The Year of Shadows (29 page)

M
R. WORTHINGTON MET
us in the west lobby, wringing his hat in his hands. It reminded me of Nonnie.

“Nnngh,” he moaned. “Nnngh.”

I was in too good a mood for this. I slapped my hands on my knees. “Come on, boy! Who’s a good ghost? Show me what’s wrong! Can you show me what’s wrong?”

Mr. Worthington frowned and pointed at one of the doors leading into the main Hall.

“That was kind of rude,” Henry said.

“Sorry, Mr. Worthington. What is it?”

He led us inside. Mr. Rue was there, and the Maestro, and someone else I didn’t recognize—a tall man in a nice suit. They were walking around the Hall, and Mr. Rue had a bunch of papers in his hands. A group of ghosts floated behind them. They always liked spying on new people.

“Oh, man.” Henry pulled me down behind the seats. “That’s Mayor Pitter!”

Tillie and Jax zoomed up behind us. “What’s he doing here?”

“Nnnnnngh!” Mr. Worthington said, pointing at the mayor.

We followed them, creeping through the seats as close as we dared.

“You have to understand, Otto,” Mayor Pitter was saying, “I didn’t want to have to do this. But I’m under enormous pressure from City Council. The fact is, your orchestra’s a dying business, and Emerson Hall sits on a huge patch of land. I can’t just let it sit here, taking up space and losing money, while so many people are out of work. I could build shops here, apartment buildings! Businesses that would actually make money.”

By this point, they had stopped moving, and so had we. Henry and I crouched in the seats, hardly breathing.

“Are they saying what I think they’re saying?” Jax whispered.

Mr. Worthington curled himself up into a ball of black smoke and moaned softly.

The Maestro threw his arms up in the air. “I can’t believe you’re just standing here listening to this, Walter!”

“Walter?” Tillie said.

“That’s Mr. Rue,” Henry whispered.

I couldn’t say anything. That happy feeling buzzing around in my chest? Sinking fast.

“He is talking about shutting down our orchestra,” the Maestro said. “And we’re the only one the city has! My musicians will be out of work.
I
will be out of work. I’ll be a
laughingstock, mocked across the world because I couldn’t keep my orchestra alive.
Pitied
for it.”

Mr. Rue looked up sadly from his papers. “Otto, maybe it’s time. Our numbers aren’t getting any better. And the mayor’s right, the land could be put to better use.”

Then the Maestro spat out an Italian curse word—one of the really bad ones—and shoved Mr. Rue away, hard.

“Really, Otto,” said Mayor Pitter, frowning. “Get control of yourself, or the police will. Have some dignity, man.”

“What if someone came up to you, Mayor Pitter,” the Maestro said, “and told you he was about to take away everything you’d worked for your whole life?”

“I’d be angry at him.” Mayor Pitter put a hand on the Maestro’s arm, which I thought was pretty brave, considering. “I don’t want to tear down my city’s only music hall. I used to play the trombone, actually. In school. Did you know that?”

The Maestro just stared at him. I knew that look. I shot that look at people when I was secretly imagining stomping them into a pancake with my boot.

“But times are tough,” the Mayor said, “and your orchestra’s not cutting it.”

He started walking away, and then stopped and turned back. “If you don’t raise your ticket sales by one thousand percent by the end of March, then that’ll be it. We’ll tear down the Hall in the spring. Unveil a development plan in the fall. It’ll boost city morale. People will get excited about
something again.” Then he paused and said, “I’m sorry,” and I could tell he was.

But that didn’t make things any better.

“I’ll do it,” the Maestro said quietly, once the Mayor was gone. “Somehow I’ll raise the money. I’ll make it happen, Walter.”

“No, you won’t, Otto. We’ve
been
trying, haven’t we?” Mr. Rue’s frown was the saddest I’d ever seen. “It’s over, my friend. It’s over.”

Then Mr. Rue put his arm around the Maestro’s shoulders, and they left, the Maestro’s head in his hands.

“Olivia?” Henry got to his feet and helped me up too. “Are you okay?”

“Tear it down?” Tillie looked around at each of us, and for the first time since I’d met her, it looked like she might cry. Her eyes were these big shaking black pools. “What does that mean?”

“What if we can’t find our anchors before they do it?” Jax whispered. “What’ll happen to us?”

“Olivia.” Henry shook me a little. “Say something.”

I ran for the door.

Out the front lobby and across the street, not even waiting for the walk signal. I heard brakes screeching and cab drivers cussing me out, but I didn’t care. I slammed open The Happy Place door so loud that Gerald got spooked and started flying around the shop.

Henry and my ghosts were right on my heels as I barreled
into The Ghost Room. Mrs. Barsky was there, counting money.

Just looking at it made me want to be sick.

“Mrs. Barsky,” I said, “what happens if a ghost’s haunt is torn down before they can find their anchor?”

“What?” Mrs. Barsky put her hand to her mouth. “Is the Hall going to be—?”

“Just answer me!”

