Ghostlight

by Sonia Gensler

  “Or about making me steal the key.”

  He glanced at me. “I can’t make you do anything, Avery. I just encouraged you to take a risk for the sake of art.”

  I pondered that for a moment. “Okay…What’s with the medication?”

  His jaw tightened. “It’s no big deal. It just helps me focus.”

  “Then why were you so rude to your dad about it?”

  He sighed. “He’s always watching me like I’m a ticking time bomb. It’s because of my mother, and it’s really starting to get on my nerves.”

  “Your dad told me she was sick.”

  “He did?” Julian shook his head. “Wow, he usually doesn’t talk about it with anyone outside of the family.”

  “Does she have cancer or something?”

  “No. Schizophrenia.”

  I thought for a moment. “Does that mean she sees things that aren’t there?”

  “She’s crazy, Avery.” Julian swallowed hard. “I mean that literally. It’s so bad that she has to stay at a care facility and take a lot of meds.” His chin dropped. “I don’t see her much anymore. I guess it upsets her too much.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I just watched him out of the corner of my eye.

  “I don’t remember how she was before she got sick,” he continued. “I just wish Dad wasn’t always so scared I’ll go off the rails because of her. I mean, a lot of creative people are intense and anxious—it doesn’t mean the doctor needs to up my dosage.” He turned to me. “You’re lucky your dad is dead and you never have to deal with the pushing and worrying. Or the disappearing act.”

  “I’d rather have a pushy, worried dad, even one that wasn’t always around, than no dad at all.”

  “You wouldn’t say that if you were in my position. What was your dad like before he died?”

  I waited for the panic. The flush of shame mixed with anger. But it didn’t come. I’d never felt so calm when faced with the dad question. I guess I’d never met anyone who actually needed to know the truth. But at the moment, Julian needed to know.

  “My father isn’t dead. Actually, he might be, but I’ll never know.”

  “Why?” Julian lurched to a halt and turned to me. “Were you adopted?”

  “My dad was a test tube,” I said. “Some guy’s…you know…was frozen and then put inside my mom. She says he was a med student who, um, made a donation for cash and the promise that he’d stay anonymous. I will never get to meet him. Or even if I did, I wouldn’t know it was him.”

  Julian stared at me. And then he stared some more. I could almost hear the second hand of the earth’s clock ticking as he continued to stare at me.

  “Are you still going to be my friend, Julian?”

  He flinched. “What does your dad being a sperm donor have to do with us being friends? Are you ashamed or something?”

  “No!” I kicked at the ground. “Well, maybe a little. Sometimes I hate Mom for putting this on me. The sperm donor kid. Seems like someone asks me about my dad every day, and what can I say except that he’s dead? That shuts people up. Telling the truth just would open up the biggest can of awkward.”

  I gave him a sidelong glance. He didn’t look too sympathetic.

  “Blake’s not bothered by the whole deal,” I said. “He tells people he doesn’t have a dad, which pretty much is true, and people don’t bug him about it. But with me it’s different. I have to lie.”

  “Why?”

  “I just do.” Tears pricked my eyes. “It’s not fair. I never had a choice.”

  “No one has a choice about who their parents are.”

  “But most people get a chance to know their parents, and my mom took that chance away from me.”

  Julian wiped his forehead on his sleeve. “Avery, I can’t really know how you feel, but…I’m sorry this dad thing upsets you.”

  I swallowed. “Thanks…I guess?”

  “Are you okay now?”

  “Not really, but that won’t keep me from filming.”

  “Good.” He looked at the ground. “Because I was thinking…maybe you should get behind the camera today.”

  “What?”

  “You can film the scenes.”

  Me? With the camera? A mix of joy and fear swirled in my stomach, and the whole dad conversation might as well have happened a million years ago. This was getting real.

  This was getting…awesome.

