Olive and the Backstage Ghost

by Michelle Schusterman

  “Eurgh.”

  The nervous ghost zoomed up to the ceiling and stared down at Olive, hands over her mouth. The other two, though momentarily startled by Olive’s grunt, simply smiled. The oldest gestured to a tiny table next to Olive’s cot. At the sight of the glass of water, the burn in Olive’s throat intensified. She grasped it with trembling fingers and drank deeply, water sloshing down her front. The youngest ghost tied off the thread and clipped the extra length with a small pair of scissors. Olive admired her handiwork—she could hardly see where the rip on her sleeve had been.

  “Thank you,” Olive croaked. Though she had many questions to ask, the gnawing in her stomach and the ache in her bladder made it difficult to focus on anything else.

  The oldest ghost floated back, motioning for Olive to sit up. Olive obeyed, wincing at pangs of pain in new places. It took nearly a full minute of effort for her to stand, with all three ghosts—the nervous one had rejoined the others with a sheepish expression—gathered around in support. Of course, that support turned out to be more moral than literal, as Olive discovered when her legs gave out and she fell right through the youngest ghost’s open arms. Cheeks flushed with embarrassment, Olive pulled herself up off the floor and willed her limbs to function. She made her way to the toilet, and the three ghosts turned politely to give her privacy. After washing her hands and splashing cold water on her face, Olive followed the oldest ghost from the infirmary, legs quaking only a little bit, with the other two ghosts trailing behind her.

  They rounded a corner into a familiar corridor, and Olive’s ears perked up at the sounds of chatter and clanking silverware. When she stepped into the kitchen, despite her achy foot and itchy knees and stomach roaring with hunger, Olive smiled so hard it felt as though her face would split in two.

  The entire cast of Eidola sat crammed, shoulder to shoulder, at the long table, which was covered in platters of roasted pheasant with buttery rice, fresh baguettes, and bowls filled with all kinds of fruit. On one side, Nadia the puppet was sandwiched between Aidan and Mickey. Mickey kept offering Nadia chunks of bread and pretending to be hurt when she didn’t respond, sending Aidan into fits of giggles until his normally pale cheeks were beet red. Eli sat on Mickey’s other side, deep in discussion with Valentine across the table. Next to Valentine, Tanisha and Astaire were attempting to stack at least a dozen shiny red apples one on top of another. Juliana sat at the end of the bench, stuffing grapes in her mouth and snickering at the antics of Knuckles’s hands: while the pianist himself floated peacefully at the end of the table, his severed appendages flitted here and there, doing karate moves on top of an unsuspecting Valentine’s head and pretending to pick Aidan’s nose, then wiping the findings on Mickey’s sleeve.

  This was a real family. And though the prospect was a little scary, Olive felt ready to be a part of it.

  Juliana noticed her first and beamed, a half-chewed grape falling from her mouth. “Olive!”

  “No, that’s a grape,” Mickey said exasperatedly. Then he glanced at the entrance. “Oh, that Olive!”

  All conversation came to a halt as the others turned too. In the next second, Olive was overwhelmed with hugs and handshakes and pretend-nose-picking (until Knuckles shooed his left hand away from her face). Juliana grabbed her tightly by the wrist and led her to the table, and soon Olive was wedged between her and Astaire. The mime, who seemed overjoyed to see Olive, gestured emphatically at the food.

  Olive didn’t need any encouragement. She ripped off a huge chunk of baguette, piled her plate with pheasant and rice, and ate. And ate. And ate. Though the food was delicious, an odd taste lingered on Olive’s tongue—musty, sour. A side effect of going well more than a day without eating, she decided, and crammed several orange slices into her mouth.

  “Where did all of this come from?” she asked after swallowing.

  “Eli cooked!” Val exclaimed. “It’s been ages since he cooked for us.”

  “I can’t remember the last time I had a meal like that,” Tanisha said with a longing glance at the pheasant, and Olive saw that her plate was empty. In fact, the only ones actually eating were Juliana and Aidan. The others must have finished before Olive arrived.

  “It’s been ages since there was anything decent around here to cook,” Eli was saying. “That’s just how it is these days. But maybe the good times are coming back.” He smiled warmly at Olive, and she felt her cheeks heat up.

