Page 24 of Specters & Spotlights

The theatre beyond the doorway had fallen still. Not silent. Just… waiting. Listening. Elise could feel it in her skin, in the press of air around her.

Behind her, Kevin’s voice cut in like it always did—effortlessly.

“You’re calmer than I expected tonight,” he said.

She just offered a wry glance as she reached for the next section of hair. “You say that like I haven’t done this a hundred times.”

“Not like this, you haven’t.” He drifted closer, hovering right above the wig block. “New city, new cast, new ghosts.”

Elise didn’t answer right away. She was folding another curling paper, combing a new strand smooth. Focused. Steady.

Kevin softened. “You’re different.”

She arched a brow. “You’ve been saying that since tech week.”

“Because it’s true. You’re not afraid this time.” He adjusted his ghostly cuffs. “You’re not hiding.”

She smiled—small, but real.

“So,” he drawled, “what’s the setlist tonight?”

She didn’t look up. “You’re insatiable.”

“I’m devoted to the arts.”

He nudged the wig block with one translucent knuckle. “Go on. Give me something with a belt. A ballad. Break my cold dead heart.”

Elise huffed softly, brushing another lock smooth. “You treat this like a Vegas residency.”

He shrugged. “You treat it like a sacred ritual. I’m just the audience.”

She paused, T-pin in hand, and glanced around the empty theatre beyond the wig room door. “It is sacred. These places… they remember voices.”

“And yours is worth remembering,” Kevin said, serious.

The words settled in the air between them.

Elise gave a small, breathless laugh. “Then maybe she’ll hear it, too. The girl I used to be.”

And then, with no audience, no cue, and no armor⁠—

Elise sang.

The first note slipped from her lips as naturally as breath. So clean and clear it made Kevin freeze mid-hover.

Elise barely noticed.

She was already moving, her hands dancing across the counter with muscle memory born of repetition and reverence.

Her voice swelled in Changed, Elizabeth’s act-two ballad—the one about pride, and fear, and the terrifying joy of letting someone see who you really are. The one Lark had sung so beautifully earlier that night.

But Elise didn’t sing it like Lark. She sang it like herself.

She sectioned a lock of damp hair, combed it smooth, and folded a curling paper around the ends. Her voice rose in harmony with the gesture. One verse, one roller. She wound the hair around it with care, tucking it into place at the base of the weft, then slid a T-pin through the roller and into the block below. Secure, precise, and practiced.

Comb.

Roll.