1
Manhattan, New York City
Curtains of punishing rain fell upon the sea of dark umbrellas populating the Manhattan sidewalks, commuters hurrying to get to work on time. From the tenth-floor studio, Times Square looked like a massive, sprawling funeral. The sky above the city hung low and black, a shroud of storm.
"Perfect weather for talking to the dead," Phoenix whispered, staring out through the plate-glass window.
"What's that?"
She leaned her forehead against the glass. Well done. Talking to yourself always helps. For a second, she'd forgotten she wasn't alone in the room. Phoenix turned around and smiled at Katie Phelan, whose job, apparently, was to take care of whoever was in the Green Room waiting to go on the set of Sunrise, the network's morning news show.
"Why do you call it the Green Room?" she asked, ignoring Katie's question.
The woman -- at most four years older than Phoenix's eighteen, though her shortish dark hair made her look younger -- seemed perplexed. "Any time you're on a talk show, or in a play or something, the room where you wait before you go on is the Green Room."
Phoenix smiled. "Yeah, but why is it called the Green Room? The room's not even green."
The lower half of the walls was lavender, the upper half an off-white. There were a trio of love seats in muted colors, a quartet of armchairs that were too fancy for a dentist's waiting room but not quite plush enough for anyone to buy them for their living room, and an entire symphony of end tables, coffee tables, and floor lamps. Snack bowls dotted the tables and an oblong window opened into a tiny bar area, which was dark at the moment. Nobody was going to be mixing Phoenix a drink, but there was a tall, glass-front cooler full of sodas, juices, and flavored waters beside the bar, and one of those little machines that made the perfect single cup of whatever coffee, tea, or hot chocolate beverage you wanted.
Nothing at all green, unless you counted some of the M&M's in the bowl on a round table beside her chair.
Glancing around, entirely mystified, Katie gave her a small smile and a shrug. "I don't have a clue. Never thought about it, really. Anyway, look, your father and the others are getting settled. They'll be doing the intro in a couple of minutes. Do you want to take your seat in the audience now?"
Phoenix actually had to think about that. She had never been entirely comfortable with her father's work. Did she want to sit in the audience and experience it with a bunch of strangers or watch from backstage, where she didn't have to hide her skepticism?
"Are they believers out there?" she asked.
Katie glanced at the door as though she could see through it with Supergirl X-ray vision. Sunrise had just finished its first hour. Local affiliates would be doing their headlines and forecasts right now. The second hour of the morning news show was scheduled to be devoted entirely to the conversation about death and spiritualism and ghosts that the presence of her father and his colleagues always prompted.
"A lot of them," Katie replied. "And the rest are mostly folks who'd like to believe."
Phoenix hesitated, then nodded. "All right. Lead the way. Beats hanging around in the Lavender Room, I guess."
Katie gave a soft laugh, then opened the door, gesturing for Phoenix to precede her. Together they strode down a corridor busy with production assistants fetching coffees, and sound and camera people hurrying back from the bathroom. Phoenix played it off like none of it was a big deal, but found herself quietly fascinated. She'd watched enough behind-the-scenes stuff on television to know that making a movie or TV series could be total chaos. But the beehive buzz backstage at Sunrise made her head spin.
Her parents had intended this summer as an opportunity for Phoenix to get to know her father better. They had divorced seven years ago, and Phoenix had continued living with her mother in the Alexandria, Virginia, house she'd grown up in. But even before the divorce, her dad had never been around much. When he wasn't teaching at Georgetown University, he was doing research or writing articles and books. Phoenix had a lot of sweet childhood memories of playing with her toys on the floor of her father's home office while he worked, or climbing up into his big leather chair whenever he vacated it. But hindsight rendered those memories bitter. In truth, he'd rarely worked out of his home office, and when he did, it still meant that work ranked higher than his daughter on his priority list.
