by Cindy Brown
This whole situation stunk. Or maybe it was just me and my garlic breath. Okay, for sure it was me, but something else was wrong too. Something more than just the fact that my best friend was either in danger or implicated in a murder or both. But I didn’t have time to do anything else right then. I had a show to do. I returned down the stairs, and past Logan’s Nightmare, then stopped. Were those footsteps? I held my breath and listened hard, but all I could hear was the sound of the blood pounding in my head. Probably nothing. I made my way to the broom closet, through the secret door, and to my dressing room.
Chapter 57
What Is This Farce?
“I am spacey, oh so spacey,” I sang to myself in my dressing room. Wow. The garlic had worked. My voice sounded clear and on pitch.
“Hey.” The Tin Man stuck his head in the door. “You sound really good—oh no.” He waved at the air in front of him. “Eden told you about the raw garlic cure.”
“Isn’t it great? I think it worked. I am spacey, but pretty and nice,” I sang.
He waved at the air some more, then grimaced and said, “Too powerful for me. Later.” He closed the door. It opened again almost immediately as Madison burst into the room. Toto followed, barking his head off.
“I saw the Lady in White!” said Madison. “I was onstage and I looked up at the balcony and she was there.”
“Are you sure? You probably had the lights in your eyes. It could’ve been anyone up there.”
“I am positive.” Madison crossed her arms. “It was her. I know because she looked directly at me.”
“Madison...” I said gently.
“And then walked off the balcony.”
Madison and I got Toto calmed down. “It was probably a trick of the light,” I said, but as I did I thought of the white scrap of fabric I’d seen in the depths of the spring room pool. That had to be an illusion too. At least that’s what I told myself. I didn’t mention it to Madison.
They were both ready for the show (Madison in costume and makeup; Toto with a gingham bow around his neck), so they sat with me while I got dressed. I warmed up my voice as I did my makeup. “Nee, nay, naw, noh, noo,” I sang.
“Toto,” Madison said, “what have you been eating? Phew!”
Toto looked at me, but I didn’t fess up. I’d get him a treat later.
My voice sounded way better than it had last night. I felt good going into the show, even though I could hardly stand to be with myself inside Glinda’s space bubble. I swear the garlic was seeping out of my pores. But the fact that I could smell myself also meant my nose wasn’t as plugged. Everything comes with a cost.
Finally, it came time for my first entrance. The stagehands released the cable and my bubble floated gently down to the stage. I popped open the door, stepped outside, and spread my arms wide. “Greetings,” I said. “I hear we have good—”
Riiipppppp.
Oh no. I knew I was too big for the costume. And now I stood in front of the biggest audience of my career with my boobs hanging out. The skintight white costume had given way down the front seam, all the way to my navel. Thank God for the duck tape. Still.
The audience gasped and tittered.
I grabbed the front of my costume with one hand, trying to hold it together. “I hear we have good—”
I stepped forward and was suddenly on top of a munchkin. Again.
“Are you drunk?” he whispered above the laughter from the audience.
“No. I did have a margarita, but just one.”
“Right,” he said. “Could you get off me now? You’re crushing me.”
I tried but couldn’t keep my balance. No wonder. Only one of my high-heeled boots had a heel anymore. The audience howled.
“Munchkins,” I whispered to the rest of the little crew. “Help a witch, would you?”
Once upright I ditched my boots and soldiered on. The audience laughed throughout my scene—must’ve decided I was the comic relief. When I got offstage, one of the wardrobe assistants ran up to me with Candy’s other costume and a new pair of boots. She helped me change in the wings. “Would you look at that?” She held up my ripped costume. “I’ve never seen anything like that before. Well, one time. But it was an old costume. Vintage, really. The seams were weak to begin with. But this...” She shook her head. “Good thing everyone has two costumes.”
