Jack closed his eyes and waited for his head to crack against the marble stairs. But instead of hitting the landing, he felt himself jerk to a stop a few inches above it. Then Euri grabbed his hand again, and the air changed from musty and warm to crystalline cold. Opening his eyes, Jack realized that he was outside. The library was hundreds of feet below.
“It’s okay,” Euri said. “I got you.”
“That was weird,” Jack exclaimed.
“What was?”
“I felt like I floated. . . .”
“That’s because I grabbed you. Good thing for you I’m fast.”
Jack didn’t want to argue, but several seconds before Euri had grabbed him, he felt as if he had hovered on his own. His thoughts were interrupted by a gust of wind. Jack looked down and realized that they were higher than they’d been before. Euri was making ascending loops around a skyscraper with a pointy steel top lit up like a torch. “Where are we going?” he asked.
“The Chrysler Building,” she said. They landed on the outstretched neck of one of the steel eagles that jutted from the building’s corners. The city below them was no longer made of steel and concrete but of a million white lights. Jack could see across it to the Empire State Building, its top floors and antenna dressed in holiday reds and greens, and beyond, to the dark expanse of New York Harbor. He tried to imagine the thousands of people eating and arguing and sleeping and working below. But this high up, except for the occasional gust of wind, it was quiet, and he couldn’t quite believe anyone else existed in Manhattan but Euri and him. He looked at her and realized that she had been watching him. “I could stay here forever,” he said.
Euri grimaced. “And it wouldn’t change a bit. This isn’t life.” She pointed down at the city. “
That’s
life.”
Jack didn’t bother to look. “That’s having no friends at school and your mother being dead. . . .” He suddenly stopped. He had never said this to anyone.
Euri sighed. “At least it’s life.” She shook her head and pulled him down to sit on the eagle’s neck. “Come on, let’s take a look at that book.”
Jack propped open the
Unofficial Guide
and they bent over the first page. Euri pointed to an inscription below the title and read it aloud. “‘This volume has been compiled by truth seekers who shall go unnamed.
Felix qui
portuit rerum cognoscere causas
.’”
“That’s Latin, right? What does it mean?”
“‘Happy is he who could know the cause of all things,’” Jack said. “It’s Virgil.”
He turned a few more pages until he reached the table of contents, which was also handwritten. He glanced at a few of the chapter titles: Now That You’re Really Dead, The Real Truth about the Occult, Confessions of an Ex-Guard, Living Visitors to the Underworld. “Let’s take a look at that last one,” he said.
Euri flipped to the chapter and began to read aloud as Jack looked on. “‘One of our favorite bits of misinformation from the Now That You’re Dead seminar concerns living visitors to the underworld. Contrary to regulation 41.5a, from time to time the living have ventured into the world of the dead. And rather than create more problems for the dead, often they are destined to help them.
“‘In order to enter into the underworld, the living must possess a golden bough. This bough may take the form of any object (see Henry Luce Adams’s fascinating case study “The Golden Pastrami Sandwich”) but will only appear golden to the person fated to have it.’”
“The subway token I gave Charon,” Jack explained to Euri. “That was my golden bough.”
Euri nodded. “I guess you’re destined to be here, then.”
“Destined to help my mom. Keep reading.”
“‘Egbert Viele’s Sanitary and Topographical Map of the City and Island of New York is also recommended as a topographical guide to the underworld. There are also five other ...’”
“Wait,” Jack interrupted. “You skipped a line.”
“‘However,’” she read, “‘as the regulation correctly states, living visitors to the underworld are in constant danger of being caught and destroyed by Cerberus.’”
Jack gave her a fierce look, but Euri just shrugged. “Well, we already knew that.”
“Is there anything there about Clubber?” Jack asked, remembering the professor’s warning.