In high school, she'd had tons of friends whose parents were divorced, and a lot of those situations were seriously nasty. Booze and drugs, torrid affairs, and abuse were among the highlights. Kendra Parker's father had gone to prison for attempted murder after beating her mother so badly she was blind in one eye, and rumor had it Aaron Stack's mom had been having sex with members of the hockey team at her own son's school.
So Joe Cormier didn't pay enough attention to his wife and daughter -- boo-hoo. Nobody would cry for Phoenix, and she didn't do a lot of crying for herself. But in the quiet places of her heart, she wished that he had been a different kind of man, and that he and her mother, Mary, had never fallen out of love. She wished that her father had never been a medium or started writing about his theories about ghosts, making it so easy for people to label him a fraud or a nut job.
In the years since the divorce, Phoenix had usually spent one weekend a month staying with her father -- when he didn't forget and completely screw up the plans -- but in that time she'd gotten to know his colleagues better than she did her dad. At the university, they loved him and thought him eccentric, and they always doted on Phoenix. And when they spent time with other mediums, as odd as some of them were, even those people didn't seem as distant as her father.
But this year something had shifted in him.
From the first time they'd spoken about it, he'd actually seemed happy with the idea of her spending the summer with him. Maybe Joe Cormier had finally woken up to the fact that his baby girl wouldn't be playing with her toys on the floor of his office anymore, that once she went off to Boston College, everything would be different. Phoenix wanted to think that he had realized how much he had taken for granted and how much time he had wasted over the years.
In the last couple of months, he'd talked to her more than he ever had before, telling her stories about his childhood and his life and his work. Not that her dad had completely changed. He still became lost in his thoughts, and when preparing for events on his book tour he was still totally focused on his work, but he seemed different now, as though he kept reminding himself to include her, surfacing long enough to talk.
Phoenix should have been happy. She knew that.
But eighteen years of resentment and disappointment could not be erased with the snap of a finger. And hard as it would be for him to accept -- and much as it made her want to scream -- he'd woken up too late. All that he had withheld from her could never be regained. Her childhood was over.
Whatever the future held, the best they could hope for would be to build a new relationship, father and adult daughter. Phoenix did not know if she would ever really forgive him. But this time together was a start, no matter how many ghost hunters and whack jobs and snide debunkers she had to watch her father debate along the way. So now they were trying to define what their relationship would be, right in the midst of her father's promotional tour for his new book.
Katie led her to an industrial-looking set of double doors with windows set into each and a green bulb glowing above them. The production assistant slid past Phoenix, pushed through the door, and held it open for her.
At first glance, the studio reminded her of some of the talk shows she'd seen, or some of the more intimate off-Broadway theaters where she'd attended performances. But instead of hardwood and cobwebs, this place was all tech and cables and bland modern design. There was only enough seating in the audience for 150 or so, all arranged with a view of several different sets, including a news desk, a platform with tall black bar stools on it, and a homey-looking interview area. The backgrounds of each set were as fake as the walls in a corporate cubicle, but the cameras would never pick up the edges, zeroing in only on what they wanted the home viewers to see.
A smile tweaked the edges of her lips. Wasn't that almost exactly what her father was always talking about? People only saw what they wanted to see. Perception was limited. But television made it simpler, limiting perceptions even before the human mind's natural inclination to edit its experiences kicked into gear. Most people didn't want to see what was beyond the frame of their perception.
That might be nothing but bullshit. Phoenix wasn't sure. But after hanging out with her father on a regular basis the past couple of months, she knew that he certainly believed it.
"You're in the third row," Katie said, leading her along behind the cameras toward the center aisle. "I hope that's all right."
Phoenix almost laughed. She'd flown first class only once, when she and her mom had been bumped from an earlier flight and been upgraded, but this felt similar to her. For the duration of the time her father would be in the studio as a guest on Sunrise, she'd be treated as though she was special. But she knew if she and her father came back tomorrow, they'd be handled no differently than the rest of the public.
"It's fine," she said.
