Hello again, Story Club members.

I'm Ivy, your ghostly host with the most and keeper of the strangest,

spookiest tales on earth.

Today is another Ivy's chilling tale.

This dramatic tale, story club members, might make you stay off the boards.

It's one I call stage fright.

My friend Willow Yates is an aspiring actress.

Ever since I've known her back in Grimsbridge High School,

she was always involved in school plays, acting in student films,

and appearing in plays at the local community theater. She's even been

an extra and had bit parts in independent movies. And she recently told me a ghost story that

haunted me to my soul's core. It was early autumn, and she was trying out for a production

of Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap. She was going to be one of the characters in the famous suspense mystery play. To her luck and surprise, Willow won the title role of Molly Ralston during the audition process. So, several nights a week, she was meeting with the other actors and they were going through the play evening after evening working on the production. Almost immediately, things didn't seem right.

First, the thermostat in the theater seemed to be broken.

It was always cold.

Sometimes actor's scripts went missing, too.

Another time, some stage lights fell off their scaffolding

and nearly struck the main actors.

And Willow also noticed that what was supposed to be fun didn't feel fun at all.

Usually a happy, bubbly person, Willow would notice a certain negativity in the air

the minute she walked into the theater each night to rehearse.

It was like a cloud of doom hung over the production.

...