by Skylar Finn
“He’s getting me my Band-Aid,” mumbled Snake Bite.
“Oh, that’s right.” She framed the three of them in the clearing with her hands. I hadn’t realized directors actually did that.
“They’re really something, aren’t they?” Les appeared at my side, admiring them. He sounded eager for my approval, like it made any difference what I thought of it.
“Where’d you get the robes?” I asked, watching them. They were in a line, perfectly still, with their heads bowed. It was creepy.
“I’m not sure,” said Les, frowning. “I feel like they were already here.”
“Huh,” I said.
Cameron approached the clearing with something in his hand. I saw that it was the sticks he’d been making into a crown when we searched for the spleenwort. He held three of them. He placed them on their bowed heads and retreated.
“Oh, I like that,” murmured Pandora. “Crowns. Yes.”
Abe returned and set the camera up in the clearing, attaching it to a monitor. Pandora huddled over the monitor with Abe, whispering to him. I went closer, under the pretense of filming the monitor with my phone.
“Girls, can you look up at the camera?” called Pandora.
They looked up in unison. It was as if they were hardwired to operate in tandem. There was something unsettling about it.
“Fantastic,” said Pandora. “Margo, I’d really like to see you with a prop of some kind. What could we have you hold?”
Margo was motionless, saying nothing. Either she was really in character, or something weird was going on.
“What about one of those creepy books from that spooky old study with the monsters on the door?” continued Pandora, as if nothing was amiss. “That could work, right? You! Bridget Jones!”
I looked around. It took me a minute to realize who she meant. It was Kimmy snickering that tipped me off. She’d broken character to mock me.
“She means you, ponytail-and-twinset,” called Kimmy.
“Me?” I pointed to myself.
“Yes, you,” said Pandora impatiently. “Can you get one of the books from the study? I need everyone else here.”
“Um, okay.” I was afraid of what would happen if I said no. She didn’t seem like someone accustomed to hearing the word no.
Inside the drafty house, I pushed open the goblin doors that led to the sprawling parlor. There was no fire lit in the fireplace, and the room was cold and dim. I flipped the wall light, but nothing happened.
“Great,” I muttered. “My favorite room to be in with no lights.”
There was enough sunlight coming through the window to see by, so I went to the shelf and studied the titles of the old leather tomes on the built-in shelves: Theory of Necromancy, For the Conjurer, The Book of Shadows. Theory of Necromancy looked like a companion to the one in the apothecary, the one in the dark magic section.
This was definitely, undeniably weird. I might not have been able to sense weirdness like a bloodhound, but I could definitely see it when it was right in front of my face. All of the books looked cursed, and I didn’t really want to touch any of them. I found one that was unlabeled and pulled it from the shelf.
“Doing a bit of light reading?”
The voice came from behind me, and I jumped, dropping the book. I turned to see a kid around the same age as Snake Bite sitting in Margo’s armchair. He had little round glasses and a red sweater vest. He looked like a character illustrated for a children’s book about talking owls.
“It’s just a prop for the set,” I said, leaning over to pick up the book. “Shouldn’t you be out there?” I didn’t see him come in, but he was obviously one of Pandora’s lackeys.
“I don’t get out much anymore,” he said. “Shouldn’t you be out there?”
“I was ordered to collect this,” I said.
“I don’t think anyone should be reading that,” he said solemnly.
“Why not?” I asked, studying it.
“Don’t open it.” He said it with such urgency that I immediately set it down.
“Why not?” I asked again.
“There are a lot of things in this house that should never be opened,” he said. “Doors. Books. Locks. Et cetera.” He gazed into the empty fireplace.
“How do you know?” I regarded him suspiciously. For a PA on the set of a music video, he was acting pretty cryptic. “Who are you, anyway?”
He looked up at me and smiled. Then he went back to looking at the fireplace.
“I saw you moving in, you know,” he said. “I wanted to warn you to leave, but I didn’t know how.”
“You were here last week?” I said slowly. Maybe he wasn’t with Pandora. Was he one of Margo’s crew? Was he part of the Briar Rose entourage?
“I was,” he said with a little sigh. “In a manner of speaking.”
“What manner of speaking?” I asked. I felt like I was in Wonderland, trying to communicate with one of the characters who only spoke in riddles. I’d always hated that book.
“All I wanted was the credit,” he said. “All my friends did cool things, like promoting clubs or driving actors around all day. My dad told me not to put it off till last semester, but it was also his idea to take eight classes a semester so I could graduate early, so frankly I blame him. I wish I could tell him that, but I can’t figure out how to leave.”
As he spoke, something began to dawn on me. Something that sent a chill throughout my entire body.
“I got stuck in a haunted mansion with an apathetic pop star, and now this,” he said, shaking his head. “Worst internship ever. Did you know I was a virgin? You can probably tell by looking at me. I’m not usually this open about it with women, but I suppose it makes no difference now. It just seems really unjust, you know? Like, not even one time?”
He seemed so human and alive. He wasn’t like Martha at all. But when I lifted my hand to touch his sleeve, my fingers grasped at nothing. He was insubstantial as air.