Euri shook her head. “Not that I see.” She kept on reading. “‘There are also five other rules that govern their visits:
“‘1) Like the dead, after dusk, living visitors to the New York underworld can remain belowground or venture above it (going aboveground, however, will not return them to the living world—see rule five for information on return trips). While in either place, living visitors can see and be seen by the dead and are invisible to the living. They also can engage in transmobility and flight,
but only if physically assisted by one of the dead
.
“‘2) Living visitors should refrain from eating and drinking while visiting the New York underworld.
EVEN IF THEY FIND THEMSELVES AT AN IMPOSSIBLE-TO-RESERVE RESTAURANT
. The smallest bite of fricassee of frog legs or sip of pomegranate martini can lead to a permanent stay.
“‘3) Past visits are no guarantee of future returns. A golden bough is good for one, and only one, entry. The living should not assume that because they have found a golden bough once that they will be able to find another one repeatedly and at will.
“‘4) The New York underworld is not responsible for lost items—including watches, cell phones, wallets, and other valuables, such as minds and spouses. If a living person leaves behind any of these during his visit, he should abandon all hope that he will ever get them back.
“‘5) And most important of all, the only way for living visitors to return to the living world is through their original port of entry. Return trips are valid any day or night, except if a living person has stayed in the underworld for more than three nights. After this time, the strain of death on the living body becomes too much, and the visitor will be unable to return to the world of the living.’”
“Three nights?” said Jack. “I’m not going to stay that long.”
“You could, though, if you wanted,” said Euri.
Jack ignored her. “What I still don’t understand is why I was able to see you in Grand Central. According to the guide, I shouldn’t have seen you until I crossed into the underworld.”
“You already had your golden bough,” said Euri. “Maybe it gave you special powers.”
“But I saw other ghosts before I found it.”
Euri frowned. “I thought it was just
one
other.”
“I think I saw a couple at the hospital after I woke up.”
“Well, I’m glad the whole underworld’s met you by now!”
Jack rushed to reassure her. “You’re the first one I talked to. The rest of them seemed too scared.”
This was a little bit of a lie—the ghosts in the hospital hadn’t even seen him—but Euri looked pleased to hear it. “I told you most ghosts aren’t good with the living,” she said.
Jack closed the
Unofficial Guide
and put it in his backpack with Viele’s map. “Let’s go find my mom.”
“It shouldn’t be hard now,” Euri said. “All we need to do is find those records.”
She pulled Jack up so they were standing on the eagle’s neck and then led him forward until they were wobbling in the wind on top of the eagle’s head, seventy stories above the street. “Can you go slow?” he asked, trying to look anywhere but down.
With a glint in her eye, Euri squeezed his hand and jumped.
“Ahhhhh!” screamed Jack as they pitched headlong toward the street. He could hear the rush of the air as he fell, and above it, Euri’s high-pitched cackles. A hundred feet from the ground she stopped short and hovered.
“I hate you,” Jack said, as soon as he’d caught his breath.
“Come on! It was fun.”
He glared at her.
“Oh, all right. I’ll take it slower now, okay?”
As they chugged along at the same cautious speed as the old ghosts, he started to think about St. James. He was certain it was a church. It made sense that records for the dead would be kept in some crypt. “Are we far from St. James?”
“
The
St. James,” she corrected.
As they flew down in big, lazy loops, Jack peered at the buildings on the busy street below. He expected to see a spire or church facade, but instead he saw oversize neon signs, cab wheels splashing through dirty banks of snow, and crushes of people gathering under brightly lit marquees. Running down the side of a large, not particularly churchlike building were the words ST. JAMES in white neon lights.
“It’s not a church, is it?”
“A church?” Euri laughed. “Of course not. It’s a theater.”
They dropped soundlessly onto the sidewalk just as the last of the people who’d been waiting outside the St. James disappeared through its doors.
THE PRODUCERS
, read a smaller neon sign on the marquee—
THE BEST SHOW EVER!
“I’ve wanted to see this ever since I died,” Euri announced as they walked under the marquee and through a set of doors into a narrow hallway. “But it’s impossible to get a ticket.”
