The Backstagers and the Ghost Light

by Andy Mientus

  Sasha and Aziz finally conquered the Spider Queen and Call of Honor and moved on to some medieval role-playing game that had them discussing magic and health stats in a level of detail that would be overwhelming to professional statisticians.

  Hunter was almost incessantly preparing for the trials, but he and Jory did manage to hang out a few times. When they did get some time alone, though, Hunter was clearly distracted, no doubt poring over whatever new information had just been thrown at him in his training. Jory didn’t blame him—he could tell that Hunter was making an effort, which meant a lot. Still, he couldn’t help but be a little disappointed that he spent most of the downtime . . . down.

  The Backstagers didn’t actually gather all together until the formal end of downtime: the winter term drama club meeting in which the winter musical would be announced.

  A meager but enthusiastic crowd of about a dozen boys gathered in the auditorium, whispering rumors and speculation about the official selection and what supporting roles might be available to them. The din of the room reached a crescendo and then suddenly went silent as Kevin and Blake McQueen entered stoically, bearing the full weight of the secret they possessed. They stood at the lip of the stage, gazing out at the deadly still crowd, savoring the drama of the moment.

  “Good afternoon, thespians of Genesius,” said Kevin. “It is my distinct honor to announce to you the official selection for this year’s winter musical.”

  A dozen simultaneous squeaks rang out as the rapt boys leaned forward in their seats in unison.

  “But first, a bit of housekeeping,” said Blake. A dozen moans erupted from the boys. Blake smiled, almost imperceptibly. He loved wielding this kind of power over a crowd.

  After the McQueens spoke for what seemed like an eternity about mundane things like sign-up sheets, dues, bake sales, and T-shirt orders, Kevin commanded the room with a dramatic, “And NOW . . .”

  An underclassman actor wheeled an easel covered by a bit of velvet curtain scrap to the middle of the stage. The McQueens each placed a hand on a corner of the fabric, shared a look and a nod, and pulled the velvet away with a flourish, revealing a poster of a white mask and red rose against an inky black background. In lavish script, it read:

  A dozen gasps were followed by a dozen squeals and whispers as the actor boys erupted in frenzied I told you sos and can you believes.

  “Yes,” Blake shouted, bringing the crowd back to attention. “We have managed to be one of the first schools in the nation to secure the rights to perform this legendary show. A show that is still running on Broadway.”

  The crowd fell into histrionics again. Kevin continued over the noise.

  “For any of you who might have been living under a theatrical rock, this is the timeless story of a ghostly composer who haunts a French opera house and falls for its star soprano, the glamorous Crystalline. It will challenge each of us actors with the demands of its operatic score and, indeed, each Backstager as well. For at the climax of the show, the Broadway production features a thrilling effect in which a candelabra shatters and explodes as the Phantasm sings. We will, naturally, be attempting the very same effect used on Broadway.”

  A dozen adolescent shrieks pierced the air.

  “Auditions will be this Friday here in the auditorium. We will, naturally, be looking to girls from Penitent Angels to find our Crystalline,” Blake said, producing a sign-up sheet seemingly from thin air.

  Sasha shot Beckett an excited look, but stifled it when Beckett put his face in his hands.

  CHAPTER 7

  All day Friday, Beckett was a nervous wreck. It wasn’t the prospect of pulling off the candelabra effect—the only thing Beckett loved more than a challenge was an explosion. No, Beckett was doubling down on the Diet Cokes and cleaning his glasses compulsively every few seconds because he was as nervous for Bailey’s audition as if he were auditioning himself.

  Bailey was one of the first friends Beckett had made at his old school and one of the only people he still kept in touch with from there. When Beckett knew he needed to transfer from Penitent Angels to St. Genesius, he left the Backstagers at his old school understaffed before the biggest production of the year, and it strained his friendships with most of them. But Bailey met the news with understanding and excitement for him. It meant the world to him and cemented Bailey’s place in his heart. Beckett always held his breath a bit when Bailey auditioned for the Genesius shows, but he knew that Phantasm was her absolute favorite show and Crystalline her dream role. As much as he loved working in the theater, Beckett wasn’t much for cast albums of musicals, but no matter how many times Bailey put the Phantasm recording on, he pretended to love it because he saw how happy it made her.

