by J. A. White
“As you may have noticed,” Mr. Keene said, “I have a thing with masks. Always have, ever since I was a little kid. Don’t worry, though. I also like hockey, barbecues, and classic rock. I’m not that weird.”
Mr. Keene removed the mask from his face, revealing a middle-aged man with a pleasant, pudgy face. Cordelia could imagine him standing by a cart on a sunny afternoon and making balloon animals for children.
“You’ll all get to make masks this year,” he said, with a gap-toothed smile. “But this is only our first meeting, my friends, so no need to rush into things. For today, just relax and draw me anything you’d like. Let’s see what you can do.”
There was a tray of paper at the center of their table, as well as bins of markers and colored pencils. Cordelia took the third piece of paper from the top—the first two were a little crinkled—and removed a single 2B graphite pencil from the case of drawing supplies she always carried around in her bag.
When she lived in California, Cordelia had often spent entire afternoons filling page after page in her sketchbook, but there had been little time for drawing since the ghosts of Shadow School had taken over her life. Now that she was being given the opportunity to create something, she felt a thrum of excitement buzz through her fingertips.
What should I draw?
Answering this question was usually the most difficult part of the process for her. The world, after all, was infinitely drawable, and there were so many things she itched to capture.
Today, however, the answer came quickly.
The gardener.
Leaning so close to the paper that the tips of her hair grazed the table, Cordelia drew like a girl possessed, visualizing the face of the ghost in order to reproduce him on the page. Wrinkled skin. Straw hat. A slash of angry lips. When she was done, she leaned back to review her work. Not bad—but the eyes are a little off. She erased them and tried to picture the gardener’s reaction when she’d given him the seed: anger, yes, but also fear at the thought of going into his Bright. It was this fear that Cordelia had failed to capture—probably because she couldn’t understand how someone could be afraid of their own personal paradise.
She was just beginning to redraw the second eye when a burst of laughter broke her concentration.
Cordelia looked up in annoyance and saw that Viviana—the pretty girl Benji had been walking with the first day of school—was sitting directly across from her. At some point, she had joined their table and pulled her seat so close to Benji’s that their knees were practically touching. Benji didn’t seem to mind.
Viviana laughed again, covering her mouth with two hands.
“What’s so funny?” Cordelia asked, forcing a smile to her face.
“Benji’s drawing,” Viviana said. She turned his paper in Cordelia’s direction, revealing a confusing mishmash of lines, smudges, and erasure marks. “What do you think this is? Best guess.”
Cordelia hesitated, not wanting to be mean. Benji excelled at sports, writing, and cooking—but he could barely draw a stick figure.
“A windmill?” Cordelia suggested.
“A cloud?” tried Agnes, squinting as she looked at the drawing. “A cloud on a . . . stick? A lolli-cloud?”
Benji reached for the paper, but Viviana, now laughing harder than ever, playfully pushed him away. Two girls at a nearby table glanced in their direction and shared a knowing smile. Cordelia was sure that by the end of the day there would be plenty of rumors about Benji and Viviana, if they hadn’t started already.
“This is the tree in front of my house!” Benji said, finally snatching the paper from Viviana’s hands. “Obviously.”
“The big elm?” Viviana asked. “Seriously? That’s what you were going for?”
Cordelia looked at her with surprise.
“You’ve been to Benji’s house?” she asked, putting her pencil down. Her strokes had become darker than she intended, and she didn’t want to ruin the drawing. “I didn’t realize you guys were so close.”
“We’re not,” Viviana said with a mock look of disgust. “I totally hate him. But my mom started working with Benji’s mom this summer, and now they’re besties and get our families together for pizza nights—”
“Which means I get stuck hanging out with Vivi way too much,” Benji said. “Ruined my entire summer, to be honest.”
Vivi—not Viviana, Cordelia thought, straining hard to maintain her smile. How precious.
“You’re just mad because I always kick your butt at Super Smash,” Vivi said.
