The Year of Shadows Page 6

  After Joan left, Principal Cooper’s eyes crinkled tiredly at me. Was everyone tired these days? Richard Ashley, Mr. Rue, even me. I wanted Mom. I wanted to go home—to the home we’d had, the home where Mom had watched me draw like it was the coolest thing in the world.

  The home before everything started to go wrong, when the Maestro still had dinner with us and let me sit on his lap while he studied his scores.

  “What key is this in, Olivia?” he would say.

  Four sharps. Easy as pie. “E major!”

  Principal Cooper cleared his throat. “How are things at home, Miss Stellatella?”

  I stared at his desk. “Fine.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I opened my mouth, closed it, and opened it again. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what he knew, and I couldn’t say, I live at Emerson Hall, in the back storage rooms with bad plumbing, and Nonnie is small, and Richard Ashley is tired. I couldn’t tell him about the ghosts or show him my burn. What would he say? What would he think?

  Even worse, what would he do? Somewhere there was probably a law against kids living in music halls.

  So I said nothing.

  “I know about the Philharmonic,” Principal Cooper said gently. “About the orchestra. I know it must be . . . difficult.”

  “It’s fine,” I said. “We’ll be fine.”

  After a long time, Principal Cooper said something about a counselor and a letter home, but I wasn’t really listening. They let me stay in the nurse’s office for the rest of the day. They wanted to watch me, they said. When they pulled down my scarf to inspect my arm, they found nothing; my burn had disappeared. They asked me questions about my eating habits, and other things too, but my brain was too shocked to think. When they left me, I peeled back my scarf again.

  Nothing. It was gone. I tried to find some sort of explanation, and couldn’t, except for one: None of it had been real. We really had hallucinated the whole thing, me and Henry, like mass hysteria or something. The burns had never actually been there.

  But when I got to The Happy Place after school, I checked again, just in case.

  The burn was back, its black color slowly seeping back into my arm. Maybe it only showed up near the Hall. Maybe it faded when I left the Hall, for some reason.

  Whatever it was, I was glad. I couldn’t stand the thought of it all being a hallucination. I needed to find these ghosts, and I knew that, somehow, the burn connected me to them.

  That night, I dreamed about the world of Death. It was black and glittering, like my burn. I walked into it through an archway of comets, and Igor was right beside me.

  OCTOBER

  IT WASN’T UNTIL a couple of weeks into October that everything clicked.

  Wednesday morning. October 13. I woke up with my teeth chattering, like I’d been sleeping in a freezer. My breath puffed in little white bursts. So did Igor’s and Nonnie’s. I dressed fast, skipping around on the cold concrete floor.

  “Stupid drafty old place,” I muttered. “You’d think we lived in the Arctic or something.”

  Nonnie watched me happily from her cot, wrapped up in our quilts. “You’re grumpy lately, ombralina. Scontroso.”

  “Well, Nonnie, that’s what happens when a girl gets moved from a house into a meat locker.”

  Nonnie clucked her tongue. “Is not so bad, now.”

  She was right; the temperature in the room had increased, and my breaths were back to invisible. I looked at Igor. “Weird, huh?”

  He glared up at me from my rumpled sheets. When will you stop talking so I can go back to sleep?

  “But not just today,” Nonnie said, tying her scarf over her eyes. “You are strange all the days. You are distracted.”

  Guilt sank into my stomach. I had been pretty distant lately. All I could think about were the ghosts; I spent hours drawing them after work, hours I should have spent with Nonnie.

  Nonnie peeked out from beneath her scarf. “You missed cards last night.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just . . .” I sighed and plopped down beside Nonnie. “What would you say if . . .” I looked at Igor for reassurance, but he wasn’t much help, already half asleep. “. . . if I told you I’d seen ghosts? And that I wanted to find a way to talk with them?”

  Nonnie’s eyes widened. “Il fantasma. Lo spettro!”

  I patted Nonnie’s arm. “Shh, shh. It’s okay. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “No, no!” Nonnie shook her head, grinning. “I saw lo spettro once. Once, when a girl. In old country. Oh, I was beautiful, ombralina! I wore lace scarves. Everyone said, ‘She is so beautiful!’ ”

  “I bet you were, Nonnie.”