  Bailey walked into the Genesius auditorium that afternoon with her usual quiet confidence. A row of six other girls fixed their hair and checked their voices as quietly as they could, but Bailey just sat, calmly studying the sheet music for the audition song and sipping lemon tea with honey.

  “See, dude, she’s got this,” Aziz assured Beckett. They were watching way up from the light booth but could feel her poise and determination even from there.

  “I know. Right. Like, why should I be freaking out, she’s gotten the lead every time. She’s a star.”

  “Right.”

  “Right. And she has been preparing to play Crystalline all her life.”

  “Right.”

  “Right. I mean, she knows these songs like the back of her hand.”

  “Right.”

  “Right . . . Right?”

  “BECKETT!” Aziz grabbed him by both shoulders. “How many Diet Cokes today?”

  “I dunno, the normal amount. Three?”

  “Beckett . . .”

  “Five . . . FINE. Twelve—only twelve. But I didn’t sleep and I need the boost.”

  “You’re going to give yourself a heart condition, my dude. Maybe call it quits for today. And chill out. It’s Bailey. You said it yourself, she gets the lead every time. This time is no different.”

  Aziz mussed Beckett’s hair, which stood up especially sharply today, and left him alone in the booth. Beckett paced a bit, trying some breath work from a meditation app his mother had made him download, but Beckett was better at taking action than taking breaths. He had a plan.

  Crystalline’s audition song ended in a famously in-the-rafters high note as she fell under the Phantasm’s spell. At that exact moment, Beckett would turn up a warm amber spotlight on Bailey’s face with a cool blue light coming from behind her to give her an otherworldly quality. He knew she didn’t need it, but it made him feel better to do the one thing he could do to make her shine even brighter.

  One by one, the Penitent Angels girls took to the stage to attempt the song, and one by one, they crashed and burned on the final high note. Girl after girl gathered up her things and exited in quiet devastation. Finally, there was just one girl left to audition.

  “Brentwood, Bailey,” Blake McQueen announced coolly. He, along with Kevin and stage managers Timothy and Jamie, sat behind a long table at the lip of the stage, like judges on a singing competition show, notepads and résumés and pictures of the hopeful actors laid out before them.

  Bailey took a moment for herself, drawing a deep breath in and releasing her tension as she exhaled, then stood and made her way to center stage, sheet music in hand. She stood before the table.

  “Hello, my name is Bailey Brentwood and I’m auditioning for the role of Crystalline.”

  She nodded politely to the boy sitting behind the piano in the pit, and he began playing the audition song.

  In the booth, Beckett tensed but then immediately relaxed as Bailey began to sing—her voice powerful, her breath confident. She sounded perfect, but she was telling the story of the song so beautifully, you almost didn’t notice the technical perfection of the singing. She was acting through song, and it was magic.

  Jory watched from his usual spot in the wings and smiled, proud of Bailey. He looked to Hu
nter’s usual spot in the opposite wing to share the moment, but Hunter was gone, so Jory kept the moment to himself.

  The climax of the song approached. All of the auditioning hopeful boys leaned forward in their seats, their eyes glistening with awe at her performance.

  Beckett readied his fingers on two slides on the light board. The high note was a few measures away. He slid the controls up, bathing Bailey in amber and blue light. One of the actors watching from the house let out a piercing scream. Bailey stopped singing and turned her head in the direction of the scream just as a huge stage light whizzed past her and crashed violently to the floor.

  Beckett watched in horror as the auditorium erupted in screaming and chaos. Timothy bolted up to pull Bailey away from the wreckage. The other actors raced to the foot of the stage to make sure she was okay. Jamie looked up to the light booth.

  “BECKETT!” he shouted, uncharacteristically stern. “Production office, now. Everyone else take five.”