“Even if you’re dead?”
They floated past two living ushers in red vests, up a flight of carpeted stairs, and then up a narrow, curving iron staircase. At the top of the stairs a third usher, a petite blond woman in a funny-looking red cap, stepped in front of him. “No ticket? Floating room only,” she droned before handing them each a faded yellow playbill.
Jack began to pull it out of her hand when he felt some resistance. “Say, you look funny,” she said, staring hard.
Euri quickly stepped between them. “He used to be one of the performers. Died with his makeup on, still looks kind of living, amazing what they can do with makeup now, huh?”
The usher grunted, and Jack felt her hand loosen on the program. “Enjoy the show,” she said.
They floated through a door and onto a balcony that was nearly as high as the golden lyre embossed above the stage and that tilted at a precarious angle over it. Living people filled every seat—little old ladies loudly riffling through their bags for sucking candies; beefy tourists crammed into the narrow seats, laden with cameras and sightseeing guides; couples linked arm in arm, rosy after a few pre-theater drinks. Floating above their heads and in the cavernous expanse in front of them were hundreds of ghosts doing the same things. “How am I going to find Edna Gammon?” Jack asked. “She could be any one of these people.”
Euri shrugged as they floated off the balcony, stopping under an enormous crystal chandelier. “Let’s just watch some of the show and maybe we’ll figure it out.”
“But I don’t have time....” Jack started to say just as the theater lights dimmed and the orchestra started up. “Shhh!” said a plump old ghost floating behind them and wearing a silvery purple wig and a dead fox around her neck.
The orange curtain opened, revealing the outside of a theater, and everyone burst into applause even though nothing had happened yet. Jack scanned his playbill. Above the black-and-white head shots of the actors was a warning printed in blocky letters:
Please do not howl, moan, groan, wail, sing along, rattle chains, or interfere in any way with the living performers in this show. Also please do not use flash.
Jack tapped Euri’s shoulder. “I thought ghosts can’t be heard by the living.”
“Theaters are prone to paranormal interferences,” she said. “If some ghost is really out of control, it can affect the show.”
Onstage, a pair of ushers sprang out of the doors of the theater and began to sing about “opening night.”
Euri was beaming. She seemed to have completely forgotten about the search for Jack’s mom. Chorus members in ball gowns and tuxes filtered out of the wings onto the stage, belting out the rest of the song.
Jack yawned. But just when he was about to close his eyes, he noticed a woman wandering onstage dressed differently from the rest of the performers. Her short red hair was bobbed, and she wore a dressing gown. “‘We’re going to have a dandy little home!’” she began to warble, throwing her hands open to the audience.
Although she was making a racket, the living performers seemed oblivious to her presence. But all around him, ghosts began to grumble and shift. “Oh for God’s sake,” said the silvery-purple–haired old woman. “Do we have to hear
The Merry Malones
every night?”
“Edna, shut up!” shouted another.
Jack tugged on Euri’s sleeve. “They said, ‘Edna’! Do you think that’s Edna Gammon?”
The silvery-purple–haired ghost leaned in between them. “You don’t look like you’ve been dead long enough to remember Edna,” she observed.
Jack noticed her giving him the familiar stare. “Well,
I . . . I . . . wasn’t. I just heard of her once.”
“Once! You must know your theater. Most people haven’t heard of her at all. She was the understudy for Polly Walker in
The Merry Malones
, back in 1927. Horrible musical. She died before she could take the stage.”
“That may have been a good thing,” Euri remarked as Edna fell to her knees screeching.
Suddenly, one of the living chorus girls tripped. “She’s interfering with the performers!” someone shouted from near the ceiling.
