Chapter 23 – Elise #2
“He’s close,” she said quietly. “Too close.”
Romy arrived from backstage, sage already lit, wafting spirals of smoke like she’d been waiting for her cue.
“I heard the pop. We’re doing a cleanse before someone accidentally gets possessed.” She moved with the confidence of someone who’d done this before.
Elise stepped back. “Please and thank you,” she said. But her voice was tight. She wasn’t sure sage would be enough.
Across the wings, Kevin flickered into view—faint, stretched thin like a reflection in warped glass.
Elise moved toward him. “You okay?”
He offered her a tired half-smile. “Still here. Mostly. Definitely less photogenic.”
She raised a brow. “Anything I should know?”
Kevin sighed. “The mime won’t stop following me. I think he’s waiting for me to transform under a full moon or something.”
Elise blinked. “Giggles?”
“That’s the one. Just stands there. Smiling.” He gave her a flat look. “It’s deeply unsettling.”
Elise tried not to laugh. “Noted. We’ll add ‘paranormal mime surveillance’ to the list of tonight’s complications.”
She reached for her pocket, grounding herself with the familiar weight of the pocket watch beneath her jacket.
“Not long now,” she whispered.
Back in the wig closet, Elise found Marcie already at work, gently gluing a lacefront into place.
“Figured I’d get a jump on things,” Marcie said, smiling over her shoulder.
“Lifesaver,” Elise replied. She took over without needing to ask. The rhythm of her hands in hair helped.
The familiar tug of lace and sweep of combs grounded her. Warding spells might protect them tonight, but this—this was her kind of magic. Making the wigs look perfect. Transforming people into their characters. Keeping her hands busy, her brain quiet.
The cast flowed in and out, buoyed by pre-show energy. Ed kept muttering Latin phrases like a cursed priest from a horror movie, while Bex was sketching everyone's “pre-banishment aura” in their notebook with terrifying focus.
Despite everything—or maybe because of it—everyone seemed unusually cheerful. Elise fielded a few nervous jokes and genuine questions about how exactly this spell was going to work. She smiled, nodded, reassured.
Graham appeared in the doorway like a breath of fresh air, suited in his full costume, every button in place, every line sharp. But his voice was gentle.
“Hair check?”
“Looks great,” she said, her voice thin around the edges. Like something straining not to crack.
He didn’t speak right away. Just took her hands and silently led her out of the room. They paused in the side hallway, beneath a low pool of golden light. The noise fell away behind them.
Here, it was quiet.
“We’ve got you,” he said simply. “All of us. And me? I’m here for you.”
Elise didn’t realize how tightly she’d been holding herself until she leaned into him.
His arms closed around her, and the world softened. He smelled like stage powder and something warm. Familiar. For just a moment, it was safe to breathe.
When she pulled back, her fingers brushed a smudge on his shoulder. “If I got mascara on you, wardrobe would throw me off the mezzanine.”
He smiled, warm and sure. “They wouldn’t dare.”
He left for places. The moment dissolved.
Elise returned to the wigs, barely a breath behind schedule. The clock kept moving. There were wig caps to apply, hair pins to hide, focus to fake. Final call for places rang out. People darted past in tights and overcoats, grabbing last sips of water, adjusting headsets.
When the house lights dimmed and the overture began… The curtain rose.
And the show began.
The opening chords of “Five Daughters and a Dowry” rang out, bright and buoyant, the voices of the ensemble rising in harmony as the Bennet sisters danced their way into the spotlight. Upstairs, it looked like just another performance night. Downstairs, everything felt heavier.
In the greenroom, the small speaker crackled to life, letting Elise follow the show in real time.
The sound quality wasn’t great—it buzzed a little at the edges and flattened the vocals—but it was enough.
She preferred it, actually. Rather than catching fragmented echoes from the wings or bits of dialogue through the floorboards, she could follow the entire arc from down here.
Usually, she found it comforting. Tonight, it made her feel like a ghost. Like she was already somewhere else, listening in from the beyond.
Her hands were still. That was the problem.
Act One was quiet for her—only a few minor wig adjustments and some prep before intermission.
