Part 8 (1/2)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

Old News Did you ever watch a ghost walk?

I can't swear they all do it the same way. But it was kind of interesting to watch the Woman in White move up the aisle.

She was wearing the same white dress I always saw her in, which of course was the costume she had been wearing the night she was killed. It was quite a bit nicer than the one Lydia had been supposed to wear. I wasn't surprised that Eileen Taggart had wanted to make something more like the real thing if her name was going to be on the program as costume designer.

Anyway, the gown went down to the floor. As she moved, I had the impression that the Woman in White was actually walking, not just gliding along as I would have expected. Dropping back a step, I knelt down and tipped my head sideways so it was right against the floor. I was right-she was moving her feet!

Chris looked back and saw me with my head against the floor.

”What are you doing?” she hissed, grabbing me by the arm and trying to drag me to my feet.

”I'll tell you later,” I said. I was busy trying to figure out why a ghost would bother to move her feet when she walked. I thought it must be memory, or habit, or something like that. I couldn't believe they had to, especially after we got to the door leading out to the lobby and she walked right through without bothering to open it.

I don't know why it was such a shock to see her do that. I mean, you figure that's the kind of thing a ghost can do. But when I saw her head for the door, walk right up to it, and then fade through it, I almost flipped out. I think maybe that was the first time it really sank in that what we were dealing with was an honest-to-goodness ghost. I don't know what I was thinking before that, but suddenly she seemed a lot more real-or unreal. It was freaky.

Chris and I pushed our way through the door. The Woman in White was already halfway across the lobby. She must have figured we were following her because she didn't even look back. Or maybe she had eyes in the back of her head. Who knows what ghosts can do?

She led us up the stairs to the mezzanine area, then through a door that took us into a hallway. After a few minutes I realized she was using a roundabout way to take us to the back of the theater. Before long we were standing at the stairway that led down to the prop and scenery storage area where we had gotten in so much trouble earlier in the day.

I hesitated, but the ghost kept on going, gliding down the stairway like mist along a hillside. Chris grabbed my arm, and down we went.

I figured that the eerie storage room would be less frightening since I already knew what was in it. I was wrong. Somehow knowing that it was nighttime outside made it even worse than it had been before. Or maybe it was the fact that we were sharing the room with a ghost.

The Woman in White led us past the clown face and Dracula's coffin, right to Pop's office. Again, I hung back. I didn't want to get caught snooping around in there!

But she was standing inside waiting for us. In fact, she had an impatient look on her face.

”It's not smart to keep a ghost waiting,” Chris said. Grabbing my arm again, she stepped into the office. You may have noticed that Chris was pretty brave-she was always the one to take the first step. But did you also notice that she usually grabbed my arm before she did it?

The ghost was standing beside Pop's desk. The sc.r.a.pbook we had seen earlier in the day was missing.

She pointed to the middle drawer. I opened it. The sc.r.a.pbook lay inside.

”I guess she wants us to read it,” said Chris.

That made sense to me. I was worried about snooping around in Pop's stuff. But if the ghost wanted us to, it seemed as if it must be all right. I reached into the desk and took out the book.

Setting it between us on the desk, I lifted the cover. I turned to see if the Woman in White was going to look over my shoulder or if she wanted us to make room between us, or what. It's very hard to know what you should do about manners when you're dealing with a ghost!

But before I could say anything, she faded out of sight.

”Well, I like that!” said Chris. ”You'd think she-”

”Shhh!” I hissed. ”She might still be here.”

Chris looked around nervously. ”I guess we'd better look this thing over and get out of here,” she said.

I nodded my head and opened the book.

It was like taking a cus.h.i.+on off the couch and finding half a dozen pieces for the jigsaw puzzle you're working on. It didn't answer all our questions, but it sure gave us a lot more to work with.

”Well, you were right about one thing,” said Chris when we had finished going through the book. ”I thought it was going to be a sc.r.a.pbook full of stuff about Pop. But it looks like it might be more about the theater itself.”

I knew why that was bothering her. She was secretly convinced Pop was the one causing all the trouble. If the sc.r.a.pbook had been all about him, it would have meant the ghost wanted us to know he was somehow connected to the mystery. But if it was just about the theater, then maybe there was something else in it the ghost wanted us to see. I had no idea which it was.

I turned back to the most important section, the pages filled with clippings about the tragedy that had taken place fifty years ago.

Because I had read the play so many times, it was interesting to read the newspaper accounts of what had actually happened on that terrible night-and in the days that followed, which the play didn't cover.

One of the articles had a picture of Lily in costume for the show. I think seeing it was one of the spookiest things that happened to me during this whole experience. I mean there was this woman looking out at me from the page of a fifty-year-old newspaper-the same woman I had seen just minutes before when she had led me to this room. She was even wearing the same dress!

But it was the pictures of the men that really bothered me. Both of them looked familiar for some reason. Several articles talked about how the men had been friends until they both fell in love with Lily.

”Did they get the wrong man?” Chris asked. ”Maybe that's why the ghost is still here-she's waiting for justice to be done. She can't rest in peace until the man who killed her is hunted down.”

”That was fifty years ago!” I said. ”They could both be dead by now.”

”Sure, but they could be alive, too. If they were twenty-five when it happened, they'd be seventy-five now. Lots of people make it that long. My grandfather's seventy-five, and he still runs his own business.”

I looked at the pictures in the sc.r.a.pbook-two handsome men and one beautiful woman. I wondered what had really happened between them.

”Yikes!” said Chris, glancing up at the clock over Pop's desk. ”Look how late it is! We'd better get upstairs. They're probably wondering what happened to us.”

”Or Pop might be on his way down here again,” I said nervously. ”You're right. Let's get going.”

I put the sc.r.a.pbook back in the desk, and we headed for the stairs.

We didn't get very far. We were a few steps into the storage room when we heard footsteps coming down the stairs toward us.

”It's Pop!” hissed Chris. ”Go the other way! He'll kill us if he finds us down here.”

I didn't have to be told twice. We turned and bolted in the opposite direction, past Pop's office and into the maze of tunnels that ran beneath the theater.

I wasn't sure if Chris meant Pop would really yell at us if he caught us down there-or if she really thought he'd kill us to keep us from telling what we had seen.

At the moment it didn't make that much difference. I just wanted to get away from him. I followed Chris into a dark corridor and b.u.mped into her when she stopped short in front of me. ”We should be safe now,” she whispered.

I held my breath and listened, just in case. The footsteps were still coming! ”Let's get out of here!” I hissed urgently.

Chris took my hand and began inching her way forward. I kept my other hand against the wall, so I could feel my way along. Chris was doing the same thing. Suddenly I heard her gasp.

A second later I, too, felt what had startled her. We had come to a slab of smooth metal that jutted out about six inches from the right-hand wall. As I ran my fingers over it, I felt crossbars and the heads of bolts. It was a large door.

About the time I figured out what it was, Chris pulled me through the opening.