I nodded as he headed down the other side of the seats, to the curtained entrance at the side of the stage. What he was saying made perfect sense but I felt a bit bemused about the way he’d backed off, like he didn’t want me near him. Until then I’d felt we were getting on so well.
I grabbed my bag from the floor and by the time I looked up he’d gone. Steve arrived literally seconds later, so I guess Jack had been right to rush off. I went straight out the back to help Steve bring some of the props out. It was good to be busy when the others got there. It meant I didn’t really have to interact with them until we were in character.
Before I even made my first entrance, I spotted Jack hiding in the wings on the other side of the stage. David was there too, pushing his floppy fringe out of his eyes as ever, deliberately avoiding eye contact with me, and then with just a curtain between them, there was Jack, grinning stupidly, giving me a thumbs-up. I smirked at him. He made me feel like I could face anything.
The first act went OK. I was tense – I hadn’t spoken to Anton since the incident – but relations were supposed to be tense between our characters so it worked OK. I’d glance at Jack when I could, and he’d give me a nod and a smile to let me know I was OK.
Then we spent most of act two, which I wasn’t in, looking across the back of the stage at each other while the others acted. Jack kept an eye on me the whole time, checking behind me, even though I could see he wanted to watch the scene too, that he loved being in the theatre. Whenever we’d catch each other’s eye he’d smile his lovely smile at me. I felt like there was electricity running though me. I told myself it was the danger I knew I was in, and the thrill of trying to outwit it. But I think it was as much to do with just being with Jack. Every time our eyes met it was delicious and exciting and like being wrapped in a soft, warm blanket all at once. I felt invincible.
Until Steve betrayed me.
‘OK. Great, guys, great. Act three then!’
What?! I came out from behind the curtain.
‘Oh, Zoë, I know we spoke before about skipping this, but it’s been going so well – let’s give it a try, OK? Tristan and Diana, can you bring the chaise longue through?’ It seemed that was the end of the discussion then. What the hell did he think he was doing? He promised me!
I was fuming but I had no choice except to go back to where I’d been standing. I was terrified. My stomach had the floating horror you feel as you go over the top of a rollercoaster.
I hadn’t told Jack about this part of the play, that she always came at that moment. I looked at him and the terror on my face obviously told him for me. He frowned and looked questioningly at me as he stood to attention.
I held my hands over my mouth and started to cry. I couldn’t bear to have this happen to me again. Jack looked panicked, but he was peering hard behind me and still giving me the OK sign. The scraping of props along the stage stopped and the acting started. I watched Jack closely, keeping eye contact, still clutching my mouth closed.
‘We’ve got hours and hours, all to ourselves . . .’ I heard Anton purr. I stepped forward just as Jack’s eyes went wide and urgent – he started waving wildly at me to get off the stage. I screamed and ran to the front of the stage, practically breaking my neck as I slipped jumping off it, only just recovering my balance.
‘Zoë!’ Steve screeched.
‘Sorry, sorry, sorry! I really have to pee!’ I screeched back. It was the only thing I could think of as I ran for the back of the room, grabbing my bag as I burst out through the doors.
I ran to the ladies’, just off the foyer, and locked myself into a cubicle where I sat on top of the toilet seat, hugging my bag and my knees. I was frozen with fear. Should I still be running? What if the ghost was chasing after me? She could be just on the other side of the door . . .
Chapter 12
‘Zoë? Are you OK?’
It was Jack. I was still in the cubicle. It took me a minute to come to my senses. I flexed my fingers and my toes – I could feel them just fine. I touched my hands together and I touched my face. Everything worked. I was breathing hard, and shaking, but I wasn’t dizzy or queasy . . .
Ha! We’d done it! I stood up on the seat and looked over the top of the cubicle door at him and, when he saw I was OK, he grinned.
‘We did it, didn’t we?’ he said.
I nodded excitedly and then glanced around. ‘Jack – this is the ladies’,’ I told him with pretend shock.
‘I won’t tell if you won’t.’ He shrugged with a cheeky smile.
‘You’re so naughty,’ I said.
