The Writing on the Wall
At first, Emma could only make out blurry shadows. She heard screams, but it was like they were coming from the end of a long tunnel. A hardwood floor pressed into her back. A musty, closed-up scent assaulted her nostrils. Something wet pooled on her face—she wondered vaguely if it was blood.
Soft fabric brushed up against her bare arm. Breath warmed her skin. “Hel o?” Emma struggled to say. It took an enormous effort to form the words. “Hel o?” she said again. “Who’s there?”
A figure moved away. The floorboards creaked. There was something wrong with Emma’s vision. Someone loomed nearby, but al she could see was a black blob. She heard squeaking sounds, smel ed chalk dust. What was going on?
A few seconds later, her vision focused. The blob was gone. Sitting in front of her was a large upright chalkboard from an old set. Emma had passed it countless times during the party preparations today, noting that someone had written a quote from The Glass Menagerie on it:
“Things have a way of turning out so badly.” Those words had been wiped away now, and a new message had taken its place. As soon as Emma read the slanted handwriting, her blood went cold.
Stop digging, or next time I’ll hurt you for real. Emma gasped. “Who’s there?” she screamed. “Come out!”
“Say something!” I yel ed, too, as blind as she was. “We know you’re there!”
But whoever had written the note didn’t answer. And then the warm, throbbing darkness began to take hold of Emma once more. Her eyes fluttered, and she fought to keep them open. Just before she passed out again, she caught sight of the same blurry figure—or maybe two blurry figures—
swirling their hands over the chalkboard, wiping the words clean.
The next time Emma opened her eyes, she was lying on a bed in a smal white room. An instructional sheet on how to properly wash one’s hands hung on the opposite wal . Another poster for how to administer the Heimlich maneuver hung over a smal table that contained jars of cotton swabs and boxes of latex gloves.
“Sutton?”
Emma turned toward the voice. Madeline sat on an office chair next to the cot, her knees pressed tightly together, her fingers knotted in her lap. When she saw that Emma was awake, relief flooded her face. “Thank God! Are you okay?”
Emma lifted her arm and pressed it to her forehead. Her limbs felt normal again, not fil ed with sand like they had as she lay on the stage floor. “What happened?” she croaked.
“Where am I?”
“It’s al right, dear,” said another voice. A lanky woman with dishwater-blond hair cut bluntly to her chin and a pair of tortoiseshel glasses perched on her nose swam into view. She wore a white lab coat that had the words T. GROVE and NURSE stitched on the breast. “It appears you fainted. It was probably from low blood sugar. Have you had anything to eat today?”
“A light fel from the rafters and almost hit you,” Madeline said in a shaking voice. “It was crazy—it almost landed on your head!”
Emma squinted, remembering the blurry figure above her. The warning in white chalk. Her heart began to race, thudding so hard against her chest she was scared Madeline and the nurse could hear it. “Did you see someone standing over me when I was lying on the ground? Someone writing something on that chalkboard?”
Madeline narrowed her eyes. “What chalkboard?”
“Someone wrote something,” Emma insisted. “Are you sure it wasn’t Gabby? Lili?”
An expression Emma couldn’t read flitted across Madeline’s face. “I think you need to rest some more. Gabby and Lili were on the stage when the light fel . The custodian said it was just a freak accident—those lights are super-old.” She patted Emma’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry to do this, but I have to get back to the auditorium—Charlotte wil have my head if I’m not there to help direct the caterers.” Madeline stood. “Just take it easy, and I’l check on you when the party’s over, okay?”
The bul etin board on the back of the door swung back and forth as Madeline pul ed it shut behind her. The nurse murmured that she’d be back in a moment, too, and slipped out another door. In the silence of the tiny room, Emma shut her eyes, leaned back against the cot’s rockhard pil ow, and exhaled. Don’t you think you should take your place now, Sutton?
Gabby had said just before the ceremony began. You’re at stage left, right? And then Lili had run back upstairs for her iPhone, right where the light was fastened. And then . . . crash. The light hit exactly where she was supposed to be standing.
“Emma?”
Emma opened her eyes to see Ethan hovering over her, his dark eyebrows furrowed with concern. He was dressed in a worn olive-green T-shirt, dark-wash jeans, and black Vans that looked as though they’d been through a wood chipper. She felt the heat of his body as he stepped closer. He took her hand, then glanced away, as if unsure whether touching her was okay. Emma hadn’t been alone with him since the art opening—since she’d rejected him. She sat up quickly and smoothed her hair. “Hey,” she croaked.
Ethan let go of her hand and dropped down on the black office chair Madeline had just occupied. “I heard a crash backstage. Next thing I know, people were cal ing your name. What the hel happened?”
A shudder ran through Emma’s body as she told him about the light and the note on the chalkboard. When she was finished, Ethan stood up halfway, his arm muscles taut as he held his body inches above the chair. “Is the message stil there?”