Ghostfinders 03 -Ghost of a Dream

Elizabeth. “But now I come to think about it…”
    “You were called back here,” said JC. “Summoned, by a spirit of great power. But why? To tell you both that you had never been forgiven? To punish you?”
    “No,” said Melody, caught up in the discussion despite herself. “That’s not it. The ghost put on a reallyscary show, but it’s clear no-one was ever supposed to get hurt…”
    “Old Tom was a mask,” said Happy. “A disguise, for Alistair Gravel. A dead actor, playing a part.”
    “I always said that caretaker was too broad a character,” said Elizabeth.
    “The moustache didn’t help,” said Benjamin. “Alistair always was too fond of the make-up box.”
    “So this has all been about Alistair Gravel,” said JC. “Watching us, as Old Tom. I understand everything, now.”
    “Well, not everything,” said Lissa.
    They all turned to look at her, and she smiled at them dazzlingly.
    “Nothing in this theatre is necessarily what it seems,” she said sweetly. “And not everyone is who they appear to be.”
    And she slowly and silently faded away.

TEN

YOU’VE GOT TO GET INTO THE SPIRIT OF THINGS
    The living men and women stood close together on the Haybarn Theatre stage, staring wide-eyed and open-mouthed at the spot where Lissa had been standing. Or, at least, at where the thing they thought had been Lissa had been standing. They moved instinctively closer to each other, feeling the need for mutual support. Real people doing real human things, in the face of something long dead and only pretending to be human. A basic need for human warmth and human presence, to counter the cold of the grave and a close encounter with mortality. They needed to look into each other’s eyes and see someone they knew looking back. Actors might be used to dealing with people who aren’t who they appear to be, and Ghost Finders might be used to dealing with things that aren’t what they seem to be; but that only makes itthat much harder to handle, knowing how completely you’ve been fooled.
    Not all that surprisingly, JC was the first to get his mental feet back under him.
    “Happy!” he said sharply, and the telepath jumped and gave JC his full attention.
    “Yes, boss?”
    “Is everyone else here real? Really real?”
    “Way ahead of you,” said Happy. “I scanned everyone still on this stage the moment after Lissa did her disappearing act. Everyone left is who they appear to be. As far as I can tell. Something in this theatre has been messing with my head, and my abilities, ever since I got here.”
    “How can we be sure about you?” Elizabeth said bluntly.
    “Oh, trust me,” said JC. “No-one else could be that annoying.”
    “You want me to prod you with a finger?” said Happy.
    “Later, dear,” said Melody.
    JC looked steadily at Benjamin and Elizabeth. “You knew Lissa. And you never suspected anything?”
    “We never met her before!” said Elizabeth, immediately. “Not in the flesh…”
    “I talked to her on the telephone a few times,” said Benjamin. “We knew her work, obviously, that’s why we hired her. But most of our contacts went through her agent. So when she turned up here, early, but looking exactly the way we expected her to, well…We never thought! Why would we?”
    “So that was never the real Lissa,” said Happy. “All this time we’ve had two ghosts walking around withus, pretending to be people…And I never suspected anything!”
    “My machines didn’t detect anything, either,” said Melody. “But then, I never knew the right questions to ask them. If it walks like a person and talks like a person…”
    “We should have been on our guard,” said Happy. “Especially after what happened at the railway station…”
    “Don’t be too hard on yourselves,” said JC, cutting in quickly before Benjamin and Elizabeth could start asking awkward questions about the railway station and really confuse the issue. “I’m the one with the special all-seeing eyes, and I didn’t see a damned thing I wasn’t supposed to…But to be able to manifest that strongly, to walk around like one of us, or rather two of us, Lissa and Old Tom…there must be something in this theatre, some unusual source of power, to make these ghosts so much stronger than they had any right to be.”
    The lights dimmed suddenly all across the stage. Dark shadows gathered. And then a single spotlight stabbed down from above, marking out one small part of the stage in a circle of