The Year of Shadows (31 page)

Henry and Joan watched me. “What is it, Olivia?”

“I know what our message could be,” I said slowly. “Besides saving the Hall, I mean. Something cool, something to get people’s attention and fill seats. We could tell them about the ghosts.”

H
ENRY AND JOAN
were quiet for a second. Then Joan’s face lit up.

“That,” she whispered, “is brilliant.”

I wasn’t used to people calling me brilliant. “Is it?”

“Yes.
Yes.
It’s the perfect angle. Everyone loves ghost stories and being scared . . .”

“. . . and the Hall is kind of creepy, too,” I said, “with everything so old and broken-down. It’s the perfect setting. We could spread rumors around the city. Maybe your dad could help, Joan. People will listen to him. And it wouldn’t even be lying because it’s the truth, there really
are
ghosts. People might think it was just a rumor, but they’d come anyway, to see for themselves.”

Henry leaned forward. “We could coach the ghosts to show themselves every once in a while, to show people that something really is going on . . .”

Joan picked it up from there. “And people would tell their friends about what happened to them, and more and more people would come . . .”

“And pretty soon we’d have an audience again,” I finished.

Joan leapt up out of her seat and danced.

“Olivia,” Henry said, “you’re a certified genius.” Then he spun me around in this big hug, but I couldn’t even enjoy it. Up in the air, I’d just had a horrible thought.

“Guys . . . wait.” Henry put me down, looking confused. I backed up, shaking my head. “Actually, I don’t know if we can do this. Isn’t it kind of like . . .
using
the ghosts? Making them work for us? What if they don’t want to?”

Henry’s shoulders dropped. “Oh.”

“Of
course
they’ll want to, Olivia,” Joan said patiently. “You’ve helped them all this time. The least they can do now is help you. It’s like you were meant to help each other.” Her eyes shone, and she leaned forward. “That’s what they call—”

“—destiny?” I smiled. Joan was right. We
were
meant to help each other. My skin tingled. “They call it destiny.”

FEBRUARY

T
HE FLIER I
designed looked something like this:

ATTENTION CITIZENS:

HELP SAVE THE GHOSTS OF EMERSON HALL

The City Philharmonic needs your help!

The City Philharmonic is one of our city’s oldest, most honorable institutions.

AND IT’S IN TROUBLE.

We need
5,000 signatures
by March 1.

We need
increased concert attendance
by 1000%.

Otherwise . . .

EMERSON HALL WILL BE DEMOLISHED.

The Hall desperately needs repairs, but repairs cost money. We know times are hard these days, with The Economy, but what’s more worth saving than the culture of our city?

AND THE GHOSTS OF OUR CITY’S PAST, WHICH ARE HAUNTING IT?

Please sign below if you want to save the Hall and its ghosts.

And please come attend City Philharmonic concerts in February,

and meet the ghosts of

Emerson Hall . . .

The flier had a border of music notes and wispy shapes that looked like typical Halloween ghosts. I had drawn the letters in a swirling, official-looking font.

Henry whistled when I showed him the finished copy. “Olivia, it’s beautiful.”

“You think so?” The way Henry said “beautiful” was so nice, I couldn’t stop smiling.

“Yes, absolutely. Don’t you think, Joan?”

Joan kissed it. “It’s completely
marvelous
, Olivia. It looks so impressive, and everything about the ghosts is so intriguing. People won’t be able to resist.”

But it turns out, they could.

We started early the next Saturday morning, and when I say early, I mean seven in the morning, loaded up with backpacks full of pamphlets and clipboards, photographs of the Hall and musicians, and old recordings I’d found
stashed backstage—recordings we hadn’t been able to sell.

The ghosts trailing behind us, we set out down Arlington Avenue in raincoats and boots because it was, of course, raining. It just figured. I scowled at my feet as I squished through the gutters, kicking around gobs of wet leaves. The worst part was that I’d had to borrow a raincoat from Joan. It was so nice, so stylish and sophisticated—yes, a sophisticated raincoat—that I felt like I shouldn’t be allowed to wear it.

“Is there some kind of limit to how far you can go from your haunt?” Henry asked.

The ghosts shrugged. Raindrops sizzled through them.

“I hadn’t thought of that,” I said. If they got a certain distance away from the Hall, would the ghosts pop out of existence or something? Would they fade away or be in some kind of pain? Could ghosts even
feel
pain?

“Well,” said Joan, “maybe they should stay at the Hall—”

“No,” Tillie wailed. “We won’t have anything to do! We’re so bored.”

Jax cuddled close to me. “Don’t worry, Olivia. We can go pretty far. We’ll let you know when it starts to hurt.”

I gaped at him. “Hurt?”

“Well, yeah. Our anchors only let us go so far.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better.”

“Oh, come on, Olivia,” Tillie huffed. “You’ve risked a lot for us. Let us risk something for you.”

“Fine.” I yanked my raincoat shut. “But you’ll let me
know the
second
you start to hurt. Understand?”

