Ghost of a Dream

by Simon R. Green

  He’d seen her here. In the theatre. That had to mean something.

  “So,” said Lissa, coming forward to stand right beside him, “here we are, alone on the stage together, just the two of us. That has to mean something…Why did you choose me as your partner and send everyone else away, I wonder?”

  “Almost certainly not for the reason you’re thinking,” said JC, turning unhurriedly around to smile at her. “Now that Benjamin and Elizabeth are gone, let us take the opportunity to talk about them behind their backs. How well do you know them?”

  Lissa shrugged briefly. “They hired me to be in their play, for really good money. What more do I need to know?”

  “You must have made some inquiries before you agreed to take on the role,” said JC. “You must have heard something…”

  “Well, one always hears things, sweetie. No-one loves a good gossip more than the acting profession. For us, adoration and backbiting are but two sides of the same coin. I did hear that this play was jinxed…A lot of people in my business wouldn’t touch it with a disinfected barge-pole. And not simply because it died the death in its first and only run. The original male lead in the play, all those years ago, was supposed to be one Alistair Gravel. Except he didn’t get to be the lead, did he?”

  JC nodded. “I remember Benjamin and Elizabeth saying he died, in an accident.”

  “Which is very interesting,” said Lissa. “Because I was told Alistair Gravel up and disappeared. Vanished, between one rehearsal and the next. And he was never found again, dead or alive. Not one trace of him anywhere, in the last twenty years, which is a bit odd, sweetie, for such an up-and-coming, talented young actor. Wouldn’t you say?”

  JC considered her thoughtfully. “You didn’t take this role because your agent advised you to, did you?”

  Lissa laughed softly. “No. I came here because I wanted to find out what really did happen to my uncle Alistair. I grew up listening to stories about his mysterious disappearance, so when my agent got the offer, to be in a play so unlucky they have to attach a rabbit’s foot to every script to get people to read it…I jumped at the chance. My agent still isn’t talking to me. I think dear Benjamin and Elizabeth know a lot more than they’re saying. I think they know what happened here, all those years ago. If we can persuade them to talk.”

  JC raised an eyebrow. “‘We,’ dear lady?”

  “You want to know what’s behind the haunting in this theatre,” said Lissa, with an artless toss of her head. “And it’s my belief that all these spooky manifestations are directly connected to the missing Alistair Gravel.”

  “Seems likely,” said JC, in his best I’m giving away nothing at this time voice. “Every haunting, every bad place, has its starting point—its beginning, in some dramatic moment. And its power source. Ghosts…are all about unfinished business.” He looked steadily at Lissa. “Do you think your missing uncle Alistair is the ghost here? That he’s behind everything that’s happening?”

  “Seems likely,” said Lissa. “Robbed of his chance for fame and glory at the very last moment? Struck down on the brink of stardom? Has to be.”

  “Do you think Benjamin and Elizabeth killed him?” said JC.

  “Now why would they do that?” said Lissa. “He was their friend. Their very good friend.”

  “People have sacrificed good friends before, for success,” said JC.

  “But there was no success,” said Lissa. “The play that was supposed to do so much for everyone, ruined the lives of everyone associated with it. Still, I’ll bet you good money that Benjamin and Elizabeth know the truth. Whatever it is.”

  She turned to JC, stopping before him just that little bit short of uncomfortably close, and smiled dazzlingly.

  “Why did you ask me to stay with you, then send all the others away?”

  “Because,” said JC, staring into her eyes, “I wanted to talk to you, alone. And see how well we’re doing…Getting right to the heart of the matter, without interruptions. I don’t trust Benjamin and Elizabeth any more than you do. It’s obvious they’re hiding secrets, things they won’t talk about except with each other. That’s why I sent them off with Happy.”

  “Because he’s a telepath?” murmured Lissa, her face so close to JC’s now that he could feel her warm breath on her face. Her perfume, rich and flowery, filled his head.

