Page 63 of Specters & Spotlights

The fabric swayed on its hangers, but not from any draft.

She felt it then. The Seamstress noticing her.

“Okay,” she whispered. “Let’s talk. What do you want?” Elise whispered, not entirely sure if she was talking to the air, the board, or the feeling pressing at her chest like a too-tight costume. “Why are you still here?”

The planchette jerked once.

Then began to slide.

SOMEONE TOOK IT.

Kevin hovered near the far wall, half-faded into shadow, leaning forward with interest.

“Oho,” he murmured. “We’ve got ourselves a theft.”

Elise frowned. “What did they take?”

MY RING. THEY HID IT.

Her breath caught.

Behind her, Kevin stirred. Elise saw a familiar look on his face, the one he made when he was tuning into ghost-radio. “It meant everything to her,” he said softly. “Engagement, maybe. A promise, at least. Someone took it and never gave it back. She thinks it was hidden on purpose. And she’s angry.”

“Is it still here?” Elise asked, glancing around the empty backstage as if the ring might glitter out from behind a crate or curtain.

I DON’T KNOW.

She could almost feel the ghost’s frustration crackling through the board.

Kevin snorted faintly. “Translation: ‘If I knew, do you think I’d still be haunting your wig corner, you absolute turnip?’”

Elise huffed a quiet laugh, even as her eyes stung from the wisps of smoke.

“Well… I don’t know where it is either,” she said gently. “But I’ll try. I promise I’ll try to find it.”

There was a long pause.

“Could you maybe… take it easy on the costumes in the meantime?” she added hopefully.

The answer came in cold, clean letters.

GOODBYE.

Kevin hovered lower, watching the board settle. “She’s skeptical. Doesn’t think it’ll do any good.”

“She might be right,” Elise said quietly. “But I have to try.”

Kevin gave her a long look. “I’ll ask around. Spirits don’t usually gossip, but you’d be surprised what lingers.”

Elise nodded, grateful, even as Kevin’s presence retreated like smoke into the ceiling beams. The sage smoke was nearly gone. The air was still again. Somewhere above, the faintest creak of floorboards.

The show moved forward. No flickering lights, no slamming doors. Just the hum of a hundred practiced gestures—zippers, bobby pins, quick glances in mirrors. Ellen’s absence hung in the air like a question no one wanted to answer, but the machine of performance ground on, steady and bright.

From her post at the wig station, Elise tracked the show through speaker and the rhythm of returning footsteps.

She jumped a little when Mrs. Bennet’s voice burst through the monitor, bright and breathless—“Five daughters and not a single suitor between them!”—followed by a chorus of mock outrage and perfectly timed fan snaps. Moments later, the Bennet sisters spilled back into the green room, laughing breathlessly as they stripped out of gloves and retouched lipstick.

Later, in a lull between cues, Romy returned in a huff. “Casper improvised again during the Netherfield Ball. I swear to god, I almost broke character.”