“It’s like we’re spies!” Eleanor’s nervous but excited pitch made Greta clutch at her arm. Her fingers meshed with the black muslin of Eleanor’s dress, and she was distinctly aware of the mended and patched black cotton she wore herself.
Oscar draped his arm over the steering wheel and peered through the darkness at Eleanor, who was perched between him and Greta. “This isn’t the war front, Eleanor. This is Kipper’s Grove. Control your excitement.”
“But it’s so exciting!” she tittered in a whisper. Her eyes widened, and Greta could see the whites of them. “Just think! There are women in Germany right now spying on behalf of their nation! They’ve even printed posters to warn the Navy boys overseas to watch out for those women’s wiles.”
“You wish to be a German spy?” Disbelief made Oscar’s response a pitch higher.
“No, silly, of course not. After they sank the Lusitania this spring, why, I—”
“Cease speaking.” Oscar’s command met its mark, and Eleanor clamped her hand over her mouth. He leaned around his sister and met Greta’s eyes. “Are you sure you wish to do this?”
Greta wasn’t sure of anything. Desperation was causing her to listen to Oscar against her better wishes. It was causing her to agree to Eleanor joining them when Oscar admitted she had caught him rummaging through old funeral clothes to camouflage himself in the night. She was placing the Boyds in danger now as well, which would be detrimental if they were discovered. It would ruin Eleanor. It would cast shame on the Boyd name. It would be the last straw that kept Greta and the boys from that structure south of town where the poor, the insane, and the unwanted were kept. Of no value to anyone.
And yet . . . Leo. Greta nodded in belated response to Oscar’s question. “Yes. Yes, I’m sure.”
She could hear him breathe and felt Eleanor groping for her hand.
They spent the next moments with Oscar giving them instructions, and then, before Greta could question herself further, they had exited the town car and were scampering across the street. They darted into the alley behind the theater. The buildings rose two stories, all in a line. The theater had large double barn doors in the back, padlocked and secured even more tightly now that Leo and the boys had successfully found their way inside. There were no windows.
“How do you plan to—?” Eleanor’s question was cut short when Oscar pulled bolt cutters from the pack he carried. “Oscar!”
There would be no turning back now. Greta steeled herself for what they were about to do. Were she still alive, her mother would be appalled to know what Greta was up to. Her father? He would understand. Anything for family. No limits. Even breaking and entering.
The lock broke beneath Oscar’s tool. The chain rattled as it snaked through the door handles.
“Curse!” Oscar said in whispered panic as he grabbed at the chain to keep it from clattering.
The trio stood in the alley, Oscar balancing the chain in his hand, Eleanor gripping Greta’s sleeve. Greta was certain her pallor was ghostly white. Silence invaded the alleyway.
Oscar released the breath he’d been holding and carefully lowered the chain to the ground. He tugged on the door, and it opened. Waving his hand for them to follow, he stepped into the theater’s backstage loading area. Eleanor followed. Greta paused, looking over her shoulder down the alley. No one was there. No sound but the crickets. No light but a sliver from the streetlamp half a block away. She slipped through the opening.
A musty smell greeted her, and Greta could tell that this was where backdrops were loaded, repaired, and assembled. The scent of sawdust mingled with the stale air in the windowless room that rose the full height of the theater. Overhead was a black, vaulted ceiling made up of ropes, pulleys, scaffolding, and a platform. The mechanics of the stage. Greta was unimpressed. It all loomed like evil shadows, rising up from the floor and descending from the rafters, demons determined to swallow anyone who lingered after dark. Playing tricks on them, taunting them—
“Greta!” Eleanor’s harsh whisper made Greta jump.
She could hardly see her friend in the dark. Oscar waved to them silently, bidding them to come. Greta drew close, her shoulder brushing Eleanor’s.
“We need to work swiftly,” Oscar said. “We’ll search the first floor, and then we’ll go to the box seats and the upper sitting and rest areas. If we exhaust those with no clues as to where the boys were lost, then we’ll venture to the basement and the dressing rooms.”
“What if one of us vanishes?” Eleanor seemed far too hopeful it would happen.
Greta ruined Eleanor’s excitement. “Then it means we’re more than likely never going to be seen again. My brother has disappeared. His friends are gone. Must you play with death?”
