Archive of Our Own

“You’re late.” Walter was pacing in the nearly-empty lobby when Jean-Paul walked in the door of the Christopher Marlowe Theatre. He adjusted his suit jacket to reset anything that had been pushed out of place, as he had used his powers to sprint over from the hotel. He needed to give himself time to reply without sounding like a total ass.

“There was a line to check in at the hotel. And you told me this was a quiet mission, so I decided to change after flying over. Unless ‘wear a suit’ meant show up as Northstar, after all.”

Walter looked spooked at even the mention of his, Jean-Paul’s, code name, even though Alpha Flight had disbanded ages ago as a formal entity.

“No names. No suits. No powers,” he hissed. “We’re personal guests of one of the company members, and nobody in the company’s leadership needs to know we’re here.”

Jean-Paul made a note to figure out who, exactly, Alpha Flight had pissed off that made their public presence a no-go, but he had more important questions to answer. Like, out of all of their friends and former colleagues, why was he the one Walter had asked to join him for a few days at the Ontario Shakespeare Centre?

Ostensibly, they were ghost hunting. Hardly the weirdest thing he’d ever done in his life, and he had some time on his hands. His book tour was done, his skiing career was never going to be more than exhibition shows now, and as much as he would have liked to retire from the superhero business, it was something he was moderately skilled at doing.

So here he was, ghost hunting in a Shakespeare theatre. He sincerely hoped this was not going to uncover a heretofore unidentified Great Beast, buried alien lair, or villainous mafioso trying to shut the theatre down.

He tried to put that out of his mind and enjoy this evening’s performance of Richard III. Blank verse in English was…not the most accessible form of entertainment for Jean-Paul as a native French speaker, but the audience had good energy and the plot was clear. An evil man announces he’s bad, does bad things and we cheer. They broke for intermission just after Richard lied, murdered, and stole his way into being crowned king. Jean-Paul could only assume he would cheer just as heartily when the bad man met his eventual comeuppance in the second half. 

When the lights came up at intermission, he returned to his original question for Walter. Specifically: A ghost? Really?

“If we’re really dealing with a ghost, why call me? Couldn’t Michael fix this?”

“Because I need a second set of eyes. And would prefer someone who’s not going to jump to the conclusion that this is magical.”

Ah. His presence made more sense. At least sort of.

“You think it’s something else.”

“Just shut up and watch the play. We’re going to meet my contact afterwards.” Walter wandered off to the bathroom while they still had time, and Jean-Paul stretched his legs with a turn around the theatre.

The Marlowe Theatre was the OSC’s second venue, built maybe twenty years ago to complement the big old playhouse that had started the tradition of staging Shakespeare plays for people looking for a quick weekend getaway trip just a few hours from Toronto. Odd, Jean-Paul thought, that the oldest venue was not the one with the ghost problem.

The second half did feature a ghost scene, casualties of the murders and battles that had featured throughout. But every ghost Jean-Paul saw was played by a union actor. Not a hint of supernatural involvement in sight.

They were walking to a bar after the show when Walter finally supplied an explanation for why they had to keep this quiet: they were on the shit list of several well-connected people at the Ontario Shakespeare Centre after a mission that had gone sideways years ago. They had wrangled the creature in question back to its otherworldly hiding place, but only after crash-landing into a lake and, in the process, leveling the summer home of a well-connected pharmaceutical executive. A well-connected pharmaceutical executive who happened to be the OSC’s current board president.

“You’d think after a decade he’d have gotten over it, but he’s had it out for us for years. He’s good friends with Gary Cody.” Jean-Paul barely remembered the mission in question, but the mention of their original government handler and sometimes antagonist forced a scowl. Langkowski just shrugged. “So, we keep our involvement quiet.”

Good enough. But that left the other question.

“And me?”

He shrugged. “You were free.”

“So is my sister. And those were nice seats.”

He cast his gaze back down at the sidewalk. “This was, um. Not something I could bring her into.”

“You think I won’t be telling her about this? Come, Walter. What have you done now?”

Walter rolled his eyes. “It’s not that. The request came from a friend of my ex-wife’s. And I do not think Aurora wants to sit through an investigation that does her a favor.”

He didn’t particularly want to, either, but he was here now. Walter clapped him on the back and just said he’d buy their drinks.

--

The former Mrs. Langkowski’s college roommate’s nephew was already at the bar when they arrived. AJ Brevard was established enough as an actor to have steady TV work in Vancouver, but had always aspired to theatre and so had taken the leap this season to join the OSC company. He was Clarence in Richard III, Banquo in Macbeth, and in rehearsals for a new play that was going to open in the company’s black box theatre next month. 