Which meant she had time to think. And right now, her mind wouldn’t stop leaping ahead to the second act.
To the ten-minute scramble they’d have during intermission.
To everything that needed to be placed, checked, salted, and traced before the curtain rose on Act Two.
To everything that could go wrong.
Her tattoos pulsed softly beneath her sleeves.
Not pain, not quite, but more insistent than ever.
A tight, humming pressure under her skin, as if something was pressing from the outside in.
She still hadn’t seen the Specter directly, but the signs were everywhere: flickering lights, cold drafts, shadowy movement at the edge of vision.
The building felt like it was bracing for something.
She shifted on the couch, stretching her legs—and paused.
There, in the far corner of the greenroom, stood Myrtle’s cane.
It hadn’t been there earlier. Elise was sure of it. The polished wood caught the dim overhead light.
She stood and crossed to it slowly, heart ticking up with every step. As she reached for it, the temperature around her dropped.
A whisper brushed her ear, paper-thin and close.
“We’re trying to hold him back,” Myrtle breathed. “But he’s furious. He knows what you’re planning.”
Elise froze. The air smelled faintly of dust and roses.
She swallowed hard and gave a tight nod, not sure if the ghost could still see her.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Then the whisper was gone. The chill faded. But the cane remained.
Elise glanced toward the far wall, where Kevin hovered in a dim corner near the makeup station. He was barely there—in the dim glow of the makeup mirror, he was no more solid than a memory. His suit looked washed-out, the lines of his figure soft and fading.
When he noticed her gaze, he gave her a small salute. It cost him something, she could tell. She offered him the ghost of a smile in return.
This had to work. There was no fallback plan. No second attempt. They had one shot—during one scene, during one storm—and if they failed?
Kevin would be gone.
Upstairs on stage, the cast sang about love and marriage. About choices.
Elise closed her eyes, and for just a moment, let herself pretend it was just another show.
Then she opened them again, and began to count the minutes until intermission.
Act One crept forward with all the tension of a held breath.
Things had been going wrong all night—but just barely.
Flickers. Whispers. A curtain that swayed without wind.
A few crew members stumbled over nothing backstage.
One of the prop teacups shattered before it could be brought onstage, the handle splitting clean off as if it had been pulled.
The show continued, seamless for the audience.
But backstage, it felt like someone had lit a match and let it smolder.
Elise could taste the presence of the Specter like smoke in a sealed room. No flames. No visible threat. Just the creeping, metallic sting of something burning too slowly to see.
Now, alone in the wig closet with Kevin, she stood at the eye of it. Her space was ready. Wigs set and staged. Extra candle bundles tucked just out of view. Her warding kit, waiting for some emergency smudging, if needed. It smelled faintly of rosemary and ozone.
Kevin hovered by the mirror, flickering worse now—half a man, half a memory. He didn’t speak. She didn’t ask.
She leaned against the counter, ears tuned sharply to the greenroom speaker.
The orchestra swelled into the opening strains of “Every Reason Not to Love You.”
This one always got to her.
She closed her eyes for a moment and let the music fill the room.
Graham’s voice—low, rich, restrained—cut through first. Then Lark’s: pure, aching, edged with steel.
The duet spiraled upward in conflict and longing, both voices climbing and clashing, weaving around each other like a dance neither of them wanted to finish.
Elise felt it building. Not just the song, but something underneath.
A shift in the air. That awful stillness that came before a storm.
The music slowed. Elise could see it in her mind: Elizabeth storming toward the stairs. Darcy standing below, pride unraveling.
Lark’s final note rang out.
A door slammed. Loud, intentional. The cue Elise expected—the final punctuation of Elizabeth’s rejection that signaled the end of Act One.
But the scream that followed wasn’t part of the script. It tore through the speaker like lightning, followed by a sickening thud, too heavy to be theatrical.
The speaker crackled once. Then silence. Elise didn’t move.
Kevin, beside her, had gone perfectly still. Elise blinked, waiting for something else—laughter, applause, a cue, anything. But the theatre gave no answer.
Only the sound of her own breath, suddenly too loud.
And the sinking certainty that something had just gone very, very wrong.