  “Dahling,” Mickey purred in an impression of Maude so flawless it sent Tanisha into fits of laughter. “The seamstresses found you sleeping on the lobby floor. You are aware we have beds, aren’t you?”

  “The door was locked,” Olive said quickly. “The auditorium too. I couldn’t get in.”

  “Why’d you come on a Monday, anyway? You know we don’t rehearse.” Juliana’s eyes lit up. “Wait—are you here for good now? Are you staying?”

  “Yes,” Olive replied firmly. Juliana and Aidan cheered, but Olive noticed that the others exchanged sad glances. Tanisha gave her a small, sympathetic smile. “What happened?”

  Olive swallowed. “Nothing. I just…I’d rather be here.”

  Mickey started to respond, but Valentine silenced him with a look. “She doesn’t have to tell us,” they said. “All that matters is she’s staying.”

  “It helps, though,” Mickey insisted. “She’ll feel better if she tells us. I know I did.”

  “Tell you what?” Olive asked nervously.

  “Why you want to stay.” Juliana grabbed an apple. “Not just be in the show but live here.”

  Olive thought of her father’s empty study. She thought of Mrs. Preiss’s flavorless soups, her constant nitpicking, her lack of faith. You’re simply not capable.

  “My mother…,” Olive began, and to her horror, her eyes welled up with tears.

  “It’s okay,” Tanisha said hastily. “You don’t have to tell us, not unless you want to.”

  “The important thing is we’re happy you’re here,” Valentine added, reaching behind Astaire to pat Olive on the shoulder. “Maude will be thrilled.”

  Olive nodded gratefully, her gaze locked on the orange peels curled up on her napkin. Her throat was too tight to swallow food at the moment, so she just listened as the others shared their stories of how they’d come to Maudeville.

  Mickey had liked drinks—the kind that made adults laugh too loud and do stupid things they claimed not to remember later. In Mickey’s case, doing those stupid things had resulted in the loss of all the other things in his life that actually mattered. Valentine had graduated from medical school and promptly decided to become a magician instead of a doctor, which had angered their parents so much they hadn’t spoken since. Tanisha suffered from frequent anxiety attacks after an incident in her childhood she preferred not to discuss, and found relief in performing. When it was Eli’s turn to share, he simply said, “I wanted to fly,” and everyone laughed and toasted him with cups of juice and coffee.

  It was Aidan’s story that startled Olive most. “I used to live with my aunt and uncle,” he told Olive, helping himself to a handful of grapes. “We went to that big carnival last year in the park, and I got lost and never found them again.”

  “How is that possible?” Olive exclaimed. “The police couldn’t help you?”

  Aidan giggled. “I never went to the police, and I bet my aunt and uncle didn’t either. They wanted to lose me, and I wanted to be lost.” Olive stared at him, aghast, and he shrugged. “It worked out. I met a puppeteer at the carnival, and that’s how I found Nadia. Then we found Maudeville.”

  Olive said nothing more, but Aidan’s words stayed with her. She couldn’t help wondering if Mrs. Preiss had gone to the police to report her daughter was missing. Or maybe she, like Aidan’s aunt and uncle, would prefer things this way. Ripping the peel off another orange, Olive glanced at her hand. Her fingernails were caked with dirt from yesterday’s adventure. No, not dirt. It was that glittery blue-green powder.

  “I’ve not
iced that too.” Juliana’s whispered words in her ear caused Olive to jump. She put her hands in her lap, embarrassed. But Juliana was examining her own fingers. “Look.”

  Olive leaned closer. Sure enough, the same stuff colored the whites of Juliana’s nails.

  “Weird, right?” Juliana shrugged. “I can’t figure out what it is.”

  “It looks like Maude’s eye shadow,” Olive said.

  Juliana snickered. “She does wear a lot of that stuff.”

  “But the last time it happened to me was when we were in here eating crackers,” Olive added. “Maybe it’s something in the kitchen.” She rubbed the table experimentally. Her hand came away clean. The two girls surveyed the room—the brightly colored fruits in silver bowls, the platter of pheasant and rice, the silverware….

  “Tarnish!” Olive exclaimed. “That must be it. The knives and bowls are old. And look, the faucets too!” Eagerly, Olive grabbed a knife from where it lay next to a brick of cheddar. The silver glinted and gleamed, not a trace of tarnish to be found. “Well, not this one. But the others, I bet. That must be it, don’t you think?”

