The Show Must Go On! (11 page)

Once she reaches the balcony, there's nowhere else to go,
Bree thought as her feet pounded the stairs.
I've got her. And she will tell me who she is and what has been going on!

Reaching the top level of the staircase, she stepped out onto the balcony. Short rows of seats angled down toward the stage far below. A low railing ran across the front of the balcony. There Bree spotted the girl she had been chasing. The girl peered over the railing, looking down at the empty stage.

“There's nowhere to go, you know,” Bree said firmly. “You can't run anymore. I know you're the one who's been messing with me, playing these tricks, trying to
make me believe that I'm crazy or that I shouldn't be in this play or who knows what. Well, it ends here.”

She rushed down the aisle, walked up to the girl, and grabbed her by the shoulders.

“Who
are
you?” she demanded, spinning the girl around. For the first time she got a good look at her face.

Bree released the girl's shoulders. Were her eyes playing tricks on her? How could this be? Bree stared right into the girl's eyes. The face belonged to . . . Bree! She was looking at her own face, staring at herself.

“I'm not dreaming, am I?” Bree asked.

The other girl, the other Bree, shook her head.

“Then what's happening to me?” Bree shouted, venting all her anger and frustration in one powerful outburst.

The other Bree spoke in a voice that Bree had come to know all too well.

“Leave now, and never come back . . . or you'll be sorry!”

Bree was so stunned by hearing those same words, spoken with that familiar voice—her own voice—that she stumbled backward toward the stairs. Trying to
regain her balance, as her mind tried to make sense of what had just happened, she tripped at the top of the stairs.

She went tumbling down the stairs and hit her head on the landing.

That last thing she saw before everything went dark was her own face looking down at her from the top of the stairs. The other Bree was smiling.

Bree opened her eyes slowly. At first she could not make sense of her surroundings. She felt her head resting on a pillow.

Her awareness then shifted from the softness of the pillow to the throbbing pain in her head. Her blurry vision began to clear, and she could make out a rectangular plastic light cover, the type used to cover fluorescent bulbs in office buildings and hospitals.

Bree next focused on the ring of faces looking down at her.

Mom? Dad? Megan? What's going on?

“Where am I?” she asked, finally mustering enough energy to speak.

“You're in the hospital, sweetheart,” her mom
replied. “That was quite a fall you took, but the doctors say you're going to be just fine.”

“Nice to see you awake, kiddo,” her dad added.

“You'll do anything for attention, won't you, little sister?” Megan asked, smiling a genuinely warm smile.

“Fall? I really did fall?” Bree asked, still very confused. “That wasn't a dream?”

“No, honey, I wish it had been just a dream,” her mom said.

“What day is it?” Bree asked, trying to sit up, but only managing to lift her head a few inches before falling back down onto the pillow. “What about the play? What happened to the play? Did the show go on?”

“Relax, honey,” her mom said, gently stroking Bree's forehead. “You've been here for two days. The play was supposed to open yesterday, but of course, the opening was postponed after your fall.”

“You can't put on a play without the lead, after all,” Megan said.

“And, of course, everyone was so relieved that the play was postponed,” her mom continued.

“What do you mean, relieved?” Bree asked.

“Because of what happened,” Megan said. She
grabbed a remote and flipped on the TV, which hung above Bree's hospital bed. Megan dialed around until she found a news report.

“Crews are still cleaning up from the small explosion that took place yesterday evening in the auditorium of Thomas Jefferson Middle School,” the news announcer reported. “The blast went off at seven thirty, which was the precise time a play at the school was about to begin. Fortunately, the play had been postponed, and so the auditorium was empty at the time of the blast. No one was injured. Cleanup crews have been working around the clock to get that section of the school open and safe for use again.”

Megan shut off the TV.

“The blast happened exactly at the moment I would have gone onstage to begin the play!” Bree said, trying again to sit up and once again falling back onto her pillow.

“Don't get excited, honey,” her mom said. “You were very lucky. I'm not happy you fell, but when I think about what might have happened if the play had gone on . . . ”

“In my dream I saw myself out onstage,” Bree began to rant. “And I watched from above as I was about to start the play. I saw that explosion happen before it happened!”

She paused. If it sounded strange to her, imagine how it must sound to her family.

“Get some rest, honey,” her mother said. “You've been through a lot.”

Bree closed her eyes and tried to make sense of everything. Could the other Bree she saw have placed that dream into her mind, the dream in which she saw what would have happened if she'd gone out to start the play? And when she didn't heed that warning, did her other self show up at the theater, while Bree was awake, to warn her in person?

With these questions swirling through her mind, and her body still weak and tired from the fall, Bree drifted off into a deep sleep. She gently fell into a dream, but this time the dream was calming and beautiful rather than terrifying.

In her dream, she was walking through a field of flowers on a beautiful, sunny day. As she strolled through the field, Bree was joined by her other self. It felt like the most natural thing in the world. It felt like an old friend had decided to accompany Bree on her stroll.