A lightbulb hanging off a metal bar attached to the ceiling shattered, raining pieces of glass into the aisle. Living theatergoers jumped in their seats and scanned the ceiling. Jack half expected them to scream at the sight of hundreds of ghosts floating above, but they looked right through them. An usher ran down the aisle with a broom and dustpan. Someone onstage helped the chorus girl back to her feet, and the performers continued their song. Edna Gammon, her face as red as a newborn’s, slumped to the floor. Then she leaped back to her feet and bowed. No one, either living or dead, applauded.
After several more bows, Edna skipped off into the darkness of the wings. “Come on,” Jack said, pulling Euri down toward the stage. “Let’s follow her.”
“But the show’s just started!”
“We came here to find my mom, remember?”
With an exaggerated sigh, Euri began to float down over the heads of the living audience and onto the stage. Up close, under the blazing lights, the performers were wearing garish amounts of blush and lipstick, even the men, and beads of sweat ran down their faces.
“This way,” Jack said, pointing to the wings. They hovered a few inches above the stage floor, passing several stagehands holding props and techies in black T-shirts wearing headsets. They turned into an industrial-looking corridor lined with doors. “She probably went down here,” Jack said.
Euri pointed to the brass nameplates stuck on the doors. “These are the stars’ dressing rooms.”
Jack pulled her along the rows of doors, but they all seemed to be shut. “How are we going to find her? She could be in any of these.”
Euri jerked to a halt. “Oh, you don’t know how to think like a woman, do you? She’s probably dying for visitors. Edna? Edna Gammon?” she trilled.
A door at the end of the corridor flew open, and Jack cringed, half expecting a living performer to come marching out to tell Euri to pipe down.
But instead a female voice cried out, “Fans for Edna Gammon?”
Before either of them had a chance to reply, Edna popped out of her dressing room and pretended to swoon against the door frame. “You shouldn’t have,” she said, coyly. “Flowers too?”
Jack looked at Euri in alarm. He hadn’t brought any flowers.
But Edna just batted her eyes. “Darling, please don’t say it was my best performance ever!”
“It ...was ...um ...” Jack stuttered.
“Fabulous, darling?” she squealed. “You’re too, too kind!”
Jack felt his cheeks turning red. “No, listen. I came to ask you about some records you keep. For ghosts who died eight years ago.”
Euri elbowed him in the side, but it was too late. Edna’s smile dropped off her face, her eyes narrowed, and she crossed her arms over her chest. “Talk to me in the morning,” she hissed. “Records Division. Tunnel under Times Square. That’s my day job.”
She turned and slammed the door in their faces.
“At least she has one,” Euri said. “Don’t worry. We’ll find out about your mom. Edna will be in a better mood in the morning.”
“I was hoping to find my mom by then.”
“Well, you clearly can’t rush Edna. And in the meantime, you might as well see the rest of the city.”
He and Euri spent the rest of the night “doing the tourist thing,” as she called it. They visited the Guggenheim, a circular-shaped art museum of spiraling floors, where a ghost docent spoke with great reverence about the Calder mobiles; they strolled through the crowds of dead examining the long-life herbal supplements for sale in Chinatown; they took the elevator to the top of the Empire State Building (even though, as Euri pointed out, it would be much easier to fly). Just before dawn they followed an enticing beat down the escalator into the Times Square subway station and discovered a crew of ghosts drumming on plastic buckets. As if the musicians had cast a spell on him, Jack couldn’t help but bob his head to the rhythm. He caught Euri watching him with a grin and stopped. But his foot began to tap instead. He looked at Euri with a helpless expression, and she started to laugh. Suddenly he began to laugh too. He jumped up and down and waved his arms. “That’s it!” shouted one of the drummers.
Euri grabbed his hand and pulled him up into the air. They shimmied to the beat, trying silly moves— tap-dancing on the ceiling, moonwalking in midair. The drummers played faster and faster and, it seemed, just for them. Then, in a burst of percussion, the show ended, and the only sound in the station was the rattle of a subway train and the screech of its brakes. Still laughing, Jack and Euri returned to the park and joined the long line of ghosts, who whirled like a stream of water descending down the drain into the fountain.