Page 135 of Specters & Spotlights

Graham was right. There was no one else.

“She knows the role,” Graham said firmly. “Inside and out. I’ve heard her sing. She’s good. Really good.”

Elise flushed, but didn’t argue.

“She’s Lark’s size. She knows the lines, the cues. She’s watched every show. If anyone can do it, it’s her.”

The room shifted around her, like the entire company had turned toward her and was trying very hard not to make the decision feel as enormous as it was.

Kevin shimmered into view. Elise saw it immediately, the way his outline wavered at the edges, the way the light passed through him more easily than it should.

And still, he looked at her like she was the one who needed bracing.

“I’ll help,” he said softly. “We’ve got this.”

Something in Elise’s chest pulled tight.

Not fear this time. Love. Worry. The particular ache of realizing someone you depended on was more fragile than they wanted you to know.

She wanted to tell him to stop. To rest. To save whatever strength he had left. But Kevin gave her a small, stubborn lift of his chin, as if daring her to say it aloud.

So Elise nodded. Her stomach twisted, but her resolve settled like a stone.

Jen exhaled sharply through her nose. Elise could practically see the actor’s equity rulebook scrolling behind her eyes—waivers, exceptions, insurance, six different ways this could become paperwork.

But finally, she gave a tight nod. “Alright,” Jen said. “Let’s make some theatre magic.”

And just like that, she spun on her heel and became pure stage manager.

“Bennet sisters, help get Lark’s mic pack off of her! Nick, go grab the sound tech. Marcie, get Elise into makeup! Graham—make sure everyone else knows. Now!”

Chaos snapped into action.

Elise could barely track where one task ended and the next began—everything came at her sideways. Someone handed her a bottle of water. Someone else was shouting about mic tape. She nodded, moved, responded, but it all felt slightly dreamlike. Or maybe like the wrong kind of dream—the kind where you’re handed someone else’s life and told to live it convincingly with five minutes of prep and no notes.

Marcie swept in like a well-trained storm, taking over the intermission wig changes without being asked. “Go,” she said simply, and Elise did.

She ducked into a mirror station and started pin-curling her own hair with shaking hands. Nick appeared at her side, and Elise thumbed open a FaceTime call to Cici, pressing the phone into his hand. “Tell her,” she said, and Nick nodded.

Across the room, Talia and Bex were helping Lark out of her costume. They moved quickly but gently to the wig, loosening and peeling back the tape that held her mic pack in place on Lark’s temple and back, carefully removing it from where it had been secured beneath layers of costume and hair.

By the time Elise had her pin curls finished and a wig cap anchored, the sound tech was already waiting. She stepped into the green room so he could work—unspooling tape, rerouting wires, strapping her into the mic pack that had belonged to Lark just five minutes ago.

Lark was sitting nearby on a folding chair in her slip, her foot propped up on a costume trunk and a half-melted ice pack tucked behind her ankle. She had the printed spell instructions in her lap, flipping through the pages with concentration and quiet intensity.

“I’m still in this,” she said to no one in particular, thumbing to a marked page. “Even if I’m casting from the sidelines.”

Nick appeared again, holding the phone. “Cici had the same thought,” he said, and handed the call to Lark.

Lark gave a breath of a laugh, then looked up at Elise for the first time. Her eyes were glassy but clear. “You’ve got this,” she said. “You know the stage. You know the spell. And I’ll be right here—watching your back.”

Elise nodded, emotion tightening behind her ribs.

She slipped into the dressing room, grabbed the labeled costume bag for “Elizabeth Bennet – Act Two,” and began pulling on the layers. Somehow, impossibly, the shoes fit.

Marcie worked like a magician with a deadline. Most of the intermission wig changes were already done—Romy, Mila, even Devon had been prepped and sent flying back to the wings—and now she spun Elise toward the makeup mirror with practiced precision. Powder, blush, liner—each swipe of her brush erased some of Elise’s panic and replaced it with Elizabeth Bennet.

Midway through the eyeliner, Marcie’s eyes flicked downward. “We’re going to need to cover your arms too,” she said casually, like she was noting a missed contour. “Pretty sure the audience would notice if Elizabeth suddenly had full sleeves.”