Page 83 of Specters & Spotlights

Cici stayed quiet for a beat too long, then said, “I don’t know exactly what that was, but I don’t think it’s good for Ellen.”

She looked off screen, gathering her thoughts. “If I had to guess, I’d say she’s… in limbo. I don’t know what that means exactly, or how that would even work, but that’s the word that keeps coming to mind. She’s not here, but she’s not fully gone either.”

The candlelight cast shadows across Elise’s hands. The flicker of flame felt suddenly less comforting.

Cici hesitated. “Did you… look at the envelope I sent you?”

Elise blinked. “Not yet.”

Cici gave her a look. “You really should,” she said gently. “And… anything else unexplainable or malicious happening around you lately? Besides the usual?”

Elise sighed. “You mean besides the whispering wall saying my name in a voice that maybe doesn’t belong to anyone living?”

Cici rubbed her eyes. “Ugh. Right. I forgot about the damn wall.”

She sat back and exhaled slowly, some of the charge in her voice softening. “Okay. Let’s call it for tonight. Let the theatre sleep. I’ll keep digging, and seriously—read that envelope.”

“I will,” Elise promised. “Tonight. And I’ll call you if I need to talk.”

They signed off. The candles were pinched, their tiny trails of smoke curling upward like silent exclamations. Spell tools were packed away. The air felt heavy, but still.

Elise and Nick made a quiet exit.

As the theatre door closed behind them, the whispering wall murmured—still whispering, even after they were gone.

Chapter Fifteen

Elise

Elise turned into the alleyway again the next morning, mentally begrudging the painted bricks and fairy lights strung between fire escapes. It looked as cheerful as ever, but she definitely did not feel that way.

Her legs ached. She didn’t usually work out, but this morning she’d pushed herself through two solid hours on the treadmill in the hotel gym, hoping that physical exhaustion might dull the buzz of anxious energy still zipping through her chest.

It hadn’t worked.

She was running on fumes. She hadn’t gotten much sleep, but not because of the spell or the weird energy or even the whispering wall. Not exactly. What had really kept her up was the envelope.

She’d opened it in her hotel room, heart racing and hands slightly shaking. It was thicker than expected—at least ten pages folded together, stuffed into a manila sleeve. The first thing she saw when she unfolded the packet was a scribble on the back of the first page in Cici’s handwriting:

I love you! You are not alone!

It had almost made her cry.

She’d turned the packet over and her eyes immediately caught on the headline:

Pedestrian hit by a bus.

The laughter came out of her in an ungraceful bark, far too loud for a cramped hotel room after midnight.

Now, as she approached the stage door, she chuckled again under her breath, remembering. It was still macabre. Still unbelievable.

The keycard reader gave its quiet beep, and the lock released with a click. Elise pushed open the door—and Kevin was already there.

Not drifting in from a shadowed corner. Not arriving mid-sass with a shimmer of ghostly flair. Just there, waiting by the door like he'd been keeping watch.

She startled, only slightly. It wasn’t like him. Kevin didn’t wait for her, not like this.

He hovered just above the ground, arms crossed, eyes fixed on hers. There was something uncharacteristically still in the way he looked at her. A weight behind the usual arched eyebrow.