  “If only it were that easy,” said JC, steadily. “No, Happy doesn’t read the minds of the living if he can help it. He has enough trouble keeping other people’s thoughts outside his head so he can hear himself think. No, that’s not it. He’s…surprisingly easy to talk to, and confide in. You’d be surprised how many people will let their guard down and open up when faced with someone clearly so much more battered and broken than they.”

  “Well then,” said Lissa, the brief puffs of air in the two syllables hitting him right in the mouth. “No ulterior motives? No other reason for wanting to be here alone, with me?”

  JC took a single step backwards, separating them. “Don’t you point those bosoms at me, sweetie. I have a girl-friend.”

  “I won’t tell if you won’t.”

  “She’d know,” said JC. “And so would I. It took me a long time to find the love of my life, my Kim; and I won’t do anything that might risk losing her again.”

  “I don’t see her around anywhere,” said Lissa. “Is she a part of your team? Why isn’t she here now?”

  “How do you know she isn’t?” said JC. “Kim’s dead.”

  Lissa’s smile disappeared. “Okay; that’s quite spooky.”

  “Yes,” said JC. “It is.”

  Lissa looked at him steadily. “Why do you always wear sunglasses? It’s not a style thing, is it?”

  “No,” said JC.

  “There’s something not quite right about your eyes,” said Lissa. “I could tell that from the first moment I met you. Take off your shades, JC. Let me look into your eyes.”

  “Really not a good idea, Lissa…”

  “Please. I need to see, to be sure…Do it for me, JC.”

  And without quite knowing why, JC reached up and removed his sunglasses. He expected Lissa to cry out and turn away. Everyone else did. His eyes weren’t human eyes any more. But Lissa stood there, very still, staring back into his fiercely blazing eyes, apparently unaffected by a Gorgon gaze that had sent other people running for their lives and their sanity.

  “Oh, wow…” said Lissa, very quietly. “I had no idea…”

  The golden light from JC’s altered eyes bathed her face in sunshine, and she wasn’t in the least dazed or distressed. She looked more…dazzled. Her face soaked up the light, and she didn’t once blink or wince or look aside. She bathed in the golden glow, smiling happily, her eyes full of a simple, unaffected wonder.

  “What do you see, Lissa?” said JC.

  “It’s like looking into Heaven,” said Lissa, softly. And then she turned her head away, but not before JC caught a glimpse of a terrible sadness in her eyes. She walked away, her arms tightly crossed, hugging herself, then stopped abruptly and looked out over the auditorium.

  “This is why actors love the stage,” she said, without looking around. “Because it’s always here for us when we need it.”

  JC put his sunglasses back on. He wasn’t sure what had just happened. He could have gone after Lissa, but he didn’t. Because you don’t have to be a telepath to know when people need their space. Still, there was a lot more to this eager young actress than met the eye.

  “There’s something different about you, Lissa,” he said.

  “Got that right,” said Lissa, still not looking around. “Really. You have no idea.”

  “You haven’t told me the whole truth about why you’re here, have you?”

  Lissa laughed, briefly. “A girl has to have some secrets, sweetie.”

  “What do you think really happened to your uncle Alistair?” JC asked bluntly.

  Lissa looked out over the empty rows of seats, and when she finally spoke
, her voice was unaccountably weary. “Oh, I’m pretty sure he’s dead. Like dear Benjamin and Elizabeth said. And I think they’re probably the only ones left now who know the whole story. What really happened. I’m here…because I want the truth to come out. All of it.”

  JC considered the matter for a moment. “Why would Benjamin and Elizabeth tell us Alistair was dead, that he died in a tragic accident all those years ago…when they must have known everyone else believes he’s missing?”

  “Maybe they didn’t mean to say it,” said Lissa, turning around, at last, to smile at JC. “Maybe there’s something about this place that makes people speak the truth. Whether they mean to or not.”

  “You haven’t been scared by anything that’s happened here, have you?” said JC. “I saw you, when that dead thing was dragging itself across the stage…You didn’t blink an eye. It didn’t bother you one bit.”

