Chapter 8 – Elise #2
Kevin leaned in the doorway but didn’t follow. “I’ll meet you at the next one,” he said, his voice growing thinner at the edges.
Elise slung her travel bag higher on her shoulder. “See you in a couple days.”
Kevin’s smile flickered. “Ten seconds, tops.”
His talisman—the ornate pocket watch—was zipped securely in Elise’s carry-on bag. He’d be able to materialize again when she crossed the threshold into the next theatre. His thread to this world, tethered to her path.
“You’ll miss me,” she said, glancing back.
“I always do,” he said, already half-gone.
Elise reached for the closet door and pulled it shut. The googly eyes someone had stuck to the inside panels bobbled as it closed—lopsided, absurd, watching her go. She locked it with a small click.
Then she climbed the sloping ramp to stage right and paused. Right beneath the fly system, the shoes she’d left were waiting. They hadn’t been moved far, just rearranged. The laces were tied—neat, careful, deliberate. She left them where they were.
She crossed the stage one last time, shadows trailing behind her as the ghost light hummed its soft benediction. The velvet house seats stared back like sleeping faces.
She waved to the man in the front row, more out of habit than hope.
He lifted a hand in return. A small wave. Barely there.
Elise froze, her heart skipping a beat. Then she smiled. And moved toward the red EXIT sign.
She stepped out into the alleyway, the theatre door closing behind her with a soft clunk that echoed a little more than usual.
The air had that in-between quality—cool but restless, like the weather was deciding what to become.
In a space like this, at a time like this, the presence in the alley felt slightly more pronounced than it had on that first day in the city.
Elise changed course.
She walked to the spot by the dumpster, able to pick out the barest glimmer only because her senses told her it was there.
Up close, the spirit still didn’t read as a person so much as a leftover impression—a whisper of what it had once been.
It wasn’t trying to hide. It wasn’t trying to do anything at all.
Just the faintest echo, worn down by time until almost nothing remained except the last remnants of its dying panic.
Elise exhaled slowly.
She didn’t have any special talent for ushering wisps like this into whatever came next. Some spirits needed… more. More power, more certainty, more ritual than she could offer in a damp alley behind a theatre. But she didn’t want to leave without trying.
From her pocket, she pulled the ragged remains of the sage bundle she’d used in the green room. She lit it, shielding the flame with her hands until it caught. Smoke curled up and drifted toward the shimmer, thin and searching.
“Hi,” she murmured, feeling a little ridiculous and not caring anyway. “I don’t know if you can hear me.”
The alley didn’t answer. The city didn’t shift. The ever-present puddles just sat there, dull and dark.
Elise swallowed and tried again, softer. “I don’t know if this will make a difference, but… I wanted to tell you that you don’t have to stay here. Not if you don’t want to.” She paused, careful with her words, as if they were something fragile. “You can let go. Move on. It’s alright.”
She waited, biting her lower lip, trying to discern any change—anything visible, any shift in the air, any tremor in the prickling along her hands.
At first, nothing.
Then, so faint she almost missed it, the edge of panic in that corner of the alley seemed to loosen.
Like a clenched fist uncurled. Like a held breath, finally let go.
The shimmer didn’t brighten or speak or become a person again.
It simply… thinned, as if whatever had been caught there had finally heard someone answer back.
Or maybe nothing had changed at all, and Elise was letting hope play tricks on her. Hard to say, really.
She lowered the sage bundle and let it fall to the wet pavement. When the embers flared, she ground them out under her boot until the smoke died.
Elise pulled her coat a little tighter. Then, with one last glance toward the space where the shimmer had been, she started toward the main road.
As she emerged from the alley, her phone buzzed in her pocket.
Cici.
She answered before the second ring. “Hey! You caught me just in time—I’m walking to the cast party. You wouldn’t believe how many bobby pins I had to hunt down.”
Silence.
Then, Cici spoke—slower than usual. “Elise… something’s wrong.”
Elise’s steps faltered.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. I wish I did. It started maybe half an hour ago—this heavy feeling, like something pressing in from the edges. Like someone opened a door that should’ve stayed closed.”
Elise adjusted her bag, glancing behind her reflexively.
“Is it… me?”
“It’s around you,” Cici said. “Not from you. But it feels… drawn. Like something noticed something.”
The words tangled in Elise’s chest. “I’ve been careful.”
“I know. I know. And maybe it’s nothing,” Cici said. “But I haven’t felt anything this loud since—”
She stopped herself. But Elise knew.
