A ghost sang out a slow flowing melody with no words. His song was tragic, slowly rising, rising, then falling hard every time. Cade and Blake stared intently at the massive dark orange clock set high on the empty black wall.
“We found it,” said Blake high-fiving Cade.
“Yeah we did,” Cade answered, nodding rhythmically.
“You seriously think we’re carrying that clock out of here?”
“Not anymore,” Cade answered. “I didn’t know it was this big.”
“You saw the picture?”
“Well yeah, but, but, I’ve never seen a clock like this before. Clocks are supposed to be small.” The kids stood right under it, gazing up at the slow ticking clock with the second hand dragging around, making the only sound in the empty room. The distant ghostly singing echoed out in hidden halls.
“How we going to reach it?” Cade looked around at the dusty desks spread across the gloomy classroom, then smiled. “Cool, let’s build.” The kids dragged all the desks to the front of the class. Then they began stacking them on top in the center, then another layer on top of that, followed by a final desk in the center making a castle of desks. The tragic singing grew more clear. They worked to lift the old, worn out desk in the center up to the top of the stack.
“You think it will…” Cade jumped up on the top desk. “Hold?”
“What’s the worst that could happen?” Blake asked, before giving a shaky nod to the distant floor. Cade pulled at the clock hand slowly dragging by, but couldn’t hold it back. Then he touched the different numbers he could reach. Blake started looking behind it. “Look, the hour hand isn’t moving.”
“The hour hand never moves, what you talking about?” asked Blake.
“Yeah it does, you just can’t see it.”
“Then how you know it’s not moving?”
“I can tell,” said Cade, pulling at the hour hand. It began to turn. A loud, eerie whining started up, knocking the kids back. The tragic ghostly singing suddenly stopped cold.
“What is that?”
“I think this must be it, the key, the hour hand is the key,” Cade said excitedly, “the key to the treasure.”
“There’s no treasure,” a quiet, solemn voice answered. The kids spun around to see a frail ghost lit up in a soft green haze.
“I’ve been stuck here in this cold, empty underground classroom for years.” Cade and Blake exchanged anxious looks. “You see, when you become a ghost, you can find yourself in a cold, dark empty place that you can’t escape. Every day I just sit on the bare floor and stare at the cracks in the walls. I try to picture something cool happening, something I can remember, but I can’t see anything. All I see is the dark orange clock ticking, hour after hour goes by, and nothing changes, no one visits, and I have nowhere to go.”
“We’re here now,” said Cade.
“That’s right,” said Blake with an energetic smile.
“There is a mystery,” the ghost continued, “some way out to a better place for me where I can be free, but I can’t figure it out.”
“We can,” Cade answered confidently.
“That’s why you invited us,” Blake added.
“What are you talking about?” the ghost asked.
“You invited us here,” said Cade, “that’s what the other ghost said, the one with the mop.” Eerie whining grew louder from the slow ticking clock.
“I haven’t seen him in years. He never talks to me. How would I have invited you?” Cade pulled out a small black book and opened the page to the picture of the dark orange clock. Then the ghost pointed to a blacked out section in the center of the page. “See this? The one who invited you didn’t want you to see this.”
“See what?” asked Blake. Then the ghost pointed to the old, worn out desk where writing in soft green glowing letters appeared:
Someday the students will be called by the clock
To find the dingy classroom closed by a heavy lock
The young student failed in the art school
He tried too much, to make everyone else a fool
But one day he will return, to finish what he begun
He cannot escape, nor can anyone else, until it’s done
The way through is revealed by the name Lustaray
Fight through the heavy confusion to see one way
If you try to see the light all at once, you will fail
Go through the center and you will prevail
They all want to shine like a brilliant light
This is where you will find the way that’s right
But lights only shine in the dark night…
Eerie whining grew louder as Cade quickly wrote down the prophecy. Just then the ghostly singing started up again, echoing in a slow driving rhythm with a steady booming around the room. The kids turned to see the dark orange clock flashing to the rhythm.
“You moved the hour hand,” the ghost answered quietly. “That’s why he invited you. He knew you would look for the secret in the clock.”
“What is the secret?” asked Cade.