The ghosts saluted me in unison. I couldn’t help but smile.

We headed uptown to the park and, for the next few hours, did what Joan called “pounding the pavement,” which is when you walk around and try to shove your business on everyone. It was about as fun as it sounds.

“Excuse me, good sir!” Joan ran up to a man decked out for bike riding, wearing a slick bodysuit and goggles. Henry jogged after her, holding our umbrella over her clipboard. “Might I have a moment, sir?”

The man looked around in surprise. “Uh, what now?”

“Hello and good morning.” Joan shoved herself forward for a ferocious handshake. “My name is Joan Dawson, and these are my associates, Olivia Stellatella and Henry Page. We attend Killough Intermediate School, and we’re here to talk about Emerson Hall.”

“Actually, I’ve got to—”

“All we need is your signature, sir.”

“Right here on this petition,” I added, trying to smile as widely as Joan. It felt more like a scowl.

“This is saying that you don’t want the city to tear down Emerson Hall,” added Henry.

The man glanced at the petition while adjusting his goggles. “Isn’t that the crummy old music hall down on Wichita and Arlington?”

Once upon a time, I would have agreed with that man.
Instead, I found myself getting ready to punch the guy. Henry had to hold me back.

Tillie growled under her breath. “I know I’m not supposed to attack fleshies, but can I attack
this
one?”

“No, Tillie,” Henry hissed.

“With due respect, good citizen,” Joan said, her nose up in the air, “that is not a polite thing to say about your city’s cultural—”

“Look, I’m sorry, kids, but I’ve got a schedule to keep, huh?”

And with that, the bike man zoomed off into the rain.

“You know, I don’t think he even
read
the petition,” Henry said.

“Well, of course he didn’t, he thinks the Hall’s crummy.” I kicked another leaf gob, and it stuck to my shoe like a molasses creature. I made a note to sketch that later: Glorbit the molasses man. “Lots of people are gonna think that, I bet. Maybe we’re just wasting our time. And it’s
raining
.”

“Oh, Olivia, don’t be such a gloomy Gus,” admonished Joan. “Come on, where’s your intrepid spirit? Onward, friends!”

But by ten thirty that morning, even Joan had lost her intrepid spirit. We were wet, cold, weighed down with soaked clothes, and had asked (Henry kept a tally) sixty-seven people for their signatures.

Only six of them had actually signed.

“That last woman was simply wretched,” Joan fumed, as we stomped into a coffee shop on Reginald Square to warm up. “No one believes in free speech more than I do, but there’s no need to
curse
at people.”

“My toes are frozen,” Henry groaned.

“Here, have mine,” Tillie said gleefully, plucking off her toes one by one and dropping them down Henry’s shirt, which made him shudder and dance around.

“Thanks for making me look like an idiot,” he said.

Tillie turned slow, grinning circles in the air. “You’re welcome.”

As they argued, I watched a white-haired man, sitting by the window with tea and a newspaper, look up at us, look back at his newspaper, and then look up again. His face paled. He squinted and shifted his glasses.

He was looking right at Mr. Worthington.

“Guys,” I whispered, elbowing Joan. “Look.”

“Mr. Worthington?” Henry said under his breath. “What are you doing?”

Mr. Worthington shrugged and smiled. “Grrflt.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I said. “He’s gonna start a panic or something!”

The man stumbled out of his seat, pointing at us. He started to talk, but the words got stuck in his throat. His chair crashed to the ground. A woman nearby snapped, “Hey, knock it off, will you?”

“It’s a—It’s a—!” he croaked.

Joan put on her most dazzling smile and marched up to him with her clipboard in hand. “Good morning, sir. Would you like to sign our petition to save Emerson Hall?” Then she leaned close and whispered, “It’s
haunted
, you know.”

The man went even paler and hurried for the door, barreling into a server. Plates full of food came tumbling down.

I rummaged around in my backpack and shoved a piece of paper at the man right before he squeezed out the door. “Here’s a concert schedule!”

“That . . . was amazing,” said Joan. “Just the kind of publicity we need. Except, like, hundreds of more times.”

The coffee shop was a mess. People were staring. The server, mopping up the mess, was
glaring
.

“People are looking at us,” Henry said through his teeth.

“Exactly!”

“What’d you do to that poor guy?” said the woman from before, laughing. “He looked like he saw a ghost.”

I grabbed the petition from Joan. “Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t,” I said. “But if you come see a concert at Emerson Hall, you might find out.”

“And you could sign this petition, too,” Henry added, hurrying over. A line was forming behind the woman, people shoving each other to get a closer look at us.

“Mr. Worthington,” I whispered, “you’re a genius.”

He grinned lopsidedly at me.

As the woman scribbled her name on the petition and read over the flier, Joan grinned at me and gave me a thumbs-up.

Our seventh signature. And
maybe
one of the thousands of people we needed to buy tickets.

It was a start.