Authors: Laura Bradley Rede
I nod silently. If I try to say anything, I’m going to cry, because part of me knows that, wherever that light comes from, that’s where I’m supposed to be.
The monster feels it, too. He steps forward, his huge eyes turned skyward, his wide mouth slack with awe. As the shaft of light hits him, something happens. It’s not that he changes. It’s more like, in the light, we can finally see him right, and what I see isn’t a monster. He’s a man—broad and bearded and rough-looking, but still just a guy. He’s dressed in a rough gray nightshirt he must have worn once upon a time, back when he was an inmate at Westgate, many years ago. I can see his scars now, too—burn marks on his thick arms, a gash across the bridge of his nose, deep welts on his wrists where restraints bit into his skin. I shudder at the thought of what must have happened to him, but all that is in the past now. He smiles a crooked, broken smile as he lifts his face to the light, and the tears that run into his beard are happy tears. Relieved.
“He’s going to go now,” Saintly whispers. “The light is going to take him.”
I feel a sudden need to thank him or say goodbye or something, but I realize I don’t even know what to call him. “What’s your name?”
“Ben,” he says. “It was Ben.”
Then he shuts his eyes and spreads his arms like he’s inviting someone to rush into his embrace. The light flares brighter.
I don’t know what happens next, because I have to look away. I’m afraid, if I see Ben go into the light, I’m going to want to go, too. I’m afraid I won’t be able to resist it, like it’s a current strong enough to sweep me away. I squeeze my eyes shut, but I can still hear Saintly’s gasp of wonder and a sort of whooshing sound. All around us, the warm wind rustles the garbage.
When I open my eyes, Ben is gone. The last few inches of sky are rapidly sealing themselves up until the light is scabbed over with darkness, like it was never there at all.
A strange mixture of relief and disappointment curdles in the pit of my stomach. I feel strangely hurt, as if the light has abandoned me, passed me by like a secret crush asking someone else to dance.
Which is dumb, I know. I chose not to go.
But that doesn’t explain the last twenty years. In all the time since I died, why didn’t it ever come for me?
“Jesse?” Saintly’s voice is hesitant. “Are you okay?”
I force myself to look at her. There are tears shining in her dark eyes. “Sure,” I say gruffly. “I’m fine.”
“Good.” Saintly slips her hand into mine. It’s freezing cold. “I was afraid…” She takes a deep breath. “I was afraid for a minute you might go, too.”
My heart lifts a little in my chest. She would miss me if I went. Suddenly I feel glad I stayed. “I couldn’t let you go back alone. We still have to save Delia.”
“We have to save all of them.” Saintly gazes thoughtfully at the patch of darkness where the light shone through. “It’s not just that Dev killed those girls, Jess. I mean, that would be horrible enough. But it’s also that he’s keeping their spirits here. He’s keeping them from the light.”
I nod. No one understands like I do. Saving the midnight girls sounds impossible— it will be a miracle if we can even save Delia—but I know Saintly is right. We need to try. “We have to go.”
We turn our backs on the sealed vault of darkness and walk back to the car. It’s still running, the motor chugging bravely, exhaust sending up little puffs in the cold night air. The clock on the dash says 10:05. Less than two hours until midnight.
We need to drive, but for a moment Saintly just can’t. She sits behind the wheel shaking—whether from cold or emotion, I don’t know. Wordlessly, I slip off my jean jacket and drape it over her shivering shoulders. I know it can’t keep her warm—it’s just a phantom, a memory of something I used to own—but it must help somehow because she gradually stops trembling and turns to me. She manages a smile. “Thank you.”
I smile back. “Any time.”
If this were a date, I could put my arm around her and rub the warmth back into her shoulders. I could pull her against me and let my lips find hers in the sweet darkness of the car. What would it be like to kiss Saintly?
I push the thought aside.
Focus
.
Saintly pulls silently out of the parking lot, and in a moment we are flying back down the highway, nothing but midnight ahead.
It’s a miracle we make it back to school without getting caught. The police are out in force, keeping an eye out for folks who have started New Year’s partying early. Luckily, they already have their hands full. No one notices Dr. Sterling’s nondescript car, and hard though it is, Saintly manages to force herself to stick to the speed limit. “So far, so good,” she says.
