The Show Must Go On! (10 page)

A hush fell over the audience as the houselights dimmed and the curtain went up. The stage lights came on, revealing the set for Carrie's bedroom.

A thrill ran through Bree.
Here I go! This is so exciting!

She watched herself step out onto the stage. The audience applauded wildly. Perhaps the person clapping the loudest was her sister, Megan. A great feeling of satisfaction washed over her.

The audience grew quiet. Onstage Bree took a breath, then opened her mouth to start the show.

BOOOOOM!!!

A thunderous explosion rocked the auditorium.

Now Bree saw herself buried onstage in a cloud of smoke and debris.

Bree bolted upright in bed, covered in cold sweat. She tossed her covers onto the floor, then followed them off the bed. Landing on the pile of covers, she wrapped herself up like a cocoon, rocking back and forth on the floor. A few moments later she realized that she was whimpering like a baby. She felt out of control, as if her life had been taken away from her and all she could do was watch from the sidelines—or the balcony.

The dream she had just had was no ordinary nightmare. It was a warning. Whoever or whatever was now controlling her life was trying to tell her that something bad was going to happen if she walked out onto that stage on the opening night of this play.

Bree rolled onto her side and pushed herself up to a
standing position. Her path was now clear. She had to get dressed, go to school, and tell Ms. Hollows that she could not do the play.

I know, I know,
she began saying to herself, but in some ways it felt as if she were arguing with another person—more specifically, another Bree.
How can you do this? Opening night is tomorrow. You can't just walk out on everyone. The whole cast, all your friends, Ms. Hollows—the whole school is depending on you to come through. How can you leave them in the lurch like that?

“No!” Bree shouted, then caught herself, hoping no one else in the house had heard her. She lowered her voice as she continued the conversation. “I can't let what everybody else thinks control my life anymore. That's one of the reasons I decided to do the play in the first place. Megan thought I wasn't cut out for the theater. Tiffany thought I didn't deserve to have the lead in the play. And now, if everyone thinks I'm a quitter, well, that's just too bad! I don't care what everyone thinks. I don't even care what
you
think!”

She stopped, realizing that she was now staring in the mirror, carrying on this argument with her reflection.

That sudden awareness acted like a splash of cold water in the face.

“Walk away from the mirror, Bree, eat a piece of toast, and go to school like a normal person.”

But once again, on the walk to school, Bree's mind began to change. As if the school building—or more specifically, the auditorium—exerted some force, some control, over her thoughts. The closer she got to the school, the stronger the feeling that compelled her to do the play in the first place got. By the time she walked into school, she knew that she was going to that afternoon's final rehearsal, and that she would indeed walk out onto the stage tomorrow night, opening night, and perform the part of Carrie.

None of which lessened her anxiety. She could not get the image of the explosion out of her mind. Through each class, walking in the halls between classes, sitting at lunch, and talking to her friends, she felt distracted, her mind locked on that single, devastating image.

“Earth to Bree,” someone said as she walked through the hallway on her way to rehearsal.

Bree spun around, practically jumping into the air.

“Melissa!” she cried. “You shouldn't sneak up on
people.” She tried to joke her way out of the reality that her mind was far away, lost in her terrible dream.

“You've been in a fog all day, Bree,” Melissa said. “Getting the ‘I can't believe opening night is tomorrow' jitters?”

“Maybe,” Bree replied flatly. She had already told Melissa too many weird things. She was not about to share her most recent nighmare with her too.

“Are you kidding?” Melissa said. “Even with all the bizarre stuff you've had to deal with, you have been the glue that holds this show together, Bree. You're a rock. You are going to rule tomorrow night!”

If I survive.
Bree thought, grimacing.

“Thanks, Lis,” Bree said, trying to sound happy—like her usual self. “I guess it is opening-night nerves. What else could it be? I mean, this
is
my first play, and I am playing the lead.”

“You'll be great,” Melissa repeated as they reached the auditorium. She pulled open the door, and Bree followed her inside.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please assemble onstage,” Ms. Hollows said as Bree reached the front of the auditorium.

Bree joined the rest of the cast on the stage.

“This is our final rehearsal. Our dress rehearsal. We will be performing the entire play, start to finish, exactly as we will be doing it tomorrow night in front of an audience. Before we begin, I would like to let each and every one of you know that I could not be more proud of you,” Ms. Hollows began. “You started as a group of individuals, each with your own ideas about what this play was and what your part in it would be. In the weeks we have worked together, we have become a unit, a team. Each of you has put aside any notion you walked in here with, for the good of the play, and your performances certainly reflect that. I could not have asked for a better cast.

“Watching you bring the author's words to life has been a rewarding experience for me. I believe in this play strongly, as strongly as if I had written it myself. And on that note, let's begin. Break a leg, everyone!”

As the cast headed backstage, the lights dimmed, and Bree stepped out from behind the curtain to begin the first scene. As she opened her mouth to deliver her first line, a wave of panic seized her. The image of the explosion played out in front of her eyes, as if someone
were projecting a movie of her dream right here, where it happened.

“I—I,” Bree stammered. She was Bree, alone and frightened on the stage. She was not in character at all. She was certainly not Carrie. She was Bree caught in the grip of the deadly vision that now haunted her every waking minute.

Ms. Hollows stepped up to the edge of the stage. “Gabrielle,” she said. “What is the problem?”

“I'm sorry, Ms. Hollows,” Bree said, using every ounce of willpower to push aside the terror and the panic that shook her whole body. “Must just be nerves. Let's start again. I'll get it this time.”