I got dressed in time for my second entrance, where I covered the poppy fields with snow, or in this case, mist, which was deemed more spacey (and probably less messy) than snow. This entrance was trickier physically, because my space bubble didn’t land onstage, but descended to hang in the air above Dorothy and her little troop. Luckily all I had to do was open my bubble-ship’s door and wave my wand, at which point the mist machines were programmed to turn on. I opened the door, I waved, the mist crept across the stage, and my costume didn’t split open—all good. But something else was off. The cast members below, who were supposed to be sleeping, were coughing. A smell permeated the theater and this time it wasn’t me. I didn’t think it was Toto, either. It was sort of a rotten egg smell, but really strong. Could it be coming from the mist? I leaned further out of my bubble, trying to see the problem, peering around the giant gold stars that hung on the batten (a big metal pipe suspended from the fly space) that also held my ship.
Boom! A flash backstage. “Fire!” shouted a munchkin, not knowing you don’t do that in a theater. Below me, the cast members ran into the wings holding their noses, munchkins bolted for the exits, and the audience, who’d gotten wind of the problem (literally), scrambled for the aisles. My bubble-ship hung in mid-air, forgotten. Shit. How would I get out of the theater? I looked down. Too far. I’d probably break something if I jumped.
A hiss and a cloud of fire extinguisher chemical. The stage manager came onstage to plead with the audience. “Please take your seats, folks. The issue has been dealt with.” Phew. “There is no danger—”
The cable holding my orb creaked loudly and a light blinked on below me. I leaned out further to see what was going on. Wait, what was that? A white cloud hung in the air near me. Mist from the fire extinguisher? Or did it have a shape? I needed a better look. Holding on to the door of the bubble-ship, I tipped myself so far out I could almost touch one of the stars.
The cable creaked again. The floor beneath me tilted, and my world dropped out from under me as the bubble-ship let go from the batten. I jumped and grabbed the star nearest me, praying it would hold. Woomph! My bubble hit the stage just to the stage manager’s left. She looked up. I waved at her. “I’m fine,” I said loud enough for the people in the house to hear. “Just...swinging from a star.”
And the beautiful, beautiful audience, scattered and frightened as it was, burst into applause.
Chapter 58
A Ghost Mixed Up in the Business
Someone pulled the curtain, and a voice came over the broadcast system. “Due to technical difficulties, tonight’s show will be cut short. Please apply online or at the box office for a refund of your tickets.”
“We’re going to lower you down,” a techie called up to me. The batten and the stars and I slowly descended. “She’s an aerial dancer,” I heard someone say backstage. “Probably what saved her ass.”
I finally touched down. Several strong arms reached out to grab me. Whatever adrenaline had kept my head cool and my body strong evaporated as soon as I felt the floor underneath me. I collapsed, my legs jelly. On the other side of the curtain, the audience buzzed and shuffled.
One of the techies took off his black hoodie and put it around my shoulders. It smelled like rotten eggs. “What happened?” I asked.
“Someone messed with the fog machine,” he said. “Put sulfur in the fluid tank and crimped the valve. The combo of impurities plus the restricted air flow made it blow up and catch on fire.”
“A very small fire,” said another te
chie. “We had it out in no time.”
“No,” I said. “What happened to my bubble? You know, the one that dropped to the stage floor and could have maimed me for life if I’d still been inside?”
“Oh,” they all said. One of them went over to inspect the cable that previously held my bubble-ship. “Looks like the C-clamp holding your bubble came loose.”
“How does that happen?”
“It hardly ever does.” The guy frowned. “Somebody must’ve saddled it wrong.”
The techies around me all protested their innocence.
“Could it have been done on purpose?” I asked.
“Maybe,” said the first guy.
Arrestadt burst into the theater below us. “What the hell happened?”
“Well, there was a problem with the fog machine,” said the stage manager, “and a small fire and—”
“It was the ghost,” someone said.
“Yeah,” said Madison. “The Lady in White. I saw her right before the show.”
Was that it? Was she the white mist I’d seen?