  Lissa shrugged easily. “Oh, I’ve always loved ghost-train rides, sweetie. You couldn’t keep me off them when I was younger. Takes a lot to spook me…”

  JC heard a familiar voice say his name. He looked off stage, and there she was, standing in the wings—Kim. Smiling at him. JC smiled back at her, and a great wave of warmth and relief washed through him. It felt like he’d put down a great weight. And that he hadn’t realised how heavy it was until he could put it down at last. She was here again, here with him; and that had to mean something. Lissa looked at JC, looked to where he was looking, then back at him. She frowned, slightly.

  “JC, what are you looking at?”

  “This is my girl-friend Kim,” said JC. “I told you she was keeping an eye on me.”

  Lissa took a few steps forward, so she could stare right into the wings, then turned back to JC. “I don’t see anything…”

  “Kim is a ghost,” JC said calmly. “That’s how we met. She’s the only real ghost in the Ghost Finders. My team-mate, my soul-mate, and my one true love. I thought I’d lost her, but she came back to me. Apparently to be my guardian angel in times of peril.”

  “JC, really, I can’t see anybody,” said Lissa. “There’s no-one there!”

  “You have to learn to see with better eyes,” said JC. He grinned and tapped his sunglasses significantly with the tip of one finger. “It’s a larger world we live in than most people know or would want to know. Packed full, with the living and the dead. Because sometimes even death can’t keep some people apart.”

  “You are seriously freaking me out here, JC,” said Lissa.

  JC strode across the stage, towards the wings. Kim waited till he’d almost reached her, then she drifted backwards, still smiling, leading him on. JC plunged into the wings after her, and Lissa trotted unhappily along behind him.

  “I really don’t like where this is going, JC.”

  Kim led JC backstage, then down into the narrow corridors at the rear of the theatre, and into the deeper recesses of the old building. Always staying just ahead of JC, no matter how hard he tried to catch up. Lissa bustled along beside him, determined to keep up, shooting dark glances in all directions and muttering to herself. JC didn’t pay much attention to his surroundings, except to note that he didn’t think he’d been this way before. He kept trying to talk to Kim: Are you all right? Are you still being held against your will or have you broken free? Why won’t you speak to me? But Kim never answered him; instead, she smiled back at him. Sometimes encouragingly; sometimes sadly. But never a word. She drifted steadily backwards before him, her feet hovering a few inches above the floor.

  “Can I say,” said Lissa, a bit brusquely and half out of breath, “that I am getting seriously weirded out by this one-sided conversation? There’s no-one there, JC! I can see the whole length of this corridor quite clearly, and we are the only things in it! Trust me on this!”

  “Try to keep up, Lissa,” said JC, not unkindly. “My Kim may be dead, but she is definitely not departed. She is a ghost, and not everyone can see ghosts.”

  “I saw that crawling man!”

  “Yes,” said JC. “So you did. Interesting, that.”

  Kim finally slowed to a stop before one particular closed door and hovered there. She rose and fell slowly in mid air, her long red hair streaming away to both sides as though she were underwater. She looked entirely solid, but JC knew that if he reached out to her, there wouldn’t be anything there. He loved her, but he’d never been able to touch her. Lissa looked from him to the closed door and back again.

  “Is she still there? From the soppy look on your face, I’m assuming she still is. What’s behind that door? What’s she saying?”

  “She isn’t saying anything,” said JC, sharply.

  Lissa sniffed loudly. “No name on the door, nothing to indicate what’s behind it. Doesn’t look any different from all the other doors we passed to get here. Looks like a store-room to me. Do we go in?”

  JC looked at Kim. She drifted to one side and gestured at the door; and it swung slowly back to reveal the room beyond.

  “Heads up!” said Lissa. “That door opened on its own!”

  “That was Kim,” said JC. “Come on…”

  He started towards the open door, then stopped as he realised that Lissa was hanging back.