“There’s a way to lock down the entire school. It was put in place so a dark enemy wouldn’t be able to enter, but no one can leave either, not even the ghosts. The ghost with the mop is the one who invited you here, because he doesn’t want to find a way out. The way the lockdown begins is by moving the hour hand.”
A twisted-confused look came across Cade’s face. “It’s locked down now?” he asked.
“It’s in the process, but it takes time,” the ghost answered.
“Why did he need us?” asked Blake.
“Because he’s a ghost, too weak to move it, but you can, and he knew kids like you would try it, to find the secret.”
“He’s going to do everything he can to block your way.”
“We need to get moving,” said Blake.
“How much time until the lockdown is final?” asked Cade.
“You have one hour.” The kids turned back to the prophecy, reading it over as the ghostly singing grew stronger around them.
“There’s a way out in this room,” said Cade, talking fast. “What have…” He turned to the ghost but he was gone. Blake looked around at the empty dark room lit by the flashing dark orange. Then he moved over to the walls feeling the cracks. Cade started looking around the floor. Tragic singing rocked the walls. Blake glanced at the clock showing 11:10.
“We have until midnight.” Cade started shaking.
“What if we get trapped here? We’ll never…”
“Cade, we’ll figure it out. Trust me.” Cade shook his head. With an intense gaze, Blake repeated, “Trust me. It’s us. We can find our way out of anything.” Cade slowly nodded.
“Let’s go then.” The ghostly voice sang slower and slower, his voice slurring, the tragic flowing melody blurring together. Cade walked up and down the floor, staring close at the dark marble. Long dark shadows stretched right down the center from the dark orange light from the Lustaray Clock, flickering to the ghost song. He began crawling across the cold floor feeling the numerous cracks and scratches throughout.
Blake started pounding at various points on the wall. Then he began launching himself at the wall. Cade turned and watched with a perplexed gaze.
“This may be a dumb question, but…”
“I’m just trying to find the trap door or whatever.”
“Who says there’s a trap door?”
“I didn’t say there was one…”
“There probably isn’t.”
“Well we have to try something.” Cade shrugged, then started crawling up the floor to the left of the long dark shadows stretching across the rugged crack in the floor, bouncing to the tragic song. Just then the lights went out. The ticking stopped, and the singing went quiet.
“Blake, you there?”
“Yeah.” Just then the sky appeared as flickering dark orange moonlight spilled through the rushing clouds. The kids looked around at the narrow valley between the mountains where the School of the Arts set nudged in the corner. The air remained completely still in the silence over the valley.
“We did it!” said Cade, walking over to Blake. “We made it out.”
“I don’t know what we did,” said Blake with a shrug. “I guess we’re that good.”
“We made it out like that,” said Cade making a fast clapping motion. The kids started walking up the valley, celebrating.
“I still don’t know what we did,” said Blake.
“Yeah, that was easy.”
“Too easy.”
“Blake, hold up, hold up,” said Cade, taking the prophecy out of his pocket. He held it up under the passing moonlight. “Fight through the heavy confusion,” he added quietly.
“We’re not out.” The kids looked around at the dreamy scene. “Get back to where we were standing.” Blake pulled out his pocketwatch as they made their way back to the field: 11:23.
“What’s the clue about Lustaray?” asked Cade.
“It’s in the center,” said Blake. “Look, look, there’s the word, star, in the center.”
“That must be the key. So we have it, look for the star. But there was no star, so…” Cade knelt down with eyes closed tight, whispering to himself. Blake read through the lines over and over again in the silent night. After several long minutes, Cade jumped back up. Blake looked at him with a questioning look.
“I got nothing,” said Cade.
“Look at this,” said Blake pointing to the last three lines. “I think this is it.”
“The dark way.”
“What does that have to do with a star?”
“Stars only shine at night,” said Cade with a shrug.
“What would be the dark way in the classroom?”
“Down the center? I don’t know. It would have to be, well, down the center I guess.”
“How we going to find it out here?” asked Blake.
“Look for clues, things that look like the classroom,” said Cade. They looked around at the field under tall, wild grass. Flickering dark orange moonlight splashed through the rough dark clouds. The kids started pacing around the slow building slope. Long, flickering rays of moonlight stretched out across the field. “Blake, you remember the grass being this tall out here?”