“Only because I let you use the good controller.”
“Fine. How about we try it at my house next time? See what happens?”
“You’re on, Martínez. Just try not to cry when I beat you.”
Their banter continued for a few more minutes. Cordelia, who might as well have been invisible, watched their interaction with a stunned expression.
“What’s the deal?” she whispered to Agnes. “Benji didn’t even know this girl existed last year, and now they’re acting like best friends.”
Agnes shrugged awkwardly. She didn’t like any sort of conflict, particularly between her friends.
“Vivi’s really nice once you get to know her,” she said.
“You’ve hung out with her too?”
“Just once or twice at Benji’s house,” Agnes said quietly. She looked down and colored the bill of the platypus she had drawn. “Benji invited you both times, but all you wanted to do was sit in your room and look up ghost stuff.”
Cordelia started to argue then remembered that Agnes was right. Benji had invited her. Did you think he was just going to sit in his house alone if you didn’t go? Cordelia wondered, feeling stupid.
“Why does he like her so much?” Cordelia asked. “She can’t even see the ghosts!”
Agnes stopped coloring and gave Cordelia a look.
“Neither can I,” she said. “Does that mean we should stop being friends?”
“No,” Cordelia replied, grimacing. “I’m sorry. That was a stupid thing to say.”
“No worries,” Agnes said with a mischievous smile. “You’re not thinking rationally. Jealousy will do that to you.”
“I’m not jealous,” Cordelia said.
Agnes’s smile grew wider.
“I’m not,” Cordelia insisted. “I’m just surprised, that’s all.”
“Surprised that another girl would want to hang out with Benji, despite the fact that he’s cute and nice and funny? Makes total sense.”
Cordelia picked up her pencil. “He’s not that cute,” she muttered.
For the rest of the period, she tried to concentrate on her drawing, but her attention kept wandering to Benji and Vivi. By the time the bell rang, she still hadn’t gotten the gardener’s eyes right. She crumpled up the paper and tossed it in the recycling bin.
8
The House in the Attic
Cordelia got to school early the next day, determined to finally tell Dr. Roqueni that she had broken the architectural model. After peeking into the principal’s office and seeing that it was empty, she ran up to the third floor and entered the secret passageway in the storage room. Passing beneath the black pyramids, Cordelia felt a tingle of untapped power, like summer air just before a lightning storm.
She pushed open the trapdoor and climbed into the attic.
It was a dreary day outside, and only a trickle of light shone through the dormer windows. Before knocking on the door to Dr. Roqueni’s apartment, Cordelia decided to take a look at the damage to the model house. She was a virtuoso when it came to any sort of arts-and-crafts project, and coming clean would be a lot easier if there was a genuine possibility that she could repair the hole herself.
The moment she saw the house, however, her mouth dropped open. She circled it, running her hand along the back of the roof, sure that there was some sort of mistake.
It was already fixed.
The door to Dr. Roqueni’s apartment opened, and the principal stepped in
to the attic.
“Uncle Darius patched it up before he left,” she said. “He has his faults, but even I’ll admit that he’s a master carpenter. It was tricky to find roof slates that matched the original, but we tracked them down eventually.”
“I’m the one who broke it,” Cordelia said, blinking away tears. “I’m so sorry.”
Dr. Roqueni crossed the room and hugged her. It surprised Cordelia, since the principal wasn’t really the hugging type, but it definitely made her feel better.
“I should have told you,” Cordelia said.
“You just did,” Dr. Roqueni replied. “And you would have told me even earlier if I hadn’t sent you home for the summer. I’m sure that was difficult for you, but I really do think it was for the best. There’s more to life than just ghosts, Cordelia.”
“You sound like Benji,” she said, but mentioning his name only made her think of Vivi and her stupid perfect hair, so Cordelia quickly changed the subject. “Elijah sure investigated a lot of haunted houses. Mr. Shadow said that his grandma used to tell him stories about them when he was a kid.”