“Are you Colin?” I asked.
26
Hell Hath No Fury
“I was Colin,” he said. “I guess I still am, in a metaphysical sense. But my mailing address no longer seems to be relevant.”
“You’re a ghost,” I said slowly.
He made a face as if he smelled something unpleasant.
“I prefer Undead American, thank you,” he said. “Ghost just sounds kinda hokey, and also like I’m dead, and to be honest with you, I still haven’t really come to terms with it. I had a long life ahead of me and I had a lot of plans. Like knowing the love of a woman at least once before I died suddenly and horribly out of nowhere.”
“Do you remember how you died?” I asked, sinking onto the hearth, the music video forgotten.
“The thing about being a nerd,” he said, “is that you can still be certain your day will come. It will just come later rather than sooner. Those jock guys at my high school? They’re nobodies now. Well, except for Ted; he played college football and got drafted by the NFL. But the others? Nobodies. I was the one who was going to change society with my ideas and marry Emily Ratajkowski. Or a Hadid. Either one. I’m not particular. And now look at me!”
“Um, Colin,” I said. “Did you hear my question? How did you die?”
“Stop saying that word!” He flung a hand over his face like I pepper sprayed him. “I hate that word,” he mumbled through his hand. “You’re being really insensitive.”
“I just need to know if you remember anything,” I said delicately, trying not to set him off again. “Like who might have…rendered you into your current state, for example.”
“If I remembered that, I wouldn’t still be here, now would I?” he said. “I’m pretty sure a golden chariot would descend from the ceiling, and the sky would open up with a shaft of light, and then music would play, and then I could go to Heaven, or wherever, and ideally marry a supermodel there. I guess one that died of an overdose or something. At least, I assume that’s how it works.”
It sounde
d more like how a nineteen-year-old boy, so intent on graduating that he was now dead, would imagine how it might work rather than how it actually might work. But I thought it might be better not to bring that up just then.
“So you don’t remember,” I clarified. “Just to reiterate.”
“No! I don’t. Okay? One minute, I was watching brony porn—”
“Wait, what? No, never mind. Continue.”
“—and I heard this soft little knock at my door, right? And I was like, at last! I really thought that it was Lisette—”
“Who’s Lisette?”
“Margo’s assistant before me. She gave two weeks’ notice, for some unspecified and vaguely ominous reason that I really wish she’d bothered to explain to me when she was training me to take over for her, but of course she didn’t tell me why she was leaving. Margo had her fill me in on what frog spleen and bat’s eyes she wanted in her bath, and what Splenda and Stevia she wanted in her tea, and that was pretty much it.”
“So who was at the door?” I asked. It was really hard to get him to stick to the subject.
“I don’t know! It’s the last thing I remember! Then I woke up like this.” He looked down at his body and plucked at his red sweater vest. “I mean, I was always like this, technically. But not like, transparent, you know? I was solid. I was opaque. I had potential.”
“Have you seen Martha Hope?” I asked. “Can you communicate with her?”
“Who?” he asked, looking perplexed.
“Martha,” I said. “She’s a gh—she’s another…soul like you. She’s been hanging around the manor.”
“How old is she?” he asked excitedly.
I sighed. “She’s sixteen.”
“Oh.” He visibly deflated. “Although,” he mused, “I would imagine that death changes things. Wouldn’t we both be considered immortal, and the age when we…well, you know…wouldn’t that be moot?”
“I don’t know!” I snapped. “I’m not a spiritual counselor. And this isn’t a slapstick summer movie about your quest to lose your virginity, fused with a coming-of-age ghost story. Okay? I need to find out what’s going on here. What’s with the book?”
“I opened it,” he explained. “Which seemed weird because I can’t touch anything in the house. I can’t touch any of the books. I’ve been bored out of my mind here, not even being able to read, but for some reason I could pick it up. Which seemed strange, but I guess beggars can’t be choosers, right? And it’s not a book. It’s a journal. Or a diary of some kind; semantically, I’m not really sure the difference—”
“Someone wrote this?” I picked up the book again. “Who?”
“I don’t know, but there is some seriously weird stuff in there. Like bad weird. I got scared and had to put it down. And I’m already dead!” He looked surprised. “Wow. There. I said it. Okay. That wasn’t so bad.” He looked at me. “Do you help people like me?”
“Not willingly,” I said.
He bit his lip. “Could you maybe like—”
“No,” I said flatly.
“Okay. I get it. You’re into live guys. Could you maybe introduce me to this Martha, though?” he asked.
“No! I’m trying to solve her murder. I’m not your Tinder, okay?”
“Can you figure out what happened to me too?” asked Colin.
I sighed. I was already so behind at work and my other ghostbusting. I was resigned to having magical powers but still couldn’t cast a spell. And now this.
“I guess so,” I said, and he smiled at me brightly.
“Could I use your computer sometimes?” he asked. “I can’t really operate it, but if you could maybe look things up and scroll for me, it would be a big help.”
I stared at him.
“Not for that! It’s just, I have some ideas. About what might have happened. I could help you. I could help you help me. You know?”