“No. Why?”
“There has to be a reason, to confuse us…”
“To hide the ground,” Blake said excitedly. He started crawling along the cold ground.
Cade got down then said, “It looks and feels like the floor,” he said, moving his hand over the cold ground with various cracks running through.
“It has to be in the floor then,” said Blake. “In the darkest part, down the center.” Cade looked around at the passing shadows stretching past the long flickering moonlight rays. Then he glanced back up at the dark orange flashing moon before a smile slowly crept across his face.
With eyes lit he said, “Let’s get out of here.” The kids worked their way into the long flickering moonlight rays. They crawled along until they felt a large crack in the ground.
Darkness fell over them. Tragic, ghostly singing began from the heavy dark center of the dark waves flowing out to the left and the right. A grand auditorium appeared, dimly lit by dark orange lantern lights from high balconies. Dark ghosts sit waiting in the shadows. Cade shot a mixed-half anxious expression at the seats each displaying a different green glowing ghostly face.
“What we do now?” Blake whispered.
“We find the way out of here,” answered Cade. Blake glanced at his pocketwatch: 11:41. “It better be fast.” Just then the ghost with the mop appeared in a high balcony over the stage, singing the tragic song ringing out across the entire auditorium. He reached up and turned one of the lights. Cade watched as suddenly every light momentarily went out from the top, one by one, to the bottom. Just then blood red curtains flew in from both sides, flowing out to the left and the right across the stage, clashing at the center.
“So what’s the way out?” asked Blake.
Cade turned to him with eyes lit bright under the dark orange lights. “You already know. Let’s get there.” Just then green ghosts appeared at the ends of every aisle and across the stage.
“They’re blocking our way to the stage,” said Cade. Blake crawled over the seat to the row below, with the back folding down over the chair. “How are we getting past them?” Cade asked, crawling over the seat to where Blake was. He shook his head. “Why aren’t they coming after us?”
“They don’t want to close in too much and leave a space we can break through.” Cade started playing with the seats, flopping the back up and down. “Cade, this is no time for playing.” He sighed, looking at his pocketwatch: 11:47. Cade pushed it down, it came back up fast. He pushed it down harder, it came back up faster. Blake sighed again, shaking his head. Just then the ghosts began singing out the slow, tragic song, the eerie, twisted notes bouncing up and down, then falling swiftly in the dark orange flickering auditorium. Suddenly, the auditorium began slowly stretching out, further and further away. The kids turned to each other with panicked expressions.
“What we do now?” asked Blake. “How we getting to the stage in time?” Cade started pushing the seat back up and down again. “Come on, Cade.” Cade looked up at the flickering dark orange lights, then smiled.
“Ready to go surfing?”
“What?” Then Cade whispered to Blake. Blake smiled brightly. “Let’s move.” He glanced at his pocketwatch: 11:54. The ghosts sang louder and faster around them.
“On three, one, two, THREE!” Cade turned the two seats in front of them, then they jumped down on the backs, sliding down as every chair down the row fell forward. The kids surfed fast down the slowly expanding rows toward the distant stage. Ghosts rushed down the side aisles toward the stage, gathering in a crowd. The sad ghost began singing in a really slow, slurred deep voice;
“I’m never going home again.”
“I’m never going home again.”
“I’m never going home again.”
“I’m never going home again.”
“I’m never going home again.”
“I’m never going home again.”
“I’m never going home again.”
Blake checked his pocketwatch: 11:57. The stage drew closer and closer. Just then ghosts rushed in from both sides down the final aisles. The kids jumped off.
“Follow my lead,” said Cade who then dove down into the next aisle. He pushed several chairs down ahead, then waited. Blurry green ghosts closed in on all sides. Blake looked at him with raised eyes. Cade motioned for them to hold. Blake pointed to the time: 11:59. Cade silently counted; one, two, three. “NOW!” Cade and Blake exploded out to the left, pushing past the stunned ghosts. They circled around them, jumped up on stage, then sprinted for the break between the two red curtains.
Darkness fell over them, then the valley appeared under dark orange moonlight, lighting up the old School of the Arts.
“Are we really out?” asked Blake. Cade looked down at the short dark green grassy field and smiled.
“We’re free.”