‘I’ve had my moments.’ He twinkled his eyes at me and waggled his eyebrows. I nearly fell off the toilet he was so gorgeous. ‘Now come down out of your tower, princess, and I’ll meet you outside.’
‘OK.’ I grinned at him and jumped down. I took a second to catch my breath, leaning against the door, before I slid open the lock. I was in love. I was sure of it. What a time for it to finally happen.
Outside the door, Jack was leaning against the wall with his hands stuffed firmly in his pockets. I looked around and into the foyer to see if anyone might be listening, but we were sort of screened from the main area by a curved wall that sectioned off the bit where the toilets were.
‘I’m shaking,’ I said, holding my quivering hands out in front of me and leaning against the wall close to him.
‘You’re safe though,’ Jack reassured me. ‘It was the weirdest thing, Zoë, but when you jumped down off the stage, she couldn’t follow you. I watched it. She tried to go after you, but when she got to the edge of the stage it was as if she couldn’t go any further . . .’
‘She’s definitely been past the edge of the stage before, she’s been out of the theatre – in my house even . . .’
‘But that was when she was with you, in you, right? So my guess is that she can go wherever she likes when she can keep holding on to you, but otherwise she’s stuck in that tiny space somehow. But you’re her ticket to the outside world, Zoë, and she’ll do anything to get out of here. I could see the fury and determination in her – you can’t go back up there on that stage again right now, it’s too dangerous.’
I secretly liked that he sounded like he was telling me what to do – not that I was going to take orders from anyone, no matter how stunning they were. But it made me want to kiss him, the way he looked so worried about me, the way he was working so hard to protect me. I stared at his lips, imagining what it would feel like. I wanted to move closer to him, it was taking a lot of will power not to. But last time I tried it, he’d backed off . . .
‘You have to get out now, while you can.’ His voice interrupted my thoughts.
He’d been right so far, but I didn’t know if I could do what he was asking. Despite our triumph, I was still stuck in the same dilemma.
‘If I wimp out of this now, I’ll get chucked out of the play – it’ll get cancelled completely. I don’t know if I can do it.’
‘Zoë, I know this is important to you, I understand, really, I love this place too, the whole magic of it . . . but this is bigger than that; we’re talking about your life. Look at what she’s already done to you.’ He nodded at the big ugly graze on my face. I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten about it. Maybe that was why he was keeping his distance from me. Because I looked so hideous he didn’t want me to touch him. All the excitement of our victory was draining out of me fast.
‘Is that it then? I have to give everything up? She’s beaten me – so close to opening night? We only had two rehearsals left.’ I turned away from Jack and stared at the floor, ashamed and broken.
‘I’m not talking about quitting altogether, I’m just talking about now, while she’s waiting for you up there. You just need to stay safe until we can figure it out. Look, if your director admitted he’d have to cancel the play without you, if you don’t have an understudy and it’d be too late to get another Rebecca, that’s all the more reason he’s likely to give you another chance, right? He did the last time, an
d let’s be honest, last time was a lot more, um, interesting.’ He shot me a guilty grin and I shot him back a glare. ‘All you did this time was run away.’ He was right. Steve wouldn’t really cancel the play completely, not if he could avoid it, not now.
‘Maybe you’re right. He did break his promise to me too – he said we could miss that scene out and he went back on his word. Maybe he’d feel bad if I called him on it . . . but so what if he does agree to give me another chance? For what? To get possessed again? Going back up on that stage just gives her the chance to get me again. What’s the point?’
‘Zoë . . .’ Jack’s voice was so compelling, so gentle and strong all at once, I had to look at him, hideous face graze or no hideous face graze. ‘Don’t give up. Ducking out of this rehearsal doesn’t mean giving up the whole play. We haven’t got a plan yet, but I really think you need to find out what she wants and maybe we can get rid of her.’
I wanted to believe him. ‘How can we find anything out by running away?’
‘She must be in this particular place for a reason. Perhaps you could read up on the theatre’s history. When’s your next rehearsal?’ Jack asked, resolve colouring his tone.