Katie showed her to her place, the fourth seat from the aisle, and then rushed off to whatever other duties awaited her. People looked at Phoenix as she sat down and she felt herself blushing a bit at the attention. She didn't meet anyone's eyes, turning her focus entirely toward the set.
Soft music played on the speakers in the studio. The hosts were having their makeup touched up and a flurry of people moved around them, checking their hair and microphones. The woman was Amy Tjan, who'd been on the U.S. Olympic volleyball team once upon a time. From what Phoenix remembered of the gossip sites, Amy Tjan had grown up in Hawaii and gone to some Ivy League school. The blond guy with the perfect hair, on the other hand, she'd only vaguely heard of before today. His name was Steve Bell and he wore a serious expression, like he was actually on camera at the moment. She wondered if his face ever changed.
Phoenix glanced at her father, the picture of academic authority with his graying beard and glasses and the tan sport jacket -- with a hint of green -- she'd helped him pick from his closet the day before. He'd wanted to wear a tie, but Phoenix had vetoed the idea. Joe Cormier looked about as casual as he ever got, and handsome enough. He'd had dates, Phoenix knew, but never seemed to have time for romance. Big surprise. Her mother had dated as well, and been through several boyfriends over the years, but never found one she wanted to marry.
Her father had a very light complexion, but dark hair and dark eyes. Phoenix favored her mother, people always said, and as she got older she saw the resemblance more and more in the mirror. Her brown hair -- which she experimented with regularly but currently wore shoulder-length -- framed her round face, and she had her mother's green eyes. At forty-six, her mother looked at least a decade younger, and Phoenix hoped she'd inherit that as well.
Her father sat with his colleagues on a sofa on the interview set, which was apparently meant to look like someone's living room. The makeup and microphone people were hovering around them as well, along with a twentysomething guy who had one of those carefully groomed stubble-beards. It worked for some guys, but not for him. Stubble Boy had a clipboard and was deep in conversation with Annelise, a fifty-seven-year-old woman from Austria who just happened to be able to talk to the dead. Phoenix had met her several times over the years, but in the past few months they'd had more opportunities to get to know each other. The community of mediums who took one another's work seriously was quite small.
To Phoenix, ghosts had always been things in storybooks. Mediums were charlatans and TV heroines, or, even better, tabloid whores who claimed to talk to the spirits of Elvis and JFK. But Annelise had graying auburn hair and crinkly, smiling eyes, made the world's best hot chocolate, and had a filthy sense of humor. She barely talked about spirits unless someone else brought it up first. Phoenix had the impression that what others called her gift just made her sad.
If mediums were charlatans, then what was Annelise?
Aside from her "gift," she seemed so ordinary, just like Phoenix's father. God, was he ordinary. Though she'd never sat in on one of his lectures, if his talks about spiritualism were any indication, she figured they must be incredibly boring. How anyone could make a subject as controversial as life after death boring was beyond her, but her father had such a dry sincerity that he could make her eyes cross. Yet in private he had a wit just as dry and could make her laugh with his sarcasm, even when she didn't want to.
And most of the time, she really didn't want to.
They had issues, Phoenix and her dad. But that was what spending this time together was all about.
"Two minutes to air!" shouted a woman with a headset, holding up two fingers.
Nobody hurried, but Phoenix didn't think it was because they weren't listening to the woman, who must have been a producer or something. They all just seemed to know their jobs. Cameras were gliding into place. Lights went on, illuminating the living room interview set. The chairs for the two hosts were still empty, but all three mediums sat up a bit straighter under the bright lights.
Annelise and her father sat on the sofa together. In a chair to their left, Eric Honen took a breath, leaned back, and arranged himself to look like he was hanging out in his own home. Phoenix rolled her eyes, watching him lift his chin just so. The kid was her age and disgustingly good-looking, with olive skin, black hair, and Mediterranean features. It wouldn't have bothered her -- after all, Phoenix had no objection to good-looking guys -- if his arrogance wasn't so obvious. Her father and Annelise insisted that his gifts were as real as their own, but Eric didn't take their sober, academic approach to the work. He said he wanted to help people. Said all the right things, in fact. But the ambition simmered around him like heat from a roaring blaze. The kid wanted to be a star.