She should feel guilty for speaking to Eleanor in such a way, not to mention the harshness in her reprimand. Eleanor became quiet. Greta understood why, but she also knew it was important that Eleanor see this not as a game to played. This was no adventure. They were breaking the law in hopes of rescuing Leo and the other boys.
“We stay together,” Oscar continued. “I have a flashlight, but its battery will not last long—not to mention a light may draw undue attention. So we’ll only use it if absolutely necessary.”
“Is that Father’s flashlight?” Eleanor gave a quick intake of breath. “He’ll notice it’s missing.”
“No, it’s mine.” Oscar sounded a tad annoyed at his sister. “Now come along.”
Greta followed Oscar and Eleanor, their footsteps echoing lightly on the stage. It was painted black and covered a wide expanse with an opening for the orchestra pit. To the right of the pit, Greta could make out the Wurlitzer organ.
“What are we looking for?” Eleanor’s question sliced through the stillness.
“Anything that could lead us to the boys,” Oscar answered.
Greta watched his angular form as he hurried down the steps to the auditorium floor.
“I can’t see!” Eleanor whispered.
“Shhh!” Oscar said.
“Why?” Eleanor pointed to the auditorium. “There’s no one in here—the seats are all empty.”
Neither Oscar nor Greta replied.
Greta peered into the chasm of the theater. With the houselights turned off, there wasn’t much she could see. “I think you may need to use the flashlight.” She moved her hand to the next row, trying to maintain her position in the center aisle without stubbing her toes on the seats, which were bolted to the floor. “Oscar, if we can’t see anything, how are we going to find Leo?”
Oscar didn’t respond. Greta’s toe hit a riser in the next row of seats. She stumbled, catching herself on the arm of a seat, nearly falling to the carpeted floor. She could sense the empty void of the domed ceiling above her. There was a tiny musical clinking as the chandelier crystals bumped into one another, as if a small breeze had disturbed their slumber.
“Eleanor?” Greta hissed.
An uncanny stillness was the only response.
Greta straightened and looked around. The fear that she was alone seeped into her blood, chilling it. Trying to control her breaths, she took small ones, though they still sounded terribly loud when she released them.
“Oscar!” Her voice echoed through the auditorium. “Eleanor!”
Greta strained to look up at the box seats. She could see the outline of them jutting out over the floor below. She focused on the box seat that the infant had fallen from, walking toward it into a row of seats.
“Eleanor!” she tried again, hoping perhaps the Boyds had the same inclination to revisit the scene of a few nights before.
Greta could envision that night, that moment with the woman holding the infant, a blanket swaddled around it. The woman had been wearing a white dress with elegant lace, a beautiful evening gown of taste and expense. Then, as if drawn by some irrevocable force, the woman had opened her hands.
Greta gasped at the memory. The babe plummeting toward the floor, its blanket unwinding and floating down after the child. And then all she recalled was her screaming. The ruckus. The lights flashing on. The doctor pressing his fleshy body past her as he attempted to rush to the aid of the infant.
The woman’s face. So expressionless, then so horrified. Greta had stared at her, met her gaze in that moment. The shock shared between them was mutual.
A light flickered on and then off, jerking Greta from her remembrance. It was an electric light, a single bulb perched on the wall beneath the box seat.
It flickered again as if it were trying to stay lit but hadn’t the energy to.
Greta saw her then. In the brief moment, light stunned her eyes and then faded to blackness. The woman in white. She stood in the box seat again. She wore the same gown. The same haunted expression.
“Ma’am!” Greta didn’t bother to subdue her voice. “Ma’am, are you there?”
The auditorium was suddenly dark again. Consumed by the night. It was pure aloneness then. Greta felt it crawling across her skin—
A boy cried out beneath her feet. Then to her left.
Greta whirled. “Leo!”
Banging. Metal on metal. Another cry and then it trailed away as though the boy was running into an oblivion Greta couldn’t see. She spun back. “Leo!” she shouted. The name reverberated through the auditorium.
The light flickered again. The woman in white stood directly in front of Greta. Her eyes were black. Her white gown was tattered. Her hair hung in strands around her face, and her cheeks—her pale and papery white cheeks—were wet with tears.
Greta’s scream raked her throat.
The light went out. A boy screamed from inside the walls.
And she heard the infant cry.