“Did you see it?” He asked once Walter had made introductions. “It was right behind me.”

“We saw the show,” Walter said calmly. “Why don’t you tell us what you’re experiencing, and we’ll take it from there?”

They were in a bar popular with members of the OSC company, and even though service was slow, it took all of the first beer and well into the second before Jean-Paul got a word in edgewise. In the crowded bar, the actor kept going off on tangents, introducing people, smiling and laughing and catching up with his friends. Langkowski looked increasingly frustrated as he attempted to get details about what kind of strange happenings the actor had been sensing. Jean-Paul just sat back to watch the man in his natural milieu. 

Whatever was freaking him out on stage did not seem to be a concern here. But as he brought actor after actor over to say hello to his “friends” (no mentions of Alpha Flight here), they got the rest of the story. He had this feeling that whenever he went on stage, he was being followed. It was the worst in the ghost scenes, but it was starting to get in his head at other times, too; he was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. His friends all humored his statements, though with the alcohol and the general atmosphere of the bar, it was hard to parse whether they agreed with them or were just in a good post-show mood (or simply drunk).

“Has anyone else reported a ghost in the Marlowe Theatre before?” Jean-Paul asked once the man seemed to have said his piece.

Another actor, definitely on the alcohol-fueled end of high spirits, who had joined them at the bar, jumped in before Brevard could respond.

“Oh, we all know the Kit’s got a ghost. Our man here is just egotistical enough to be convinced that the ghost is stalking him.” He slapped both Brevard and Jean-Paul on the back and then went off to greet another friend. Brevard did not appreciate the joke.

“Every night,” he said. “I can feel it behind me every night.” Not just in Richard III, but in Macbeth as well.

Brevard was clearly embarrassed at the reputation he was gaining, but he insisted he wasn’t the only one seeing it. It had gotten so bad in Macbeth that the show’s stage manager had banned non-essential actors from coming into the wings during his ghost scene.

Walter dug in his suit jacket pocket and pulled out a handheld device. Something he had worked up a while ago that did…honestly, Jean-Paul had no idea. He was forever tinkering with a new piece of tech. Sometimes one he’d worked on with Jeffries, sometimes one he’d dreamt up himself. 

“So if it’s following you, do you sense it here?” 

The relief of having someone finally take his concerns seriously turned the mood back from somber to more comical, as he gave Langkowski a withering look.

“Not here, of course. It’s on stage. Following my movements.”

In his ghost scenes, naturally. He had one in each play.

It was clear he didn’t have much more information, so Walter assured the actor that they would do what they could to put his ghost to rest, and they left him to enjoy his night. 

“You already have a theory, don’t you?” Jean-Paul asked as they were walking back to the hotel.

“I do. But I’d prefer not to bias you in one direction or another. We’re meeting with the stage manager for Brevard’s second show tomorrow morning. Just sit back and observe. And try not to look too annoyed while you do it. I think they’ll get offended.”

If it had come from someone less familiar, he would have been annoyed right then and there. But their work relationship had been like this forever, and he could hardly fault Langkowski for having an accurate read on his personality.

“I will do my best.”

--

The stage manager in question was a no-nonsense middle-aged woman who met them at the stage door the next morning and introduced herself as Sally as she signed them in. She gave them a whirlwind tour of backstage and pointed out the spot where Brevard was sensing his ghostly follower, keeping them clear of the stage operations crew handling the switch from last night’s Richard III to the matinee performance of Macbeth. No small feat, as each production had its own scenery and lighting design. From the wings, they made their way to the house and let the crew continue undisturbed.

Walter was telling Sally in great detail about the monitoring device he had brought with him, which they planned to set up in the wings today. Jean-Paul let the man prattle on and watched the dozen or so stagehands do their jobs instead. 

While this theatre had a lot more money at its disposal than he’d ever had in his brief run at the circus, the rhythm of the changeover from one show to the next was familiar to him nonetheless. Last night’s production came down, a new one went up, so that the audience could pack in as much variety during their visit to OSC as possible. Each stagehand had a job, each piece of scenery had its place, and once the intricate puzzle of Richard III was packed into storage, the set for Macbeth came out. No grays and blues and abstract castle-adjacent pillars this time, but a blank stage with white walls and floor. They rigged a gigantic red structure in the middle, some ominous cross between a dead tree and a bloody vein. Jean-Paul grabbed a program to skim the plot of the show: more regicide (would it kill them, so to speak, to produce a comedy? Apparently Brevard had not been cast in any of those).

Walter was done explaining his testing process and secured permission from Sally to watch the show from backstage this afternoon; he and Jean-Paul could hopefully observe the supernatural incident themselves. The stage manager had already cleared it with the deck crew and was working with the SM for Richard III to do the same. 

