By Suzy Cox
Chapter 9
Lorna clicked her fingers, and the lights went down with a dull boom that echoed around the room. Pop! My friends disappeared.
Standing alone on the stage, I suddenly felt exposed. A hundred eerie eyes could be looking at me right now and I’d have no clue – from the boxes, the director ’s spot, the orchestra pit, or even hiding in the shadows of the upper tiers. Palmer Peabody’s theatre had all these nooks and hideouts too, just on a way less diva scale. Mercy’s murderer could have been watching in any of them: waiting until it was the right time to strike. You could see it as stupid that they’d chosen to kill a girl in front of an audience. Or AP-level smart – after all, everyone would be looking at her and no one at you. I shivered. Time to – as my dad used to joke – make like a tree and leave.
I bounced off the stage, making my way to the back of the theatre. As I walked, the shadows changed shape, morphing and sliding every few steps so I couldn’t remember if they’d been there a second before or jumped out on me like a cat. In the dark, I couldn’t shake the feel- ing that someone, something, was watching my every step. Which was totally stupid. I was invisible. And I was a ghost for God’s sake. I was the evil in movies so scary they made you throw your popcorn in the air. I was the thought that kept you awake at night when you heard a step on the stairs or a creak in the loft. I shouldn’t be scared. It was the Living who were terrified of me.
As I neared the enormous carved oak doors, a gut instinct shot through me and I began to run. Hard. I didn’t waste any energy avoiding the ticket stand or the stools in the bar where interval drinks were served. I ploughed through them all, demolition-style – like hur- dles at a track event I didn’t need to jump. I sprinted through the gloom of the hall, the lobby and out, only stopping when I landed on the sidewalk outside. Instead of being out of breath, my body buzzed from all the objects I’d jumped through. It was like the ghost equiva- lent of getting a stitch.
The lights on Broadway had been dimmed, the snow freezing to ice on the ground. Instinctively, I pulled my school blazer tighter around my shoulders and began to walk.
At 5 a.m. midtown was as close to a ghost town as it ever got. Above me, the skyscrapers of Times Square were the only ones who hadn’t got the memo that they could calm down their act – the only people out were those who couldn’t face being at home.
I’d never spent much time in this part of Manhattan when I was alive – hello, tourist trap hell – but since the Tess Incident, I’d found myself porting back more and more. Late at night when the Living were asleep and only people with demons had their eyes open. The regularity of the gaudy fluorescent flashing lights was almost comforting. I had no memories here – unless you counted going to M&M’s World for Ali’s fifth birthday and eating so many bags of the peanut butter kind, that I was sick on the sidewalk outside – so the ouches were less acute. Two months ago, I’d have said hell was hus- tly, bustly Times Square. But – as I knew way too well – times change.
A truck pulled up beside me; a few street cleaners got out and began brushing snow from the steps of shops and fast food joints. Steam rose up from the subway grates, as if stretching awake. I headed down 42nd Street, deliberately kicking through sludge or jumping through ice – tickle. I walked on past the green lampposts of Bryant Park which looked like they’d been Tardised here from one of the prints of Paris Mom hung in our hall, then right down 5th to the New York Library. Someone had made a snowman’s head and put it over the face of the giant stone lion on the library steps. A carrot nose was in danger of falling off so I used my kinetic energy to Jab it back on. The sun was beginning to tease the city now. To mix things up, I half-walked, half-ported the remainder of the way, imagining myself by a particular shop window or green newspaper box, then porting there. I discovered the sickness didn’t lessen any even on super-short trips. Instead it was more like a shock of panic, like the moment you’re trying on a dress in Urban Outfitters and, as you go to take it off, you realize you’re stuck, arms above your head, and wonder if you’ll be in that changing room forever. Or worse, have to go out in your panties and ask the too-cool assistant girl for help.
Eventually the neighbourhoods became more leafy and the buildings shorter, until I finally found myself under the arch of Washington Square. Home.
I remembered standing here, on the first night of my death being so scared and confused and not knowing what my future could ever hold now my life had been taken away. Nancy and Lorna were so kind – I’d hardly had time to really think about what it all meant, until I had my Key. And then I didn’t.
