Page 55 of Specters & Spotlights

Nick gave a small nod, then raised his brows in mock seriousness. “So, what’s the protocol here? Ghost-pepper spray? Ritual salt packets? Do I need to buy a bell, a book, and a candle?”

Elise laughed, and some of the tension finally bled from her shoulders.

He sobered a bit. “You see him again, you call me. I’ll haunt him right back.”

Her smile turned soft. “Thanks.” Nick had always had a way of grounding her—no theatrics, no questions she didn’t want to answer. Just presence. Just care.

“You’re good at this, you know,” she said.

He nudged her gently. “At exorcisms?”

“At being a friend.”

They stood like that for another minute, sipping quietly. The moment didn’t rush them. Neither did the ghosts.

As the afternoon stretched on, the backstage air thickened—not with dust or humidity, but with the subtle static of anticipation. Cast members trickled in, their voices rising in easy familiarity, carrying the scent of stage makeup and the subdued flutter of pre-show nerves. The hum of curling irons, laughter, and zippers filled the dressing room like an instrument being tuned.

Elise tucked a comb behind her ear and took a step back to assess the tidy wig display. Her little corner, nestled between the costume racks and the door to the women’s dressing room, was now a makeshift highway. People wove past with quick greetings or snippets of gossip, trailing sequins and scarves in their wake.

Kevin, ever the observer, had claimed a perch atop a beam near the ceiling, his legs crossed with a ghostly elbow on a ghostly knee. “It’s like a colony of very theatrical bees,” he mused, just loud enough for her to hear.

Elise smirked, brushing a synthetic curl into shape. “Am I the beekeeper?”

As she spoke, she caught movement in her peripheral vision. Lark. Arriving just early enough to be polite, just late enough to fluster Elise’s rhythm. She stood with a practiced smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“Think you’ve got room for me?”

Elise gestured to the chair. “I’ll make it.”

They didn’t speak much. The air between them was less charged now, but not empty. There was something there. Not longing. Not quite regret. Just the quiet acknowledgment of a new boundary.

Across the room, Jen popped her head in. “Anyone seen Ellen?”

Heads shook. A few shrugs.

Lark stilled.

It was subtle—softer than a flinch. A pause in the motion of adjusting her jacket. Her gaze flicked up toward Jen, then quickly away.

Jen’s brow furrowed slightly, but she nodded and ducked back out. The mood didn’t crack, but it wobbled, just a little.

Lark stood abruptly, pin curls not quite finished. “I should check the dressing room,” she said, more to the air than anyone in particular.

She left without waiting for a reply.

Once Elise found her rhythm, the rest came easily. The Bennet sisters descended like a glittery whirlwind, laughter echoing off the walls. She was halfway through gluing Talia’s wig when Sienna leaned over with a grin.

“So…” Sienna drawled, voice pitched just loud enough to carry across the room, “anybody gonna ask what made Elise scream at the cast party? Or am I the only one still wondering?”

The room didn’t go silent, exactly, but something shifted. Conversations paused. The clatter of hangers quieted. Everyone still moved, but more slowly, as though the air had thickened.

Elise’s fingers tightened around her comb.

She could dodge this. She knew how. A laugh, a shrug, a neat little lie about shadows and adrenaline. The old version of her had survived on answers like that.

But the old version of her had also spent a lot of time alone.

Her pulse beat hard in her throat. She looked around at the Bennet sisters, at the glitter and pins and half-applied wigs, at this room full of people waiting for her reaction.