Bree walked offstage and took a deep breath.
You only have to do this a few more times in your entire life. You know the lines. You know what to do. Just do it!

She walked back onto the stage. The lights dimmed, and this time she became Carrie. The play began, and she moved from scene to scene seamlessly. The further into the play she got, the more her sense of panic and impending doom eased.

She felt comfortable as Carrie.

It was even somewhat of a relief to lose herself in the
character, to become someone else for a couple of hours.

When the dress rehearsal had ended, Ms. Hollows called the cast together. “Excellent! I have never felt more confident about a play I have been involved with. Opening night is tomorrow, ladies and gentlemen,” she said. “Everyone please get a good night's sleep. I will see all of you for the performance.”

A rush of all-too-familiar anxiety overwhelmed Bree.
Those are exactly the same words Ms. Hollows said in my dream. And then . . . and then . . .

All the calm and relief she had felt during the rehearsal vanished in a moment.

Struggling to hold herself together, Bree hurried backstage. She didn't want Melissa to see her like this. She didn't want anyone to see her like this. She just wanted it to all be over. The fear, the nightmares, the crazy masks and lights and phone calls, the play.

The play.

Ever since it had come into her life, Bree had felt as if the play was a really bad thing disguised as a really good thing.

Every time she had begun to feel good about the experience, something inside, something deeper, felt
off, wrong, even threatened. The play would be finished soon and she would be free—free of the power it seemed to hold over her. And then she would never have to do it again.

“Coming, Bree?” Melissa asked, sticking her head backstage.

“Nah, my mom's coming to pick me up,” Bree said, trying her hardest to act normal. “I'll hang here.”

“'Kay,” Melissa said. “See ya tomorrow for the big show!”

“Tomorrow,” Bree repeated. Melissa left the auditorium, along with the rest of the cast.

Bree knew that her mom would be there in about twenty minutes. Enough time to do what she needed to do. She hurried from the auditorium and raced to the library, knowing it was unlocked. Slipping into the room, she was overwhelmed by the silence. It was so weird to be here without Mr. Harris, and without a roomful of studying students. But she didn't need Mr. Harris's help for this. She just needed a computer, and she couldn't wait until she got home to use her own.

Signing onto one of the library's computers, she searched for “Mildred P. Wormhouse.” As she typed the
name, she wondered why she hadn't done this earlier. It seemed to Bree that the key to all of this had to rest with the playwright herself.

After a few minutes of digging, she found a website dedicated to obscure playwrights. Searching through the names, she found what she was looking for—a short biography of Mildred P. Wormhouse.

Reading the bio, Bree learned that
The Last Sleepover
was the only play that Wormhouse ever wrote. Apparently, she had had a difficult, unhappy childhood. She had few friends and spent much time alone. The bio referred to the death of Gabrielle Ashford on the opening night of the play at Thomas Jefferson Middle School. And it also said that Mildred P. Wormhouse apparently disappeared shortly after the event and was never heard from again.

Her whereabouts, or even whether she was still alive, remained unknown.

Wormhouse was quoted in the piece as saying, “I was endlessly tormented by one particular bully. As a matter of fact, she was the inspiration for my play. She turned everyone at school against me, and there was nothing I could do about it. And so, since I had no
control over events in my real life, I decided to get my revenge through my writing, through
The Last Sleepover
. Not to be too obvious, I shortened the name of the poor tormented ghost in my play from my own ‘Mildred' to just ‘Millie.' And I changed the name of my tormentor completely, calling her Carrie rather than her true name—Gabrielle.”

Bree reached the end of the bio and sat, stunned. Not only was the girl who died thirty years named Gabrielle, but so was the bully who'd excluded young Mildred from sleepovers—the inspiration for the play itself.

“This whole play is about revenge,” Bree said to herself. “Revenge against the Gabrielle who excluded Mildred. Was it also revenge against Gabrielle Ashford? Will it also be revenge against Gabrielle Hart—against me?”

She shut down the computer and hurried from the library. She still had a few minutes before her mom would be there, so she headed back to the auditorium to pick up her things, trying to digest what she had just learned.

The auditorium was silent. Bree was alone.

Or so she thought.

She suddenly heard the soft scraping of feet, the sound of someone running down the aisle.

“Who's there?” she called out, stepping from backstage out onto the stage. She saw no one. “Hello?”

A shadow moved at the back of the theater.

“Who is it?” Bree called again, staring intently into the darkness.

She saw a quick movement near the bottom of the stairs leading up to the balcony. Then a figure stepped into a small pool of light cast from above.

Bree caught a momentary glimpse of a face, half in light, half in shadow.

It was the face of a girl, a girl about her age, but Bree couldn't place her.

“What are you doing here?” Bree cried out.

The girl said nothing. She simply turned and hurried up the stairs leading to the balcony.

Bree chased after the girl, racing to the stairs. A mysterious stranger lurking in the shadows of the theater? Mysterious, yet familiar—just like the voice in the phone calls. In light of all that had happened, Bree felt certain that this was the person behind everything.
She was going to get her answers, and she was going to get them now, tonight, so that when the curtain went up tomorrow night, all this craziness would be behind her.

She dashed up the stairs, taking them two at a time. As she ran, she heard soft, steady footsteps charging ahead on the flight of stairs above her. Up she went, to the top level of the theater. As she rounded each turn on the staircase, Bree caught a brief glimpse of a foot, or a leg, or a flash of color vanishing around the bend ahead.