  A group of students took the shaken Bailey to a seat to recover as the stage managers herded the Backstagers to the production office.

  “Guys, you know me. I hang all these lights myself and safety is my number one concern,” Beckett said.

  He was sitting in a chair in the production office, the stage managers standing over him, poker-faced. The other Backstagers sat at the sides of the room, looking at the floor.

  “I tighten them every week and they all have backup cables made of steel. I’m sure of it. I would never let anything like this happen, especially not to—”

  Emotion overcame Beckett’s voice as he broke down in tears. Timothy put a hand on his shoulder.

  “We know that, Beck,” he said calmly. “You’re the most reliable electrics guy we’ve ever had. So what is the most rational explanation?”

  “I . . . I really don’t know,” Beckett said, baffled.

  “We have to tell the McQueens something, Beckett,” Jamie said. “This is on us.”

  “Well . . . I don’t know. I mean, I guess maybe I could have missed one? Somewhere along the way.”

  Timothy looked to Jamie. They knew as well as Beckett that this wasn’t the answer. Hunter stood up.

  “This is wrong. Beckett didn’t make a mistake. Something funny is going on here, and we all know it.”

  “Like the bulb shattering,” Sasha said.

  “Wait, what bulb?” Timothy asked.

  “At the cast party,” Sasha explained. “We were all using one of those Spirit Boards to talk to a ghost, and that lightbulb that we always leave on exploded.”

  Jamie looked at Timothy darkly.

  “The bulb on the metal pole at the lip of the stage?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” said Sasha. “But don’t worry, I replaced it.”

  “Right away?” Timothy asked, an urgency rising in his voice.

  “Yeah, of course! Oh wait . . .”

  “What, Sasha?”

  “Well, I went down to replace it right away, but well, I got . . . distracted.”

  “Sasha . . .” Aziz was frustrated for his friend. He hated seeing him mess up, but it was an all too common occurrence.

  “I hadn’t been down to the Club Room in weeks and the Gamestation was STARING ME DOWN. I was WEAK! And I just . . . forgot. But I replaced it first thing the next day, I swear!”

  “It was dark all night,” Jamie said to Timothy, with grave concern.

  “Guys,” Jory chimed in. “Sorry, but why is this a big deal? What’s that lightbulb?”

  Beckett raised his face from his hands.

  “Every theater in the country leaves one light burning all night,” he said. “The Ghost Light. Most would say it’s a safety measure to make sure actors don’t walk off the lip of the stage and fall into the pit, but it has that name for a reason. It’s said to also keep ghosts from moving in.”

  “Ghosts?” Jory couldn’t believe what he was hearing, even knowing all that he knew about the backstage.

  “Ghosts and theaters are a perfect match,” Beckett continued, “sort of like how guys like us are a perfect match for theaters. There are lots of shadowy places to hide, lots of magic all the time. Tons of theaters around the world are haunted, and a lot of the time the ghosts are mischievous but friendly. Given what happened today, though, if something has moved in, I’d say it is decidedly NOT our friend.”

  Everyone sat in a heavy silence for a moment. Finally Beckett sighed.

  “I’ll take the fall for the light. Just let me be the one to tell her and apologize. In the meantime, we have to figure out if Genesius really does have a ghost, and if so, what we are going to do about it.”

  Back in the auditorium, Bailey was shaken but luckily unharmed. The Backstagers filed back in from the wing, and Beckett ran up to where Bailey was recovering.

  “Bailey, I don’t know what to say. I am so, so sorry.”

  “I’m—I’m sure it’s not your fault.”

  “But it is. I’m the head electrician. I hang and secure all the lights. It must be my mistake.”

  “I’m fine. Nobody got hurt.”

  “I just feel so awful.”

  “Really, Beckett. I’m okay,” Bailey said sharply. Beckett knew it was best to leave it, for now. As much as he wanted to give her a hug, he could tell that she really needed space to gather herself and focus on her audition.

