The light swirled, twisting away from his brother’s image to another ghostly figure standing on the balcony, a blonde girl in pigtails and a white shroud torn to shreds.
“All my life I looked up to Amber. I wanted to be just like her when I grew up. But she disappeared. She never got to see me grow up.”
Even though I knew the ‘ghost’ was just a cut-out head from the photograph beside Tillie’s room glued on some cheesecloth, in the gloom it appeared quite spectral. I was starting to see how the charlatan medium Helen Duncan had won over all those followers with her fake ectoplasm.
“Bianca? What are you doing here?” From the audience, Tillie’s mother stood up, her hand trembling as she reached out toward the ghost. From the wings, Tillie collapsed to her knees, staring up at the image with wide-eyed horror. “I told you Tillie was dead. I kept you from this for a reason!”
In a blink, Quinn flicked off the lights, plunging the room into darkness. Screams echoed through the audience. Backstage, students yelled at each other.
“What the hell is going on?” boomed Vincent Bloomberg above the rising din.
CLICK.A single spotlight came up, focused on another ghost hanging for the lighting rig. the image of Zehra’s dark hair and penetrating eyes were visible against the backdrop of the gilded ceiling, her stare defiant as she looked down her nose at them all. A jagged cross marred her perfect face – the cross Trey had made over her photograph in Parris’ book.
“You took my brother Ayaz from me,” she declared. “Now I’m coming for every last one of you.”
The lights went mad, dancing around the auditorium in a frenzy, bouncing from seat to seat as the projection flashed through a rapid succession of faces – sisters, brothers, friends, aunts, uncles, random people from the magazines we butchered. They swam in a tapestry of stolen futures across the stage, their limbs and smiles dancing over my skin as Trey and I held each other in silent reverie.
We danced on the ashes of our futures. We danced on the love that should have been ours.
More gasps and shouts rose from the audience. From the wings, I heard a commotion as students wrestled each other, but still we danced on. Trey’s eyes burned into mine, flaring the heat that rose through my body, stoking the fire that lusted for vengeance.
“We miss our brothers and sisters!” the ghosts cried. “You were taken away from us. Do you know who took you away? Hazel Waite knows. She found out their secret, and they sent her away. But she’s back now. She’s back to return our brothers and sisters to us.”
At the mention of my name, Vincent Bloomberg roared with rage. Tillie lunged toward us from the side of the stage, her fingers clawing for my face. Her nails raked my cheek as Trey spun me away. My head whirled. I caught a glimpse of Vincent out of the corner of my eye. He had a seat in the middle of the upper level, and he climbed over chairs and shoved people out of the way as he struggled to reach the aisle, not caring who he mowed down in his desire to reach the stage and choke me with his own hands.
That’s not going to happen, Vinnie boy.
CLICK. The image settled on the photograph of young Courtney I’d stolen from her noticeboard, posing for the camera in a shimmering dress nearly identical to the one I now wore. The projection zoomed in her gap-toothed smile while her father’s inscription flickered across the stage.
“My beautiful Courts. You’re going to be a star one day, just like your mother. Love, Dad,” the eerie voices mocked. “Where is this star now? Why has she been locked away so no one can appreciate her? Is it so she will never outshine her mother?”
“Stop this at once!” Gloria Hayes bellowed from the back of the theatre, her voice rising with panic.
“You’ve been robbed of a future,” the faces cried in unison. Quinn looped all our voices on the track to make it sound as though there was an army of broken children. “We are the ghosts of what could have been, and we will fight for you, even if you won’t fight for yourselves. It’s time to ask the question – who did this to you? The fire that took your lives was no accident, so who is pulling the strings of the god?”
“Get her off!” Students spilled out on the stage, faces glowing red with rage as they closed in on Trey and I. I knew they’d do this – I showed them the truth and they blamed me for it. Luckily, we were prepared.
I whipped out my knife from my bra, but before I had the chance to use it, Andre barrelled in and tackled Paul to the ground. Derek wrapped a beefy arm around his neck, but Andre threw himself back, slamming the bully into the stage so hard the wooden boards splintered. More guys piled on top of him, but he was too strong. He kept them all at bay.
“Your parents!” the ghosts screamed over the fight. “Your parents sent you here to die for their own personal gain. So they could have more riches. More fame. More power.”
“This is fucking bullshit!” Paul wheezed, trying to pull himself to his feet. Barclay grabbed my arm, but I broke his grip and landed a swift kick in his nuts. He dropped with aTHUD. Trey shoved himself in front of me as more students poured toward me.
“She’s trying to turn us against our parents!”
“She’s just a fucking lyinggutter whore!” A shrill voice screeched from the wings. I whirled around as Courtney staggered across the stage, her silky hair disheveled and her eyes hard as flint.
Shit. She must’ve got out of the closet somehow.
From her crooked walk, I guessed Courtney was still suffering the effects of the sedative. But she had one thing on her side – pure, unadulterated fury. I slashed at her arm, splattering her blood across my dress, but she didn’t even slow down, Courtney tore the tiara from my head, taking a clump of hair with it. I howled as pain flared through my skull.
Courtney threw the tiara on the stage and stomped on it, breaking it in two.
“You never should have come back to my school,” she hissed, advancing on me. Her words slurred from the drug. “You never should have tried to cross us with your lies. Now, I’m going to wring the life from you with my own hands. I don’t care if it hurts the god. It will bring me great satisfaction.”
She lunged again, screaming like a banshee.
Loretta appeared out of nowhere and tackled her legs, sending Courtney sprawling across the stage.