  “There were parties, oh, so many parties. And at one party”—Nonnie held up her finger—“there was game. And we sat in a circle and lit candles. We spoke to il spettro. He was a pirate capitano.” Nonnie grinned, leaned back against the wall. “He liked my scarf. He told me he did.”

  Chills skipped down my arms. “Nonnie?” I grabbed her shoulders, gently. “You said you sat in a circle. You lit candles. And then you talked to ghosts?”

  Nonnie nodded, moony-eyed. “Il capitano, he was in love with me, I think.”

  “Nonnie!”

  She waved me away. “Ombralina, it was la seduta. La spiritica.”

  Spiritica. Spirits.

  “Oh my gosh, that’s it,” I said. I jumped to my feet, yanked on my boots, and grabbed my jacket from the bed. Never in my life had I been so excited to get to school. “That’s what we need! That’s how we can contact the ghosts!”

  A séance.

  At lunch that day, I walked to Henry’s table in the cafeteria and tapped him on the shoulder.

  “What are you doing here, psychopath?” Nick Weber said. The others laughed, except for Mark Everett, who focused hard on his lunch. I think I’d really freaked him out that day, running at him like I had. The thought made me smile.

  “Trying to decide what curse I should use on you,” I said. “So many choices.”

  Nick flushed. “Shut up.”

  “Careful.” I wagged my finger. “Henry, can I talk to you?”

  Henry was watching me in that quiet honor roll way of his. “Sure.”

  “Henry,” Mark hissed, but Henry ignored him. When we reached my customary table in the corner, Henry sat next to me like nothing had changed. He opened his milk carton.

  “So, what’s up?” he asked.

  “We need to hold a séance.”

  Henry shook his head. “Gosh, I’m fine, Olivia, thanks. And you?”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “I’m fine. Now, can I continue?”

  “Fine.”

  “Like I was saying, we need to hold a séance. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking”—while you’ve been avoiding me—“and I think it’s the only way to contact the ghosts.”

  “Why?”

  I hesitated. “Nonnie told me.”

  Henry raised his eyebrows. “Olivia, no offense, but . . . your, like, eighty-year-old grandmother?”

  “So? What does that matter? A séance is a real thing. Look it up if you want. You can speak directly to the ghosts. Henry, we can find them, see where they’re hiding!”

  “I don’t know . . .”

  “A séance?” Joan appeared out of nowhere in the seat across from us. “Please tell me I heard you right. You’re holding a séance?”

  Henry and I glanced at each other.

  “Are you okay?” Henry asked.

  Joan was practically vibrating. “If you’re holding a séance, can I do it with you? I know all about séances. I’ve even held a couple. You know, just stupid things at sleepovers, but I’m telling you, I know everything there is to know.” She looked back and forth between us. “Please? How many people do you have so far?”

  “Well,” I said, “just me and Henry, but—”

  “Oh, you’ll never get it to work with just two people. No, you need three people. But no more than that. Just three.”
>
  “Are you sure you know all about séances?”

  “Oh, yes. Absolutely.” Joan paused. “Please, can’t I help you?”

  Joan had this weird look on her face, a twitchy, tight-lipped kind of look, and I got this feeling that she actually had no idea whatsoever how to hold a séance.

  I also got the feeling that I’d been wrong about Joan. Maybe it was a little lonelier being a one-woman protester than Joan let on. Maybe she liked having someone to sit with at lunch, even if that someone was me.

  Henry sighed. “Look, I don’t even know what I think about having a séance in the first place. It seems kind of dumb.”

  Joan’s eyes widened. “Oh no, it’s not dumb at all. The spirits are all around us, just waiting to be contacted. Sometimes they even want our help. But some of them aren’t very nice. That’s why you need an expert to help you, someone who’s done it before. Like me. So.”

  I put a hand over my burn. Whenever my skin got goosebumps, my burn stung like crazy. “Some of them aren’t very nice?”

