Old Tom gave him a slow smile, not even raising his hands to defend himself. When he spoke, he didn’t sound like Old Tom any more.
“You know why, Benjamin. So does she. You’ve always known.”
“Leave her alone!” said Benjamin. “Don’t you dare hurt her!”
“You haven’t changed, have you?” said Old Tom.
His hands came up, inhumanly quickly, and grabbed Benjamin’s wrists. He tore the actor’s hands away from his coat. And then he threw Benjamin back—so hard that the actor slammed up against the far wall of the dressing-room. He hit hard enough to drive all the air from his lungs, and his legs buckled. Elizabeth was quickly there, to hold him and hold him up. Old Tom laughed at them both, an ugly, scary, accusing sound.
Happy stepped forward, again putting himself between the apparition and the actors. He really didn’t want to be there, but he couldn’t let this go on. If only because it was his job to detect ghosts, and Old Tom had fooled him completely. Happy might not be brave, but he had his pride, and there were limits. Even for him. He scowled, concentrating, and hit Old Tom hard with a telepathic blast of pure disbelief. The old caretaker looked suddenly surprised, and his appearance seemed to ripple, like a slow wave on the surface of a lake, disturbed by a breeze. A great dark pool of shadow formed around the caretaker’s feet, then, standing stiffly upright all the while, Old Tom began to sink slowly into the darkness. The feet first, then the ankles, then dropping slowly and steadily up to his knees. The darkness consumed him, swallowing him up, inch by inch, then foot by foot. His back stayed straight, his hands stayed at his sides, and he never stopped smiling at Benjamin and Elizabeth. It was not a good smile. He ignored Happy completely, his harsh and unforgiving gaze fixed on the two actors as they huddled together at the rear of the dressing-room.
“Who are you?” said Benjamin; and his voice was like a frightened child’s.
“Poor Tom’s a cold,” said Old Tom, still smiling, dropping down into the dark pool. Soon he was only a head and shoulders, and then only a head, and then that too was gone, smiling to the last. The dark pool gathered itself in, shrinking to a few inches in diameter, then that, too, was gone, as though it had disappeared down some unknown sink-hole. The linoleum on the floor seemed entirely untouched and unaffected. Happy strode over and stamped on the place, hard; but it was just a floor. He knelt and ran his fingers over the buckled linoleum; but he couldn’t feel anything, with his fingertips or his mind. He stayed crouched, staring at the floor, thinking hard.
Happy rose slowly to his feet. His knees cracked loudly, a sharp sound in the quiet. He looked at Benjamin and Elizabeth. Benjamin was crying quietly, his shoulders jerking as real tears bumped down his face. No presence now, no charisma, no dignity. He was just a man, remembering something unbearable. Elizabeth held him close, cradling his head to her bosom, rocking him like a child. Her face was completely empty, her eyes far-away. After a while, they realised that Happy was watching them. Elizabeth murmured to Benjamin, and he stood up straight and rubbed the tears from his face with the back of his hand. He took a deep breath and stopped himself crying with an almost brutal act of self-control. He looked defiantly at Happy, silently challenging him to say anything, while Elizabeth stood at his side, regarding Happy with cold, wary eyes.
“So,” said Benjamin. “He wasn’t a caretaker, and he wasn’t a journalist. He was a ghost.”
“Looks like it,” said Happy.
“I never thought he was a caretaker,” said Elizabeth. “Far too broad a character.”
“It was an amazingly strong and coherent manifestation,” he said. “Solid to the touch. Real enough that none of us suspected his true nature. That’s not easy to pull off.”
“I was sure he wasn’t what he seemed to be,” said Benjamin. “But it never even occurred to me that he wasn’t
“Sometimes,” said Happy. “I told you, ghosts love to pull tricks on the living. They’re people, after all. With problems and pasts that won’t let them rest, won’t allow them to move on. They can pass as one of us because in many ways they still are.” He looked thoughtfully at Benjamin and Elizabeth. “Did Old Tom seem in any way… familiar, to you? Was there anything about him that suggested…someone you might have known before?”
“The last caretaker I remember from here was Jerry Clarke,” said Benjamin. “About our age, and camp as a row of tents in Tent Land. Nothing like Old Tom.”
“What does the ghost want with us?” said Elizabeth. “Why won’t he leave us alone?”
“You’d know that better than I,” said Happy. But they both fixed him with their stubborn gaze, so Happy sighed quietly and moved on. “The Past has a hold on the dead, as well as the living. Particularly when it involves unfinished business. Now, you two can lie to me all you want about what really happened here twenty years ago. I’m easy to lie to. But that won’t protect you from what’s here in the theatre. Something here has waited twenty years for revenge. Something has not forgotten or forgiven.”
Benjamin and Elizabeth looked at each other, excluding Happy completely.
“We could leave,” Benjamin said tentatively. “We could walk out of here, and never come back.”
“We can’t go,” said Elizabeth. “We’ve sunk everything we have into getting our play off the ground again. This is our last chance, to make it the success it should have been. We’re not young any more. Not old, not yet. But I can see old from where I am. We’re running out of time…to be an overnight success.”
“We can make more money…” said Benjamin.
“This isn’t about the money!” said Elizabeth. “This was never about money! I want our play! I won’t be stopped, and I won’t be beaten. I won’t be driven out of here, by the living or the dead or our own damned past!”
Benjamin smiled suddenly. “That’s my girl.”
And this time, when they looked at each other, Happy could see exactly what they saw in each other.
They all looked around sharply again as they heard footsteps approaching. Outside, in the corridor, slow and heavy footsteps that didn’t even try to seem human were heading their way. The sound came clearly through the closed door, as though carried on something more than the air. Each step more than naturally heavy, like something pressing down on the world, imposing its presence through a sheer act of will. The same kind of footsteps they’d heard before, up on the stage.
Elizabeth clutched at Benjamin. “Not again. I can’t stand it again. Make it go away.”
Benjamin looked at Happy. “If Old Tom was the ghost, what’s that?”
“I think…” said Happy, “that Old Tom was a mask for the real ghost to hide behind. As though he was putting on a performance. Old Tom may be gone now, but the threat is still here.”
He moved forward, to face the closed dressing-room door. It worried him that he couldn’t remember exactly when it had closed, or who had closed it. Outside, in the corridor, the footsteps were drawing slowly, chillingly, closer.
“Lock the door!” said Elizabeth. “Keep the bastard out!”
“Do you have a key?” said Happy.
“Of course we don’t have a key!” said Benjamin. “The renovators had all the keys. When they left, they gave them to the caretaker…Oh God.”
“Do something!” said Elizabeth shrilly.
“You really think locking a door will keep a ghost out?” said Happy, incredulously. “They’re famous for walking through doors! And walls…”
“You’re the expert!” said Benjamin. “There must be something you can do!”
“There’s no other way out of here,” said Elizabeth. “We’re trapped!”
“Yes, I had noticed that, thank you!” said Happy.
He didn’t want to be there. Being in charge, making decisions, doing something, that had always been JC’s role. But Happy was the only Ghost Finder in the room, which made him the man on the spot. Part of him wanted to open the door, run blindly, and hope the actors could keep up. Another part wanted to pull open the door, point at