“The play is cursed, you know,” the other Bree explained as they walked. “Whether by explosion, or a
light falling, or some other way, whoever plays the lead is destined to die.”

“Somehow I did know that, or I sensed it or something,” Bree said. “But who are you?”

“It's a little complicated,” the other Bree replied. “I'm you. Or rather, I am your spirit. I'm the ghost of the Bree who would have played the lead and died in the explosion if she hadn't tripped and fallen.”

“So you died?” Bree asked. “I mean,
I
died?”

“Sort of,” the other Bree said. “There are many timelines that run parallel to one another. They are based on the choices we each make a hundred times a day. Things like ‘Do I walk or take the bus?' ‘Do I go to my friend's house or hang out at home?' ‘Do I go to see the seven o'clock showing of a movie or the eight o'clock showing?' Simple choices like that.

“Every so often two of the timelines intersect. In our case, I made them intersect. With your help. Each of the dreams you had in which you saw me opened a portal between timelines. That portal allowed me to pass back and forth between timelines.

“By the time you had that last dream, the portal was stable enough that I was able to come through and stay
in your timeline. That was how I was able to visit you in the theater. I know this is all kind of confusing.”

“No, I think I understand,” Bree said. “You are from the timeline in which I chose to go out onstage on opening night and do the play. And in that timeline, I died. You are my spirit from that timeline. You crossed over to my timeline, hoping to stop me from going onstage on opening night.

“I watched as the explosion happened and I was buried in rubble. I saw what was supposed to happen in my dream, but it was because of my other self—because of you—that the show did not go on and I didn't get caught in the explosion.

“It was you! You were trying to warn me all along. You were trying to keep me from walking out onto that stage, either by scaring me out of the play or by calling me and telling me to leave. All that, all these weird things that have been happening to me, was just
me
trying to warn
me
.”

“Exactly,” the other Bree said. “I tried to prevent you from being on that stage when the explosion happened. And because of the way the timelines worked, I could only really do things that were part of the play.
That's why it seemed like the scary things in the play were coming true in your real life. It was all I had to work with.

“I succeeded in getting you away from the stage on opening night, though your falling was never part of my plan. I also did it for selfish reasons. I did it to free myself and finally allow my spirit to rest.”

“I don't understand,” Bree said.

“It's part of the curse of the play,” the spirit explained. “Not only does the girl playing the lead die, but she is cursed to be stuck inside the play, reliving it day after day, doing all the scary things that happen again and again, just like the girl who died thirty years ago, the first girl to ever play the role.”

“That's why I was able to watch
her
performance in one of my dreams!” Bree suddenly realized. “She is stuck in the play, doing it over and over, dying again and again. One of those times I was able to watch her through my dreams. Just like I saw you die in my dreams.”

“That's when I crossed timelines and was able to enter your physical reality in the theater that night,” the other Bree said. “But I couldn't figure out how to warn you in any way you would actually believe me.

“And now that you are safe, I am finally free to rest in peace.”

Before Bree could say anything else, her other self smiled and faded away, leaving Bree standing in the field of flowers with an overwhelming feeling of peace. Just before her dream faded, leaving her in the deepest, most restful sleep she had experienced in weeks, Bree thought about the good things that being in the play had done for her. She thought about how being involved with the play had given her the confidence to go onstage again and break out of her shell. Only next time, she would do it in a play that was not cursed!

After a few more days in the hospital, Bree finally went home. She rested at home for another week before she felt well enough to return to school. On her first day back, before classes, a meeting of the cast of
The Last Sleepover
was called to decide the fate of the play. With the auditorium still under reconstruction, the meeting was held in the gym.

Being back in school for the first time since her accident, Bree felt surprisingly calm. All the fears, doubts,
and anxieties that had plagued her for weeks had vanished along with her spirit self when her dream had ended.

Stepping into the gym, Bree was greeted by a standing ovation.

“Welcome back, Bree!” Melissa shrieked, rushing over to Bree and throwing her arms around her. “This school is just not the same without you!”

“It's great to be back,” Bree said.

“All right, everyone, please take a seat in the bleachers,” boomed someone from the front of the gym.

Bree turned her head, along with everyone else. She knew from the voice that the speaker was not Ms. Hollows, but rather a tall man walking with a cane.

“Hello, everyone. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Mr. Gomez,” he began. “I'm the drama teacher here at Thomas Jefferson. I was also supposed to have been your director for this year's play, but unfortunately, I broke my leg shortly before rehearsals were to begin.”

“What happened to Ms. Hollows?” Melissa asked.

“She was only hired to direct that one play,” Mr. Gomez explained. “And since the performance got postponed,
and I was able to return to work, she has left the school.”

“I won't miss her,” Tiffany whispered, leaning close to Bree's ear. “She was weird.”