Standing alone on the stage, I suddenly felt exposed. A hundred eerie eyes could be looking at me right now and I’d have no clue – from the boxes, the director ’s spot, the orchestra pit, or even hiding in the shadows of the upper tiers. Palmer Peabody’s theatre had all these nooks and hideouts too, just on a way less diva scale. Mercy’s murderer could have been watching in any of them: waiting until it was the right time to strike. You could see it as stupid that they’d chosen to kill a girl in front of an audience. Or AP-level smart – after all, everyone would be looking at her and no one at you. I shivered. Time to – as my dad used to joke – make like a tree and leave.
I bounced off the stage, making my way to the back of the theatre. As I walked, the shadows changed shape, morphing and sliding every few steps so I couldn’t remember if they’d been there a second before or jumped out on me like a cat. In the dark, I couldn’t shake the feel- ing that someone, something, was watching my every step. Which was totally stupid. I was invisible. And I was a ghost for God’s sake. I was the evil in movies so scary they made you throw your popcorn in the air. I was the thought that kept you awake at night when you heard a step on the stairs or a creak in the loft. I shouldn’t be scared. It was the Living who were terrified of me.
As I neared the enormous carved oak doors, a gut instinct shot through me and I began to run. Hard. I didn’t waste any energy avoiding the ticket stand or the stools in the bar where interval drinks were served. I ploughed through them all, demolition-style – like hur- dles at a track event I didn’t need to jump. I sprinted through the gloom of the hall, the lobby and out, only stopping when I landed on the sidewalk outside. Instead of being out of breath, my body buzzed from all the objects I’d jumped through. It was like the ghost equiva- lent of getting a stitch.
The lights on Broadway had been dimmed, the snow freezing to ice on the ground. Instinctively, I pulled my school blazer tighter around my shoulders and began to walk.
At 5 a.m. midtown was as close to a ghost town as it ever got. Above me, the skyscrapers of Times Square were the only ones who hadn’t got the memo that they could calm down their act – the only people out were those who couldn’t face being at home.
I’d never spent much time in this part of Manhattan when I was alive – hello, tourist trap hell – but since the Tess Incident, I’d found myself porting back more and more. Late at night when the Living were asleep and only people with demons had their eyes open. The regularity of the gaudy fluorescent flashing lights was almost comforting. I had no memories here – unless you counted going to M&M’s World for Ali’s fifth birthday and eating so many bags of the peanut butter kind, that I was sick on the sidewalk outside – so the ouches were less acute. Two months ago, I’d have said hell was hus- tly, bustly Times Square. But – as I knew way too well – times change.
A truck pulled up beside me; a few street cleaners got out and began brushing snow from the steps of shops and fast food joints. Steam rose up from the subway grates, as if stretching awake. I headed down 42nd Street, deliberately kicking through sludge or jumping through ice – tickle. I walked on past the green lampposts of Bryant Park which looked like they’d been Tardised here from one of the prints of Paris Mom hung in our hall, then right down 5th to the New York Library. Someone had made a snowman’s head and put it over the face of the giant stone lion on the library steps. A carrot nose was in danger of falling off so I used my kinetic energy to Jab it back on. The sun was beginning to tease the city now. To mix things up, I half-walked, half-ported the remainder of the way, imagining myself by a particular shop window or green newspaper box, then porting there. I discovered the sickness didn’t lessen any even on super-short trips. Instead it was more like a shock of panic, like the moment you’re trying on a dress in Urban Outfitters and, as you go to take it off, you realize you’re stuck, arms above your head, and wonder if you’ll be in that changing room forever. Or worse, have to go out in your panties and ask the too-cool assistant girl for help.
Eventually the neighbourhoods became more leafy and the buildings shorter, until I finally found myself under the arch of Washington Square. Home.
I remembered standing here, on the first night of my death being so scared and confused and not knowing what my future could ever hold now my life had been taken away. Nancy and Lorna were so kind – I’d hardly had time to really think about what it all meant, until I had my Key. And then I didn’t.
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