Chapter 20 – Elise
Chapter Twenty
Elise
Elise hovered at the backstage door, unwilling to move forward, too afraid to turn back.
This was a different theatre, a different city. The dread followed her anyway, curling around her spine and settling in her chest like cold fog.
The door was already cracked open, wedged in place by a chipped brick with someone’s initials scratched into the surface. A simple thing, but it made the entrance feel more ominous than inviting, like someone had left a door between worlds half open. Careless. Dangerous.
Elise lingered on the threshold. The stage door for this building was tucked in a side alley behind the fly house, barely visible unless you knew where to look.
The theatre loomed above her, old bones of a converted opera house wrapped in ivy and brick.
It had a history, of course. They always did.
But she hadn’t had the time to learn it yet, and the building wasn’t offering introductions.
It was barely 9 AM. The sun hadn’t yet cleared the tops of the buildings, and everything felt liminal—quiet and too bright, as if the day hadn’t decided what it would become.
Elise hadn’t slept. Her body arrived yesterday, but her thoughts had stayed behind, tangled in the alley with Kevin’s final shout echoing through her bones.
Load-in days belonged to the crew. Cast usually flew in a day later, once the trunks were unloaded, the set assembled, and the theatre had been transformed from an empty shell into something more. Which meant, for now, Elise expected the building to be mercifully light on witnesses.
She wrapped one hand around the strap of her carry-on, the other clutching Kevin’s pocket watch like a lifeline.
It had burned hot since she left the last city.
She wasn’t sure what that meant, and she was afraid to find out.
She hadn’t let herself think past the moment he’d dragged the Specter back out of existence.
Hadn’t let herself wonder whether he’d come back from it.
Whether there was anything left of him to come back.
If the Specter was going to return, it would be here. She thought she could feel him already, watching from somewhere beyond where her senses could reach. Her skin prickled with the certainty of it.
But she wasn’t going to walk in empty-handed.
She had every protection Cici had ever made her swear to carry: salt vials in both shoes.
Her iron nail on a necklace. A crystal in her bra, two more in her belt bag.
A tumbled stone smoothed by worry in her pocket.
If something was going to happen, she told herself, let it happen now.
Before Graham showed up. Before Lark flew in.
Before anyone else could pay the price for her unfinished business.
She wouldn’t let anyone else get hurt. Maybe she could help Ellen—offer another trade.
She took a breath, shifted her weight forward, bracing herself to cross the threshold. Willing her foot to move.
Footsteps echoed down the alley—quick, confident. A bag scraped brick. For a breathless second, her stomach dropped. She had hoped to avoid any witnesses.
Graham rounded the corner, duffel swinging at his side, hair mussed from sleep or wind or both. The early light caught him like a spotlight, softening him into something familiar and unreal at once.
“Elise,” he called, voice rough from travel but unmistakably him.
She blinked. For a heartbeat, she thought the theatre had conjured him—hope shaped from fog and longing, too good to be real. But no—he was real. Solid. Tired. His smile trembled at the edges when their eyes met.
“I—what are you doing here?” she asked.
“Red-eye,” he said, like it was obvious. “Got in right before dawn. I couldn’t wait another day not knowing if you’d be okay.”
Elise stared, pulsing against her palm like a warning. “You look exhausted.”
“I am.” A faint grin. “Still worth it.”
She looked at the duffel. “That’s your whole bag.”
He shrugged. “I came straight from the airport.”
There it was again—that quiet steadiness, the way he made her feel anchored even when the ghosts stirred and the shadows whispered.
He reached for her hand. Not insistently—just a palm turned up, patient.
She let him take it.
His fingers were warm. The iron in her pocket hummed faintly, soothed.
“Hey,” he said gently. “We’ll go in together, okay?”
“I don’t know if it’s safe—” she started.
“Hey,” he said again, cutting her off. “I know. But there’s no way in hell I am letting you go in there alone.”
Elise nodded, swallowing the knot in her throat. The talisman still thrummed faintly in her other hand, but now she had something stronger to ground her.
Together, they crossed the threshold.
The moment Elise stepped in, the world stilled.
There was no change in temperature, no dramatic sound. Just a shiver down her spine and a flicker at the edge of her vision, like reality blinked.
Then—Kevin.
He coalesced from nothing in the middle of the hallway, as if pulled forward by her presence, or the talisman, or the building itself. One breath he wasn’t there. The next, he was adjusting his sleeves like he’d merely stepped in from a different room.