‘Monday night.’
‘Can you do some research – in the library or something? There’s two days till then . . .’
‘I can search online – my dad’s a media studies teacher, he has access to newspaper archive sites, I can try using those . . . but what use will that be?’
‘I’m not sure. Perhaps, we can help her.’
I felt a pang of anger. ‘Why would I want to help her? She’s ruined my life.’ I pouted. I knew what he was saying made sense, I was just letting myself wallow.
‘Something must be keeping her here. If we can work out what, maybe she’ll go – cross over, rest in peace, whatever. It’s worth a try, isn’t it? Come on. I know you’re not ready to give up. You’ve got more fire in you than that, I’ve seen it.’ This boy sure knew how to say the right things – I felt amazing when he said stuff like that.
‘OK. I’ll go home now and see what I can find. Why don’t you come with me?’ I surprised myself asking him that, but I just didn’t want to not be with him. The thought of leaving without him made me feel horrible.
His face fell, showing me all too clearly the answer to my question. ‘I can’t. I don’t get off here until seven, and I’ll have to wait till then before I can do any digging, or I could get caught . . .’
I tried not to show how much I wanted to cry.
‘OK. Well, what’s your number then? I can call you and tell you what I’ve found.’
He looked at me blankly for a second. ‘But I’ll be here.’
‘Oh, I guess you’re not allowed to have your mobile on while you’re working. I could call you after though.’
‘No, it won’t work. I mean it’s broken. The only phone I have is the payphone in my digs – it doesn’t take incoming calls because the landlady’s a battleaxe . . .’ He laughed nervously, rolling his eyes. I felt actual pain in my chest as he started backing off again. ‘But look, leave your number at the ticket office, like you were supposed to before, OK?’ He raised his eyebrow in mock disapproval, but I could tell he was hiding something, his nerves showed through. ‘I promise I’ll try calling you as soon as I can. But I should get back to work – and you should go – before they come to look for you. We’ve been talking too long.’ And then he was rushing off across the polished floor of the entrance hall.
I watched him disappear into the shadowy corridor by the auditorium. I couldn’t believe he’d run off again. What was going on with him? One minute he’d say the loveliest thing to me and the next it was like he couldn’t stand to be near me. I was full of confusion as I headed quietly in the opposite direction, creeping towards the box office and the exit, making sure I avoided accidental contact with the others. I didn’t think any of them apart from Steve would be searching too hard for me.
I still felt a tiny bit wobbly from the fear of how close I’d been to the ghost – and the thrill of escaping. But mostly I felt rejected. When Jack and I looked into each other’s eyes, it was like there was no one else in the world. He smiled at me like I was the only person he saw, just like Anton had with Gemma. It was what I’d wished for. But it was like he held my heart in his hand just to break it. All I did was ask for his phone number and he acted like I’d proposed or something. Whenever I tried to get closer to him, he ran away. Pretty much literally. I didn’t understand him at all. I’d be so sure he liked me and then so sure he didn’t. Why did this have to be so confusing, on top of everything else? I scrabbled in my bag for a pen and scrap of paper, wrote my number down and posted it through the ticket window of the closed box office. I had no idea if he’d call me. I took one last glance around and left the theatre. There was no way I was going back on that stage knowing she could be there waiting for me. Not until I had a plan.
Coming through the front door at home I felt a little thrill to be me, you know, without a ghost on board. And even though I couldn’t get Jack out of my head, I tried to focus on the research I had to do. If Jack was right and knowledge was power, I could really do with knowing some more stuff.
I went straight to the study and flicked to the back of dad’s diary. He was so terrible at remembering passwords and log-ins that he kept a list of them all there. I’d told him off for it, saying that if we were burgled or something, it’d be the perfect way to help someone hack into his bank accounts and steal all his money and his identity. But right now it turned out handy for me. I’m sure he would have let me use it if I’d asked him anyway, but that could mean a lot of explaining I didn’t know if I could do.