“Is this going to involve more of Alpha Flight?” She asked once they agreed on a plan. She mouthed the last two words, as if merely saying them out loud would bring the wrath of the Ontario Shakespeare Centre’s leadership down upon them. “Because two people sneaking around backstage is already a lot, and—”

“Absolument pas,” he said before Walter was tempted to pledge that he would call in any member of Alpha Flight still alive to fix this. “We will operate with the utmost discretion.”

“And speed. Hopefully we’ll have an answer for you by the end of the week,” Walter added.

“Thank God,” she said. “This is my tenth season at OSC and we’ve never had ghost issues this early in the run. It’s only May.”

“When do you usually get them?” Jean-Paul was now intrigued. Most people didn’t treat a potential haunting as a normal occurrence.

“October, just before we close. Usually, I chalk the ghost stories up to boredom. Everyone’s trying to keep the show fresh, even when the major tourist audiences have waned. You start seeing things that aren’t there. Brevard’s jumpy, for sure, but he started reporting issues just four weeks into the run.”

--

The crew member who met them at the stage door when they returned (wearing all black, as requested) at one o’clock seemed properly briefed on their tasks for the day. The dressing rooms were busy with wardrobe staff setting up that performance’s costumes and actors trickling in to do their own warmups or preparations. Walter walked the halls and took readings in the green room, and then followed the actors to the deck to watch the rest of setup and fight call.

Jean-Paul hung back, for no other reason than he had no desire to stand around while the scientist didn’t need his help setting up his monitoring device in preparation for the show. He stayed in the green room to see if the actors were up to something weird.

“Half hour. This is your half-hour call for Macbeth.” The stage manager’s voice rang over the speakers.

“Thank you, half hour,” people replied. Almost a murmur, as most of the actors had gone to the stage for fight call. He was about to go join them, as someone was supposed to escort him to a position in the catwalk to view the show from above. He headed for the stairs, and almost crashed into one of the dressers as she came barreling out of a dressing room.

“Sorry, hold on,” she said as she darted around Jean-Paul. He watched her approach a bust of William Shakespeare, prominently displayed on a shelf in the green room. She ceremoniously removed a helmet, a replica of one he had seen in last night’s Richard III, and placed a broken crown on his head. He realized there were three pieces of headgear on the shelf, each with a show name below them. The crown was, unsurprisingly, for Macbeth.

“You do this for every show?” he asked.

“Of course,” she replied, as if this was a silly question. “A custom hat for the bust of Bill on every production, changed precisely at half-hour. The wardrobe department arranges it every season with the milliners. Well, we had the armorer make his R3 helmet this year, but you know what I mean. It’s tradition.”

The stagehand who was his guide tonight called for him before he could ask for clarification.

Walter was already tucked away on stage left. Jean-Paul’s escort led him around to stage right and stopped at the base of a ladder that led up into the rafters.

“You aren’t afraid of heights, are you?” the stagehand asked.

“Sir, I can literally fly.”

He just told Jean-Paul to empty his pockets or make sure whatever remained was secure, and then started climbing. Jean-Paul followed, using the ladder since they were supposed to be subtle, and alighted on the catwalk level at the very top.

He could see the stage below him, both through the gridded floor he was standing on, and through the gaps between the pipes holding scenery or lights.

“You stand here,” the stagehand said. “Or sit. Pick one, and don’t get fidgety. Banquo’s ghost is in act three, you can come down at intermission.”

He nodded in acknowledgement. It had been years since he’d been backstage at the circus, but he knew that you did not mess around while the show was going on. The stagehand said there would be another crew member who would arrive at some point to trigger a special effect, and she could escort him down when it was safe.

The show started and he did his best to pay attention. It was much harder to get comfortable sitting on a milk crate on the overheated catwalk, but, you know, there was poetry. Murder. A lot of fog machine in this one, though he supposed that made sense for a play about Scotland. The crew member who joined him after a few scenes nodded and took up a position to execute her cue, a shower of blood-red rose petals raining down on the stage as Macbeth heads off to kill the king. Did that make any sense to him? Not really. Maybe it was clearer from the audience.

Contract killers murdered Banquo. Across the stage, in the wings near Walter, he saw Brevard go through a quick change to turn from Banquo the living man to Banquo the ghost. Nothing supernatural yet. The stage switched over to a dinner party.