But there’s only so long our luck can hold out. When we reach campus, we find it crawling with people. Now that the snowstorm has passed, a wave of students has returned early, ready to party in the new year with their friends. There are adults here, too, rich alumni in fancy costumes on their way to the masquerade ball. The campus is swarming with security.
I watch warily out the window as we crawl down a back street toward the theatre department “They know you’ll come back here, Saintly. This is the first place they’ll look.”
“We don’t have a choice,” she says simply. “We have to get to the ball.”
She’s right, of course, but now that we’re here, I’m scared. Dev isn’t just anyone. He’s an immortal predator who has made hundreds of girls fall in love with him. Only a few days ago, Saintly was one of them. Have her feelings for him really changed? Even if we do manage to find Dev and Delia in time, will Saintly have it in her to defeat him in the end?
“What’s the plan?” I ask nervously as Saintly cuts the headlights and we coast into the theatre department lot. Without Ben, I feel like we’re missing our secret weapon.
“I don’t know.” Saintly bites her lip nervously. “I don’t really have a plan. I think we’re going to have to wing it.”
Great. Winging it. We’re up against a murderous player who has been at this for centuries, and we have no plan.
We ditch the car in a dark back corner of the theatre department lot. The ball is in the elegant event hall on the second story of the student union, halfway across campus, but we don’t dare drive closer. With the entire quad to cross, I’m certain Saintly will be snatched up by security any moment. How can they not notice a barefoot girl in hospital scrubs? Even among the costumed guests, Saintly is bound to stand out.
Then I have an idea. “Hang on,” I say. “Just wait here.”
“What?” Saintly looks alarmed. “We don’t have time! I don’t want to be separated.”
“It will only take a second, trust me.” I slip through the car door and bolt into the night, headed for the only dorm between here and the union. It’s the all-girls designated quiet dorm, so there aren’t any parties here tonight, but I’m not looking for partiers. I’m looking for sleepers.
It takes about ten seconds for me to slip through the door, and a little longer than that for my hand to become solid enough to pull the fire alarm. But as soon as I do, the air erupts with sirens and a few minutes later sleepy girls start spilling out onto the quad, many of them in pajamas and slippers.
I grin to myself. Saintly will fit right in.
When I get back to the car, Saintly is hunched down in the driver’s seat, looking worried. She opens the door cautiously as soon as she sees me. “I heard the alarm. Is something wrong?”
“Everything’s fine.” I grab her hand. “Just giving us a little cover. Come on.”
Luckily, it works like a charm. The security guards are busy investigating the alarm, and no one notices another girl in pajamas as we sprint across the quad. Above us, the clock shines like a golden broach pinned to the velvet sky. Eleven twenty-nine.
Just thirty-one minutes left.
Saintly
“What if we can’t find them?” Jesse worries out loud. “What if they aren’t even here?”
“They’ll be here.” There’s no question in my mind. “He has to be where Delia is, and there’s no way she’s missing this ball.”
Jesse looks doubtful. “Even though her best friend just…you know…”
“Tried to jump off the clock tower?” I sigh. It’s so hard to explain Delia. She’s my closest friend, and she has been with me through everything, but that doesn’t change the fact that she’s ordinarily Delia-centric and the queen of denial. If anything, being under extreme stress will make her
more
likely to go to a party, and there’s no way she’d abandon an event she helped plan. “Delia is an actress,” I say diplomatically. “She lives by the motto ‘The show must go on.’ And besides, if Dev wants her here, he’ll get her here. It’s what he does.”
“But shouldn’t he want her alone? Somewhere where no one can see her disappear? Where we won’t know to look for her?”
I look up at the golden lights glowing in the windows of the student union. I can just make out the sounds of music and laughter, the clinking of glasses and the braying of noisemakers. Dev is an actor, too—maybe the ultimate actor. In that way, he and Delia are very much alike. And an actor wants an audience. There’s no way Dev will pass up the elegant backdrop of a fancy party, and what’s more theatrical than the irony of killing a girl at the party she helped to plan?
And, after four hundred years, Dev’s bored. He’s not going to pass up the challenge of getting away with murder right under everyone’s nose.