“Oh. Right. Yeah,” I said.
“Sam? Are you in here?” I heard Cameron’s voice in the hall. I looked up, frantic, then remembered he couldn’t see Colin. I looked back and realized it was a moot point, anyway. He had disappeared. I quickly shoved the black book inside of my jacket.
Cameron poked his head in the door. “Girl, what happened to you? She wanted one book, not the entire library.”
“Oh yeah, sorry. I got caught up. There’s a lot of…interesting stuff here.”
Cameron joined me at the shelf and studied the titles.
“Isn’t there, though,” he said. He reached out and pulled a slender tome from the end. “This one will do.” He turned and glided from the room and I followed, glancing back over my shoulder at the chair where Colin had sat.
Outside, the shoot had gotten even weirder. The sun had all but disappeared, and Snake Bite had a single spotlight on the clearing where the three remained motionless, hoods up, heads bent. It looked as if they hadn’t moved since I went inside.
“Oh, that’s perfect,” breathed Pandora at the monitor. “Just remarkable. Yes, that’s just what I want.”
Someone had started a fog machine, and the thick smoke flowed through the clearing, forming a low-hanging cloud.
Cameron traipsed through the fog and handed the book to Margo. Or at least, I assumed it was Margo. It was difficult to tell with her hood up and her head down. She was in the center, positioned slightly ahead of the others, so it seemed logical to conclude it was her.
“Okay, Margo,” said Pandora briskly. “We’re going to do a take of you opening the book and pretending to read from it, but really you’ll be singing. And you’re looking at the book, and looking into the camera while you’re singing, because really, this song is for him, right? The ex-lover who scorned you and left you to burn. It’s directed at him, so we’ll have you singing directly at the camera, and just really giving us your vitriol, right?”
At the monitor, I noticed Les shift uncomfortably, fidgeting.
“Girls in the background, I want you to very slowly raise your heads and lower your hoods after the first verse, when you join in,” continued Pandora. “Then Margo, on the second verse, I want you to start moving toward the camera as you sing, just really getting into it, really giving it to him, right? And then girls, you’ll follow slowly behind her, backing her up. Okay? Any questions?”
The hoods shook their heads.
“Great. Abe?”
“Rolling.”
“Timothy?”
The snake-bitten boy of earlier scuttled into the clearing with a slate, centering it in front of the camera. “Marker! Scene one alpha, take one!”
“Action!” Pandora called.
I watched them as the fog rolled around their feet and Margo looked up suddenly into the camera. She was singing acapella, and there was no denying the power of her voice in the clearing. I thought then that anyone who had ever mocked Margo for her overuse of Auto Tune, backing tracks, and reliance on heavily-curated social media over actual talent would have to eat their words. The intensity of her expression as she gazed into the monitor was scorching, and Les hurried away after the first verse, mumbling something about craft services.
Kimmy and Bridget moved in behind Margo, chanting in the background. They were all perfectly synchronized, and I thought that maybe their eerily syncopated rhythm was the result of diligent work with an unseen choreographer who’d appeared—when? She’d written the song last night. They’d rehearsed it at some point this morning. I kept trying to apply sense and reason to a situation where there apparently was none.
“Cut!” Pandora called. “Great, that was absolutely wonderful, you three. Let’s get another take, same thing, more intensity. You’re at about a nine, I want to see you take it up to a nineteen. Let’s go.”
Timothy scurried in and out of the clearing with the clapper again. I thought he looked a little afraid, but I might have just been projecting. I ventured closer to the monitor and filled Les’s recently vacated spot. Cameron stood studying the screen. I took out my phone and hit record.
“Well I mean, yeah,” I said. “But won’t that be her, too?”
“It’s true,” he said. “Although I’ve always preferred live music to a recording. The real deal, you know? That’s the only time you really know for sure what you’re hearing. Everything else is subject to manipulation.” He sighed.
“Wonderful!” called Pandora. “Goodness, will you look at this light out here? It’s unbelievable. We barely even need the spot!”
The moon had appeared from behind a cloud and was shining so brightly it appeared to light up half the clearing. It was weird, actually; I’d never been able to see anything by moonlight. I looked at the ground. Either the fog machine was working overtime or actual fog was rolling into the clearing, which was now so shrouded in white smoke I could no longer see my feet.
“Look.” I nudged Cameron, beckoning my head to the ground. “Is that real?”
“Looks that way.” He peered at it briefly before his gaze drifted back to the clearing.
“Okay, let’s just get one more take for safety,” Pandora was saying. “I’m really happy with what we have so far, but I want this to be completely over the top. Feel free to really go to town on this one. Reset. Back to one. Camera?”
“Rolling.”
“Marker!” Timothy called. “Scene one alpha, take three!”
As he clapped the slate down, something strange happened: the fog rolled over the clearing like the ocean, undulating in a series of waves. Moonlight pierced the forest and bathed everything in an eerie glow. Margo’s voice seemed to take on an almost otherworldly nature, similar to the voice I had heard her sing her first new song in the ballroom, but even more pronounced. When the three approached the camera, they seemed to glide, their feet scarcely touching the ground.
