“We saw.” Heather gestured at the security monitor.
“They’re adorable, but I don’t think we have any future Swan Lakes on our hands.” Vivien chuckled as she took a seat close to Lorna. “I think that Bronwyn girl might have a future as a soccer player, though. She kicks like she’s mad at the world.”
“I’d maybe keep that opinion to yourself,” Heather instructed. “They’re just children. If they want to dream about being ballerinas, let them.”
“I only say what I sense,” Vivien said.
Heather shared a look with Vivien, before saying, “See. I told you Viv is intuitive. She feels things.”
“And I see you told her for me too.” Vivien studied her fingernails.
Lorna looked back and forth between the women.
“By intuitive, she means I’m psychic,” Vivien said, holding up her forefinger to show the ring. “It’s how I knew we were destined to be great friends.”
“Psychic?” Lorna looked to Heather, who gave a small shrug. Heather had already admitted before that Vivien thought as much. “So you see Grandma Julia too?”
“I’m more empathic. I can’t hold a conversation with the dead. I’m not a medium like Heather,” Vivien said. “I sense things about people—who they are, what they would be good at, if I want to know them or not, and if they’re lying to me. Some of my ancestors worked for a carnival doing tarot card readings and telling fortunes, though I’ve never seen the future myself, so I can’t tell you how effective they were at it. They call people like me clairsentient because I feel what other people are feeling and understand why they might be feeling that way. But also I’m considered claircognizant because I just sort of know things to be real or not without always being able to explain how I know. Heather could talk to the ghost and be directed to the dead body. I would just know where to look for the dead body. I’ve never been good at explaining it.”
Lorna glanced at the lobby security monitors watching the dancers and their families make their way out the front door. She wasn’t sure what to say to all of this. Part of her believed it because she felt the tingling in her hand and the transfer of emotions. Another part of her wanted to believe it because that would mean life wasn’t dull. Yet a third part of her—the doubtful part raised by practical parents in a no-nonsense society—was highly skeptical when it came to people who claimed to be psychic.
She ignored that third part.
“You’re not good at explaining because we don’t tell people,” Heather said. “And if we ever start, maybe don’t use the dead body analogy. It’s a little disturbing.”
“Says the woman who sees dead people,” Vivien answered. “What about you, Lorna? What’s your secret?”
“I don’t have a secret. Not like that.” Lorna frowned. They both stared at her expectantly. “I think it’s obvious to the whole world that I don’t know when I’m being lied to. I can’t see ghosts. Of course I have empathy, but I wouldn’t say that makes me empathic, just empathetic.”
Vivien leaned closer and stared at Lorna. “You have…” She gestured her hands around Lorna’s face. “Something.”
Lorna laughed. “Good to know I have something.”
“Leave her be, Viv,” Heather said. “She has a lot to process.”
“You find things,” Vivien stated in excitement, as if she’d just discovered the cure for some rare disease. “I bet you’re the reason we found these rings the same day you and I finally met.”
“I don’t think that’s a superpower,” Lorna denied. Of course she was good at finding things. She’d spent a lifetime as a mother with a family who lost things.
Mom, where’s my shirt?
Mom, have you seen my mitt?
Mom, I can’t find my homework. I need it for Mr. So-and-so’s class!
Honey, do we have any mayo?
“I think it’s more of a mom power. When you’re the one cleaning, and keeping track of everything, and maintaining the family schedule, it becomes part of the job to note where things are located.” Lorna’s gaze kept moving back to the corner. There had to be a way to tell if Julia stood in the room.
“That all may be true, but I think it’s more than that.” Vivien moved to check the lobby monitor. Two girls were doing pirouettes on the hard floor in front of the candy display and a blonde woman in a red coat stood near them staring up at the camera. “I think you need to practice using the skill. Once everyone is gone, we’ll send you on a scavenger hunt. I’ll prove it to you. You’re a finder.”
