The camera starts rolling. I hear Aubrey say her first line, and then Cody say his first line, and then Amelia hides under a blanket and says she’s scared. Then, everyone looks to me, because my line is next.

But suddenly, my line has gone out of my head. My vision is focused on something fluttering along the ceiling. Something…see-through. White. With…is that long, flowing hair?

Oh no. It’s her. Again. But at the moment, I seem to be the only one who sees the ghost.

“Hayley!” Monique whispers. And then, frustrated. “Cut!”

The bell rings, indicating that we’ve stopped rolling. Everyone’s staring at me, definitely wondering why I’ve messed up. But I can’t stop staring at that filmy, fluttering projection on the ceiling.

A ghost, maybe. Or a person pretending to be a ghost.

Whatever it is, I’m going to find out. This ends now.

Chapter Eighteen

I tear off the set. Behind me, Paul is screaming.

“Hayley!” he cries. “Hayley, what are you doing!”

“I just need to check on something!” I yell. “Hang on!”

“You can’t run out in the middle of the scene!” His voice tightens. “This is costing us money!”

I want to tell him that this might save us money. But there’s no time. In seconds, someone else might look up and see the ghostly image on the ceiling. Then the screams will start. I need to stop whatever this is before that happens. Someone is behind this. And I’m going to find out who.

I burst out of the maze of sets to a more open part of the soundstage, which gives me a better sense of where the ghost is on the ceiling and where the reflection could be coming from. Suddenly, a crash sounds from a far corner. A props guy named Steve nearly backs into me, his face pale.

“Th-those crates just fell all on their own,” he stammers, pointing at a few splintered boxes several feet from where he’s standing. “They could’ve crushed me!”

“Oh my,” I whisper. But they didn’t fall on their own. I know it. I give him a sympathetic look and then push past him, toward the falling boxes.

I can hear Paul and others calling my name behind me: “Hayley! Hayley, what are you doing?”

But I run toward the falling boxes anyway. I’m going to figure this out.

The crates are stacked high. Scraps of wood from the ones that fell are everywhere. I wheel around, checking out the ghostly reflection still on the ceiling. And then I turn back to a point on the ground, just behind the boxes. Light is shining out, almost like someone is…yes! There’s a projector. Someone is beaming the ghost’s image onto the soundstage!