Chapter 21

“Who else could use a drink?” I asked.

The séance had effectively ended as soon as the candles went out. Trixie had disappeared, and Lillian could sense it.

“The fragile thread has been broken,” she announced, speaking above everyone’s excited chatter. “The spirit has left us.”

Trixie had gone poof. But she’d gone poof happier than I’d ever seen her. I hoped she’d be back soon. I couldn’t wait to talk to her about it.

Monica, Gabriela, and Abby surrounded Lillian, exchanging notes on what they’d just experienced. Callie turned her back on us and started doing something with her cameras. I looked to Albert, worried that it might all have been too much for him, and found him regarding me with a thoughtful expression on his face.

Before I could go over to him, Monica broke away from the cluster around Lillian. “Did you say something about a drink?” she asked me.

“At least one,” I said.

  

A while later we found ourselves in the lobby, seated at various levels on the balcony stairs. We could have gotten the chairs from the stage, but it didn’t feel like anyone wanted to go back into the auditorium. So to the stairs it was, where we talked ourselves out, drank wine from paper cups, and devoured a shocking amount of candy from the concessions stand. Something about our brush with the supernatural had made everyone crave chocolate.

Lillian was still on a high, although she was quick to share her triumph with me.

“It’s clear you have a gift,” she told me earnestly. “You must work to develop it. Who knows what kind of contact you might be able to make with the proper training?”

“Who knows?” I agreed.

At one point Abby went to the concessions stand, saying she needed a cup of tea. I followed.

“Are you okay?” I asked her, remembering the look of rapt attention she’d had on her face during the séance. We were far enough from the others that I didn’t think we’d be overheard. “I know this was all pretty intense.”

She nodded, dropping a tea bag into a paper cup. “Very. I wasn’t sure what to expect.”

“Can I ask you, when Lillian was humming that song it seemed like…”

She looked at me, tears suddenly filling her eyes. “My son loved that song when he was a baby. I used to sing it to him all the time.”

Oh. She had a son. And she referred to him in the past tense.

“When did you lose him?” I asked quietly.

“Three years ago. It was a hit-and-run. I still can’t quite…” She turned away, fussing with the hot water valve on the coffee maker.

“Abby, I’m so sorry,” I said.

“They never caught the driver,” she told me. “Nobody was ever punished. Nobody paid for what they did to my boy.”

“That’s awful.” I had no idea how else to respond.

Abby exhaled. “I’ve learned that you have to do whatever you can to go on,” she said. “Tonight that meant attending a séance.” She glanced at me. “Usually, it means focusing on my work. The relief I can provide people is a great comfort to me.”

“I’m sure it is,” I said.

“And I think my boy approves,” she said. “I think that’s why Lillian hummed that song. I think he was…” She looked up. “Here. With me.”

Who was I to say she was wrong? “I think he’s probably always with you,” I told her. I also thought Lillian’s humming was the sort of maybe-coincidence-maybe-not thing that kept mediums in business, but what did I know? I’d only ever met one ghost.

Abby wiped her eyes. “You’re very sweet.” She reached into one of the many pockets of her jacket. “Please, I’d like you to have this.” She handed me a green bottle about the size of my pinkie finger, topped with an eyedropper cap. I recognized it as one of her blended cannabinoid tinctures. “It’s a simple mixture of my own, and I’ve found it does wonders to help me sleep. Something tells me you could use a little help getting to sleep.”

Something like the gigantic circles under my eyes, probably. And the fact that I’d been yawning for the past half hour.

“Thank you.” I took the tiny bottle. “I don’t usually—”

She waved her hand. “Don’t worry, you won’t start craving Cheetos or want to listen to the White Album backwards,” she smiled. “Just put a few drops in a cup of herbal tea at night. I guarantee you’ll sleep better.”

I put the bottle in my pocket. I couldn’t sleep any worse.

  

Albert was the first to call it a night. He rose from his position on the bottom step, creaking audibly as he stood. I walked with him to the lobby doors.

“I knew Trixie was still here,” he said, wrapping a scarf around his neck. “I think I’ve always known. Even when I told myself it was only my imagination, or wishful thinking.” He glanced around the lobby, as if seeking her out. “Goodnight, Trixie,” he called. Then he gave me a rueful smile and left.

“Gabriela, do you need a ride?” Monica asked. “Or is Hector coming back for you?”

They’d come over to the doors. “I’m fine,” Gabriela said. “Hector had that…thing, but I texted a friend a while ago. She should be here any minute.”

“It was good to see you.” Monica bent to give Gabriela a hug, then went back to gather her things from the stairs.

“That was some night,” I said, suddenly tongue-tied with Hector’s cousin.

“I’ve never really believed in…you know,” Gabriela said. “But I felt something tonight. Someone.” She shivered. “It was an intense cold, targeted, as if someone was holding an ice pack just an inch away from me.” Her brows were bunched in concentration, remembering the feeling, then shook her head. “It was so weird. I’m just wondering…”

“What?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Never mind. Just an idea. I’ll tell you about it later, if I can figure it out.” She cleared her throat. “I’m also trying to figure out why Hector didn’t even come in to say hi to you, after he suddenly had some bogus thing to do tonight. Any ideas?” She looked at me shrewdly.

I swallowed the urge to launch into a full-on rant about her cousin and how he’d disappeared after that amazing kiss. I might have confided in her if we were alone, but the others were still chatting and milling around, so I just shrugged.

“Something’s going on with you two,” Gabriela said. “You don’t have to tell me what it is, but I’ll tell you this: He’s worth fighting for.” She squeezed my hand. “And so are you.”

We heard a car’s horn from out in the street and I opened the door for Gabriela to go.

“Sooo,” Callie spoke from behind me as I was watching Gabriela greet her friend at the sidewalk under the pail glow of the streetlights.

I turned around. “So.”

Callie had loaded all her camera equipment onto a cart, ready to leave as soon as Lillian finished saying her good-byes. Earlier we’d all taken a look at the video the cameras had captured and had seen no sign of Trixie. Not even when she’d waved.

“That was literally...” Callie’s voice trailed off.

“It was,” I agreed.

“I mean…”

“Yup.”

She looked at me. “What are we going to tell Marty?”

We were already keeping one secret from the world’s grumpiest projectionist. A few months ago, Callie had figured out that I was the movie blogger Sally Lee. So far she’d not told Marty, who adored Sally. Finding out I was his blogger idol would have made his head explode, so I’d asked her not to let him know. What was one more secret?

“I think the least complicated thing to tell him is that we had the séance,” I said. “And that some candles blew out.”

She looked at me closely and nodded. “I mean, they did blow out, right?”

I thought about it. “Check the film again,” I advised her. “The camera doesn’t lie.”

Which was nonsense. Cameras lied all the time. You just had to look at the tabloids to know that.

Monica and Abby were the last to leave. They offered me a ride, but I wanted to walk home. After they left I made the rounds of the theater, making sure doors were locked, lights were off, alarms were set, and ghosts were all gone.

“You did great tonight,” I called to Trixie. “I’m so proud of you.”

I never knew if she could hear me when she went away, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to talk to her anyway.

Once again it was after midnight when I locked the lobby door behind me. I turned and looked down the walkway. There was no shadowy figure lurking near the ticket booth. No Hector.

I’d just gotten to the sidewalk when my phone pinged with a text. I pulled it out of my pocket, assuming someone had left something behind in the theater. When I saw the name on the message I cursed.

Lillian might not have conjured any new ghosts that night, but maybe her powers had conjured an old one.

The text was from Ted.