A yelp. It came from Arrestadt. “The ghost light.” He steepled his fingers in front of his mouth, as if he were praying, or maybe trying to keep his lips from trembling. “It’s on.”
The light was tucked into a corner in the wings. It was not lit.
“It was just on,” he insisted.
Was that the light I’d seen before my bubble-ship gave way?
“Okay,” said the stage manager. “So?”
“It’s not plugged in.”
No one said anything for a minute. A few heads turned toward the ghost light, a few toward Arrestadt, and a few seemed to look at the floor. Arrestadt took a few deep breaths, then turned to the stage manager. “I need you to make some calls.”
“Yeah.” She took a notebook and pencil out of a pocket on her cargo pants. “OSHA, the insurance company...do you think we need the cops?”
“What for?” Arrestadt’s voice was sharp.
“Didn’t I hear you say somebody might have messed with the C-clamp?” she asked the techie who’d looked at the rigging earlier.
“I said ‘maybe,’” the guy said. “But...” I could almost see the wheels turning in his head: What would he tell the police, that their incompetence had caused what could have been a fatal accident? Or that someone had slipped by them all when they should have been keeping an eye on things? “Pretty sure this was just an accident. And we can recheck all the rigging before tomorrow’s show.”
“Damn right you will.” I was also about to ask them to call the police when I realized the same the thing techie probably had. What would I tell them? That someone had tried to kill me? Who—the ghost? I decide to keep my mouth shut. If someone had loosened the clamp on purpose, better for them to think I didn’t suspect anything. Maybe the guilty party would drop a clue. If there was a guilty party.
I got to my feet and went over to look at my bubble-ship where it lay on the stage floor. It wasn’t as messed up as you’d think—a few broken PVC pipes and a tear in the silver fabric, but that was it. “We can take care of this right away,” said a black-clad guy who was inspecting the orb.
Dorothy and the Wicked Witch of the West took a few photos, then wandered off. Most of the munchkins had already left. So had the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion. Just a few of us stayed onstage, unwilling to leave the scene of whatever the hell had happened. Finally, Arrestadt spoke. “That ghost light...thing.” He ran his hands through his hair. “I’m sure that was just stress-induced.”
“Maybe,” said Eden. “Even so, don’t you all think it’s time for that séance?”
Chapter 59
The Ghost’s Mysterious Correspondence
We all took a half-hour to get out of costume and makeup, then met in the men’s dressing room. Well, most of us. A few cast members were missing and Arrestadt declined to come. Too much follow-up to do after the accidents, he said, even though it was going on midnight.
Someone, probably Eden, had filled the room with candles. Their yellow light flickered on the walls, glimmered in the dressing room mirrors, and illuminated the faces of my fellow cast members as we sat down around a table improvised out of a couple of sawhorses and a piece of plywood. Once everyone was seated and the door had been shut, Eden placed a Ouija board in the center of the table. “Now. We’ll begin with silence, calling forth the ghost in our minds.”
The silence lasted maybe sixty seconds. “I always thought the accidents were caused by Babette, until tonight,” said the Scarecrow.
“Maybe her ghost caused the ones tonight,” said Madison. “Maybe we should ask her spirit to appear.”
“No,” said Eden. “I don’t think we want to deal with something that evil.”
“Evil?” said a low voice. It did not come from any of us. “Evil?” it said louder. A scratching sound from inside the wardrobe against the wall. “Did you say—” The wardrobe door banged open. A shrouded figure burst into the room. “Evil?” it said from a face no more than a skull.
I screamed. Madison screamed. The Scarecrow screamed. We all screamed, except for Eden, who said, “Logan. Really?”
“Cool makeup, huh?” He picked up a lit candle and held it near his face, which was bone white with black hollow eyes and grinning gray teeth. “I think I’ve finally got the shading right.”
“Nice,” I said. It was pretty cool.
