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Theta stopped before the large framed photograph of a somber Reginald Bennington seated at a table in the dining room back when it had been a showplace and not just a shabby spot that served weak coffee. She’d passed the photograph daily, but never really thought to look at it. Reginald Bennington looked to be about sixty, with dark curly hair going to gray, and a salt-and-pepper beard and mustache. Put a cap on his head, and Theta could imagine him as the captain of a grand ship. There were all sorts of stories about him: He was a magician involved with the occult. He performed pagan ceremonies in the basement. He ran naked through Central Park. It was said that he’d had the Bennington constructed according to magical specifications, as both a beacon to the otherworldly and as a protection against evil. Theta glanced up and down the hall. Empty. Feeling the fool, she stepped forward. “Hiya, Mr. Bennington,” she said very softly. “Listen, I, uh, don’t know if you’re really in the wish-granting business, but if you are, I sure could use some luck today. Okay. Thanks. I’m Theta, by the way.”
Theta shifted from one foot to the other, waiting—for what, she couldn’t say. From his chair in the Victorian-appointed dining room, Mr. Bennington stared back, a lost relic from another generation.
“Yeah,” Theta said on a sigh. “It’s okay. I’m embarrassed for myself. You don’t have to say a word, pal.”
On her way out of the Bennington lobby—I am Theta Knight, I am Theta Knight, I am Theta Knight—Theta bumped into Miss Addie. The old woman looked terrible. Dark shadows ringed her bright eyes, and her frizzy white hair was more of a mess than usual.
“Oh, my dear, can’t you feel it?” Miss Addie said.
“Feel what?”
“Him. He’s coming. He’s coming for us. I fear we shall have to stage quite the battle to beat him this time, for he grows more powerful by the day,” Miss Addie said, her pitch rising in concert with her sparse eyebrows.
Theta fumbled nervously with her handbag. “Sorry. I-I’ve gotta ankle, Miss Addie.”
“Yes. Of course. You know there’s a ghost after you, my dear, don’t you?” Addie blurted.
“A ghost?” Theta said, her voice barely a whisper.
Miss Addie nodded. “It means you harm, I’m afraid. Be careful, my dear girl.”
I am Theta Knight.
Theta shook her head as she pushed angrily through the Bennington’s revolving door. “Terrific. This day just gets better and better.”
A BORN STAR
By eleven o’clock, Theta, Ling, Evie, and Mabel were huddled together in their seats on the elevated Brighton Beach line out to Brooklyn and Vitagraph Studios, hands clapped over giggling mouths as Evie kept everyone entertained with a risqué story about a secretary at WGI who’d been caught petting with an auditioning act.
“Well, she didn’t realize the man had a parrot who’d seen the whole thing—Polly wanted more than just a cracker, and how!” she said to scandalized laughter from Mabel and Ling.
The story was rude, and it was clearly shocking the Blue Noses within earshot, which, with Evie, was the point. Evie loved scandalizing the hypocrites, of course, but more than that, Theta knew, Evie was telling her naughty stories to distract Theta from the butterflies in her stomach. And after her strange morning asking the spirit of Reginald Bennington for luck and then getting a creepy warning from Adelaide Proctor, Theta needed it.
“Brooklyn. Huh. It’s like being in Kansas,” she said, peering out the window at the borough’s low, sleepy houses flying past. Up ahead, she could see a tall smokestack at the corner of Avenue M and Fourteenth Street with black letters down the side spelling out VITAGRAPH.
The girls crowded together at the window to get a good look. The train pulled into the station, and they stepped out onto the platform. “Hold on,” Evie said, fluffing the fur collar to frame Theta’s face. “There. You look like a proper film star now.”
Theta put a hand to her fluttering stomach. “Well. Here goes nothing.”
“Sure is impressive,” Mabel said as they approached the giant brick studio, which took up an entire block. “You think we’ll see any movie stars? Like Harold Lloyd. Oh, I love him!”
“Harold Lloyd!” Evie and Theta complained together before bursting into giggles.
Mabel grinned. “I like his big round glasses! Fine. Who do you like?”
“Gary Cooper, of course,” Evie said, swooning. “Or Ramon Novarro.”
The girls all sighed except for Ling.
“You don’t find him handsome?” Mabel prodded.
Ling made a face. “He’s hammy. I like Anna May Wong.”
Mabel laughed. “No. I mean who do you like?” She waggled her eyebrows as if Ling hadn’t understood the first time.
Anna May Wong, Ling thought, the movie star’s beautiful face s
wimming up so strongly in Ling’s mind that she hoped the embarrassment couldn’t be read on her face.