“What’s that lady doing?” Lorna moved to get a closer look at the monitor.
“What lady? I don’t see anyone.” Vivien blocked her vision as she stepped out of the way. “It was probably one of the parents.”
When Vivien moved the blonde was gone. Someone waved the ballerinas over to the front doors and the two girls ran outside.
Heather sighed and pushed up from her chair. She slid open the desk drawer and took out a set of keys. “Looks like that’s the last of them. Let’s lock up and do a sweep for stragglers.”
Chapter Six
“You’re right. I’m magical,” Lorna wryly stated as she threw a hair tie onto the lost-and-found pile she had started on the edge of the small stage. So far, she’d located a set of mouse ears, a pen, a pack of chewing gum, twenty-two cents, and an old cell phone skin that looked like it had been cracked before someone shoved it next to their seat by the wall. She’d been visualizing finding lost objects, which could hardly be considered a parlor trick considering there were always lost items in a theater.
Heather and Vivien sat in the front row watching her work. They both held soda cups from the concession, but Vivien drank wine from hers and Heather had soda and vodka.
Lorna picked up her cup and took a drink. The surprising taste of vodka in her soda overpowered her taste buds. She coughed and patted the center of her chest.
“I added a splash more to help you catch up with us,” Vivien said. “You’re welcome.”
Heather turned to the side and flinched at the empty seats. She held up her hand as if telling someone to be quiet. “Julia says our problem is we asked too broad of a question.”
“Find something that was lost?” Vivien shrugged. “Sounds specific to me.”
“Lorna, try to find something of value that was hidden over fifty years ago,” Heather requested.
“Valuable? Like the take from a bank robbery?” Lorna laughed.
“Yes.” Vivien straightened in her chair and twirled her finger to encompass the theater. “Find that. We need a shopping spree in Italy. I want new shoes.”
Lorna tilted her head to look at the woman’s new designer heels. “I have a feeling you own more shoes than a department store.”
“See?” Vivien tipped her cup at Lorna. “You are psychic.”
“Or perceptive.” Lorna took a deep breath and looked around. “Fine. But this is the last time.”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, telling herself to find something valuable and old.
Like the times before, she didn’t have any clue why she began walking. It wasn’t like she felt a pull or some unseen force leading her. She just moved. Instead of into the rows, she turned toward the steps leading onto the stage.
“Valuable and old,” she muttered. “Find something valuable and old.”
Lorna stood on the stage looking out into the theater. She twisted the ring on her finger. The sensation of heat came from above. Her gaze went to the lights she’d helped acquire. They were off, but that didn’t stop the feeling that they shone on her like a spotlight. Heather and Vivien watched her, cups in hand, from the first row.
A faint clapping sounded. Her new friends didn’t move, and the noise couldn’t have come from them.
“Do you hear that?” Lorna turned in a slow circle.
“No,” Heather and Vivien said in unison.
Without being able to explain why, Lorna crossed to the back of the stage. She reached between two
of the velvet curtains. Her hand bumped a small lever on a post and she pulled down. It didn’t move. She pulled harder. The lever gave way with a loud metal clank. She heard gears and felt vibration beneath her feet.
Lorna looked at the stage and then up toward the ceiling, unsure of what she’d done.
“What is that?” Vivien asked.
“What did you do?” Heather ran along the front of the stage to the stairs.
“Stop moving,” Vivien ordered. “Listen.”
Several of the floorboards sank into the floor to create an uneven hole close to where Lorna stood. The slats had been staggered to hide the fact there was an opening. The clanking continued.
Heather and Lorna crept forward and leaned over the opening.
“What did you do?” Heather repeated, her voice soft.
“I don’t know.” Lorna peered into the hole. The noise stopped. Nothing happened.
“Viv, give me your phone.” Heather went to the end of the stage to take the device. She turned the flashlight function on and shone it into the floor.
“I think I broke the stage,” Lorna said. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
“Of course you didn’t mean to do it,” Heather agreed.
