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“Everyone’s taken them down,” I confirmed.
“Final fittings?” he asked, looking at Charlie this time.
Charlie shot one last warning glare in Roman’s direction, and Roman threw up his hands in silent surrender before Charlie replied, “All finished. Everyone’s fully outfitted except for wigs because you said you wanted to—”
“Yes, yes, I’ll handle the wigs,” Mr. Pisani said. His single greatest horror in life was bad wigs. Well, that and faculty meetings during rehearsal time. “Props?”
“The tables are all set up and labeled. There are posters backstage so everyone can check which table their prop will be on and which table to return it to when they’ve finished,” I confirmed.
“And if anyone touches the prop swords without permission?” Mr. Pisani asked the room at large.
“Slow and painful death,” the cast chanted.
“Very good, thank you. Let’s get started. Places for the top of the show!” He clapped his hands and the whole company sprang into action. I scuttled off to my place in the wings, donned my headset, and took a deep breath.
“Let’s make some magic,” I whispered.
3
Adispiriting three hours later, we were as far from magic as we could possibly get. The rehearsal had been a disaster from start to finish. Poe continued to be the only actor who didn’t need to call for a line, the lighting board kept blacking out the stage lights, and no fewer than five people had been threatened with the aforementioned slow and painful death for dueling backstage with the prop swords they’d all promised not to touch. By the time the lights came up on the final scene, I was fighting a headache and glancing at the clock more often than I was glancing at the script. Above me, the stage lights flickered ominously again.
“Jayden, what is going on up there?” I whispered into the headset microphone hovering in front of my face.
“I don’t know!” Jayden, the lighting designer, hissed back. “It’s like the board’s possessed today! Like, full-out haunted.”
“Okay, well, I’m guessing that’s probably not the actual problem, unless one of those idiots was a little too enthusiastic with the prop swords and we just haven’t found the body yet,” I said. “Besides, we don’t have time for an exorcism. Did you check the cables? Last year someone used an audio cable by mistake and it screwed everything up.”
“I’ll have to wait until the rehearsal is over to get up in the—”
Jayden’s answer was cut short as all the lights went out again. Mr. Pisani let out a string of curse words which were actually just the names of Broadway divas who sounded like swear words when spoken angrily.
“DAME JUDY DENCH, WILL SOMEONE PLEASE SORT OUT THAT LIGHTING BOARD!!!” he shouted.
“We’re on it!” Jayden shouted from the booth. “Wren?”
“Yeah, I’m on my way up!” I replied, pulling the flashlight from the prompting table, and stomping my way over to the ladders. A swift climb later, and I was standing up in the catwalk, breathing in the familiar scent of sawdust, paint, and the warm tang of electricity buzzing all around me. I swung the flashlight around, illuminating the individual lamps and reading the chalk markings on them as I checked their connections. I was just about to call down to Jayden when a movement in my periphery distracted me. I turned my head, startled to find two glowing green eyes looking at me.
I shrieked and dropped my flashlight, scaring everyone below me.
“Wren? Are you okay?” Poe called.
The eyes hadn’t so much as blinked. I cleared my throat. “Yeah, I’m fine,” I managed to call out. I knelt down shakily, feeling around for the flashlight, unable to look away from those eyes.
Because they looked at me as though they knew me. And I knew them.
“Freya?” I whispered.
It was absurd to even consider it, because how on earth could mycathave gotten into the upper reaches of the fly space, let alone out of my apartment? The logical side of me knew it was impossible, and yet…
“Freya? Here, kitty!” I whispered even as I groped around for the flashlight which had rolled away from me. The eyes blinked and seemed to drift a bit closer.
“Wren? What’s going on?” It was Jayden’s voice that hollered up to me this time.
“I… I think there might be an animal up here!” I called back.
A number of reactions, from delight to disgust, rose from the company of students below me, but I ignored them. My fingers found the flashlight at last. I fumbled with the switch and swung the beam of light toward the eyes.
But there were no eyes. They were gone.
