Page 146 of Specters & Spotlights

One second.

These were her people.

And cue.

Elise took one breath.

Then she stepped into the light.

Fog swirled low across the stage, wrapping around her. Low mist curled around the stones of the bridge set, soft enough to look romantic from the house. The lights caught in silver edges. Somewhere above her, the rain cue waited.

Across the stage, Graham stood in position.

Darcy, to the audience.

Graham, to her.

His eyes found hers, and the chaos inside her stilled.

Not because he was unafraid. She could see the fear in him, tucked beneath the polish of his posture and the controlled line of his mouth.

He was afraid.

He stayed anyway.

The scene began.

His first line landed exactly where it should, full of restrained longing. Elise answered. Her voice did not shake.

They crossed toward each other with the careful gravity of two people pretending this was only a love scene, exactly as Lark had rehearsed.

Step.

She turned away from the audience, just enough to make the movement read as blocking.

Turn.

Her hand rose to her collarbone. To the house, perhaps it looked like Elizabeth gathering herself before a confession. To Elise, it was the last ordinary gesture before the world broke open. She drew the pocket watch from beneath her bodice. The weight of it swung gently as it fell into her palm.

Kevin’s voice brushed her ear, barely there.

“You can do this.”

With her free hand, Elise found the pin in the folds of her skirt.

Prick.

The sting was sharp. Clean. Chosen.

A bead of blood welled on her fingertip.

Not taken. Given.

She folded the photograph, the watch, and her blood together between her palms.

And last: Summon.

“Come to me,” Elise said—to Darcy, to the Specter, to the audience. It was off-script, but they needed an invocation. Jen had shut down Lark’s idea of Elizabeth saying, “Come and get me, motherfucker,” in the show’s climactic love scene, so they’d settled on this instead.