  “Must be,” Juliana said, popping another grape into her mouth. Olive wiped her fingers clean on a napkin and reached for a baguette just as Tanisha and Astaire’s apple tower collapsed.

  “Knuckles!” Tanisha exclaimed, shooing the pianist’s left hand from an apple. “Get these things under control!”

  “Sorry, can’t,” Knuckles said. “They’re showing off for the seamstresses.” Startled, Olive glanced up and realized that the three ghosts were still hovering in the doorway. Knuckles’s right hand waggled its fingers at them, and the youngest ghost’s shoulders shook in a silent giggle. The middle ghost, however, jumped in fright and zoomed straight up through the ceiling. With a weary look, the oldest ghost waved at Knuckles, then led the youngest out of the kitchen.

  “Skittish, that Two,” Knuckles said sadly.

  “Two?” Olive repeated.

  “That’s what we call the seamstresses,” Mickey explained. “One, Two, Three. One’s the oldest.”

  “Why don’t you call them by their names?” Olive couldn’t help asking, and the fire-eater shrugged.

  “We would if we knew ’em, but the seamstresses can’t talk. Or they won’t. Not sure which.”

  “And they can’t mime, like Astaire,” Juliana added. The mime sat up proudly, adjusting an invisible bow tie before taking a dainty nibble of cheddar.

  “But they sure can sew,” Mickey went on. “They made the cocoon, you know. That thing probably used up a thousand spools of thread.”

  Olive’s eyes widened as she pictured the massive white prop hanging from the rafters. “It really is a cocoon? What’s inside?”

  “That’s the best part of the show!” Aidan piped up, his lips stained red with strawberry juice. “A butterfly comes out during the finale. A giant butterfly. I haven’t seen it yet, but I hear it flies out into the audience and everything.”

  “It does,” Mickey confirmed. “It’s incredible. My whole act changed after my first finale.” Tanisha and Val nodded in agreement.

  Olive ducked as Knuckles’s hands flitted past, thumbs linked and fingers flapping like wings. She thought of Tanisha’s floating rings and Astaire’s invisible rope lifting her to the top of the boulder. She tried to picture a massive butterfly prop soaring over the stage, carried by ghosts. Then she frowned.

  The youngest seamstress had tried to catch Olive when she fell, but Olive had passed right through her. The seamstresses could touch the needle and thread, though. Just like Knuckles’s hands could play the piano.

  “Knuckles,” she said slowly, “how come your hands can’t touch anything besides the piano?”

  “Because they played it so much when I was alive,” Knuckles said. “You know, before I lost them. At least, that’s my theory.” He gave her a friendly smile. “It’s not like anyone gives you a manual on the rules of being a ghost when you die, you know?”

  Chuckling, Eli held the platter of pheasant out to Olive. “There’s plenty left,” he said with a wink. Olive accepted another leg eagerly.

  She had many more questions, of course. What about the ghosts who moved the props, who helped Eli fly and kept Tanisha’s snow globes in the air and did the rest of the show’s magic? Had they been aerialists and jugglers when they were alive?

  But Knuckles was now preoccupied trying to get his hands away from where they were performing a kick-dance routine on Eli’s shoulders. So Olive dug into her second pheasant leg and listened happily to the chatter of her fellow cast members. Yesterday’s ordeal in her father’s desk had been worth it, she decided. The penthouse was all but barren now, save for Mrs. Preiss. And a mother who looked right through you was worse than no company at all.

  Maudeville was more than a theater now. It was home.

  The next few days were among the best of Olive’s life. Rehearsals were more play than work; Olive drifted between Eidola the show and Eidola the place whenever the spotlight shone on her. She picked bouquets of snow-white lilies and collected golden leaves as they floated down from the treetops. She imagined an audience, and sometimes she even thought she saw them—every seat filled, all eyes on her. Then she’d blink, and they’d flicker and fade.

  And she found herself more drawn to the cocoon with every rehearsal. Sometimes, when no one was looking, Olive would stretch to graze her fingertips along the bottom of it. Once or twice she thought she felt something stirring in the silk, and she wondered for the millionth time about the enormous butterfly inside. She couldn’t wait for her first finale, when she would finally see it. Although as opening night drew closer, Olive found herself dealing with increasing nerves. She told herself the occasional bout of vomiting was something many performers probably experienced.

