Relicts & Revenants: Monsters of the Week II

Soliloquy in Blue

Honestly Emily was always going to run right into the ghost. Sooner or later. The time would become right and there'd be an accident of blocking (nobody hit the tape on the floor exactly right, the whole time, differences and distances shifting them all up or down) or the curtain, like tonight, would be yanked over in the wrong place and there: that'd be it. Off stage right into the dark well behind the fabric and there she was, blue, indistinct, pleading, unmistakable. Her hands were up and Emily reached out – why in the hell was she reaching out – to touch nothing around blue-shimmering fingers.

The girl raised her other hand – reacted like there should be another hand there. Emily didn't bring her hand around – didn't continue the Regency-romance bit with the blue girl in the boat-neck dress. There was something back in her eyes: uncertainty fear desire confusion what? in behind the deep layered arches of her hair – and her eyes, if her eyes were there, what was that? Didn't ghosts leave just eyeless voids and if so what was this? Who was she? No sense and it was too sad to be a hologram on purpose, in the wings of a high school auditorium, and then she was gone, without a fade or a shimmer and that was when Emily finally screamed.

"Cut!" Ms. Williams still had her rehearsal in hand, ghosts or no ghosts. "Emily, are you okay? Everyone else, hold it there – we'll back up."

"I – shit, I'm fine," Emily said, trying not to shake, deep breath like someone knocked over half the backing scrim and you still had to play around it. "I – I just need a minute. I'm sorry. I'm off anyway – I'll try and be ready by when I have to come back on."

Ms. Williams braced her by the shoulders. "Take as long as you like," she said, looking Emily deep up and down. "It doesn't help anybody if you force yourself and everyone starts tripping over their lines. Are you sure you're okay?"

Emily took another deep breath, looking up into the lights. Seeing a ghost was supposed to take years off your life, wasn't it? But this one – she hadn't been like that, and if she'd faded away or walked off like a normal person probably she wouldn't've even screamed. It was the shock – it was just sudden, disappearing. "I – I'm all right. I think I'll be okay."

"You're not hurt? If there's nails on the floor or one of the curtain weights swinging around, we need to take care of that."

"No; no, it's not like that." Emily shrugged and slid, trying to get free, not look Ms. Williams in the eye. "I'm okay – I just got... surprised by something. That's all. I just need a minute to catch my breath." She broke free and headed off into the wing, Ms. Williams still side-eyeing after her.

Just past the curtains, Emily nearly ran dead into Jai and Rik, which was nearly as much of a surprise as the ghost, since they weren't in this scene and should have been back in the auditorium seats. But they were real and solid and their normal colors, even if they were where they weren't supposed to be and holding handfuls of – drumsticks? For real?! "What – what are you two doing here? Did – did you see it? When I saw the ghost?"

Jai held up a bundle of rim-chopped drumsticks. "We were dropping these down the hole in the wall. I don't think there's a bottom to it." He pointed at a gap in one of the wall girders.

"Okay, but – the ghost – and, no, wait, how, why? Where did you get the drumsticks? Is the band going to be mad at us?"

"We were messing with the old A/V stack and we found a bunch of drumsticks shoved in behind... I think it's a broken record player?" Rik put a thumb over their shoulder at a ledge half torn out of the wall. "I don't think the band's going to care; there was so much dust, it's like no one's opened it up in fifty years." They thought for a second, something crossing their face in the darkness. "Actually no what what ghost? We summoned a ghost by throwing drumsticks down the wall?"