Dr. Roqueni nodded with a grim smile. “He told me those same stories when I was a girl,” she said.
“Cool!” Cordelia gestured toward the house she had broken. “Did he tell you about the ghost that haunted this place?”
Dr. Roqueni froze for a moment. Then, slowly, she leaned toward Cordelia and tapped her fingernails on the roof of the house. “Why do”—tap—“you”—tap, tap—“want to know?” she asked. There was a cold look in her eyes that Cordelia had never seen before.
“Just . . . curious,” Cordelia stammered, unsure what she had said to make Dr. Roqueni so upset. “Since I broke it. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
The look in Dr. Roqueni’s eyes passed. “Sorry,” she said, massaging her forehead with two fingers. “I don’t like to talk about these houses. My uncle’s stories gave me terrible nightmares when I was a kid. He never considered the idea that ghost stories might terrify a little girl.”
“Maybe he thought you loved them as much as he did,” Cordelia suggested.
“My uncle doesn’t love the ghosts,” Dr. Roqueni said. “He only cares about proving they exist, and that it was Elijah’s genius that trapped them here. In his mind, he’s on a noble quest to elevate the Shadow name to its rightful place alongside Einstein and Da Vinci. The only thing that’s kept him from telling the world about archimancy is the fact that no one would believe him.”
“I’m surprised he believes in ghosts himself,” Cor-delia said. “It’s not like he can see them.”
“And there’s nothing that bothers him more,” Dr. Roqueni said with a satisfied smirk. “Even when I was a little girl, he resented the fact that I had the Sight and he didn’t. I think that’s why he made me work so hard. Every day after school. Every Saturday. Every Sunday.” Dr. Roqueni glanced over at the old ghost sitting on the chest, still tapping his foot soundlessly against the floor. “While my friends were out playing in the sun, I searched the darkness for his precious ghosts.”
“Is that why you don’t want him to know that I have the Sight?” Cordelia asked. “Are you worried he’ll try to do the same thing to me?”
Dr. Roqueni nodded. “He knows I won’t help him. Not anymore. But if he finds out that you can see the ghosts, he’ll try to get your help instead.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Cordelia said. “It might be kind of cool if people knew the truth.”
Dr. Roqueni gave her a disappointed look. Cordelia looked down, feeling like one of the bad kids sent to her office.
“There’s nothing more dangerous than knowledge,” Dr. Roqueni said. “That’s why we must keep the ghosts, and Elijah’s research, a secret. We don’t want the wrong people to figure out how to build a haunted house. They might not have the ghosts’ best interests at heart like we do.”
“I won’t tell anyone,” Cordelia said. “But your uncle is going to be pretty ticked off if he ever finds out you’ve been hiding Elijah’s office from him.”
“Which is why it’ll have to be our little secret,” Dr. Roqueni said with a wink. “Listen, I know Darius seems like this sweet old man, but that’s just an act so people underestimate him. His age is like a mask he wears to hide his true intentions.” Dr. Roqueni glanced at her watch and grimaced. “I’d love to keep chatting, but I have a lot of work to catch up on. With all these after-school meetings, I’ve been falling behind on everything else.”
“Can’t you just cancel all the meetings?” Cordelia asked. “You’re the boss!”
Dr. Roqueni lowered her brows, as though giving the idea honest consideration, then winced and rubbed her left temple.
“Are you okay?” Cordelia asked.
“Just a headache,” Dr. Roqueni said. “Nothing to worry about. Are you staying after school today? I’ve seen a few new arrivals who could use your assistance.”
“Why bother?” Cordelia asked with a defeated shrug. “The dehaunter is going to free all the ghosts anyway.”
“It might,” Dr. Roqueni said. “It might not. But either way, you can help the ghosts today. It’s not fair to keep them waiting.” She crouched in front of the old man sitting on the chest and gazed at him with sympathetic eyes. “Ghosts are cursed to exist among the living, even though they no longer belong in that world. Can you imagine what that’s like? Trapped in a house, unable to do anything other than watch, while the living—who are free to come and go as they please—eat and talk and grow old.”