“Very nice,” Eden said to Logan. “Are you going to join us?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.” He pulled up a chair. “We’re not calling up a vampire, are we? Smells like garlic in here.”
“That’s just Ivy,” said Madison.
“Whoa.” Logan held his nose.
“Blame it on Eden,” I said. “She suggested it.”
“And it worked,” she said. “You can thank me later. ’Cause now we need to let the Lady know that we want to talk to her. That we believe in her. That we believe in spirits.”
“I do believe in spooks, I do believe in spooks, I do, I do, I do,” said the Scarecrow.
“Shouldn’t that be the Cowardly Lion’s line?” I whispered to Eden.
“He couldn’t make it,” she said. “Hot date with the Tin Man.”
“But...The Phantom of the Opera is here,” sang the skull-faced Logan.
“This is not an opera house,” said Madison. “It’s a theater. The ghost’s proper name should be ‘The Phantom of the Grand Phoenician Theatre.’”
But when the ghost made her appearance a few minutes later, we all knew who she really was. She was the Lady in White.
The ghostly music box played the last few strains of the song, then the melody faded. No one spoke for a minute. We all just sat in the dark.
“Uh, just checking.” My voice trembled. “But there’s no music box in this dressing room, is there?”
“No,” said Eden.
“And no one is wearing violet perfume?” I asked. “Or blew out those candles?”
Everyone denied perfume-wearing and/or candle-snuffing.
“The ghost is real.” Logan’s voice shook too. “I didn’t believe it.”
“She didn’t tell us about the accidents.” Madison sounded very calm. Maybe it wasn’t surprising. She’d believed in the Lady all along.
“You said that song was called ‘Candy’?” asked the Scarecrow.
“How do you all not know this?” said Madison. “It was Iggy’s biggest hit.”
“So maybe she’s telling us that Candy—Candace—is causing the accidents?” said the Scarecrow.
“Maybe,” I said, though I was pretty sure Candy wouldn’t have tried to kill me.
“There’s also a line in the song about Candy haunting him,” said Madison. “Do you think that means she’s dead?”
A match fizzed as someone—Eden—lit a candle.
>
“No,” I said firmly. “Candy is not dead.” Please, God let her not be dead. “It just means I need to find her right away.” I stood up. “I’ll see you.” I turned on the lights as I left.
Now what? What exactly was the Lady trying to tell us? That Candy was in trouble? Because of the drugs? Or was it Candy who was haunted, maybe by Babette’s killer? Or by guilt, if she did have something to do with Babette’s death? “Really?” I said out loud to the ghost as I walked into my dressing room. “Couldn’t you have just talked to us?”
I picked up my duffel bag. Then set it down. Then picked it up. I didn’t know what to do next. Maybe I could think more clearly in the morning. I was awfully tired after taking on my brother’s unscrupulous agent, arguing with my boyfriend, investigating my friend’s disappearance, performing while sick, nearly getting killed, and then meeting a ghost. Yeah, no wonder I couldn’t think straight. I just needed to get home and get some rest. I headed to the stage door. I had just passed Logan’s office when it hit me.
“Arghh,” I said.
“Ivy?” Logan poked his head out of his office. “Wow. I can smell you in here.”
“Arghh,” I said again.
He made a face. “Don’t do that anymore. What’s wrong? See if you can tell me without opening your mouth. Like a ventriloquist.”
I tried. “Truck...towed.”
“Oh,” he said. “Well, if you can wait an hour, I’ll drive you home. Just have a few things to finish up.”
“Thank you,” I mumbled.
“See you in an hour.” Logan shut his office door, but something knocked on the half-shut door to my brain. Something that might help me discover whether Candy was staying in Arrestadt’s hotel room. Something to do with Logan. The only thing my exhausted mind would pull up was Logan in his kimono. Okay, then: kimono...dragon...no underwear...hairy legs. No, that wasn’t the right direction. I began again: kimono...thrift shop...dumpster. Yes. That was it.