The Hanging Hill

13

“Mr. Grimes said he’d meet us in the lobby,” said Judy.

The lobby was empty.

“What time?” asked Zack.

“I think I told him seven.”

In perfect sync, Judy and Zack both glanced at their wristwatches. Eleven-thirty p.m.

“Oops,” said Zack.

“Guess we shouldn’t have stopped for gas.”

“Or dinner.”

“Or ice cream cones,” said Judy.

Zack said it again: “Oops.”

“Tell you what: We’ll take a quick look around. If he’s already gone home, we can stay at that Holiday Inn we passed on the way into town.”

“Okay.”

“You take the auditorium. I’ll head upstairs and see if he’s in his office.”

“Cool.”

“We meet back here in five minutes.”

“Check.”

And they split up.

Judy headed up a staircase with an elaborately carved banister. Zack pulled open a door to what he thought was the auditorium.

Turned out it was another staircase. A sign on the wall said Box 2-B and had an arrow pointing up. Fine. He could check out the whole auditorium from an elevated post in the box seats. He bounded up the steps, pushed through a velvety curtain.

“Hello?” he called out. “Mr. Grimes?”

The auditorium was pitch-dark except for the bright light cast from a bare bulb on top of a pole at center stage.

“Mr. Grimes?”

No answer. Just his own voice echoing from the darkness. Zack shrugged and headed for the curtained alcove to take the stairs back down to the lobby.

“Thank you! Thank you all!” a lilting voice called out.

Okay. Mr. Grimes wasn’t here, but somebody else sure was.

“Bless you, darlings! Bless you all!”

Zack turned around and made his way back to the edge of the box so he could look down at the shadowy sea of seats. Nothing. Nobody.

“You were a marvelous audience! Marvelous!”

Now he looked toward the stage. The single bulb blinded him a bit, but his eyes soon adjusted.

There, at the lip of the stage, in the shadowy darkness just above the first row of seats, he saw a very grand woman in a jeweled headdress and a ruffled gown. Her crinkly gloves reached up past her elbows. She clutched a bouquet of plump roses and kept bowing and bowing, over and over again.

“Thank you! Bless you! You’re too, too kind.”

Zack knew the elegant woman had to be a ghost. Nobody had dressed like that since maybe World War I.

“Come back again, my darlings!” she called out to the invisible crowd giving her what must have been the world’s first silent ovation. “I’m here for three more weeks!”

Great.

Zack and Judy would be here for three weeks, too.