“If a ghost’s haunt is destroyed, the ghost has no home. The haunt is protection. Without the haunt, a ghost will fall prey to shades almost immediately. He won’t be able to move on. He won’t be able to find his anchor.” Mrs. Barsky squeezed my hands. “Baby, is something going to happen to the Hall?”

Yes. Something was going to happen. They were going to tear it down, and without it, my ghosts would be homeless. They’d be out in the world, alone and unprotected.

And so would I.

PART THREE

I
COULDN’T SLEEP
for a while after that. I kept having too many nightmares.

In the nightmares, there were storms. They weren’t storms that made sense, because even though there was wind and rain and hail, you could still see the stars. The stars were giant, hurtling closer and closer to where I stood with Igor, Nonnie, and the ghosts. And the closer the stars got, the harder it was to stay together.

We were holding on to the Hall, to the columns that held up the staircases in the main lobby. But then it turned out the Hall and the storm were actually this giant, swirling black hole, and that’s what was sucking the stars toward us.

Nonnie was the first to fly away from me. Then the ghosts and Igor. Then me.

The Hall sucked us into Limbo, and then it collapsed, and we were stuck in cold nothingness.

Forever.

One night, instead of trying to sleep, I settled in one of the Hall’s floor seats with a candle from Mrs. Barsky and drew.

The ghosts stayed in my room with Nonnie. It was safe enough in there with her. Anyway, the shades had basically disappeared in the last few days. I hadn’t seen even one creepy shadow-fingernail.

Maybe they figured they didn’t have to hunt my ghosts anymore. After Mayor Pitter tore down the Hall, the shades would have all the ghost victims they wanted—mine and the countless others who kept showing up, asking Mrs. Barsky for help.

“This is stupid.” I scribbled out the sketch of Nonnie being sucked away from me by my nightmare and wiped my eyes on my pajama sleeve. “We should just find me a cardboard box to live in and get it all over with.”

Igor massaged the cushion of the chair beside me with his claws.
Funny. I never thought of you as a quitter. Human, yes. Therefore somewhat of a simpleton, yes. But never a quitter.

“I’m not quitting, I’m just . . . scared.”

Igor pushed his paws against my leg.
Being homeless isn’t so bad, you know.

“You’re a cat, Igor. I’m a human. I can’t live on the streets.”

His whiskers twitched.
See? Simpleton. My point exactly.

Then I heard someone humming from across the Hall. At first, I saw only a dark figure walking across the stage, and I grabbed Igor, ready to run.

But it was just the Maestro. And it was too late to run from him. He’d seen me.

“Olivia?”

I settled lower in the seat, like preparing for battle. “What? I’m drawing.”

When the Maestro reached me, he stood there silently for a second before sitting down. Maybe he was waiting for me to say something else, but I wouldn’t. I wanted him to speak first. I’d been waiting for him to tell me about Mayor Pitter and the Hall, and maybe he was finally going to do it.

“That’s, uh,” he said. “Your drawing. I like it. What is it?”

I glared up at him. “A black hole of death.”

“Oh. Well. That’s good.”

I rolled my eyes and kept drawing.

“Did you know that, when your mother and I first met, it was because of the orchestra?”

So I guess he wasn’t going to talk about our soon-to-be-homeless problem after all. I dug the tip of my charcoal harder into my sketchpad and said nothing.

“She said the sound of their music—of
my
music—was like someone calling her home at last. She said she’d never heard anything so beautiful. Did you know that?”

“Whatever.”

But he kept going like I wasn’t even there. He settled back against the chair and gazed at the pipe organ. “If I can make them play beautifully enough, and loudly enough, and just right, I think she will find her way back home again. It will be like before, only it will be right this time, no mistakes. She will come back to us, Olivia.”

Now that, I couldn’t stand. I slammed my sketchpad
closed. “No, she won’t. She’s never coming back. And anyway, soon there won’t be anything to come back to.” I got out of my seat so I could feel taller than him. “Will there?”

He looked at me for a long time, and then tightened the sash of his robe. “I know I saw something, Olivia. The day the ceiling fell. I know I did.”

Then he wandered away through the Hall, taking his time and humming. Mahler 2, again. Waving his hands to an invisible orchestra. Peeking into the shadows.

When he’d slipped backstage again, I felt it—a presence, somewhere behind me. Without turning around, I grabbed my sketchpad under one arm and Igor under the other, and pretended I was made of stone.

Stones were brave. Stones didn’t break. I turned around.

A shade stood there, a tall piece of darkness in a dark room. One of its long-fingered arms was reaching for me.

“Get away!” I hissed, kicking at it. “Get away from me! Go home!”

It shrunk a little, and groaned and darted away, like I’d scared it. I hoped I had.

Then, just before the shade disappeared into the east lobby, color flickered across it. White, and blue, and gold.

For that one second, I thought I saw a familiar face. A face I hadn’t seen in over a year.

“Mom?” I whispered.

But then the color was gone, and the shade was just a shade, slithering out the door on its belly.

I cuddled Igor close. “Did you see that?”

He flicked his tail.
I’m a cat, pet. I see more things than you can imagine.