  “Just like some people aren’t very nice. It’s the same with spirits.”

  I took a long, hard look at Joan. I wasn’t sure how I felt about Joan’s supposed expert knowledge. Plus, Joan was someone completely outside the world of the Hall. What would she think about it? What would she think about how I lived?

  But Joan was throwing this pitiful face at me, and I just couldn’t say no. Plus, I wanted to contact the ghosts so bad it was like this hard knot in my stomach.

  “Fine,” I said at last.

  Henry looked at me in surprise.

  Joan squealed and drew out some paper and a pencil from her bag.

  “But I’m the boss of this operation. Okay? You’re the séance expert or whatever, but I run the show.”

  “Of course,” Joan said. Séance Instructions, read the heading of her paper. “Now, where are we having the séance, and why?”

  “At Emerson Hall. Henry and I . . .” I paused.

  He threw up his hands. “Might as well just tell her now.”

  “Tell me what?” Joan whispered.

  “We’ve seen ghosts. At the Hall. But only once, and we haven’t been able to find them since, and we want to talk to them for real.”

  Joan took a deep, centering breath. “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh. That is so . . . oh my gosh.” She bent over her paper and started writing frantically.

  “What are you writing?” I said.

  “A list of the things we’ll need.”

  She finished with a flourish. We leaned closer to read it.

  “A homemade Ouija board?” Henry said.

  “The ones you can get at the store are just phonies,” Joan said. “Much more powerful to make your own. Don’t worry about it, I’ve got the supplies for that.”

  “Three white candles, a dish of water, a feather, incense, an important personal artifact . . . a hair from each of our parents?” I looked up in disgust. “Are you kidding?”

  “I don’t make the rules,” Joan said.

  Beside me, Henry shifted in his seat. “Would it not work if we didn’t have . . . if any one of those items was missing?”

  “It can still work, of course,” Joan said quickly. “The important thing is that you have to really want it to work. From the bottom of your heart. The items are just there to help you focus.”

  I tried to imagine getting close enough to the Maestro to pluck a hair from his head. “Ugh. Fine.”

  “Fine,” Henry said, but for the rest of lunch, he didn’t say a word.

  After school that day at The Happy Place, I finished refilling the sugar packets and leaned over the counter.

  “Mrs. B?” Since that day Henry and I had brought up the ghosts, Mr. and Mrs. Barsky had been completely normal, like it had never happened. “Do you think . . . ? I need to buy some stuff. Could I get an employee discount?”

  Mrs. Barsky looked up from where she was organizing the register. “What kind of stuff?”

  I shrugged. “Just some candles and things like that.”

  Mrs. Barsky pursed her lips. I forced myself to meet her eyes.

  Finally, she nodded. “All right, Olivia.”

  I picked out the things we needed: three white candles, sandalwood incense, and an incense burner. The money Henry and Joan had given me jingled in my pockets.

  I put it all on the countertop. “This is it.”

  She scanned everything quietly, not saying anything until I was halfway out the door.

  “Olivia?” she said. “Be careful.”

  I thanked her for the discount and left, fear and excitement crackling in my chest like tiny bolts of lightning.

  I PUT OFF getting one of the Maestro’s hairs until the night of the séance. I went to bed, wide awake, and waited. Beneath my blanket, I clutched my backpack, which held my supplies, including my important personal artifact—my sketchpad.

  “Your brain is busy tonight, Olivia,” Nonnie murmured from across the room.

  “Go to sleep, Nonnie. I’m tired.”

  Finally, I heard the Maestro’s footsteps coming down the hallway, shuffling through the kitchen, entering his bedroom.

  It was time to make my move. I waited as long as I could stand and then crept out of bed. I paused at the door.

  “Nonnie?” I whispered.

  Nonnie mumbled, half-asleep.

  “I’m gonna have my séance in a little bit. Remember? Like we talked about? But you can just stay in here, okay? Just keep sleeping. Everything will be fine.”

  “Bring me some radishes.”

  “Sure thing.”

  In the hallway, I stayed close to the wall. The concrete floor was cold on my socked feet.

