Page 97 of Specters & Spotlights

She could feel him watching her, and when her thumb grazed just behind his ear, she caught the flicker—his pupils dilating, his eyes darting down to her lips and back up again, just enough to make her heart skip a beat.

She leaned back, biting back a smile. “All clear. Try not to ruin my masterpiece.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said, in a tone that made it very clear he was dreaming of something. As if he knew exactly what had just passed between them. And that it wasn’t over.

She turned back to her wig work, cheeks warm—and caught Sienna’s expression in the mirror.

Mouth slightly agape. Eyebrows somewhere in the rafters.

“That was… whew,” the actress whispered. “I didn’t know ‘hair check’ could be a whole genre. I’d watch that again.”

The final performance passed like a held breath.

No flickering lights. No shadowy figures. No whispers from the wings. Just clean scene changes and crisp cues—the kind of smooth sailing that felt… unnatural.

Elise didn’t trust it.

She moved through her backstage routine on autopilot, waiting for something to crack. This theatre had been too chaotic, too haunted, to let them go quietly.

She wasn’t alone in her unease. Kevin floated near the edge of the wig counter, not speaking, doing his own version of pacing—gliding back and forth like a haunted Roomba with anxiety. Every time she looked up, he gave her the same look: eyebrows permanently raised, lips pressed tight, ghost-glowering at nothing in particular.

That’s when it hit her.

The rosemary. The iron. The salt. She was basically a walking anti-ghost air freshener.

It must be uncomfortable for him to stay near her like this.

But he hadn’t left.

Not once.

He was keeping watch. Still, after all these years.

Elise swallowed hard and kept working, prepping for the final wig change of the night—the quick change, near the end of the show. Her hands were steady, but a small part of her kept bracing for something. Anything.

The quick change went off without a hitch. Elise barely had time to celebrate before the theatre dipped into darkness and the soft plink-plink of rain began to fall and the fog machines quietly hummed to life.

Cue the swooning.

Lark stepped out into the stage light with the poise of someone who knew this scene made people cry, and Graham followed, entering from the opposite side of the stage—voice like velvet and cheekbones carved by the gods of period drama.

As they launched into their final duet, Elise’s pulse slowed for the first time all day. The nerves, the Specter stress, the pacing ghost—it all faded into the background.

She loved this part.

The music. The drama. The theatrical declaration of eternal love under a fake rain machine.

Elise realized with a small ache that she hadn’t been singing on her own these past few nights. Not since everything got weird. She missed it—her personal late-night ritual. The echo of her voice in an empty theatre. The joy of making something just for herself.

She needed the next city. A reset. A little less murdery energy and a little more musical therapy.

Onstage, the two halves of the bridge set piece met centerstage, right before Darcy and Elizabeth ascended the steps together. The final notes floated through the air, their voices swelling in tandem as the storm of the story reached its resolution.

“I love you, Elizabeth,” Darcy murmured, his voice rich and vulnerable, every syllable soaked in devotion.

They leaned in, foreheads touching, lips nearly brushing. The illusion of the kiss was perfect.

And then, just before the lights began their slow fade, Graham looked past Lark.