  “Okay, everybody,” Jamie announced. “We’re back from break. We did a spot check of the grid and we feel confident that all of the other lights are properly secured. Thank goodness no one got hurt. Bailey, why don’t we try it again, when you’re ready?”

  “Sure thing,” she said, and got back onstage. She didn’t get her customary deep breath in before she nodded to the accompanist to begin the song, and though she sounded okay, it was not as powerful as before, and she didn’t seem as focused in her storytelling. The high note approached. Bailey tensed up. Her voice faltered and cracked. The piano tinkled to a halt. The room deflated. The McQueens each raised an eyebrow in unison.

  “That’s okay, Bailey,” Timothy said from his seat at the table. “Let’s take it again from the bridge.”

  They started the music again in the middle of the song, and when she reached the final climactic note, her voice again broke in an anticlimactic squeak. Beckett leaped up from his seat in the auditorium, furious.

  “Well, of course she’s nervous, she almost DIED! Why don’t we let her go again another day?”

  “ACTUALLY,” Blake McQueen shot across the theater, “the legendary role of Crystalline is one that demands an actor’s absolute best even on her absolute worst day. This falling light may actually be a test sent from the theater gods to see if this Crystalline is really up to snuff. Would you like one last try, Ms. Brentwood, or shall we see you at auditions for the spring show?”

  Bailey steeled herself and nodded to the accompanist again. He began playing, and she attacked the song with verve, fighting for her pride and her shot at her dream role. But all that effort made her clench her throat when the high note came. Once again, she cracked. She looked to Timothy, who looked down at his notepad. Kevin and Blake shared an icy look.

  “Thank you,” Kevin said. “That’s all we need to see today.”

  Bailey’s eyes went glassy but she nodded professionally, descended the stairs at the front of the stage, quickly gathered her things, and made for the exit. Beckett got up and started toward her, but Aziz put a hand on his shoulder.

  “Let her have a minute,” he said.

  “ALAS!” Blake moaned after she had left. “The role of Crystalline is just too demanding for a student to take on! What a catastrophe! How are we going to select another show in this eleventh hour?!”

  “Excuse me,” chimed a clarion voice from the back of the auditorium. All heads turned to greet the voice.

  The girl it came from was equally ethereal. The first thing you noticed about her was long, wavy silver hair, which played against her skin tone like the Milky Way across the summer night
sky. Her hair was remarkable not only because of its unusual color, but because it was one futuristic detail on a girl who seemed to walk out of another time. She wore a white lacy short dress, all bows and frills, like she was on her way to a Victorian birthday party. Taking in the hair and the clothes together, you might think about a time you dressed a superhero action figure in a baby doll’s dress just to see what you wound up with.

  “I’d like to audition,” she continued. “Sorry I’m so late. I had talked myself out of coming but then got up the courage. This is my first audition.”

  “Your first audition ever,” Kevin sneered, “is for the role of Crystalline? You do know what a demanding role it is?”

  “Where do I stand?” she asked, undaunted. Kevin and Blake looked at each other and gestured to the X on the stage before them. The girl climbed the stairs to the stage, stood on the X, and waited silently. After a long beat, Blake cleared his throat.

  “Um. So. What is your name? Are you ready to begin?”

  “Oh yes, of course. My name is Chloe Murphy and I’m ready whenever you are,” she said with a simple smile. Kevin stifled a laugh—the poor thing, she had no idea how to do this. Blake nodded to the accompanist, and the music for Crystalline’s big song began again.

  What happened next was downright spooky.

  Chloe began to sing, and the voice that sailed forth from her was otherworldly. It was as technically perfect a soprano as you’d hear on the professional cast recording but shaded with color and feeling none of them had ever heard before. It was the kind of voice that made you hear lyrics you had memorized as if you were hearing them for the first time. She sang the song like she’d written it. As the climactic high note approached, everyone leaned forward in anticipation. Not only did she execute the note effortlessly and flawlessly, but there was something else, too—at the exact moment, two REAL tears rolled gracefully down her cheeks. She had fully embodied Crystalline in all of her pain and longing.