  Something brushed against my leg. I almost screamed until I saw two green eyes staring at me in the dark.

  I sighed. “Igor, you’ve got to stop sneaking around like that.”

  He cocked his head.

  “Don’t give me that look. I’m serious.” I continued toward the Maestro’s room, gathering my insides together into one solid, fist-shaped knot. I could do this. I could slip into the Maestro’s bedroom and pluck a hair from his greasy head while he slept.

  But at his door, my hand on the knob, I froze. From beneath the normal noise of his music—he always slept with his music on—I could hear a strange sound.

  It sounded like crying.

  This made no sense. The Maestro didn’t cry. The Maestro was made of stone and numbers and anger, and mostly he was made of music—cold, unfeeling, metal-tubed music.

  But I could hear him crying. As I stood there, a sick feeling growing in my throat, I heard him say: “Cara.”

  Cara. Mom’s name.

  “Cara, please.”

  I hurried back to bed. I couldn’t banish the sounds of the Maestro crying, no matter how hard I pressed my ears to my head. Eventually, Igor found me and crawled into my arms, and I plucked a single black hair from his tail. It would have to do.

  At midnight, I heard a knock on the parking lot door. I pushed it open and moonlight poured in.

  Henry and Joan rushed inside. Behind them, their cab pulled away from the curb. The city was dark and quiet, except for windows in the high-up office buildings, where no one ever slept.

  “You snuck out okay?” I said.

  “Yeah,” said Henry. “No problems here.”

  “Oh, yes,” Joan whispered. “Daddy sleeps like the dead. And did you see? It’s a full moon. Full moons are the absolute best for séances, they make everything more potent.”

  I shut the door behind them and turned the latch. “This way.”

  “I hope you have all your materials,” Joan said from behind me in the dark. The light of my flashlight bobbed ahead of us.

  “Candles, incense, matches,” I said.

  “Feather, bowl,” said Henry.

  “And I’ve got the Ouija board,” said Joan. Her voice hushed on the words Ouija board. “And the hairs.”

  “Yeah, me too,” said Henr
y quickly.

  Joan had decided to hold our séance onstage. She said the pipe organ would provide ambiance. I led them there using an indirect route, so neither of them could see too much of where I lived.

  When we entered the Hall, Joan grabbed my flashlight.

  “Oh my gosh,” she whispered, “this is marvelous.” She ran around the Hall, pointing the flashlight up into the balconies, across the gleaming pipes of the organ.

  We set up in a circle in the middle of the stage. Joan lit the candles and set up the incense burner. She whipped out a water bottle from her bag, filled up Henry’s bowl, and drew a cross above the water with her finger.

  I tried not to laugh. Joan wasn’t a priest or anything; I doubted that cross would do much good, if we ever needed it.

  A queasy feeling turned over in my stomach. Would spirits come for us? And would they be good or bad? Or was it even that simple, with spirits? I looked around at the dimly lit Hall. Shadows stretched everywhere. When Joan lit the candles, the shadows danced too.

  Henry had started to sweat. I hoped I didn’t look as nervous as he did.

  “We’ll sit in a circle,” Joan said. “You right there, Olivia, and Henry, right next to her. Close enough to hold hands. I’ll sit on Henry’s other side.”

  I sat down, scowling at the floor. Maybe if I spat on my palms, we could skip the whole hand-holding thing.

  “Hairs,” Joan said, holding out her hand.

  She dumped them into the bowl of water.

  “Feather.”

  Henry handed Joan a ratty pigeon feather. Then she sat down beside me and set the bowl and feather in the middle of our circle.

  “Place your personal artifacts in the circle,” Joan said, spreading her arms, “and tell us why you chose them. I will go first.”

  She placed a tiny rag doll next to the feather. “This is Magda. My grandma made her when I was little. She reminds me of family and togetherness, and those are strong positive emotions, and positive emotions keep the evil spirits away.” She patted Magda on the head, smiling. “Now you, Olivia.”

  Igor crept forward out of the darkness of stage left, his eyes wide. Olivia, what are you doing? What is all this?