Brevard entered. The conceit was that Macbeth could see him and nobody else could. The light went low, a single shaft caught Banquo, isolated from the rest of the crowd. And the stagehand tapped his shoulder and pointed. The shaft of light was narrow, framed to only hit Brevard’s head and shoulders. But just behind him, Jean-Paul could see a glow that had no source. He desperately wanted to fly out above the stage, out of sight of the audience, but he was sure that would go over poorly with the cast and crew. He settled for observing from his seat, as the pale light followed Brevard from one position to the next, while Macbeth had a (scripted) freakout on stage.

The music swelled, the stage went dark. The little light behind Banquo seemed to take a hint and disappeared.

If it wasn’t a trick of the lighting designers, very odd indeed.

He spent the second half of the show sitting next to Walter in the wings while Lady Macbeth went insane and her husband died in a gory battle. Langkowski spent the entire show looking at a reading on his machine. It looked…boring. Baseline to him. But Walter said it had spiked during the Banquo’s ghost scene and wanted to see if there was any other activity. There was a blip at curtain call, but the stage was so bright at that point that neither of them saw any non-natural lights.

Brevard was relieved that they had seen what he was dealing with in the performance, and then immediately asked how to fix it. Walter just said that they should keep monitoring through the changeover and the evening show, now that they were there. Le Malade imaginaire (or rather, The Imaginary Invalid, as they were decidedly not doing Molière in the original French). Brevard wasn’t in that one, but the stage manager for that show was the same as for Richard III, and the actor had cleared the path for them to observe here as well; Langkowski wanted to get a measurement on it for comparison.

He took first shift, Jean-Paul took a break and came back an hour later to let Walter do the same. Then they settled in for the show.

The crew seemed to know why they were here, as several had worked Macbeth and explained the situation to the others. They got Walter and Jean-Paul settled: Walter with his equipment, Jean-Paul up in the catwalk.

Jean-Paul did not have the benefit of Walter’s equipment at his side, so he kept his eyes on the play and saw…absolutely nothing. He barely saw the show, to be honest; the set was a single, realistic-looking room with a false ceiling, so Walter couldn’t see anything from his seat in the wings (actors took their entrances via doors) and Jean-Paul could only see strips of the stage, from where the set designer had left gaps for the lighting equipment. But at the end of the night, Walter said it was all as he expected, which meant nothing to Jean-Paul.

He lingered with the monitoring device for the last bit of the night. Walter stepped away to stretch his legs while the crew packed up the props to prepare for tomorrow’s changeover back to Richard III. 

“Find anything?” the stage manager asked when he came backstage.

“You will have to ask my colleague for that. I am merely monitoring until he returns.” He left Jean-Paul to it and went to file the show report. Jean-Paul kept one eye on the device while he watched the crew pack all the props into rolling cabinets. The stagehand who had been up with him in the catwalk during Macbeth put out what looked like a coat stand on wheels with a lightbulb affixed to it—a safety precaution to ensure that people wouldn’t end up stumbling around on a dark set overnight.

“Come,” Walter said as they packed up the equipment. “Let’s talk it over in the bar.”

--

“So, this town is dripping in interdimensional energy,” Langkowski announced once they got past the door. While Jean-Paul tried to flag a bartender, he launched into a detailed description of the geology of Avon, Ontario, and how it aligned with other areas in North America where there were interdimensional rifts. He said that the baseline reading was faint, but the second AJ Brevard stepped into his ghost scene this afternoon, it spiked.

Jean-Paul was bored to tears with all the talk of particles and radiation. But he tried to follow, and he gathered that for some reason, the actor in question was acting like an interdimensional energy sponge. Or rather, a release valve. Walter’s current theory was that something about the shows was making Brevard a magnet for the ambient radiation, concentrating it in visible light. They’d have to measure Richard III tomorrow, to be sure.

“But if I can confirm my theory, there’s a machine we can set up that will drain off the radiation. Channel it somewhere other than the stage. I can pull down the files from my computer network and figure out what we need to build it, once we confirm.”

“You should have brought Jeffries with you on this, then. He could build something in a night.” 

He waved off Jean-Paul’s suggestion.

“I like machines when I know how they work.”

“You like someone who isn’t going to argue with you about what you’ve designed,” he shot back. Walter did not dispute that claim.

He finally got the bartender and placed their order before asking his other question.

“While I certainly hope this is an easy solution to the theatre’s problems, what are we going to tell Brevard about it? Because I’m not sure telling a nervous actor that he’s releasing a—what is it? An interdimensional pressure valve?—is going to make him any less nervous.”

“And that is why I brought you.”

He looked at Walter, now entirely confused.

“I’m not famous for my people skills, as well you know.”

“No, but he is…shall we say, a friend of Dorothy?”

He rolled his eyes. 

“You can just say he’s gay.” They were in a bar full of theatre people, after all. Odds were high on any given individual.