“What’s down there?” Vivien asked.
“I have no clue. I didn’t know there was useable space beneath the stage. When we tried to go in from the sides, we kept hitting brick walls.” Heather lay on the floor to better see underneath.
Lorna returned to the curtains and pulled them back to see the post she’d touched. The lever she’d pulled was just one of three tiny notches in the wood.
“What does Julia say?” Vivien asked.
“She left,” Heather answered. “I think I see something down here. It looks like a track of some sort.”
“Do you want me to pull the next lever?” Lorna asked. “There are three of them disguised as notches in the wood.”
“Do it.” The click of Vivien’s heels announced her presence on the stage.
“Heather?” Lorna wasn’t about to break anything else. She needed this job and it would be hard to rent out the space with a hole in the stage.
“Go ahead. Everyone be careful. We don’t know what’s going to happen.” Heather pushed back onto her knees and nodded that she was ready.
Lorna flipped the second lever. It was small and difficult to hold on to. A tiny clunk sounded but nothing happened. She pushed it up and tried flipping it again. Still, nothing significant happened. “Anything?”
“No,” Heather said. “Try the last one.”
Lorna pulled the last lever.
The floor began to vibrate and creak. Lorna joined Heather and Vivien as they watched the hole. Heather held the light. Suddenly, something popped as if letting loose and wheels squeaked down the track, carrying a box-shaped object. It stopped halfway beneath the stage.
“It looks like an altar,” Vivien observed. “See the symbols painted on the sides? Those are like the ones in Julia’s pictures.”
“I wondered what had happened to that thing.” Heather laid on her stomach and craned her neck as she dipped her head into the hole. “You’re right. I’ve seen this in family pictures from Grandma Julia’s heyday. I just assumed it was thrown out at some point.”
Lorna dropped her legs over the side.
“Hey, careful,” Vivien warned.
“I want to take a look. May I borrow your phone?” Lorna held her hand out for the light. “Hopefully I can figure out what’s wrong and make the floor retract back into place.”
Heather pushed up from the floor and gave it to her. Lorna dropped down and slowly knelt under the stage, careful not to bump the altar. Spiders had called the crawlspace home at one point, only to abandon their dusty webs. The stringy remains hung from the wood slats like plant roots, drifting in the stirred air amongst a series of frayed ropes, pullies, and counterweights. Metal gears fitted together to create a mechanical system. She followed the lines with the light before coming to a frayed edge, where it had snapped.
“What do you see?” Vivien asked.
“It looks like the inside of one of those old dumbwaiters,” Lorna said. “I think it’s meant to bring the altar down the tracks and then lift it onto the stage, and then do the reverse to store it. Some of the ropes have snapped, so I don’t think we can retract the floor back into place to fix the hole.”
“I’m coming down.” Heather’s legs dropped over the side before she too jumped down to join Lorna. She gave a small groan. “In my head I’m not old, but I’d like someone to tell that to my stiff joints. They do not want to cooperate.”
The phone in her hand vibrated and Lorna glanced at the screen. “You’re getting a message.”
She automatically turned the phone toward Vivien. Heather took it from her.
“Had fun the other night. Give me a call, baby, and we’ll do it again,” Heather read aloud from the notification in a monotone voice, before ad-libbing, “love, Boy Toy number twenty-seven.”
“It does not say that,” Vivien dismissed with a laugh. “I never gave twenty-seven my phone number.”
Lorna crawled forward to get a better look around the side of the altar.
“You are such a cougar.” The light from the phone lit Heather’s face.
“You should try it sometime. Might loosen up those stiff joints of yours,” Vivien said.
“Or put me in traction,” Heather quipped. She handed the phone back to Lorna so she could use the flashlight.
“Well, I think I may be only half-finder. I found something old,” Lorna said, “but I’m not sure how valuable it is.”
