Page 65 of Specters & Spotlights

“The techie?” Kevin gave a ghostly shrug. “Backstage. Catwalk. Booth. He’s a bit scattered, honestly—never quite settled. Like he’s still waiting for his next cue.”

“Backstage first, then,” she said, slinging her bag over her shoulder. “Let’s start easy.”

The ghost light glowed from its solitary post at center stage—soft, unwavering, casting long shadows across the scuffed floorboards. Elise didn’t need to check it; she already knew it would stay lit all night, a quiet sentinel against the dark.

She skirted around the hulking bridge set pieces, now tucked upstage in sections, their arches looming like bones of some long-forgotten cathedral. Even disassembled, they held presence.

The deeper she wandered, the more the air thickened—coated with dust, old paint, and the scent of forgotten scenes. She knelt beside prop bins, peered into storage closets, and brushed aside layers of history without finding anything more illuminating than a cracked stage light and a prop chicken wearing a tiara. Her breath stirred years of dust into the air, and she sneezed, once, twice, a third time.

“No ring,” she announced, wiping her nose with a tissue she prayed was unused.

Elise sighed and looked up toward the looming ladder that stretched to the catwalk. At that precise moment, the pianist ghost—unbidden—began to play something sharp and creeping in a minor key.

Kevin raised an eyebrow. “Well, that’s not ominous.”

Elise shook her head and turned away, unnerved. “Booth. I’m starting with the booth.”

She padded softly through the backstage maze and into the fluorescent-lit hallway that ran like a spine behind the stage. Her steps echoed in the hush. She half-expected the door to the booth stairwell to be locked—places like that usually were after hours—but when she reached it, she found it just barely cracked open.

She paused. “Kevin?”

“No sign of him,” he said, materializing at her elbow. “But that feels intentional, doesn’t it?”

She nodded. The hair on her arms stood up, and her warding tattoos gave a faint buzz beneath her sleeves. A gentle kind of hum. Not danger, just presence.

“Thanks,” she murmured into the air, directing the thought toward the techie ghost. She hoped he heard it.

The stairwell creaked as she climbed. At the top, the moment her foot crossed the threshold into the booth, she knew.

“It’s here,” she said softly. “I can feel it. Same frequency as the seamstress.”

Kevin drifted in behind her, eyebrows raised. “Interesting that you can sense that when I can’t.”

The booth was cramped, packed with ancient lighting consoles, cables, and half-drunk bottles of water left behind by techs long gone. Elise crouched down to peer beneath the tables. She poked behind monitors and under piles of cue sheets. Dust coated everything.

Then, as she straightened and swept her flashlight toward the upper corner of the room, she finally saw it.

A glint.

There, right under the ceiling, nailed into the wall like a forgotten thumbtack. A simple ring. High enough to be hidden from view, yet unmistakably placed with intent.

“Seriously?” she muttered. Elise dragged over a creaky chair, the kind that spun freely and shouldn’t be trusted for anything more than sitting. She climbed up anyway. “This better be worth it.”

Kevin floated nearby, arms metaphorically outstretched. “Please don’t die on a chair. That would be wildly inconvenient for both of us.”

Balancing carefully, Elise reached up on tiptoe. The chair wobbled with a slight creak. Her fingers scraped the wall—just barely—until at last she caught the cool metal edge and tugged the ring free.

When she stepped down and turned it over in her palm, she knew.

Tarnished and dusty with age, the simple silver band practically hummed with energy.

“It’s hers,” she whispered.

Elise pulled out her phone. 11:58 PM. “Whoops.”

The digits glowed on Elise’s phone like a quiet reprimand. She hadn’t meant to stay so long, hadn’t realized how deeply the search had pulled her in.

Kevin didn’t speak, but floated beside her, the silence between them companionable.