standing like a singer in a spotlight.
‘So no one’s been down here but us. The other night when I heard someone sneaking around onstage, I must have scared them off before they had a chance to search it.’
It was twenty-five steps to the end of the room, so I estimated I was standing under the stage’s left wing. A metal ladder was bolted to the wall, leading to another hatch. I climbed the seven rungs and pushed up. The trapdoor didn’t budge. When I looked more closely I could see it was bolted shut. I jiggled the bolt, but it was rusted solid.
I retraced my steps back past Kevin and went to the other side of the room. An identical ladder and an identical hatch. The rust wasn�
�t as bad on this side of the stage and I managed to work the bolt free. I lifted the trapdoor open just enough for me to peer out. I was right, the hatch came up in the stage’s right wing. I closed the door and dropped back to the floor.
‘Wait, if no one’s been down here,’ Kevin said as I came back to the square of light where he waited, ‘does that mean the diamond might still be here?’
‘Maybe,’ I said slowly, trying not to get my hopes up. It seemed unlikely that someone as obsessed with finding the Midnight Star as Franklin Oswald wouldn’t have searched here already. But I couldn’t help feeling a little excited. Besides, not searching would be sloppy detective work.
Kevin clapped his hands together.
I pointed Kevin left and I took stage right, carefully walking along the perimeter of the room looking for anything that might be a hiding place for a million-dollar necklace. I didn’t find anything. The walls of the room were rough, but solid with no convenient knotholes or hidden compartments. I reached the end of the wall and turned the corner, checking the area around the ladder. There was nothing there either. My shoulders were starting to ache from hunching over.
‘Numbers,’ Kevin called from across the room, his voice an octave higher than usual. He coughed. ‘I think I found something.’
My heart kicked and I hurried towards Kevin’s voice, holding up my phone to light the way. He was crouched next to a small panel in the wall, dancing from foot to foot.
‘There.’ He pointed excitedly. ‘Do you see it? It’s a door or something.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘aren’t you going to open it?’
Kevin swallowed. Then he hooked his fingers around the edge of the panel and pulled.
The panel hadn’t been opened in decades and the hinges were stiff with age. Kevin’s fingernails scrabbled against the wood and I cringed at the sound. It started to ease open and then, all at once, the hinges gave way. I held up my phone, shining the electronic white light into the hole.
Something flashed in the darkness and Kevin grabbed my shoulder.
‘There!’ he practically yelled.
My breath caught in my throat as silver light glittered back at me. And then I looked closer.
‘No,’ I said, trying to keep the disappointment out of my voice.
The light flashed against a large wheel with a crank handle. Three levers stuck out of the wall to its right. Kevin stuck his face into the hole, craning his neck and checking every corner.
‘Anything?’ I asked, even though I knew the answer.
Kevin shook his head. He looked like someone who’d found out his chocolate cake was made of spinach. ‘Nope,’ he said. ‘Man, I thought we’d found it.’ He grabbed the handle of the crank and pulled down hard. I didn’t think it would move, but the door must have protected the inner workings from the years of dust and soot. The wheel spun easily and the sound of gears cranking filled the small space under the stage. A spring released somewhere behind the wall and the trapdoor in the stage floor swung closed with a definite snap.
I dropped my phone and the room went completely black. Pale shadows danced across my vision as my eyes tried to adjust to the dark. I dropped to my knees and searched for the phone, but all I found was greasy dust.
‘Turn it the other way!’ I said.
Kevin grunted and gears strained but nothing happened.
‘It won’t go the other way.’
I thought furiously. There had to be a way to get the door open. There was no point in having a trapdoor if you couldn’t open it. My hand closed on my phone and I breathed a sigh of relief and turned it on.
‘Try the levers.’
‘What levers?’ Kevin looked relieved that I’d found the light too.
‘Those.’ I pointed with my phone. ‘You keep trying. I’ll go see if anything happens.’
I left my phone with Kevin and made my way blindly to the trapdoor, using the number of my steps to estimate the distance. Something brushed against my face and I waved wildly at the air in front of me catching my arm on one of the low beams.
‘It’s just a cobweb,’ I said to myself. All Della and Vivian’s talk of ghosts was starting to get to me.
I heard the clunk of gears shifting as Kevin pulled the lever. And suddenly the ground beneath my feet started to rise.
‘Anything?’ Kevin called.
‘Stop,’ I yelled. ‘Stop!’
The ceiling was about half a metre closer than it should have been. I felt my way to the edge of a small platform, but in the dark I didn’t dare step off the edge. Instead, I squatted down and wrapped my arms around my knees. The platform kept rising.
‘I can’t stop it, it’s like a wind-up car or something.’
More cobwebs. I hunched lower as they draped across my arms and tangled in my hair.
