Chapter 6 – Elise
Chapter Six
Elise
Elise arrived an hour earlier than usual for the matinee the next day, long before the cast and crew would begin to trickle in. The city hadn’t quite shaken off its morning glow yet, and the alley behind the theatre was hushed and damp.
She let herself in through the alley door, the same way she’d left the night before. The ghost light still stood at center stage like a quiet sentinel, casting its soft glow. The shadows weren’t as thick now, the air not as heavy. Daylight had brushed just enough warmth into the corners.
She walked across the stage, boots echoing on the floorboards, and glanced toward the seats. The old man ghost was in his place again, still watching. Still silent. She gave a small wave. He remained still.
Backstage, Elise opened the wig closet like a sacred space. She crossed to the wig dryer and held her breath—then exhaled in a quiet, satisfied hum. No power outage, no cursed circuits. The wigs were dry, their curls crisp, obedient, and waiting.
She set to work. Misting frizz. Fluffing volume. Checking pins. Brushing lace. Her hands moved like music. Measured. Intentional. She found a single off-kilter curl and coaxed it into line. The smallest tweaks made the difference between believable and beautiful.
On Lark’s finale wig, the lace had begun to fray—barely a whisper of halo where glue met sweat. Elise reinforced the edge, then smoothed it back into illusion. Seamless again.
These wigs were her pride. They’d been through tours and quick changes and literal rainstorms. And under Elise’s hands, they weren’t just hairpieces. They were transformation. They were magic.
She nestled her phone into the corner of the counter and hit FaceTime. A sleepy hum of the theatre’s backstage filled the space—hairpins clinking gently in a tin, the soft crackle of an ancient light fixture warming up overhead.
Cici appeared on her screen, bleary-eyed and radiant.
Her long dark hair was swept into a messy bun, silver studs and hoops gleaming along her ears and brows.
A soft-knit shawl draped over her shoulders like a familiar spell.
Behind her: stillness. Not the quiet kind, but the tender kind—life curled in a woven basket.
“They’re still just peanuts,” she whispered, turning the camera.
Elise’s breath caught. Six newborn kittens—barely two days old—lay tangled together in sleep, their ears folded, their eyes not yet opened to the world.
“Broomstick is the loudest,” Cici said, smiling. “Even with her eyes still closed, she can always find the food.”
“You named them already?”
“Of course. Belladonna, Elphie, Chaos, Lilith, Hecate, and Broomstick.”
Elise gently unrolled a curl and smoothed it, the rhythm of her work matching the quiet rhythm of her heart.
“How’s their mom doing?”
“Exhausted,” Cici murmured. “But letting me pet her when no one’s watching. Little trade we worked out—affection for rotisserie chicken. She must have been looking for a safe spot to have her kittens, and decided my porch was the best option on the block.”
As Elise took her comb to the second wig, they drifted into talk of ghosts. Elise told her about the boy with the laces, the chorus girl’s encore, the man in the front row.
Cici blinked slowly. “That’s a lot for one day.”
“They’re polite,” Elise said. “So far.”
“You’re steeped in it now. Just promise me you’re warding your mirrors and not walking around barefoot. And don’t forget your charm bag.”
“It’s literally in my pocket.”
“I know,” Cici said, and smiled that crooked, knowing smile—the one that had gotten Elise through at least a dozen breakdowns and one very bad winter. “Love you, always.”
“Love you too.”
The screen went dark, as the door behind her creaked open.
Lark stood in the doorway, mid-step, clearly having realized she was intruding on a conversation. Something flickered across her face—surprise, maybe curiosity. Maybe something else.
Elise scrambled for coolness, tucking her phone away. “Just talking to my best friend.”
Elise wasn’t sure why she felt like she needed to explain herself.
“Right,” Lark said softly, moving to her usual spot in front of the mirror. “Sounds like you two are close.”
Elise noticed not one, but two steaming coffee cups in Lark’s hands.
“For you,” she said, setting one down like it might be part of a spell.
Elise tilted her head. She didn’t drink coffee every day—some mornings asked for tea, others asked for silence—but there was something kind in the offering. She wrapped her hands around it, letting the heat bloom through her fingers.
“Thank you.”
Lark slid into the wig chair without further comment, tucking her knees together primly as Elise began the delicate art of transforming her into Elizabeth Bennet once more, starting with her pin curls.
One bobby pin, two bobby pins, a mist of spray, repeat—just like yesterday, but with a little more familiarity in the air.
Lark didn’t speak, but her silence wasn’t passive.