Since then.
“That’s… comforting,” Elise said lightly, trying to force a smile through the tension.
Cici softened her voice. “I didn’t want to spook you. I just needed to tell you. The energy around you right now—it’s shifting. Be careful tonight.”
“I will,” Elise promised. “I’m okay. Really.”
“Are you?”
“I’ll have people with me. I’m wearing my comfy boots and my don't-mess-with-me eyeliner. I’m untouchable.”
That earned a tiny laugh. “Alright. But call me after, okay? Even if it’s late.”
“I will.”
Elise turned the corner, and spotted the soft glow of string lights and the tall outline of the brewery ahead. Music floated faintly into the night—light, distant.
“I can see the place now,” she said. “I’ve gotta go charm theatre kids and avoid karaoke.”
“You’d crush karaoke.”
“I’d cause a scene.”
“You always do,” Cici said fondly.
The call ended. Elise slipped the phone into her coat pocket, the distant music tugging her forward, and the weight of Cici’s worry trailing softly behind.
Elise stepped into the brewery right as she tucked her phone away, the strap of her carry-on digging stubbornly into her shoulder.
It was heavier than she remembered—probably stuffed with too many just-in-case items, like bobby pins and bundles of rosemary that smelled faintly of travel and theatre dust.
Inside, the brewery itself was warm and softly humming.
Cozy, with that comforting mix of low chatter and the clink of pint glasses.
A long wooden bar hugged the back left corner, lit from above with mismatched pendant lights.
Toward the front, worn leather chairs and a lopsided couch gathered near a large paned window like friends swapping stories.
In the opposite corner, a wide doorway—clearly the entrance to the karaoke room—glowed with moody purple light. She caught the lazy spin of a disco ball casting little bursts of glitter across the walls and the floor.
The restrooms stood like sentries near a black door marked only by a green exit sign. Probably the alley, Elise thought. She adjusted her bag, the strap catching for a moment, and scanned the room.
“Elise is here!” Marcie called.
She spotted Jen and Marcie near the bar, beers in hand, already halfway through a toast. The welcome was instant.
Warm. Familiar in a way that made Elise smile without meaning to.
One by one, other cast and crew members noticed her arrival—hands lifted, heads turned, smiles exchanged.
A few people raised their glasses without even interrupting their conversations.
As she made her way toward the bar, someone brushed lightly against her shoulder. She turned.
It was the quick-change tech from backstage—the one who’d always appeared exactly when needed, holding a hairpin or a can of static spray.
“Hey,” the woman said, smiling. “I’m Gina, by the way. We never really got a proper intro.”
“Elise,” she said, returning the smile. “Though I’m guessing you already knew that.”
“I had a hunch.” Gina raised her glass slightly in salute. “Nice work back there. That last change was seamless.”
“Thanks to you,” Elise said.
Gina disappeared into the crowd. Elise watched her go for just a moment, then turned toward the sound of voices and midi-tracks.
Nick intercepted her the moment she tried to slip quietly past the velvet-draped entrance to the karaoke room.
“Elise can sing,” he declared, as if announcing the arrival of royalty. “Someone get this woman a mic!”
Elise laughed, shaking her head. “Absolutely not. I’m here strictly to watch you all make fools of yourselves tonight.”
“Lies,” someone called from the bar—Morgan, the ensemble member, if memory served. “That’s what they all say.”
She gave a modest shrug, clutching her bag like a shield. “Really. I’m just here to witness the chaos.”
And chaos, indeed, was unfolding. The Bennet sisters had cornered the prop master by the snack table, gesturing wildly with plastic swords from an earlier production someone had inexplicably brought along.
Romy was dueling dramatically with a fake baguette.
Talia and Sienna were arguing over whether Ed (stoic as ever, nursing a cider) would break if they called him “Fitz” all night.
Bex’s partner, visiting from out of town, had been instantly absorbed into the social web—already mid-debate with Gina the costume tech about the ethics of stealing stage makeup for drag night.
Near the wall, Isla Kent was curled into one end of a lopsided couch, sipping something dark and knitting what looked suspiciously like a tea cozy.
Frankie Moreau, Mr. Bennet himself, was trying to convince Avery and Rae to join him in a jazz rendition of “Single Ladies,” while Devon and Benji attempted synchronized choreography in the background.
Elise took it all in with a soft smile. Her grip on her bag eased, just a little.