  Olive hadn’t seen any more new ghosts who might be contributing to the magic of the show, but she suspected she was starting to hear one. A sweet, distant voice occasionally joined her for a few lines, like an echo that harmonized her melody. No one else seemed to notice, but Olive suspected they heard the voice and chose to ignore it.

  They’d moved on to Valentine’s act, which was magic beyond anything Olive had ever witnessed. Valentine started by making the giant boulder prop vanish into thin air, and no matter how many times Olive watched, she could not see any evidence of mirrors or other trickery. Nor could she find the boulder backstage or hanging up in the rafters. It was as if the thing simply ceased to exist. A dozen enormous balloons bobbed overhead until a snap of the magician’s fingers; then they dropped to the stage like lead, and Olive couldn’t get them to budge. While she kicked and pushed, Astaire floated up as if filled with helium, and Valentine tied a string to his ankle so Olive could hold on to her mime for the rest of the act.

  But the best part, in Olive’s opinion, was when Valentine sawed Juliana in half. The girl climbed cheerfully into a rosewood cabinet just her size standing upright at center stage. Then Valentine would convince Olive to assist with the giant saw that cut through the cabinet—not across the middle, but lengthwise, starting at Juliana’s head and moving down to her feet. Together, Valentine and Olive slid a set of panels in the center, then pulled the two halves apart and opened the doors just enough to reveal half of Juliana—one eye, half a smile, one arm, one waving hand. And though Olive knew it was just a trick, she simply didn’t see how it was possible. It wasn’t some sort of reflection, because Juliana’s ponytail hung over her left shoulder and not her right. And the tiny mole was on her right cheek but not her left. Half of Juliana was on one side of the stage and half was on the other, and the sight both delighted and distressed Olive to no end.

  “How does it work?” she asked Juliana eagerly. The two girls were huddled together offstage sharing a cup of water while the seamstresses repaired a tear in Valentine’s billowing cape. Astaire floated peacefully overhead (he remained dutifully balloonlike until the very end of Valentine’s act).

  Juliana grinned
. “Can’t tell you. Val swore me to secrecy.”

  “Please,” Olive pleaded. “Is it a mirror? Or is there a dummy that looks like half of you?”

  “Nope!”

  “Then what is it?”

  “I told you, I can’t…” Juliana’s smile faded, her eyes locking onto something behind Olive. Turning, Olive watched One finish up Val’s cape while Two and Three hovered nearby. And next to them…a flicker, a person-shaped shimmer.

  “It’s another ghost,” Olive whispered, taking a step forward. But even as she squinted, the new ghost faded from sight. “Darn,” she said. “I wonder if that’s the one I’ve heard singing. Have you…” A choked sob cut her off, and Olive spun around in time to catch a glimpse of Juliana’s long, dark ponytail before she disappeared through the side stage doors.

  Olive was torn between running after her and trying to figure out the identity of the new ghost. Because she knew this must be the one Juliana had been talking to in the lobby—not Knuckles. Juliana had lied. This singing ghost was the one who had made her cry.

  And Olive had a guess as to who the ghost might be.

  With a worried glance at the stage doors, she hurried over to Val. The seamstresses smiled at her, and Three waved. Olive waved back.

  “Val, did you see that ghost?” she asked. “Just a few seconds ago, right next to Two?”

  Valentine was examining One’s stitchwork on the tear in the cape. “Hmm? No, I didn’t notice anyone.”

  “Do you ever see any ghosts other than the seamstresses?” Olive pressed. Eli glanced over at them from where he sat on the edge of the stage, talking to Knuckles.

  “There’s this one here, don’t know if you’ve met,” he joked. Olive grinned halfheartedly as one of Knuckles’s hands made a rude gesture over Eli’s head. Eli glanced up and swatted at it. “Liang, I would’ve thought you’d have these things under control by now.”

  The pianist laughed. “Barely had control of them when they were attached,” he replied. “And Maude’s the only person around here allowed to call me Liang—it’s Knuckles to you, sir.” When Eli rolled his eyes, Knuckles waved his arm at Val. “Hey, you call Valentine by their nickname! Why not me?”