Scratch that. He wanted to be a celebrity. The two had become very different things. You didn't have to be a star of anything, or at anything, to be a celebrity. It was all about getting the camera on you and keeping it on you, no matter the cost. He might have been eighteen, but he had the temperament of a twelve-year-old.
Eric was about to get his biggest opportunity yet to fulfill that ambition. All three of the mediums had been on television before, but never together, and never with something as majorly audacious as what they had planned for today. An hour of America's second-favorite morning show devoted to the largest séance in the history of the world. Her father's agent had told Phoenix the network anticipated enormous ratings, even though no one expected the plan to actually work. Even the agent himself was on the fence. He believed in his commission and had total faith in anything that would pay him ten percent. As far as Phoenix knew, the only three people in the world who believed the séance would work were the mediums themselves.
For her part, she withheld judgment. Her father was an intelligent, rational man, but Phoenix held on to doubt because the alternative -- that it was all true -- scared the crap out of her.
"One minute to air!" the headset woman shouted, one finger raised.
At the signal, the house lights went down and the stage lights brightened. Stubble Boy smiled reassuringly at Annelise and gave Eric and Professor Cormier the thumbs-up before scurrying off camera.
Amy Tjan and Steve Bell strolled casually onto the faux living room set and took their seats, perching on the edge of the chairs so as not to rumple their expensive wardrobe.
Phoenix smiled, surprised to realize that she was excited. Her dad had been on television before, but she'd never gone along with him. Dry as he could be, he did love to have a willing audience.
Headset Woman -- who Phoenix assumed was some kind of producer -- called out the ten-second mark. But when the ten seconds had elapsed, instead of going straight to the hosts, all of the monitors began showing a prerecorded segment that included clips from old horror movies and documentaries about ghosts. The voiceover belonged to Amy Tjan, but the woman herself was adjusting her clip-on microphone and smoothing her skirt.
"Death haunts us all," the voice-over narration declared. "But it intrigues us as well. Medical science spends billions every year trying to keep us alive a little longer. We argue over the existence of ghosts, but polls show that most Americans believe in the spirit and in some form of life after death."
The thin, stylish, middle-aged woman to Phoenix's left leaned toward her. "Do you believe any of this stuff ?"
Phoenix offered her a noncommittal smile, not daring to answer just in case she was overheard. If someone recognized her as Professor Joe Cormier's daughter and repeated what she said, it might embarrass her father. That was a hard lesson, one that she had first learned at the age of twelve, when she'd told a friend's mother that she thought the ghosts were all in her father's head. It hadn't been long before her comments had been spread to every parent in the school. As cool as her own mom felt toward her father in those days -- a year after the divorce -- she'd been the one to tell Phoenix that people were talking. Though her father's beliefs sometimes embarrassed her, she had been ashamed that she had humiliated him.
From then on, she had been careful with her words.
"We ask all of the questions, but no one wants to discover the answers firsthand," the voice-over continued. "We grieve for lost loved ones, but what really happens to those who cross over, the spirits who've gone on to the other side? For a proper farewell, for comfort, or seeking knowledge, most of us would give anything to talk to them again, just for a minute.
"What if you could?"
Headset Woman kept well behind the cameras as she raised a hand to cue the hosts, as if they needed cueing after that intro. Amy put on her TV smile, which was pretty convincing, but Steve Bell looked as grimly serious as ever, like this whole subject had him thinking profound thoughts.
"That's the question for the next hour, America," Amy said to the camera. "We'll be spending it with three of the country's most renowned mediums, talking about ghosts, spirits, life after death, and presenting the first-ever live interactive séance that you can participate in from home."
Phoenix winced. When she said it like that, it sounded like an infomercial.
Steve Bell nodded. "You never know what the new day's going to bring on Sunrise. Let's meet our guests." Copyright © 2008 by Christopher Golden