I searched for Hemingford Theatre, all records, but that turned up hundreds of thousands of results and it was just listings mostly. I wasn’t sure how to narrow it down. I didn’t even know what decade to look under, really. This woman could have died any time . . . so I put died in the narrow search field.
That was easy – when the results came up I only had to weed out a couple of obituaries of old actors before I found this headline from the local paper: Fatal Accident in Local Theatre May Have Been Foul Play. I clicked on it and read the full article. It was dated 1960.
Two people were killed on Saturday night in seemingly unrelated incidents at the Hemingford Theatre, Cooper Mews.
It was definitely our theatre.
Actress, Olivia Brett, 21, and a theatre technician, Christopher John Bloom, 19, were both rushed to hospital but both died from their injuries. Miss Brett, who was starring in the production, Foul Play, was fatally wounded in what appeared to audience members to have been a stunt gone tragically wrong . . .
It was the same play! This had to be it.
As theatre staff rushed to help the actress, Mr Bloom was discovered unconscious with head injuries. Police are working to discover whether either incident did indeed involve any foul play or whether these were simply two tragic accidents.
That was it? I needed more information than that! I went back to the headlines and found a later article.
Stage Shooting Was Accident, the title read. I clicked through again. Olivia Brett, the 21-year-old actress shot and killed on stage at the Hemingford Theatre last week, was not murdered, police have confirmed.
My heart thumped fast in my chest – this was creepy. She was actually killed on the stage – it must have happened in act three – when Tristan shoots Rebecca. Only she was shot for real and actually died right in the middle of the play? How could that happen?
Detectives have dismissed speculation that the prop gun, used in the Foul Play production on Saturday, may have been deliberately swapped with a genuine, live weapon, as salacious hearsay.
Whatever that meant.
Miss Brett’s co-stars, Thomas Garvey, 24, to whom the actress was engaged to be married, and Marion Sylvester, 23, were being questioned in connection with the incident but have been released without charge.
MARION!
Marion knows! I remembered the sticky message on my mirror. My mouth went dry and my mind began to race. This must be it – I’ve found it. These people were all in the same play as me, nearly fifty years ago. Olivia was obviously playing Rebecca and Thomas and Marion were the only other actors mentioned in the article, so they must be playing Anton and Gemma’s parts.
I had to be close to the answer but I still didn’t have enough information. I ran an image search on the names and found a picture of the whole cast, with the director, on the steps of the theatre. Then I knew for sure. My eyes were drawn straight away to the striking woman in the centre with long black hair and pale skin. A chill shot through me. It was a black and white photo but there was still no mistaking those eyes.
I checked the caption. It was her. I’d seen Olivia Brett in the props room. Forty-eight years after she’d died. I felt hot and sick. I ran to the bathroom and vomited.
All of this was real.
Chapter 13
I sat there on the bathroom floor, my hot, spinning head resting against the cold wall tiles. I’d been relieved when Jack told me what he thought was going on. I was being possessed by a ghost. It was an answer, finally, and proof that it wasn’t me doing all those horrible things, that it wasn’t my fault. But now that I had a name and I really knew it was true, I wasn’t sure if this wasn’t worse – I had no control over this, and no one could help. They wouldn’t be able to believe me, let alone help.
Then Jack’s words echoed in my head. ‘Maybe we can get rid of her.’ If we could find out what she wanted, maybe we could beat her. If I could focus on her instead of thinking how hopeless things were for me, maybe I could keep going.
I gingerly pulled myself up on to my feet. Cold and shaking, I went back to the computer screen. After a few deep breaths with my eyes closed, I looked at the picture again. When I looked at Olivia I noticed this time how gentle she seemed. She was smiling a warm smile, so different to the angry face I’d seen. She didn’t seem evil at all. Thomas was standing next to her and their smiles both seemed so real and comfortable. He was classically good-looking, almost beautiful, with his soft, dark hair swept back carefully in a sort of quiff. He was tall and tanned but sort of baby-faced. Next to him was Marion, who was also beautiful, but in a completely different way to Olivia. Marion had a shock of bright blond curls, a small, heart-shaped face and delicate features.
The Last Act Page 8