“Fine. But I thought you might have a better sense of how to talk to him about these things, you know. Make him feel more comfortable.”

Jean-Paul let out a string of curses in French, which had the effect of getting his exasperation across without Langkowski knowing exactly how annoying this was, as a reason to be asked. It was, in fact, the dumbest thing he’d heard all day, and he’d just spent three hours watching a French play mangled via rhyming English couplets. Except before he could come up with a retort that was a level up from insulting Sasquatch in French, he spotted the man in question across the room. Deep in conversation with one of the other company members. He recognized her as one of Lady Macbeth’s attendants and the pretty, marriageable daughter from this evening’s Molière. 

They leaned closer, and Brevard brushed her hair off her shoulder. And then they kissed. It was not a hesitant kiss.

“You might want to inform him of his affiliation,” Jean-Paul said once he got Walter’s attention. “As he is clearly about to go home with that actress.” They were still locked in an embrace. She had taken up a position sitting on his lap as they continued making out.

Walter followed his gaze and then laughed.

“I stand corrected.”

“Mon pote, let this be a reminder that not every actor is gay. Some of them are just cultured and well-groomed.”

“Brevard?” the man standing on the other side of Walter caught on to their conversation and turned to join. “Straight as an arrow, much to our collective disappointment. But don’t give up hope just yet. At the rate he’s sleeping with company members, he’s going to run out of women before the end of the season. He might get experimental.” Walter tried to keep a straight face and process the information. The other man just patted Walter’s arm.

“Don’t get too discouraged,” he said with a consoling tone. “Plenty of fish in the sea, honey.”

“Come,” Jean-Paul said, flicking the other man a look that said back off, if for no other reason than he didn’t want to watch Walter’s attempt to extract himself from this scenario. “I’ll buy you a drink to offset your disappointment.”

The other man went back to his drink and his conversation with friends, while Jean-Paul flagged a bartender and then met Walter at the table he had chosen.

“That’s not funny.”

“Oh, I think it is.”

“He thought I was—”

“He thinks we’re together, and that is plenty of cover for us, if we are not supposed to call attention to ourselves as retired Alpha Flight, I think?”

Walter sighed. “Fine.”

“And for the record, it is hard to tell with actors. Unlike scientists, their job depends on making people like them, which can send mixed signals.”

“Plenty of people like scientists,” Walter responded, indignantly. Jean-Paul smirked.

“Including that man at the bar.” The man was still looking at Walter, who laughed again. The mood was lightening and Jean-Paul returned to his original inquiry. “And now that we’ve established that Monsieur Brevard might be as straight as an arrow, what am I supposed to do here?”

“To be honest, I still need the same help. Man the monitoring equipment. Keep Brevard calm. Maybe we can figure out what is causing him to be such a strong draw on the energy.”

“Well, if that’s the case, we are not due back for another performance until the afternoon tomorrow. I shall enjoy the night.”

He left the table and went back to the bar, where he had a rather long and pleasant conversation with the man who had previously been hitting on Walter. No flirting, as it seemed  both Jean-Paul and the other gentlemen preferred blonds, but rather about the Kit Marlowe Theatre and its purported ghost. If there was a reason this ghost (not a ghost, an interdimensional rift) was targeting this one company member, surely someone here would know. 

Walter looked thoroughly adrift in this bar full of artsy types, until the stagehand who had been with Jean-Paul in the rafters for Macbeth confirmed someone’s suspicion that they were from Canada’s sometimes-popular, always notable superhero squad. With the additional attention, they moved to a booth to expand their conversation.

Nobody wanted to hear Langkowski’s theories on interdimensional energy leaks, but everyone had a story about the ghost in the Kit. About half their visitors were aware of the specific Brevard ghost shadow thing, and anyone who had been at OSC for longer than a season had a story or two. End of season lights appearing where there should not be was apparently how the ghost preferred to manifest. One actor who had been in Caucasian Chalk Circle last season said the glowing light thing had been so bad that, in the last week of the run, they got permission to change the staging in the finale so as to minimize a light bleed.

They were interesting stories to hear, but Jean-Paul wasn’t sure what to make of them just yet.

“It’s the repetition,” one woman insisted as they were approaching last call. Queen Margaret from Richard III, in fact, a seasoned company member who had been holding court in her own corner of the bar until she heard the newcomers were fishing for ghost stories. “The show that opens first always has the first sightings, and it always gets stronger if the show extends. We had a production of Much Ado years ago that sold so well they ran it into November and I swear the air practically glowed by the end of the run.”

“Well, maybe this season it’s confused, then,” another actor chimed in. “What did the reviews say? You shouldn’t see the two tragedies back to back in the Kit, because they’re too similar in staging. People want to laugh between all the doom and gloom.”