“Value isn’t always money.” Theater lights haloed Vivien and she swayed back and forth as if she contemplated joining them. Instead, she took off her heels and sat on the side of the hole with her feet dangling.
“Bank loot would have been nicer.” Heather crawled next to Lorna to peek around the altar. Specks of dust drifted around them as they disrupted the area. She swatted at the strands of web tangling in her hair. “Or pirate treasure.”
“Lorna, maybe you’re not done finding. Is there anything else down there?” Vivien lightly swung her feet. They didn’t touch the ground.
“I don’t think…” She moved the light back and forth. Something caught her eyes in the darkness, but she couldn’t be sure if it was anything by the way it cast a shadow. Pullies and ropes blocked her path. She gave the phone to Heather. “Hold this for me. I think I see something.”
The hard floor bit into her knees and palms as she made her way parallel to the tracks. The metal rails were at an angle to use gravity to help slide the altar. Tiny bits of debris dug into her hands and she swiped them several times to dislodge the irritants. To herself, she whispered, “Please don’t let there be spiders. Please don’t let there be spiders.”
Lorna leaned under a series of looped ropes. Something tickled the side of her neck and she jerked, swatting it away before she realized it was a frayed piece of rope.
“Careful,” Heather called softly.
Lorna reached across the tracks for the shadowy object. She half expected it to be scrap wood that had been tossed aside when the stage was built. Her fingertips brushed the edge, sliding the rectangular object to prove it was loose. The light came closer, and she heard Heather moving behind her. Unable to reach, she readjusted her position to inch closer.
“Are we rich?” Vivien called.
Neither woman answered her.
Lorna glanced along the side of the altar where she hadn’t been able to see before. Aside from the cobwebs and tied pieces of rope, there was nothing worth noting. She reached again, able to drag the object toward her with the tips of her fingers. The closer it came, the easier it was to pull.
“What did you find?” Vivien insisted.
“I’m not sure. A box maybe. It’s wrapped in velvet.” Lorna tried to backtrack her way under the ropes. The light dipped several times as Heather retraced her path, making i
t difficult to see.
“Here.” Lorna lifted the object behind her.
Heather grabbed it before handing it up to Vivien.
Lorna attempted to turn around. Her shoulder bumped the altar, jarring it enough to send it along its original path.
Careful!” Lorna called out, unsure where Heather was in relation to it.
Heather gasped. The altar slammed forward as it came to the end of the track. Heather’s feet slid upward as if Vivien dragged her out of the hole to safety. The phone light shone from where it had landed on the ground. The altar now blocked the opening.
“Are you all right?” Lorna called in worry, making her way as fast as she could toward the opening.
“She’s fine,” Vivien answered. “You?”
“Yeah.” Lorna lifted the phone and slid it onto the stage before wedging her body between the altar and the floorboards. A slat scraped her side, but she didn’t care. Vivien and Heather took hold under her arms and helped to pull her out.
Lorna collapsed on the stage and took several deep breaths. She swiped at her dirty knees, brushing off her hands at the same time.
“It’s a book,” Vivien said, pulling an old book out of the dirty velvet bag. The hefty tome was three inches thick with a padded leather cover. The rough edges of the pages appeared handcrafted. “It looks medieval.”
Even with the protective covering, dust had managed to make its way inside the velvet. Vivien turned the material inside out and swiped at the cover’s embossing.
“Some of these symbols look like our rings.” Vivien lifted the book to show symbols forming a circle on the front cover. She pointed her forefinger and tapped a manicured nail against the symbol that matched her jewelry.
“Let me see it.” Heather took the book and opened it.
The smell of parchment reminded Lorna of the special collections room at the library. She and Vivien sat on either side of Heather as she turned the pages. “Warrick,” had been written on the title page in calligraphy. Decorative drawings lined the edges of the page.
“This is drawn, not printed,” Lorna observed, touching the edge of the thick paper. “The handwriting is exquisite.”
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