Cordelia looked at the old man, wondering what he might be thinking at that very moment, and felt a deep sadness well up inside her. “You’re right,” she said, promising herself that she would return with the old man’s Brightkey soon.
“I knew you’d understand,” Dr. Roqueni said, clapping a hand on her shoulder. “You have a good heart, Cordelia. Now go offer some ghosts their Brightkeys. We’re counting on you.”
After her talk with Dr. Roqueni, Cordelia felt invigorated. The ghosts still need me, she thought. Besides, who knows if this dehaunter will even work?
She bounded down the attic stairs two at a time. School wasn’t over yet, but Cordelia felt like she was going to burst if she didn’t free a spirit right there and then, so she took a left toward the western wing. There were no classrooms here, and she didn’t pass a single student. Although Dr. Roqueni had warned them not to free ghosts while school was in session, Cordelia thought this might be an exception.
It’s not fair to keep them waiting—that’s what she told me.
Cordelia passed beneath a large arch and entered the mirror gallery. There were dozens of them lining a huge open area, their reflective surfaces concealed by billowing black curtains. Cordelia had learned to find beauty in even the darkest corners of Shadow School—the display case of porcelain dolls tucked away in a third-floor cul-de-sac, the rusty tricycle that could be found in a new place every morning—but the mirrors still made her nervous. The worst of them stood three times the height of Cordelia herself, its frame a labyrinth of black pipes topped by a chimney-like cylinder that nearly touched the ceiling. Its curtain was red, not black. Although Cordelia had peeked behind most of the curtains that guarded the mirrors, she had never touched that one. Even her insatiable curiosity had its limits.
She walked past the ghost she called Hopeless Bob—an ordinary-looking man whose generic appearance seemed to offer no clues to his Brightkey. There were a dozen other ghosts just like him spread throughout the school. They had been there even longer than Cordelia, and she had no idea how to help them.
“Someday, Bob,” Cordelia offered. “We’ll figure it out.”
The droopy-faced ghost didn’t seem to share her optimism.
Just past the mirror gallery was a ghost in her late teens. Both arms were weighted down with shopping bags, as though she had just come from the mall. Cordelia could see printing on the bags, where the names of the stores would normally go, but the letters
were blurry and impossible to read.
“I get it,” Cordelia told the ghost. “Before I moved here, I used to live for shopping too. But now that I know about you guys, I can’t get as into it. It’s hard to buy a new pair of shoes when I can use that money on Brightkeys instead.”
She remembered how she had dragged her poor parents all over Union Square, begging for the right shoes or the perfect bag, and felt a flush of embarrassment. I could have been this girl, she thought, suddenly feeling as though she were looking at a different sort of ghost—the ghost of what might have been.
Cordelia took out the expired credit card she had found in a kitchen drawer and laid it on the ground. The ghost didn’t hesitate. She picked it up with an eager look in her eyes, and a black triangle appeared above her. It started to open. Cordelia heard mall music and the computerized beeps of items being scanned for purchase. The ghost inhaled deeply, like a sailor smelling the ocean breeze.
Then she flung the credit card away.
Unlike the gardener, this ghost wasn’t angry. She watched the triangle vanish with desperate longing but also fear, as though her Bright were a temptation that needed to be resisted at all costs.
When it finally closed, the ghost looked very pleased with herself.
“What’s the matter with you?” Cordelia asked. “Why don’t you want to leave?”
The ghost dropped her shopping bags, which dematerialized into confetti before vanishing completely. She then pinched her nose, like a swimmer about to dive into deep water, and leaped high into the air. Her downward progress was slowed—but not stopped—by the floor, making it look as though she were riding an invisible elevator. After the rest of her body had descended out of sight, the ghost poked her hand through the floor and gave Cordelia one final wave goodbye.