Chapter 8 – Elise
Chapter Eight
Elise
Elise had spent just three days in this haunted, golden theatre, and now they were packing it up, ready to roll onward to the next city, the next stage, the next stretch of wooden boards beneath their feet.
It always went like this—arrival, run, departure—but it hit different this time. She’d started to feel steadier here, more like herself. And now everything was getting boxed back up again.
The final show was done, the applause still echoing somewhere in the rafters like a restless spirit, and a cast party was kicking off at a local brewery known for its hoppy flights and surprisingly decent karaoke setup. But first, the great post-show ritual: trunk Tetris.
The wig trunk was already staged in the middle of the wig closet, fully opened and waiting to be filled before it was wheeled into the moving caravan. Elise crouched beside it, making strategic decisions about which supplies to bury and which she’d need easy access to at the next venue.
She caught a flash of blonde in her periphery—Casper had found a sparkly feather boa in the costume scrap bin and was parading around the backstage hallway like a cabaret ghost, dramatically lip-syncing to a song only he could hear.
Lark was, once again, the last one to leave the wig closet. She’d made a habit of lingering: unpinning her hair, asking small, oddly specific questions Elise wasn’t sure how to answer. Tonight it was about bristle brushes. Last night it was adhesives.
None of it was strange on its own. But the way Lark hovered, fingers always touching something—a brush handle, a length of ribbon, a box of bobby pins she never actually used. It felt like she was reading the space, not tidying it. Like she was looking for something. Or waiting.
Elise had gotten used to it. She’d stopped jumping when Lark appeared in the doorway, stopped trying to make the silences less awkward. Still, she didn’t fully understand why Lark kept coming back here.
Lark tucked a chestnut curl behind her ear and glanced over, her eyes catching the soft yellow stage light coming in through the open door. “You’re not going to the party yet?”
Elise shook her head. “Still packing up.”
Lark nodded, like she already knew that. She stepped closer, brushing an invisible speck of lint off the edge of the counter, fingers lingering a beat too long.
“I’ll see you there, then,” she said, voice low. “Later.”
Before Elise could respond, Lark turned and slipped out the door, footsteps soft against the hallway floor.
She left behind a faint trace of clove and hairspray.
Elise stared at the space where she’d stood, a low hum settling in her chest. She didn’t know what the feeling was. Not quite caution. Not quite curiosity. Something in between, like an unfinished chord waiting to resolve.
A moment later, Marcie stepped in with a groan and a trunk’s worth of makeup barely contained in her arms.
“I swear, they expect us to pack the entire Sephora wall into a shoebox,” she said, eyes darting around for space. “Any chance your wig trunk has a little real estate left?”
Elise gestured toward it. “Probably. I haven’t packed everything yet.”
She eyed the collection of old playbills in the corner—some torn, some faded, all left behind by her predecessor like offerings from a long-forgotten era. She still hadn’t decided whether to keep them.
Marcie nudged the conversation elsewhere. “So. You and Lark.”
Elise looked up, one eyebrow raised. “What about me and Lark?”
“She’s been in here a lot,” Marcie said, tone playful but not unkind. “Just saying—it’s not subtle.”
Elise gave a short laugh, more puzzled than amused. “I thought she was just being friendly.”
“Maybe. Or maybe she’s circling.” Marcie dropped her makeup kit with a thud.
Elise blinked. “Wait—what?”
“She’s persistent when she’s interested. And you? You’re exactly her flavor of challenge.”
That made Elise pause. She turned the words over in her mind, slow and cautious, like something fragile she didn’t want to drop.
She had known Lark was rebounding from something messy with Ellen. She’d assumed Lark was just... redirecting, like people sometimes did when they didn’t want to sit in their own silence. But this?
Suddenly, a dozen little moments landed differently. The lingering. The strange questions. The way Lark had touched that hair ribbon last night like it was meaningful.
“I’m just saying,” Marcie said, stuffing a rogue brush into a zip bag. “She likes a quiet girl with a bit of mystery. And you?” She tapped the side of her nose. “You’ve got haunted eyes and that whole quiet mystery vibe that makes people think you know everyone’s secrets.”
Elise managed a soft laugh, but her thoughts were spinning.
Was that really how people saw her now?
Was that how Lark saw her?
It was flattering, in a way. And unsettling. And, if she was being honest, just a little claustrophobic.
Kevin sighed. “It’s just so very Lark to cast someone in her personal rom-com without checking the availability of the lead.”
