Jasper Grimaldi's Arc

Chapter 3 of 5

The stage stood clean and ready, but the ghost woman said nothing more. She wanted Jasper to bring the far crowd to his show. She would not tell him how. Jasper stepped closer. Blood streaked her pale face and hands. Her eyes stayed on him, sad and shut like a locked door. "You know what happened here," Jasper said. "The accident. Ten years ago. I don't remember it. Tell me, and I'll trust where you're pointing." She looked away. The cat of pale light curled at her feet. The black bird watched from the frame. Jasper's hands curled into fists. He had rebuilt this floor on her word alone. He would not walk blind toward that mansion on her word too. "No," he said. "Not another step until you say it." The curtain flap ripped open. Frank Sherman stood there, ledger under one arm, beer bottle in his fist. He was the new manager, the man who had handed Jasper the keys and named Saturday. He stopped when he saw the fresh boards. "You built this," Frank said. "Overnight. With what money?" "Found lumber," Jasper said. Frank did not see the ghost. He never did. He set the beer on a clean plank and opened the ledger. "Somebody paid to keep this tent shut for ten years. Paid every month. The books don't say who." He tapped a line. "Same handwriting funded the accident cleanup. Fast. Quiet. Like they wanted it gone." The ghost woman flinched. Blood shivered down her wrist. Jasper watched her face crack open. "Read the date," Jasper said. "The accident." Frank frowned but read it. A spring night, ten years back. The ghost's mouth moved with the words as he spoke them. Her hand rose to her bloodied throat. "I was the show," she said. Her voice came thin and sudden. "Before you. The trapdoor gave way. Someone had loosened it. I fell. They paid to bury it, and me, and the stage." Jasper stood still. The rot he'd torn out. The blood on the boards. The trapdoor he'd rebuilt without asking why. "Someone wanted me gone too," he said. "The same someone." Frank closed the ledger. "I don't hear voices, Grimaldi. But these numbers stink. Somebody's still paying." He picked up his beer. "Sell tickets by Saturday or I close it. That part's real." He left. The ghost woman lifted her bloody hand toward the glowing mansion. This time Jasper did not doubt the direction. "The one who killed you," he said. "They're out there." "In that house," she said. "With your audience." Jasper looked at the microphone on his stage. He knew the truth now. The killer still paid to keep him small. To fill the far mansion, he would have to walk straight into their hands.