  Of course Julian took about a century getting the camera set for filming. Lily lost patience and wandered up the staircase. I tried to follow what he was doing, but the thing might as well have been alien technology. He stared at the LCD screen and pushed buttons like it was a video game controller, and the camera beeped and clicked as if they were having a conversation.

  “I’ll explain this to you sometime,” he said. “For now we just need to get going. When we’re back at the cottage, I’ll show you the footage Lily and I took on Saturday. I’ve already edited some of it.”

  “You edited without me, too?”

  “Just a little. We didn’t even film that much, and I’ll show you exactly what I did. It’s pretty cool.” He snapped the microphone into place and plugged its skinny cord into the side of the camera. Then he held the camera away from him, framing the staircase in the LCD screen. After pushing a few more buttons, he glanced at me. “Are you ready?”

  He put the strap around my neck and placed the camera in my hands. It was heavier than I’d expected. I put my hands around it just as he had, my index finger finding the On/Off button and the shutter release. Julian showed me how to activate the video function with my thumb, and then he made me practice taking a little footage.

  “Hold it steady, but don’t worry if it shakes a little,” he said. “Shaky cam is popular now. It adds a cool level of immediacy.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It’s when viewers feel like they’re in the moment. Part of the action. It makes things seem more exciting.”

  I glanced around the foyer, considering the options. “Where should we start?”

  Lily appeared at the top of the staircase. “I think y’all should come up here.”

  Julian nodded. “Come back down first so we can film you walking up the stairs. Avery, don’t worry if you mess up. We can edit later.”

  I tried to make my steps smooth and steady as I followed Lily up the stairs, but there definitely were some shaky cam moments. Lily did a good job of being dramatic as she climbed each step, her hand sliding along the banister. I mean, it wasn’t overdone or anything. Somehow she used the set of her shoulders and the trembling in her hand to show excitement and nervousness to the camera. At one point she glanced back, her eyes wide and her hair a little wild. It was perfect.

  But a funny feeling swirled in my stomach when she headed directly to Margaret Anne’s room. I guess we really didn’t know it belonged to the poor little girl. Lily was certain, though, and something about that bothered me. Or maybe it was the room that bothered me.

  Lily went straight for the chest of drawers. She smoothed the dress on the china doll and touched her finger to its lips like a kiss. Then she picked up the photo of Margaret Anne, stroking the frame with her thumbs. She actually knelt on the floor with that photo, almost like she was praying to it. I glanced back at Julian, but he just made that winding gesture with his hands that meant keep filming. So I did, even though the funny feeling in my stomach was churning faster and my hands were starting to ache from filming such a long take.

  “Margaret Anne…I’m here,” said Lily softly. Her body rocked back and forth, and I nailed the shaky cam technique without even trying.

  “Margaret Anne?” Lily tilted her head as if she was listening. “I hear you now. I feel you near me.” Her little body shivered as if a chill had come to the air. But it was hot and sticky on that second floor.

  “You seem so sad,” Lily said. “Why do you stay here in this house? Why can’t you be free?”

  I glanced at Julian again. A dizz
iness crept over me—warm and prickly—and my hands were so sweaty I was afraid I’d drop the camera.

  He nodded encouragingly.

  I turned back to Lily, who clutched that little photo to her chest and kept on rocking. Her eyes were shut tight. In fact, she’d scrunched up her face as if she was in pain.

  “Margaret Anne, I see it now,” she breathed. “I see what you saw. I’m at the edge of the water, and I just want to dip my feet. The water’s never been this high before. I’ve never been able to step right into it. It feels so cold rushing over my ankles.”

  Lily cried out, and my grip slipped on the camera.

  “The water’s pulling me deeper, Margaret Anne! I can’t fight it, I—”

  Lily made an awful choking sound then, and Julian rushed up behind me to grab the camera before it slid from my hands. I stumbled toward Lily, going to my knees and pulling her into my arms. Her body was limp and soft, and I could smell chocolate and coconut in her hair. Her heart thudded, or maybe that was my own pulse leaping into high gear. I smoothed the hair from her face, and after a moment she moaned softly.