“Richard III isn’t a tragedy!” Queen Margaret pointed out, indignant. “It’s a history.”

“It’s a play about an evil king who murders people and pays the price,” the first actor replied. “Forgive me. Completely different from Macbeth.”

“Thematically, yes!” She shot back. “You’re just sick of Macbeth because you think it’s too popular. I know you’d rather be pushing Pericles down the audience’s throats. Or—”

The conversation veered into the merits of producing Shakespeare’s minor plays, and Jean-Paul stopped paying attention. Both because he had nothing to contribute to a discussion of Timon of Athens and because the actor had a point. The staging of Brevard’s two ghost scenes was strangely similar. Dark, bright light on just him. Enter from stage left and slowly walk towards the actor doing the talking. Dramatic music. End scene.

And all the other ghost sightings came late in the run, after repeated performances.

A ghost—ok, an interdimensional rift—triggered by repeated action. Maybe that’s why Brevard was drawing it out so early in the season, because he was doing the same motion twice as often as the other actors. 

Each show had a fifty-odd performance run, with the same actor doing the same thing every time. And audiences watching; hundreds of people gasping and laughing and applauding at set times. They were lucky this rift thing wasn’t any stronger than it was already, given the repetition on display every night.

But if Walter’s machine could siphon off the phenomenon, then it was a tidy solution for them all. He nodded along to people's stories and decided it was time to just enjoy the night.

--

Walter seemed to agree with his repetition theory when Jean-Paul brought it up over breakfast the next day. He had downloaded some schematics from his files back home, and they were meeting with the two stage managers who worked in that theatre to decide what was next. Ideally Walter could build the thing on his own and install it when it was ready.

But first, they had to watch Richard III. For artistic and interdimensional energy sampling consistency, Langkowski insisted.

Brian, the stage manager for both Richard III and Imaginary Invalid, greeted them at the stage door this time, and was pleasantly surprised when Walter said that he should be able to confirm his theory by the end of the matinee.  

He left them to their own devices, and Jean-Paul lingered in the green room to watch the changing of Shakespeare’s hats at half hour (from a wide-brimmed, plumed 17th century hat from last night’s Invalid back to the helmet) and then settled in the catwalk above stage right to observe the performance from above. 

In the final act, Richard was tormented by the ghosts of everyone he had ordered to their deaths, including Brevard as the Duke of Clarence. Once again he entered stage left, solemnly crossed towards the center, between Richard and his antagonist (and the ultimate victor in the War of the Roses) Richmond. This scene was quick, as a succession of characters returned from the dead to visit each commander the night before the final battle. But Jean-Paul spotted the mysterious light, a concentration just behind Brevard’s head that would have been a neat halo effect, had it been intentional. As it was, he was the only ghost with such a feature, making it decidedly outside of the lighting design.

The other ghosts came and went, Richard and Richmond prepared for battle. Richmond won, order was restored. Everyone took a bow.

Walter seemed pleased with the proceedings of the afternoon when Jean-Paul joined him backstage left, so whatever he had hoped to confirm seemed to have happened in this afternoon’s performance. Brian the stage manager led them through the green room and back to an office for a debrief, where the Macbeth stage manager Sally was already waiting.

“So?” she asked once they were settled. “Did you figure it out?”

“This is, honestly, a pretty straightforward problem to solve,” Walter said, calmly. He wound through his explanation of the interdimensional rift. They took it surprisingly well, though Jean-Paul supposed that as seasoned OSC employees, shifting from “our building has a ghost” to “our building is home to an interdimensional rift” was not too far a stretch. They listened to Walter’s plans with relief, at least until he laid out the schematics and explained that they’d have to either clear out all of stage left, or remove a wall to the loading dock to fit the machine once it was built.

“We have scenery on stage left.” Sally said. “And I know R3 is using that area, too.” She looked to Brian, who nodded.

“And the changeover—”

“If you want to fix the energy leak, it needs to be as close to the source as possible,” Walter cut the two stage managers off with that. But they were unmoved by his authoritative tone.

Sally looked at his printouts and then pulled a binder off the shelf in the office where they were meeting. Schematics of the Macbeth set, currently being assembled on the stage.

“You want to put this on stage left, where I have two quick-change booths, all of the banquet furniture, and half of Birnam Wood.” She was right. The end of the show relied on a major set change, as Macduff’s army, represented by panels that flew in from above and rolled on from stage left, advanced on Macbeth’s camp. “Even if we rejiggered storage back there to make this work, there is no way to site this piece of equipment so that it won’t block an emergency exit.”

