By the time her friends arrived at Fiddler’s Folly, Tempest’s plan was in place. Now she just had to convince them to help her.
“You seriously want us to help you catch a cold-blooded killer?” asked Gideon.
“Without the police?” Ivy nervously scraped the last of her pink nail polish off her index finger.
Sanjay gripped his bowler hat so tightly a silver coin came loose and clattered to the floor of Tempest’s secret turret. “Even for me, that sounds like a risky idea.”
“Don’t worry,” Tempest assured them. “I have a plan.”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. As she breathed in the scents of old and new wood that Secret Staircase Construction had used to build this home, she was no longer in the real world of the rambling home where ghost hunters waited outside, where Julian’s lawsuit still threatened to destroy the family business, or where random people on the internet dictated the story about Emma Raj. In the reality she saw for herself in the future, Tempest took charge and solved her mom’s disappearance and her aunt’s supposedly accidental death, proving it so dramatically that everyone in the world would pay attention and know the truth.
She opened her eyes. Ivy, Sanjay, and Gideon stood before her in the small octagonal room.
“This,” she said to her friends, who were as dear to her as anyone she’d ever known, “is the story of Pop-Up Justice. My show that I’ve been searching for.”
“The final performance?” Sanjay asked.
Tempest nodded. “The show. And the anticipation leading up to it. Posters that aren’t just shared online, but physical ones that blanket the city. And artwork that tells more than one story. Front and center is a woman with raven black hair whose face is half hidden in shadow. If anyone observes her carefully, they’ll see a vengeance on her face that will send a shiver down their spine. She carries the scales of justice. A date is etched onto one scale: that day. Carved onto the second scale is the time. Twelve o’clock. The stroke of—”
“Midnight,” Gideon whispered.
“Exactly. And if you look closely, you can see curious creatures—half woman and half seal—swimming in the cool waters behind her.”
“Selkies,” said Ivy.
“Now people will notice her shadow: a swirl of black that looks like the waves of a violent sea. Her shadow balances on a twisted wave of coil, as if a tidal wave has pushed her out from the top hat like a jack-in-the-box. But that’s not what draws people to this poster.” Tempest paused and held up her arm. “In her hands, she holds a sailor’s knife—dripping with blood.”
They all shivered.
“It’s this realization,” said Tempest, “that will make people stop and pay attention. Words are written in the wavelike folds of fabric that swirl around the woman:
I am The Tempest.
Destruction follows in my wake.
Justice will be served.
Pop-Up Justice begins tonight.
Midnight.
“At one minute after midnight that night, the audience—those lucky enough to get a ticket—will be startled when a spotlight bursts into life and the glistening skin of a selkie falls from nowhere onto the stage. The skin of the mythical seal that has been shed. The stage lights will shift. The backdrop will no longer be black folds of curtain but a giant playing card. It’s a Janus-faced jester, presented as a joker from a deck of cards. The two figures are one and the same. The card that can be anything it wants to be. The card that can perform magic.
“The lights will flicker. The illustration will become real and step out of the card and onto the stage, leaving only a blank card behind her. She will kneel on stage at the spot where the seal skin lies, but when she moves to lift the selkie skin she has shed, it vanishes. The selkie skin will now be a flat image trapped on the playing card.
“Her face will be hidden, but her voice will be true. She will reveal, through the illusion she presents, the evidence of both Elspeth’s and Emma Raj’s murders that the authorities either suppressed or didn’t have legal authority to use. The woman who stepped out of the playing card has no such constraints. She will see justice served. The finale is the best part. The killer is arrested.
“Then, the encore. Will the woman delivering Pop-Up Justice on stage be able to swap her human skin for her selkie seal skin and slip away into the ocean, or will the authorities take her away too?
“It no longer matters to her because she will have set out what she went there to do. See justice for her aunt and her mom.
“And that,” Tempest concluded, “is how I imagine Pop-Up Justice.”
“That,” said Ivy, “is the most kick-ass thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”
“That’s the fantasy version,” Tempest admitted. “It’s a culmination of the ideas that have been swirling around for years about the story I’ve always needed to tell. My subconscious always knew all the elements—which is why they were always part of my story. But real life isn’t a fantasy. Not exactly. I can’t stage a full theatrical production in a day—but I can come close. I know who can illustrate the posters I imagine as well. Posters that can be shared both here in Hidden Creek and online with a message that will get everyone to be there for my midnight show. The most important show of my life.”