  Then she opened her eyes.

  “Margaret Anne did drown in the river,” she whispered. “I saw it. I felt it.”

  Lily shivered in my arms, and a familiar pressure expanded in my ears. At the same time I realized the room was turning cooler. A moment ago it had been sweltering, but now I had goose bumps. I glanced up at Julian, but he was looking at the ceiling.

  The light fixture was swaying above our heads. It started slowly but gained speed with each swing.

  “How’s it doing that?” I squeaked.

  Julian’s mouth sagged open a little, but I couldn’t tell if he was afraid or excited. He raised the camera very slowly and aimed it at the fixture. But by the time his thumb found the video button, the swaying had slowed to a halt.

  He lowered the camera. “We’d better go.”

  —

  Julian didn’t seem much in the mood to talk on our walk back, so I let him go ahead. There was such a thick layer of weird to this whole deal. Not just weird—wrong. But I wasn’t exactly sure in what way. Maybe Lily was playing around, and my imagination was running away with me. Or maybe there truly was something dark and strange in the house, something that had lurked for years in silence and was now feeding on our energy. Lily’s energy, in particular.

  Just as I thought that, she fell in step next to me and slipped her hand in mine.

  “Sorry I scared you, Avery.”

  I stared at her. “I was more worried about you being scared.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not scared of Margaret Anne.”

  “Really? Because she gives me the creeps.”

  “I think she’s nice.”

  “If she’s so nice, why did she make you go through something scary like drowning?”

  Lily frowned. “It’s not like I was actually about to drown—I was just seeing things from her point of view. She’s stuck in that house because something bad happened, but that doesn’t mean she’s bad.”

  “But why would she make the ceiling fixture sway?”

  Lily didn’t answer.

  I thought back to the movies Julian and I had watched and realized they didn’t tell me a whole lot about what it meant to be a ghost. Those movies were more about the secrets and sadness of people who were still alive. So who was I to say that Lily was just a kid and didn’t know what she was talking about?

  At that moment Lily yawned so big I thought her face might split open.

  I squeezed her fingers. “Your dad said you haven’t been sleeping well. Are you having nightmares about Margaret Anne, too?”

  “I don’t think so. It’s probably just my bed at the cottage.” She turned to me. “Not that it’s bad or anything. Just different, you know?”

  I nodded. “It always takes me a few nights to get used to the bed in Grandma’s attic. It’s a little saggy. Meanwhile, Blake got a new mattress this summer because he grew so much over the past year.”

  “Blake is your brother?”

  “Sadly, yes.”

  Lily’s eyes widened. “Sadly?”

  I sighed. “Oh, I’m mostly teasing. But he has been kind of a jerk lately. He’s starting high school in the fall, and all of a sudden he’s way too grown-up to hang out with me.”

  “Julian’s starting high school, too, but he still lets me hang around. Probably because he always needs people to be in his movies.”

  “Or maybe he just likes having you around.”

  Lily smiled. “Well, I am super fabulous.”

  I pulled her toward me and tickled her ribs. “You’re super deluded!”

  She squirmed and giggled, then threw herself into counterattack. “Tickle fight!”

  It felt good to be silly, and Lily was a ferocious little tickler. She had the advantage of being shorter, meaning her hands were right at the level of my stomach.

  “Hey! Are you two coming, or what?”

  Julian stood on the crest of the hill, his hands on his hips and a deep scowl on his face. Or maybe he was just squinting in the sun.

  “Chill out,” I said. “We’re just trying to lighten the mood a little.”

  “I still need to show you that footage from the weekend, Avery. We haven’t got all day.”

  Without waiting for an answer, Julian turned and walked on.

  “Brothers,” Lily said. “What a pain.”

  “You said it.”

  She gave a halfhearted giggle, but we walked the rest of the way in silence.

