Free Haunted Love by Cynthia Leitich Smith Page A

electricity alone is going to cost? It’s summer. It’s Texas. Think: air-conditioning.”
    Honestly, I hadn’t considered that. It’s not like I have an MBA or anything. I just graduated from high school a couple of weeks ago. I used to mow lawns in the summer, but this will be my first real job off the ranch. I may have been overambitious.
    “Plus,” Ginny goes on, “insurance, taxes, and you might want to advertise the place as a tourist attraction. The founders of Spirit were key players in the early days of the Republic, and historical tourism is becoming —”
    “Enough.” She’s a politician’s daughter, all right. Opening the door wider, knowing I’ll regret it, I say, “Come in. We’ll talk.”
    Ginny quiets as I lead her through the service hallway. It is hot in here. Muggy.
    I wonder what, if anything, she knows about the building’s tragic history, its lingering reputation. A teenage girl — Sonia Mitchell — was found dead in a storage closet in 1959. Another girl, Katherine something-or-other — Vogel maybe — went missing for good. She was new in town, like Ginny, and her body was never found. Both girls worked at the theater. And again, like Ginny, both girls were sixteen.
    Everyone hereabouts has heard the story. Partiers have busted in over the years, too, and every now and then a whole pack would run out hollering about a ghost.
    There’s no denying that the theater has an eerie quality to it. Over the past week, I’ve seen the letter
S
written in the dust and wiped it away again and again. Once or twice, I could’ve sworn I heard a soft voice coming from somewhere in the building. Enticing, musical, feminine . . . I’m starting to hear it in my dreams.
    As Ginny and I enter the lobby, I don’t give her the satisfaction of cranking the air conditioner immediately.
    Instead, I take in my new business, trying to see it the way tonight’s customers will. It’s a grand old place with a huge antique crystal chandelier, built when cotton was king. Granted, the gold-and-crimson wallpaper is faded, and the blood-red carpet is worn. So are the red upholstered seats in the screening room — both on the main floor and up in the balconies. But there’s still a romance to the place, a whisper of the past.
    Besides, my mom loved it. Every time we passed by, she’d say the Old Love was a ghost of the glory days of Spirit, a reminder of who we’d been and could become again.
    “Do you know how to run a register?” I ask Ginny, gesturing.
    She’s already playing with it. I only have one, set at the ticket counter. It’s an older model that I ordered off eBay.
    “Hmm,” Ginny says, scanning the lobby before brightening. “I know! We can lay out candy and popcorn on the counter, post prices, and provide a box with a slot in it so that people can pay on the honor system. Like at the library for folks with fines on overdue books.”
    That wouldn’t work in most places. In Spirit, it’ll do fine.
    “There are some boxes in my office,” I say, impressed despite myself. After a pause, I add, “Why do you want this job anyway?”
    Ginny shrugs. “I could use the money.”
    That makes two of us. The thing about living forever, I suddenly need a long-term financial plan. And, I realize, so far as Ginny is concerned, there aren’t any other jobs within walking distance. I bet she used to have a flashy car. I bet it was repossessed.
    I can’t help wondering if there’s more to her being here than that. Not to be conceited, but I’m fairly good-looking. I’ve got Mom’s blue eyes, and they stand out against my deep brown skin, slick black hair, and the sharp features I inherited from whoever was my dad. I’m wiry but solid enough from working on Uncle Dean’s ranch.
    Outside Spirit, girls are always flirting, not that I know what to say back.
    The locals, on the other hand, they pity me. When my mom died, everyone said what a shame it was for me to be orphaned at only ten. They saw my