Only a few late guests linger in front of the student union, drifting up the wide front steps in their ball gowns and tuxedos. Most are already inside, preparing to toast the New Year when the clock strikes midnight.
Jesse takes hold of my arm and turns me to face her. “What if he’s ready for you?”
“He thinks I’m locked up,” I say. “Or that the midnight girls have done me in. He thinks he has already won.”
She nods solemnly. “I guess that’s the only advantage we’ve got.” She clears her throat. “Saintly—Mariana—I…”
“What is it?” The clock is ticking. I can feel it in my bones, just like I did up on the clock tower, when the giant hands were inches from my back.
She looks at her hands. “Nothing. I mean, good luck.”
I try for a brave smile. “We’ll have time to talk in the New Year,” I say, and I hope it’s true.
We’re in sight of the front door, where a volunteer dressed as a page is taking tickets from the last-minute guests. She’s flanked on either side by fake guards—empty suits of armor we pulled from the warehouse—but a real security guard stands behind her.
“How will you get past him?” Jesse whispers.
“I won’t,” I say. “There’s a back entrance for volunteers. We’ll sneak in there.” Crouching low, we skirt the edge of the building, headed for the back door. As I hoped, it’s propped open with a cinder block. A man in a white chef’s outfit is carrying trays of desserts from the caterer’s truck nearby. Two volunteers in page outfits are taking a smoke break by the door, but they’re too deep in conversation to notice me as we walk casually past.
Inside, there’s a narrow set of back stairs that must lead up to the event room. To one side of the stairs is a rack of costumes, extra ones we pulled for the volunteers. Just seeing them takes me back to the day Delia and I spent sifting through props at the warehouse. God, it feels like a lifetime ago! Where is she now, I wonder? And does she have any idea that her life may be measured in minutes?
I don’t want to waste even one second, but if we want to pull this off, I have to blend in, and I can’t blend in dressed like this. I rifle quickly through the costumes on the rack, passing over the fluffy dresses for something easier to fight in: a guard’s costume of some sort, I guess, with black breaches and a red cape and a silver breast plate emblazoned with a phoenix. I duck out of sight behind the costume rack.
Jesse starts to follow me, then turns bright red when she realizes I’m about to take my clothes off. I smile at her. I didn’t know ghosts could blush. “Why don’t you keep a lookout?” I whisper.
“Um, sure.” She nods awkwardly and turns her back on me as I strip out of my scrubs. It feels wonderful to get out of the horrible Westgate clothes and into the armor. I try to let the blazing phoenix fill me with courage as I tug on a pair of leather boots and grab a simple black eye mask from a bin on the floor. Yanking a ribbon from the dress beside me, I tie my hair back—anything to keep from being recognized at first glance—and grab a sword from a pile of props from the rack. It’s only made of wood, but it makes me feel better to be armed, even if it’s only pretend.
I step out from behind the costumes. “Okay?”
Jesse nods at me approvingly. “You look like Joan of Arc.”
I wish I felt like Joan of Arc. My heart seems to pound against my breastplate as we climb the back stairs, following the music and laughter up to the ballroom above.
We emerge from the stairway and find ourselves behind the huge set piece clock that dominates the room. Cautiously, we peer out from behind it.
For a moment, I’m so stunned I forget why we’re here completely. I helped prepare for the ball, but even I can’t believe how completely the hall has been transformed. All around the edge of the dance floor, a fairytale forest sparkles with tiny white lights. Scattered among the trees are tables draped in red velvet, and at one end of the room a matching banquet table overflows with sumptuous delights. At the other end, Juliet’s balcony has become the tower of a castle, fitted with two matching thrones that overlook the happy guests dancing below.
And, oh, the guests! They’ve outdone themselves with the costumes. I see princesses and knights, fairy godmothers and wicked queens. A mermaid in a sequined tail shimmies past us, followed by a dapper wolf and a pair of playing cards. A fairy with huge, shimmering wings dances with a woodsman all in leather. A woman in a long, golden wig and a man in a bear suit pose on the royal thrones, smiling for the camera below. It’s all so beautiful, and in the center of it all—
Delia. She’s dressed as Cinderella in a silver mask and her pale blue gown. Her golden hair is curled and piled high on her head. Above her, a banner reads “Happily Ever After” and beside her…