‘Try the last lever.’
Kevin hit the last gear and turned the wheel. Above me the hinges of the trapdoor protested mightily, and then as suddenly as the door had shut, it swung back open, air rustling as it skimmed past my ear. I stood up, furiously brushing the cobwebs from my hair and face and spitting them from my mouth.
‘I’ll take ghosts over spiders any day,’ I muttered.
I knelt down to help Kevin, but as soon as my knees touched the platform a large hand clamped down on the back of my shirt, pulling me back to my feet.
‘Gotcha!’
Whoever had their hand on the back of my shirt didn’t wait for a reply. They just pulled. My feet lifted off the platform and I shot up and backwards on to the stage.
‘Hey!’ I yelled, kicking my legs as I spun free and shoved myself backwards, crab-walking on my hands and feet. The wooden floor of the stage felt rough under my palms. I stopped as my fingers touched the edge of the hole in the stage.
‘Alice?’
Jarvis stared at me, his mouth open and his expression blank. Whoever he had expected to pull out of that hole, it certainly wasn’t me. His mouth snapped shut. ‘What were you doing down there?’
Jarvis tried to look around me and I leant to one side, blocking his view. There was no reason for Kevin to get caught too.
‘I was just checking if anything was down there.’ It was a lame excuse and I knew it, but it was the truth.
‘Did you find anything?’
I frowned. That wasn’t the question I’d expected.
Frank’s voice boomed through the closed lobby doors and Jarvis’s head snapped up. He opened his mouth and then shut it again, and threw a worried glance at the doors.
‘Get this thing closed,’ he said quietly. ‘And then you and I are going to have a talk.’
I turned around, thinking furiously. What was Jarvis doing sneaking around the stage during lunch? And why didn’t he want anyone to know about the trapdoor. For that matter, why had he been there the other night? Jarvis was way too twitchy for someone who found a kid messing around on the stage. I also needed to figure out how to get Kevin out of there without being caught.
I peered into the hole. Kevin was already gone.
‘Well, get it closed,’ Jarvis said again.
I grabbed the open flap of the trapdoor, prayed that Kevin had got out through the other exit and wasn’t just hiding in the dark, and started to push. The gears beneath the stage screeched in protest, and the trapdoor slammed shut under my weight.
Jarvis nodded approval and checked the theatre one more time to make sure we were still alone, then he grabbed on to my shoulder and shoved me towards the wings.
‘Right, come with me.’
I stumbled slightly as Jarvis steered me backstage and into the wings. It was dark and claustrophobic between the black curtains. Jarvis looked around one more time and then turned to me.
‘Who are you working for?’
Something about Jarvis’s voice had changed. It wasn’t creaky or cantankerous like usual. He wasn’t asking because he was angry; he sounded concerned. I frowned so hard I felt a crease form between my eyes.
‘What are you talk
ing about? I’m not working for anyone.’ I stopped, as that wasn’t strictly true.
Jarvis sensed the pause and leant forward, pushing the issue. ‘Tell me who you’re working for.’
‘Della,’ I said bluntly.
‘What?’
‘My sister thought the Beryl was haunted so she asked me to look into it. I’m working for her.’
Jarvis ran his hand over his head, all the way from the bottom of his chin to the end of his short grey ponytail. ‘Of course you are,’ he muttered. ‘Well? Did you find anything down there?’ He looked at me with clear blue eyes.
I folded my arms. ‘Why should I tell you? For all I know you’re the one behind it all.’
Jarvis wheezed out a laugh and shook his head. ‘Why would I want to do that?’
‘I don’t know, maybe Rex Cragthorne is paying you. Maybe you’re looking for the Midnight Star. You were here two nights ago. Maybe you were just pretending to save me.’
Jarvis and I stared at each other, hard. I didn’t really think it was him, but that was the second time he’d been lurking on the stage. He was hiding something. Still, there was nothing to stop him from looking through the trapdoor himself. So keeping what I saw a secret didn’t make much sense. Besides, sometimes the best way to get answers is to let the other person think they’re the one asking all the questions.
I broke our staring contest with a shrug.
‘I didn’t find anything – there was just a big empty room full of dust. And no one else had been there either,’ I said. ‘No footprints.’
For a second, Jarvis looked impressed. Then he narrowed his eyes. ‘There are footprints now, though, aren’t there?’
‘I took pictures. It’s not like it’s an active crime scene or something.’
Jarvis froze. It was just a small jerk of his head and he covered it quickly, but I didn’t miss it.
‘Is it?’ I asked.
Jarvis leant close to me, his cracked fingernails pressing into my upper arm. ‘You’re dealing with something bigger than you know. I need you to trust me and leave it alone.’