  “You’re not really thinking of going in there, are you?” said Lissa. “There could be anything in there. And in this theatre, anything covers a hell of a lot of ground!”

  “Kim brought me here,” said JC. “She must have her reasons…”

  But when he looked at Kim to confirm this, she wasn’t there. JC flinched as though he’d been hit. A cold hand closed around his heart and squeezed like it would never let go. It was actually harder for him to deal with Kim’s absence now that she was coming and going in his life. Lissa followed his gaze.

  “Am I to take it, from that wounded, tragic look on your face, that ghost girl isn’t with us any more?”

  “No,” said JC. “She disappeared. She does that.”

  “So that makes two of us who can’t see her,” said Lissa.

  JC ignored her, thinking hard as he studied the open door. “Why would she bring me here, then vanish? Unless there’s something…significant in this room. Something I need to see…She only appeared before when I was in danger. My guardian-angel ghost. Am I in danger here? Or do I need to see what’s in this room to avoid some future danger?”

  “He’s talking, but he’s not talking to me,” said Lissa.

  JC shot her a sudden grin. “I’m going in. To kick a few things around, start some trouble, see what I can stir up. You can stay out here if you want.”

  “Sweetie,” said Lissa, “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

  They both plunged through the doorway, ready for anything. They found themselves in a fairly large room, packed from wall to wall with row upon row of theatrical costumes, hanging on metal stands. Hundreds of the things, a massive peacock display of styles and colours. There was nothing else in the room, no tables or chairs, not even a mirror on the wall in which to admire one’s new costume. Bare, plastered walls, no window, only a single naked light bulb hanging down, filling the room with an unflattering, almost forensic light. JC looked at Lissa.

  “Do you have any idea what these costumes are doing here?”

  “Nothing to do with me, sweetie,” said Lissa. She looked the costumes over and sniffed loudly to show how unimpressed she was. “I have to say, I don’t like the look of them. There’s something…off about those costumes.”

  “Presumably Benjamin and Elizabeth ordered them, for the play.”

  “I hardly think so,” said Lissa. “Rehearsals aren’t due to start until after the renovations are completed. Why hire and ship in expensive costumes before the new paint’s even dry? Besides, the play is set very firmly, not to say remorselessly, in the present day. I mean, look at all this! There are enough costumes here for a dozen plays or one light opera revival! Everything from Shakespeare to Restoration comedy, Victorian formal wear to military uniforms. I don’t like this,
JC. They shouldn’t be here…And I don’t think we should, either.”

  “Kim brought me here…”

  “So you keep saying! But I never saw a damned thing! Forget your ghostly girl-friend…Trust a ghost hunter to have a dead girl-friend, which now that I think about it, is decidedly icky…You’ll be telling me you sleep in a coffin next.”

  “Never on a first date,” said JC.

  “Oh, I feel so much safer now,” said Lissa.

  They shared a smile and looked around them. The costumes stared silently back.

  “There must be some good reason for us to be here,” JC said stubbornly. “And since the only things here are the costumes…I suppose we should inspect them. Maybe there’ll be a note in a pocket or something…”

  He stepped up to the first row, and briskly checked out the clothes, one at a time. Lissa moved reluctantly forward while making it very clear she didn’t want any part of it. She wouldn’t touch anything until she’d watched JC man-handle a whole bunch of them without suffering any ill effects. And then she sighed heavily and pulled out a costume here and there, looking it over carefully and checking the details.

  “Good-quality material,” she said, finally. “High-end workmanship. But…”

  “But?” said JC. “But what?” He held a Napoleon uniform up against himself, to see how he’d look in it, then reluctantly put it back again.

  “But,” Lissa said firmly, “a lot of the details are wrong. Mixed periods in the same outfit, wrong kinds of pockets and trimmings, out-of-period materials, important bits and pieces missing…No professional costumier would make mistakes like this. This…is more like someone faking it. Producing costumes good enough to fool the eye but only from a distance. Amateur night. These clothes look like costumes, JC; but they aren’t.”