“Kevin?” Her voice cracked through the stillness.
Graham tensed beside her, but Elise barely noticed.
Kevin turned toward her slowly, like a man waking from a long, confusing dream. His brows furrowed. “Elise?” He looked around. “Where... is this?”
“You’re back,” she whispered. “You’re—oh, thank god—you’re okay.”
He didn’t answer at first. His gaze flicked to the door behind her. “The alley. You were there. He was—” He winced. “He was in me. And then—” He blinked like something short-circuited. “And now we’re here?”
Elise nodded. “A new city. New theatre.”
He gave a quick self-inspection—patting his ghostly torso, brushing his lapels, testing his coat for damage. “Well. Still stylishly dead, apparently. No scorch marks.” He checked the hall again, uneasy.
Graham spoke up, voice low. “Shouldn’t there be… something? If this Specter thing followed you, how can he be gone?”
Elise tightened her grip on the talisman. “I don’t know. I expected—something. A sign. A shadow.”
Kevin paused, head cocked, like listening for music that had stopped playing mid-note.
“I don’t hear him,” he murmured. “The Specter. There’s… a stillness. But not peace. More like a breath held too long.”
“Which could mean he’s really gone,” Elise said softly. “Or… just waiting.”
Kevin’s gaze found hers as he nodded slowly. “Let’s not mistake quiet for safety. But yes. For now… it seems like it’s quiet.”
Elise leaned against the wall just inside the stage door, trying to steady her breath. Kevin’s presence was like a warm light flickering back on inside her chest—reassuring, but fragile. Like it might gutter out again if she let herself relax too soon.
Graham hovered nearby, not quite touching, his concern held carefully in the space between them.
She slipped her phone from her bag and opened a new message to Cici.
Made it in. No specter. Kevin’s back.
Graham’s here. I’m okay.
She stared at the last two words for a second. They didn’t feel true. But they were true enough for now.
The reply came almost instantly.
Cici
YOU WENT IN ALREADY???
Elise!! That could have gone badly.
I love you but you’re a danger goblin. I’m glad you’re okay.
Never do that again.
Thank god Kevin’s back.
And no sign of him? Really??
Elise smiled in spite of herself. She could hear Cici’s voice in every word—equal parts panic, sarcasm, and love.
Another message popped up.
I’m really close with the banishment spell. Almost there. I’ll call you in a bit once I finish the last bit.
DO.
NOT.
provoke anything.
Elise’s fingers hovered over the screen for a second before she responded.
I won’t. Promise.
She locked the screen and looked up. Kevin was still inspecting the hallway like it might try something. Graham met her eyes, one brow slightly raised in question.
“Cici’s on it,” she said softly. “She’s almost done with the spell.”
Kevin nodded, then gave a theatrical sigh. “About time someone besides me did the hard work around here.”
They moved like ghosts themselves—quiet, purposeful, threading through the wings that wrapped behind the stage like a hidden artery.
The walls had been painted matte black, presumably to vanish in the dark, but Kevin clicked his tongue. “This is not a good black. Flat, uneven, badly scuffed. I’ve seen better finishes in middle school theatres.”
At least he was still Kevin, ever the critic.
Above them, the rigging creaked faintly—metal bones shifting in some unseen wind.
A single ghost light stood centerstage: a bare bulb on a battered stand, casting a lonely golden circle on the otherwise empty boards.
Its glow barely reached the wings, but Elise felt its presence like a heartbeat.
Watching. Waiting. Holding the dark at bay.
As they moved through the wings, the stairs revealed themselves without fanfare—just a cool draft, a metallic smell, and descending steps that seemed older than the theatre itself.
“This one’s subterranean,” Elise murmured, already gripping the handrail.
Graham raised an eyebrow. “That’s… ominous.”
“It’s not that weird,” Elise said.
Kevin sniffed. “Please. Older theatres always made do. You build up for the patrons and down for the tech crew. If you never got a dressing room next to a boiler, did you even suffer for your art?”
The stairs groaned slightly under their weight. At the bottom, the darkness gave way to a wide, low-ceilinged common room. The green room. It was painted in a tired shade of beige and lit with mismatched bulbs—some warm, some flickering like they were practicing for a horror scene.
Plastic chairs leaned against the walls. A chipped coffee maker perched on a folding table. A bulletin board overflowed with curled headshots and passive-aggressive notes from stage management.