“We use that side for storage on R3, too,” Brian added. “And in Invalid, it’s…”

They were talking amongst themselves now, not just about each production’s space needs backstage, but about how to float this past stage ops, who handled the changeovers. Even if they could fix the storage. And the emergency exit. And any sound bleed issues you would create if you knocked a hole through the crossover hallway and into the loading dock. The theatre backed up to a major road on that side and they already needed more sound proofing.

Walter looked rather put out. Usually people were impressed by the phrase “I have invented a machine to close your interdimensional rift.” Jean-Paul tried not to enjoy his reaction, especially since he was still trying to think through alternative solutions. They could have Michael Twoyoungmen come in to take a look, maybe heal it with magic?

“Can’t you…I don’t know, change the show to make more room?” Walter asked, when it became clear that the stage managers did not believe his machine would be a suitable solution to their problem.

That just got a laugh from them both.

“The shows are open,” Sally said. “We can’t alter them now. The Kit’s been dealing with a ghost for decades, so we’ll just have to muddle through here. Maybe fix it this winter, when we’re dark.”

“It’s just the set. Can’t you update the set and call it good?”

All that got in response was Brian pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Setting aside everything else,” Brian said. “Changing the set means changing the lighting design. The easiest set change to make space in Richard will require removing the floating rostra in Act IV, Scene 1, which will affect the rest of the act. And anyway, we can't ‘just redo that scene.’ The show is open, reviews are out. Even if I wanted to, the director is in rehearsals for her next project in London and none of the design team was local. And we are not breaking artistic contracts and every custom of the industry just to humor a ghost.” He said all this very slowly, like a teacher explaining to a child that recess was over and it was time to put their toys away.

“It’s not a ghost,” Walter protested. “It’s a—”                                                                 

“I don’t care what it is. Nobody is going to approve re-blocking all of Act IV, especially not if I have to tell them Sasquatch from Alpha Flight says so. Make the machine smaller or find another way, unless you want the Executive Director and half our board to try and get you banned from Ontario. Again.”

Walter winced. Jean-Paul was, admittedly, enjoying watching Langkowski squirm under the skepticism of a pair of stage managers, but he decided to put the man out of his misery. 

“What if we gave the ghost—” Walter rolled his eyes that even he was doing it now, “a stronger draw at some time that wasn’t going to disrupt the show? If it’s drawn to repetition, could it let off enough energy some other time, so it wouldn’t come out during performance?” He was thinking of the wardrobe crew and their hat ritual. Or the way every actor seemed to have their own little warmup routine before the show. He turned to Sally and Brian, who were, thankfully, following along. “Before or after, maybe?”

“We’re in at least an hour before curtain when we don’t have a changeover, and we have a pretty standard postshow process for—” Sally paused. Then she looked at Brian. “I have an idea.”

They waited, but she just said she needed to talk it over with the crew. It might need some union sign-off. Brian couldn’t stay to talk, either, so Jean-Paul suggested that they meet up after tonight’s performance of Macbeth to hear Sally out.

“I like the idea,” Walter said when they were back out on the sidewalk. “But I don’t know if we can come up with something consistent enough to redirect the interdimensional energy on a regular basis. I still think a mechanical solution would be neater.”

“Walter, the whole point of a show is to be consistent from day to day. Have a little faith.”

“But over time? Or across plays? You’ve seen the three in this venue, and they’ll have three new ones next year.”

“But the Ontario Shakespeare Centre’s been around since the 1950s and they have all sorts of rituals already. I’m pretty sure we can convince them to add one to the list. Especially if it will guarantee a smooth show.”

They were out on the central plaza, surrounded on three sides by OSC’s three venues. A free pre-show concert on a stage in the center was going through sound check. It was a lovely spring afternoon, and audiences killing time between their matinee and evening performances were gathered on benches or at the box office. Walter seemed unconvinced, and he tried one last time to persuade his colleague this had a shot.

“When I was in the circus, one of the jugglers would go around before every show and you would have to juggle with him. It was partly his warmup, but also a superstition. You had to catch and return at least one ball in order to guarantee a good performance. And the theatre is not so different, at least when it comes to superstition or tradition.” 

“And if you missed?”

Jean-Paul shrugged. “Could be anything. An off day, a dull audience. Or something catastrophic. Our fire breather once aimed incorrectly and damaged the safety netting on the trapeze mid-performance. He, and the aerialists, had all dropped the ball during warmups.”

“Surely you don’t think that happened because someone missed a juggling move.”

“I think that everyone wanted the show to go right, and we all learned to juggle because of it. Building a new ritual should not be difficult for these people, even as the show or cast changes year to year.”

