The Phantom of Oz, Installment #6
And a real ghost
Hello! Welcome to Installment #6 of my weekly serialization of The Phantom of Oz. If you missed earlier chapters, you can read Installment #1 here, Installment #2 here, Installment #3 here, Installment #4 here, or Installment #5 here.
I have a cold, so not much extra fun stuff today, except to tell you that I was also sick during much of the writing of Phantom, thanks to a ghost I met in New Orleans. After the Bouchercon (mystery) Conference, I wandered the French Quarter with my friend Pam. I was waiting for her outside a shop when I noticed someone blowing cigarette smoke from behind one of the columns that lined the exterior of the old building. But when I moved to get a better view of the door, I realized there was no one behind that column. Only the smoke.
I came down with a bad cold that night. The flight home clogged my poor ears so badly that I had an ear infection for three months, and tinnitus for six. While I was writing a book about a ghost. Coincidence? Hmm…
And now, on to a fictional ghost in The Phantom of Oz. Happy reading!
Chapter 5 (Part Two)
The Singular, But Veracious Story of the Ghost
In the last installment, Ivy asks her uncle Bob to tell the story of the Lady in White, who haunts the Grand Phoenician Theatre:
“All right.” Uncle Bob brushed the bagel crumbs off the sea turtles swimming across his Hawaiian shirt, and settled back in his chair. “It’s some story. People have seen her ghost at that theater for almost a hundred years. She wears—”
“White?”
“You wanna hear the story, or you wanna be a wiseass?”
“Okay, okay.”
“She wears a white—”
I snickered.
Uncle Bob ignored me. “—evening gown, like the one she died in.”
“Did she die in the theater? Was she an actor?”
“Do you interrupt Matt all the time like this?”
“No. Well, sometimes.” Matt was not just a wonderful boyfriend but a very very patient man. “Go on. Please.”
“She died wearing this white dress. Drowned herself one night in the well in the bottom of the theater.”
“What?”
“See, you listen, you learn something, Ms. Smarty Pants.”
“Okay, you got me. There’s a well in the bottom of the theater?”
“Yep. Guess the place was built over some spring. They even used the water to air-cool the theater in the old days. They had a photo of the well on the show. It’s still there, in some room that looks like a big closet from the outside.”
“Wouldn’t it be tough to drown yourself in something so small?”
“It’s bigger than you’d think. Almost like a small swimming pool. Plus the Lady tied rocks into her dress.”
“Seems like you’d have to be pretty determined.”
“I guess she was.”
“Why?”
“She was an actress. Estelle de Chagny.” My uncle had an amazing memory. Part of what made him such a good PI. “She was about to be married to some European duke who fell in love with her after seeing her onstage. But during some fancy party at the hotel next door...”
“The Hotel La Fuente.”
“Yeah. Fuente means ‘spring’ by the way.”
“It also means ‘fountain.’” My phone buzzed a third time. I started to answer it.
“Do you know how hard it is to tell you a story?”
“Sorry.” I put my phone face down on my desk.
“So, during that party at the hotel, she wore a white evening dress...”
“The one the ghost wears now.”
“Yeah, and a long flowy white scarf. It caught on fire. Some people said she walked too close to a candelabra. Others said a rival made sure the scarf caught in the flame.”
“She was hurt?”
Uncle Bob nodded. “Burned her neck. They had pictures on the show. She didn’t look too bad, really. The damage was all below her chin, but the duke ‘couldn’t love a monster.’”
“He said that to her?”
“No. Supposedly her rival did, when she visited her in the hospital. But him, the royal asshole, he broke up with her by letter, then married the woman who probably caused the whole thing. The marriage was a done deal by the time the Lady was well enough to go home. When she found out about it, she put on her white dress, went to the basement of the theater, and drowned herself.”
“How did they ever find her?”
“I guess she used to go down to the spring room before shows. There’s a little bench beside the well. She told people that looking at the water calmed her, helped her to...” he made air quotes with his fingers, “‘let go of the everyday world and glimpse eternity.’” Uncle Bob shook his head. “I hope eternity looked good to her that last night.”
My phone vibrated. Again. It had been going off nearly nonstop during the Lady in White’s story. I picked it up.
“What’s up?” Uncle Bob asked.
“The theater accident has gone viral.” The texts were all from concerned friends, except one from Candy that said, “Check out the Huff Post. We’re famous!” I pulled up the news site. “Hey. Look at this.” Uncle Bob padded to my desk while I texted Candy back: “Cool. Meet me for lunch?”
“Falling Chandelier Nearly Kills Babette Firman,” Uncle Bob read out loud as he looked over my shoulder. “Is there a new Phantom of the Opera?” He shook his head at the photos posted online: the shattered chandelier, the dust-covered cast members, and of course, Babette’s dramatically terrified face. “Something that massive dropping and not killing anybody? Maybe that ghost was looking out for you.”
I looked up at my uncle’s stubbly chins (there were three or so). He was not a guy who said these sort of things. He blushed again and went back to his desk. I waited, but that was it.
I scanned the Huffington Post article. “Babette sure made the most of it. Makes it sound as if someone actually targeted her. Like there weren’t another dozen people around. Oh, she does finally mention the Wicked Witch of the East, not by name, mind you...and she does talk about Arrestadt. He is famous, so she pretty much would have to say something about him, and...Huh.” A particular sentence in the article jumped out at me: “Not only was I afraid for my life,” said Babette. “But I was this close to losing my newest find. In fact, I wonder if maybe the ghost was after her.” Her newest find? She didn’t seem that impressed with any of the munchkins when I was there. A flutter in my chest. Maybe she did notice me.
“Wow.” Uncle Bob stared at his computer. “That chandelier was something.” He must have pulled up the photos. “They say it was made of ten thousand pieces of glass and crystal and weighed more than two thousand pounds. No word on why it fell, though.”
“Not that anyone is saying. Pretty crazy. You’d think when they renovated the theater they would have been extra careful with that. I mean, imagine if it had happened during the show, fell on a bunch of audience members.”
“Yeah.” My uncle still stared at his computer. “Some accident. And some miracle. Thank God you and Candy are all right.”
I didn’t say anything, but Uncle Bob must have heard something in my silence. He tore his attention away from his screen and looked at me. “You are both okay, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know. You should see Candy. She weighs about ninety pounds and her hair and teeth are straight and gray.”
“Her hair is gray?”
“No, her hair is straight. Her teeth are gray.”
“That’s worse.”
“I know. And she’s just not herself. She’s...blah and hyper at the same time. And she hasn’t been keeping in touch. I didn’t even know she had this gig until she called me yesterday. And...” I checked my phone. “She didn’t text me back about lunch.”
“Olive.” My uncle put a big hand on my back. “People change. Friendships change.”
I shook my head. I didn’t want to let go of my friend. I wanted the old Candy back.
Watch next week for Installment #7, Chapter 6, Am I Supposed to Have an Infectious Disease?
And if you haven’t read the first four books in the Agatha-nominated series: