Page 132 of Specters & Spotlights

Elise glanced toward the far wall, where Kevin hovered in a dim corner near the makeup station. He was barely there—in the dim glow of the makeup mirror, he was no more solid than a memory. His suit looked washed-out, the lines of his figure soft and fading.

When he noticed her gaze, he gave her a small salute. It cost him something, she could tell. She offered him the ghost of a smile in return.

This had to work. There was no fallback plan. No second attempt. They had one shot—during one scene, during one storm—and if they failed?

Kevin would be gone.

Upstairs on stage, the cast sang about love and marriage. About choices.

Elise closed her eyes, and for just a moment, let herself pretend it was just another show.

Then she opened them again, and began to count the minutes until intermission.

Act One crept forward with all the tension of a held breath.

Things had been going wrong all night—but just barely. Flickers. Whispers. A curtain that swayed without wind. A few crew members stumbled over nothing backstage. One of the prop teacups shattered before it could be brought onstage, the handle splitting clean off as if it had been pulled. The show continued, seamless for the audience. But backstage, it felt like someone had lit a match and let it smolder.

Elise could taste the presence of the Specter like smoke in a sealed room. No flames. No visible threat. Just the creeping, metallic sting of something burning too slowly to see.

Now, alone in the wig closet with Kevin, she stood at the eye of it. Her space was ready. Wigs set and staged. Extra candle bundles tucked just out of view. Her warding kit, waiting for some emergency smudging, if needed. It smelled faintly of rosemary and ozone.

Kevin hovered by the mirror, flickering worse now—half a man, half a memory. He didn’t speak. She didn’t ask.

She leaned against the counter, ears tuned sharply to the greenroom speaker.

The orchestra swelled into the opening strains of “Every Reason Not to Love You.”

This one always got to her.

She closed her eyes for a moment and let the music fill the room. Graham’s voice—low, rich, restrained—cut through first. Then Lark’s: pure, aching, edged with steel. The duet spiraled upward in conflict and longing, both voices climbing and clashing, weaving around each other like a dance neither of them wanted to finish.

Elise felt it building. Not just the song, but something underneath.

A shift in the air. That awful stillness that came before a storm.

The music slowed. Elise could see it in her mind: Elizabeth storming toward the stairs. Darcy standing below, pride unraveling.

Lark’s final note rang out.

A door slammed. Loud, intentional. The cue Elise expected—the final punctuation of Elizabeth’s rejection that signaled the end of Act One.

But the scream that followed wasn’t part of the script. It tore through the speaker like lightning, followed by a sickening thud, too heavy to be theatrical.

The speaker crackled once. Then silence. Elise didn’t move.

Kevin, beside her, had gone perfectly still. Elise blinked, waiting for something else—laughter, applause, a cue, anything. But the theatre gave no answer.

Only the sound of her own breath, suddenly too loud.

And the sinking certainty that something had just gone very, very wrong.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Elise

Elise’s body moved before her brain could catch up.

She was already in motion—racing out of the wig closet, narrowly avoiding a dancer sprinting past.