Chapter 22 – Graham #2
Jen reappeared a couple hours later, when the wig closet had started to feel like its own small world. Graham checked his phone out of habit and realized with mild alarm that it was well past dinner.
Jen didn’t bother with a greeting. She stepped in like she owned the place, clipboard energy still humming off her even without the clipboard.
“Alright,” she said briskly. “Rain cue’s been updated. Soundboard’s prepped. I circled back with the crew—we’re all in.”
Elise looked up so fast she nearly nicked her thumb on the knife. “Everyone?”
Graham felt his chest tighten at the surprised edge in her voice—like part of her still couldn’t quite believe people would show up for her, let alone rearrange an entire show around something they couldn’t fully explain.
Jen grinned. “Theatre people live for chaos, remember? Give ’em a mission and a little mystery, and they’ll bend over backwards.”
She held out a brown paper bag like it was a peace offering. “Also—sandwiches. Don’t get crumbs anywhere.” Her eyes flicked pointedly to the floor full of wax shavings. “I know you’re not supposed to eat back here, but I’m not letting you starve.”
At this point, the wig closet looked like a magical disaster zone: wax curls everywhere, open jars of salt, rune charts smudged with fingerprints, and three very tired adults surrounded by candle guts and spell notes like they’d lost a fight with a craft store.
Elise took the paper bag and immediately dug in, pulled out a sandwich, and handed it to Graham before grabbing another for herself. “Jen,” she said, reverent, “you’re a goddess.”
Graham took the sandwich like it might save his life. He was ravenous—and, honestly, grateful for the mundane interruption.
“Obviously,” Jen said, deadpan. Then she pivoted on her heel and vanished down the hall with dramatic flair.
Graham watched Elise take a bite—slow, unguarded—and his mind did something unhelpful with it. He forced his attention back to the sandwich itself. BLT. Avocado. This was fine.
He couldn’t help but notice her eyes kept sliding up toward the same corner of the ceiling. Not the doorway. Not the hall. The corner. He’d started to recognize the pattern.
He swallowed, then gestured lightly with his chin. “Is that where Kevin is right now?”
Elise blinked, surprised—like she hadn’t realized she was telegraphing anything. Then her expression softened in a way that made Graham’s chest tighten.
“Yeah,” she said. “He’s there.”
The words were simple. The tone wasn’t. There was something in it—sadness, yes, but also a frayed edge, like she was holding herself together by insisting on the next task.
“What’s he saying?” he asked, gently.
Elise’s throat worked once. She didn’t look away from the corner when she answered, like she was afraid that if she broke eye contact, Kevin might vanish.
“He said…” Her voice dropped. “He can feel it.” A pause. Then, softer, as if repeating the words hurt. “Like he’s unspooling. A few days, maybe. Not more.”
The sentence seemed to drain the air.
Graham watched her face—watched the fear settle there, not sharp and panicked, but deep. Not fear for herself. Fear for someone she couldn’t physically hold onto. Fear for Kevin, for Ellen, for everyone orbiting this widening danger.
He didn’t know what to say that would make any of it better.
So he stayed close, and tried to keep the mood light, mostly.
Lark started tossing out old tour stories like she was flipping through a highlight reel—cities with impossible stage doors, a thunderstorm that took out half the grid mid-matinee, an understudy who’d gone on with the wrong accent and somehow committed to it for two full hours.
Elise laughed in spite of herself. Even Graham found his mouth twitching, and when the silence threatened to creep back in, he offered up the worst backstage jokes he could remember—so bad they wrapped around to funny again.
For a little while, the wig closet felt almost normal. Almost.
Lark kept working. Chipping in. Focused. Competent. As if she hadn’t been the spark that lit the fuse in the first place.
And every time Graham looked at her, the thought flickered—hot and involuntary:
She’d summoned him. She’d started this.
The anger was still there. He could feel it, buried like a splinter. But there was no time for it now. Not when Elise was carving candles with hands that still occasionally trembled. Not when tomorrow was coming whether they were ready or not.
As a counterpoint—an unfair, dizzying counterpoint—every time he looked at Elise, he felt something in him tilt further out of balance.
He was falling for her. Deeply. Quietly. With the kind of inevitability that made him want to laugh at himself and also swear.
He couldn’t wait to deal with the looming Specter—not because he was brave, but because he wanted them on the other side of it. Back to living. Back to whatever had been building between them in stolen moments and shared light and the way she looked at him like she was deciding whether he was safe.
He realized, with a jolt of surprise, that he wasn’t just willing to take the risk anymore.
He was ready to jump in with both feet.
By the time they finally packed up, the work had shifted from chaos to order. Candles carved. Salt jars labeled. Wigs organized and nested back into their places. The floor still glittered with wax shavings, but the plan—at least on paper—seemed more real than it had a few hours ago.
Elise checked her phone, thumb flicking as she scrolled. “Cici emailed the last of the symbols,” she said. “I’ve got to copy them onto the papers for Marcie.” She exhaled, equal parts weary and amused. “That’s my hotel room fun time tonight.”
They stood in unison, joints cracking in quiet protest, and began gathering the scattered evidence of their evening—knives, charts, half-burned candles, the bag of sandwich remnants.
“Two hours before call tomorrow?” Graham asked.
“Yeah,” Elise said. “Bring coffee and possibly emotional support muffins.”
Graham felt his mouth soften into a grin before he could stop it, as they filed out of the closet space together.
He pulled the wig closet door shut behind them, fingers still on the knob as the latch caught.
In the mirror across the hall, something moved. His eyes snapped up on instinct.
Three identical ballerinas stood at the very edge of the reflection—so precise it looked staged. Skirts perfectly still. Hair in neat buns. Heads tilted in quiet unison, as if they’d been waiting for him to notice.
Watching.
A sound tried to tear its way out of Graham’s throat—high and probably humiliating—and he surprised himself by stopping it.
He forced it into something that could pass for a throat clear, or maybe a manly, noncommittal “hmph,” the kind of noise brave men made when they were absolutely not alarmed by anything at all.
His pulse hammered anyway.
He kept his gaze forward. Did not look back to confirm they were still there. Pretended he hadn’t just seen three impossible figures in a mirror.
Head swimming with the image, he turned and fell into step behind Elise and Lark as they headed up the stairs toward the stage door exit.