She watched Elise in the mirror, not with vanity, but with interest. As if waiting to be seen in return.
The door opened again. And like a shift in wind, the Bennet sisters blew in, ribbons trailing, voices raised, the soft scent of hairspray already beginning to settle in the air.
Bex led the charge with a steady hand on their teacup, somehow never spilling a drop as the others whirled around them.
Sienna twirled through the doorway, hasty pin curls already becoming dislodged.
Talia was mid-sentence. “Okay but listen—if I bail after they show up, it’s less rude, right? ”
Romy brought up the rear with a quick reply. “Depends,” she said, finding an open spot in the corner of the crowded room. “Are we talking food poisoning, or ‘mystery family emergency’?”
“Food poisoning sounds more believable,” Bex added serenely, already distributing bobby pins like communion.
The chatter bloomed and flowed, layering over the clinks and clatters of pre-show prep.
They reminded her, in flashes, of the last Bennet sisters she’d worked with. Different names, different rhythms, but the same noisy loyalty. That show had been a family, too.
Elise stayed silent, content to observe.
“And anyway,” Talia sighed, dramatically flopping into a folding chair against the wall, “who hasn’t had a crush on Graham at some point? He’s impossible to read. Has anyone ever seen him flirt? I’ve literally never seen him even look at someone for longer than five seconds.”
Lark’s voice cut softly through the noise. “Thanks.” She was already standing, wig complete. She offered a half-smile in the mirror—enigmatic as always—and slipped out right before the room filled with even more dancers, waiting for their wigs.
Elise didn’t join the chatter. She worked. Watched. The theatre had always been a magnet for chaos, but sometimes it felt like the chaos was cultivated here—like it bloomed backstage, fed by nerves and rituals and stage lights too hot to be natural.
In the quiet that followed a particularly dramatic story from Bex involving an ill-timed double-invite, Ellen tugged gently at her wig cap and leaned in.
“Do you think Lark seems... off today?”
Elise looked up, but Ellen’s eyes weren’t on her, they were angled just slightly toward the hall.
But the weight behind it was obvious. Ellen was the understudy for Elizabeth. She wasn’t asking out of concern—she was checking the temperature. Reading the tea leaves.
Elise shrugged. “Hard to say.”
Behind them, the cacophony surged again: Rae shrieked over a popped button, someone else broke into a falsetto riff, and Bex managed to rescue the tea with one steady hand and a look of long-suffering grace.
But Elise caught the flicker in Ellen’s jaw before she turned her face to the mirror, expression neutral.
Nick finally wandered in around fifteen minutes before curtain, looking like a man who had lost a duel with a gin martini and a velvet couch.
“Tell me honestly,” he said, eyes bloodshot but still charming, “if I asked the orchestra to play extra-quiet today, do you think they would? Like... interpretive lullaby versions of every cue?”
Elise stifled a grin. “You’ll have to bribe them with snacks.”
Nick leaned dramatically against the doorway, eyes closed. “If I survive the first act, I’ll make them brownies myself.”
Then, cracking one eye open, he said: “Hey—do you have plans between shows today?”
“Just wig things,” Elise said, gesturing at the array of tools and pins around her like a queen at court.
“Perfect. I’ll swing by. We need at least another hour of catching up before I feel like I’ve properly atoned for not staying in touch for the last year.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Look,” he said, shifting for real now. “I know I flaked. I don’t want to be the guy who ghosts and glides and always has a good excuse. You deserved better than radio silence.”
There it was—his version of vulnerability, still dressed in humor.
Elise nodded once, accepting it.
But before Elise could answer, Graham swept in—unannounced, but not exactly unexpected.
Elise flinched—barely, but enough. Her brush paused mid-air.
Graham’s eyes flicked to the motion, sharp and brief. He didn’t say anything.
He moved with the unconscious grace of someone who knew his silhouette would always look good in a mirror. A casual pivot, a subtle check of his hairline, the kind of movement that was less vanity and more ritual. Like a man playing a part he didn’t have to rehearse.
Elise didn’t even pause her work. “It’s perfect,” she said, cool and practiced.
Gorgeous, even. And not her problem.
Graham met her eyes briefly, the corner of his mouth lifting. “Appreciated.”
He lingered slightly, his attention drawn for a flicker too long to Nick’s slouched posture and easy banter. He turned to go, and just as he disappeared around the corner, tossed out a breezy, “See you later, Emily.”
Elise blinked. “It’s Elise.”
Graham reappeared just far enough to look surprised. “Really?”
She nodded, lips pursed.