“Do you want to do something tonight?” he asked after a moment.
“Ew, no,” Emily said, brushing past him and slamming the door.
Her room had a preppy, nautical theme, with navy-and-white-striped bedspreads, lots of wood trim, and light fixtures and drawer pulls in the shapes of anchors, swordfish, and manta rays. The bathroom light was on, the timer ticking away, and there was a sky-blue towel on the floor that Emily didn’t remember putting there. A type of perfume Emily had never smelled before lingered in the air, and a discarded T-shirt lay on Erin’s bed. But Erin was nowhere in sight.
She flopped back on the mattress, shut her eyes, and felt the almost imperceptible sensation of the boat cutting across the sea. She heard a slight rustling sound, but figured it was probably the water lapping against the side of the ship. But how was that possible? This room was eight flights up from ground level, nowhere close to the water.
There were more rustles. Emily looked around. The room seemed eerily still all of a sudden, as though all of the sound and air had been sucked out through a straw. The sound came from the little closet in the corner on Erin’s side of the room.
Bump.
She swung her legs off the bed and stared at the small door. Something was scraping against the walls desperately, as if clawing to get out. Suddenly, the bathroom timer dinged, and the only light in the room clicked off, drowning the room in darkness. It was so black, in fact, that Emily couldn’t see an inch in front of her face. A horrible thought took shape in her mind. What if the others were right? What if A—Real Ali—was on the boat?
There was another bump, and then a scrape. It seemed like someone was inside, trying to break free. Emily shrieked and scuttled to the opposite wall, ducking behind one of the long curtains. And then, she smelled it: a slight whiff of vanilla, wafting out from across the room. It was the soap both Alis, Real and Theirs, had always used.
Emily’s fingers trembled as she reached for her cell phone, ready to dial Aria, but then the phone slipped from her fingers, banging to the floor and tumbling under the bed. Then there was a loud, long, nerve-rattling creak. She peered at the closet through a gap in the curtains and could just make out the door in the darkness. The little starfish-shaped doorknob began to turn, and the door began to open, revealing whoever it was inside.
She yelped, untangled herself from the curtains, and dove for the door that led to the hall, but her foot caught on one of Erin’s discarded boots and she went flying onto the carpet. She scrambled to her hands and knees, then glanced behind her and screamed. The closet door was wide open now, and a figure matching Ali’s height and weight was staring at her.
“Stay away!” she screamed, crawling toward the door. “I’ll call security!”
“Please don’t!” the figure cried.
“Then get out of my room!” Emily screamed. “Get out now!”
“I can’t!”
Emily paused with her hand on the knob. It was a plaintive, desperate cry, not a threatening one. The voice didn’t sound like Ali’s, either.
“W-why?” she stammered.
“Because I’m a stowaway!” the figure said. “I have nowhere else to go!”
Emily noticed a small, quilted makeup bag on the floor of the closet, illuminated by a thin strip of moonlight. Stitched on the side was the name Zora-Jean.
“My name is Jordan Richards,” the girl said. “I snuck on this boat because I had no money. I didn’t think it would actually work, but now I’m here, and I don’t have a room, and …”
Then she stepped into the moonlight. She had large green eyes, full lips, and thick, dark hair held back by a velvet headband. She wore a white eyelet dress and ballet flats with grosgrain trim.
Emily gasped. “You?”
“Me,” the girl answered, and then faintly smiled. Ghost Girl.
Emily sank down to her bed, trying to focus. “You snuck on the boat?” she repeated.
Ghost Girl—Jordan—nodded. “This morning. I wanted to come on the cruise, but my parents didn’t have the money.” She made a wry face. “Actually, they didn’t want to spend the money. We’re not exactly close.”
“Okay,” Emily said slowly. “How did you get on?”
Jordan leaned against the wall next to the closet. “There was so much confusion when everyone was checking in that I thought, What if I just walked on? Would anyone notice? So I did. But then the ship pulled away from the dock, and I panicked. I didn’t have my passport. I didn’t have any stuff. And I didn’t have a room to sleep in. I was screwed.”
“Don’t you know other people on the ship who could help you out?”
Jordan shook her head. “I just moved to the Philly area a few weeks ago, so I don’t really know anyone yet.”
“What school are you going to?” Emily asked.
“Ulster,” Jordan said, staring absently out the little circular porthole.
A crack formed in Emily’s brain when she looked at Z-J’s bag again. “You were the person stealing stuff from people’s rooms, right?”
Jordan looked sheepish. “A lot of people left their doors open while moving in,” she said. “It was easy to slip in and out of the rooms. That’s how I got into your room, too. I camped out here for a couple hours and took a nap.” She grabbed Z-J’s bag and a couple of other duffels from inside the closet. “Anyway, I’ll let you get some rest now. Sorry I freaked you out.”
“Wait!” Emily caught her arm before she could go. “D-do you want to stay here?”