“I’ll… swirl on that later,” she said aloud, mostly to herself.
Marcie snorted. “Just don’t swirl too long. Karaoke waits for no one.”
Jen appeared in the doorway right as Marcie made her exit. “You coming with us now, or do you still have hair sorcery to finish?”
Elise held up the rain wig like it was a rare artifact. “This one still needs its turn in the dryer, and I haven’t even started the bobby pin evacuation.”
“Well,” Jen said, holding out her hand expectantly, “then at least give me the key card and the closet key so I can—” She paused mid-thought, then snapped her palm shut before Elise could reach for her bag.
“Actually, no. Bring them to the cast party.”
Elise narrowed her eyes. “So this is blackmail.”
Jen grinned. “No, this is insurance. Now you have to show up.”
With that, she disappeared into the hallway, laughter trailing behind like the end of a good scene.
Left alone again, Elise gave the wig in her hands a final once-over, then slid it gently into the dryer and closed the door. The hum filled the little room once more.
She took a breath, surveying what was left: half a dozen pins to collect, a bag of wig caps to tuck away, and a room full of her quiet little kingdom, ready to be packed down and moved along.
Elise moved through the wig closet with soundless intention, reaching for the small, worn box tucked inside her carry-on bag.
The warding kit.
Same bent brass clasp. Same scuffed corners. Same quiet promise.
By now, opening it felt less like beginning a ritual than closing one. A final pass. A thank you. A careful gathering of everything she had placed here on day one, when this theatre had still been unfamiliar and full of shadows she hadn’t yet learned by name.
She started with the tiny ceramic dish, chipped at the rim but still solid. It had cradled the remnants of a sprig of dried lavender and a stubby piece of palo santo, burnt down to a softened nub. She tucked it carefully inside.
Then came the iron nail. Hidden behind the utility table since her first night, it was still cool to the touch—steadying. She liked its weight, its honesty. It had never tried to be anything other than what it was.
But when she turned to reach for the herb bundle… her fingers met only dust.
She blinked, searched the shelf again. Mugwort and rosemary, wrapped in red thread. She remembered watching Cici tie the knot herself last time she visited. A gift. A charm to keep her grounded and protected.
It was gone.
Elise scanned every surface. Checked beneath chairs, between bins, behind the door. Nothing.
Her chest tightened. Not with fear, but with the sharp, specific ache of something personal slipping out of reach.
It hadn’t walked off on its own. But she’d seen stranger things in stranger places.
Still, she couldn’t shake the pinch of disappointment as she closed the box. She’d ask Cici for another, once she got settled in the next stop. Cici would probably send three.
Elise knelt beside the wig trunk, arranging each foam head like puzzle pieces. It was a small kind of closing choreography, fitting everything just so—lace fronts nestled into canvas blocks, combs tucked between bottles, pins sealed in their tin like treasure. A ritual of order, the final spell
With the last click of the latch, she stood, brushing off her hands. The room was quiet, but not empty. She could feel it—that velvet hush that meant someone was listening.
So she sang.
A final song for the theatre. A gift.
The melody rose gently at first, curling around the mirrors and the drying racks. Then they climbed, strong and sure, threading through the rafters. Her voice carried across the walls, seeped into the corners, and echoed out past the door.
One by one, the ghosts arrived.
First Kevin, appearing in the mirror, soft-eyed and unusually still. Then the boy, knees drawn to chest beside the trunk, watching her.
Others emerged—faded silhouettes, not frightening but present. The kind of presence that made air feel heavier, sacred. There was reverence in their stillness. As if this was church, and she had become the hymn.
She let the last note fall gently, like a curtain.
Kevin spoke as it vanished.
“You’ve left something here,” he said. “The place feels different now. Lighter. Like it remembers how to breathe.”
Elise gave a modest shrug, brushing a flyaway hair from her forehead. “Just doing my job.”
He smiled, quiet and proud. “You keep saying that. But you don’t just work in these places, Elise. You leave them better.”
Her eyes flicked toward the empty mirror, where the ghosts had already begun to fade. She let out a soft breath.
He grinned. “Still time to take center stage, if you ever want it.”
She laughed, shaking her head. “Not a chance. I like it just fine from here.”
The trunk would stay behind, its padded walls cradling hours of work, waiting patiently for the moving crew to take it to the next city. She gave it a small pat, like a loyal dog. See you soon.
Elise flicked off the wig closet light and stepped into the backstage hall, her boots muted on the worn floor.