The Year of Shadows (10 page)

“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 Henry 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?

His expression made me nervous, but I slid my sketchpad forward anyway. “This is my sketchpad. It’s where I keep all my drawings. I take it everywhere I go.”

“And?”

And Mom gave it to me and told me it was important to dream. Dreaming tells us who we are and scrubs away the bad days.
I glared at Joan. “And nothing. That’s it.”

Joan sighed. “Henry?”

Henry slid forward a glass jar brown with age and dust and dirt and who knows what else. It rattled, but the glass was too dark to see inside.

“This is my . . . my jar,” he said. “I keep important things in there, things that mean a lot to me. And . . . well, yeah.”

“That’s all you’re going to say?” said Joan.

Henry nodded.

“Look, I hope you two are committed to this and have open minds,” Joan said. “Otherwise it won’t work.”

“Joan, we’re committed, we’ve got open minds, we’re full of sunshine,” I said. “Let’s just do this, okay?”

“Fine.” Joan thrust out her arms. “Grab my hands and bow your heads.”

“Sunshine, Joan,” Henry said, soothingly. “Sunshine, remember?”

Joan closed her eyes. “Yes. Positive energy. Positive . . .” She breathed in. “Energy.” She breathed out.

We joined hands. We closed our eyes. Then Joan began to speak.

“
Spirits
,” Joan called out, throwing back her head. She almost jerked my arm out of its socket. “We are here tonight to speak with you, and to offer our help, if you need it. Can you hear us? Are you there?”

Nothing. Complete stillness, except for the dancing fire and its shadows. I squeaked open one eye to look around and saw Henry doing the same thing. I shut my eyes before he could see me looking, and tried to concentrate.

“Spirits?” Joan called out again. “We are here. We wish to speak with you. Can you hear us?”

After a minute, Joan let go, sighing. “This isn’t working.”

Henry raised his eyebrows. “Shouldn’t we try for a little longer than that? It’s only been—”

“Listen, I know all about séances, and you don’t want to
linger too long in any one position. You have to
rotate your methods
.” She spun her hand around.

“Whatever you say.”

Joan pulled out her homemade Ouija board and started rearranging everything. Igor perched on the edge of the stage and looked out over the empty Hall, into the shadows. His ears pricked forward; his tail stood straight out behind him.

He meowed softly.
Curiouser and curiouser.

I looked out into the Hall too, but all I could see was the red exit signs. One of them flickered on and off, buzzing. Had it been doing that before? And the coldness settling into the Hall like an invisible fog, scraping goosebumps across my skin—how long had that been going on?

Slowly, Igor stood up. The hair on the back of his neck poofed.
Curiousest of all.

“Come on, Olivia,” Joan was saying. “We need your hands.” She shoved our hands together onto the Ouija board’s pointer, a piece of cardboard with a hole in the middle and plastic wrap stretched across the bottom of the hole. It distorted the letters, wrinkling them.

“Don’t press down too hard,” Joan whispered. “Just barely touch the cardboard. Close your eyes. Let out a long breath.”

After I exhaled, the only sounds I could hear were my own racing heartbeat and the distant buzzing of the exit sign. Beside me, Henry pressed his knee against mine.

“
Spirits
,” Joan called out once more. “Tell us—
are you here with us?
”

Beneath our fingers, the pointer began to move. Henry cried out, and I bit down hard on my tongue to keep from doing the same.

“Don’t stop,” she hissed. “We’re getting somewhere. Watch.”

We did, staring at the pointer as it moved across the board—but what letter was it heading for? First
N
, and then
Y
, and then
Z
. That didn’t make any sense.