  Once we got back to the cottage, Lily went straight to the living room and curled up on the couch to watch her daddy play guitar. I was hankering for some Weasley cuddling time myself, but there was footage to watch, so I followed Julian upstairs. He pulled the second chair toward the desk and settled himself in front of the keyboard, jiggling his mouse to wake the computer.

  “Stupid glare.” He rose from the chair to shut the curtains.

  Julian’s computer desktop was simple and tidy. The wallpaper was plain blue, and there were only four folders, labeled PROJECTS, PHOTOS, FOOTAGE, and BULLIED. The last one stood out to me, though I wasn’t sure why.

  Then I remembered the clip on Julian’s tablet—the one of a school lunchroom.

  When Julian sat back down, I pointed at the folder. “What’s that?”

  He didn’t answer right away, and I turned to find him staring at the screen, his jaw tight.

  “Is it a movie?” I asked. “I saw a clip with the same title on your tablet. I just, um, happened to be looking at your photos and video clips, and—”

  “It’s an early project I should have deleted already,” he said quickly. “Are you going to bring that tablet back?”

  He still wasn’t looking at me.

  “Julian, were you bullied at school or something?”

  “No, I wasn’t.” He cleared his throat. “Can we move on? Before we get to the shots from yesterday, I want to show you something.” He opened the footage folder and clicked on a file titled DRAFT1 to expand it to full screen. “I’ve been playing around with the opening of our film. I put some still shots together and changed them all to black and white, and I applied a filter to make it look a little aged.”

  He clicked Play and an image faded in—a wide shot of the pasture with the old cow barn standing a little left of center. That transitioned to a shot of the cattail pond, which looked more artistic than I would have expected in the grainy black-and-white filter. The next image was Hilliard House—a daytime shot taken at a low angle so that it looked proud and tall. That faded into the nighttime photo he’d shown me the week before, with the light in the window. He’d lined the images up almost perfectly, and the transition made my scalp tingle. A title appeared below the house in pale letters that glowed and flickered:

  GHOSTLIGHT

  BY

  JULIAN WAYNE

  The whole screen faded to black again.

  “Wow,” I said.

&
nbsp; “Do you like it?”

  “Um, yeah. It’s cool, but it also gives me the creeps. Is that going to be the movie’s title?”

  “Maybe.” He backed the scene up and paused at the title frame. “It’s a theater term. Supposedly every theater has a ghost, and long ago people started leaving a stage light on to keep the ghosts happy. You know, in case they wanted to perform when no one was around. Neat, huh?”

  Before I could respond, he pulled up another file.

  “Here’s the footage I wanted to show you.”

  It was a scene from Margaret Anne’s room. Lily sat on the braided rug holding the tarnished silver frame. The doll sat next to her, propped against the bed frame.

  “She made me pick the mouse droppings out of that thing’s belly,” Julian murmured.

  Lily straightened the doll’s legs and then focused on the photograph. “Margaret Anne,” she called softly. “Are you there?”

  Lily’s body rocked gently as she continued to stare at the photograph, a lot like what I’d seen earlier that day. She called out twice more, each time sounding a little more desperate, and then her body stilled. She looked up, eyes wide. The camera zoomed in so far that I could see the fat pupils of her eyes.

  “I see you there,” Lily said.

  Heat flushed my cheeks, traveling all the way to the roots of my hair. I wasn’t afraid, exactly. My heart was thumping and my face was hot because I felt off-kilter, as if everything around me had tilted.

  At that point, the camera pulled back and panned to the right, moving Lily to the left of the frame. The doll sat at the center. On the right was the empty space Lily was staring at. I stared, too, trying to see what she saw.

  “Of course I’ll be your friend,” Lily said. “Do you want to play?”

  She put the photo down and pretended to set a table for tea and cookies, all the while chattering away…to nobody.

  “Does this remind you of anything?” Julian asked.

  “Huh?”

  “She’s talking to someone in Hilliard House.”

  The back of my neck started prickling so bad I had to hunch my shoulders.

  Julian turned back to the computer screen and pointed. “Now, watch closely.”