Walter sighed. “We can give it a shot. But I still think a machine would be more efficient.”

--

They slipped back in the stage door just as Birnam Wood was marching on Dunsinane, and hung out in the green room until after bows. As the actors trickled back and the audience headed for the lobby, they slipped backstage. The show’s crew were already busy packing away props.

Sally came down from the booth and said they’d be ready in a few minutes. Brevard got his costume off and came to join them as well. The house was empty. The worklights went on.

“OK, everyone, gather round.” The order came from the lead stagehand, who was in charge of all things backstage. The crew finished their postshow duties and gathered on stage left.

“Like I said before curtain, Sally thinks these two have a solution to Banquo’s ghost’s ghost problem.” The crew murmured their approval and Brevard looked relieved.

“Interdimensional rift,” Walter started to correct them, but Jean-Paul cut him off. 

“The ghost,” he said loudly, “appears to be drawn to repeated activity. So rather than change the play, Sally has an idea for a ritual that is repeated every night, no matter the show.”

The stage manager stepped forward with that rolling light bulb on a stick setup Jean-Paul had seen the night before.

“The ghost light,” Sally said. “It goes out every night, seven days a week. Even in the off season, because we do rentals. If we create something around that, it’ll outweigh any repeated action in a single production.” 

“You’ll have to have something more than just putting the light out,” Walter replied. But he was into the idea, as well. “It needs to outweigh the act of a performance, where people aren’t just repeating a movement, they’re doing so with attention and focus.”

“I’m not doing a dance routine with the ghost light,” one of the crew members muttered. But others were starting to get into it.

“Start on stage left. That’s where Brevard picks up his ghost.”

“It needs to be simple enough that we can repeat it no matter what set we have in here.”

“We should have an incantation. Lines that will make it official.”

“Or a song.”

“You do not want to hear stage ops attempt to sing. There’s a reason we stay backstage.” Laughs.

Someone plugged the light in and, with the power cord trailing out behind them as they moved, traced a pattern on the stage. From stage left, towards center stage, and then zig-zagging downstage to the apron. Strange enough to be intentional, not just rolling a light into view.  

“And text?” Sally asked.

People started throwing out quotes. Some, Jean-Paul recognized, others were wholly lost on him. The group settled on something from The Tempest: “Then to the elements/ Be free, and fare thou well.”

“You think it will work?” Brevard asked when everything was settled. Walter got his equipment out to take a reading.

“We’ll see,” was all he said. 

Jean-Paul, no longer worried about keeping his cover, rose into the air to get a view from above while Walter studied his rift energy reader.

The lead stage hand did the honors of giving the new ritual a try. He walked, he zig-zagged, he quoted Prospero, and clicked the light on. 

And then, after a pause, another of the stagehands bellowed,

“Good night, ghost!” 

The crew broke into a laugh. The stage manager asked them to reset and practice. Same path, same words, same tone. 

By the fifth time, Walter was getting a reading on his detection device. By the tenth, you could see the light glow a little brighter. Everyone joined in yelling “Good night, ghost!” 

“Do it again tomorrow night, and we’ll measure again.”

The stage manager and lead stagehand said they’d alert the other productions of their new marching orders.

--

They stayed the rest of the week, measuring both Brevard’s shows and the readings from the ghost light ritual every night. By Sunday night, the rift energy had shifted to the ghost light for all three shows, to the point that even if you didn’t believe in ghosts, it was hard to deny the way the light glowed far brighter than a single compact fluorescent light bulb could be expected to do, right when you turned it on. And everyone had accepted that if you were still in the room when they put out the ghost light, the proper response to hearing the quote from Prospero was, “Good night, ghost.”

By the time they packed up to leave, multiple company members had offered both Walter and Jean-Paul comps to any show in any future season as a form of thanks. Jean-Paul was just relieved they’d gotten out without coming to the attention of OSC’s board. He had better things to do than get chewed out by another government official for pissing off a CEO or politician. And Walter finally admitted that he was glad to have a solution that wouldn’t require renovating the theatre to fit his machine.

“To be honest, I’m a little jealous you came up with the answer for this one,” he said to Jean-Paul as they checked out of their hotel.

“Well, that’s what you get for getting a PhD. If you’d run away to join the circus as a teenager like I did, you might have a better knack for solving theatre-related mysteries.”

“I always forget you did that.”

“The skiing career does tend to be more prominent in my biography, I’ll admit. I wasn’t a particularly good acrobat.”

“Maybe not, but still good at what you do.” It was about as high a compliment as he was ever going to get out of Langkowski.

“Thanks for the challenge. But use all those free tickets they promised you with my sister, not me. I think I’ve had enough Shakespeare for a while.”