The clearing was quiet in that thick, waiting way — like the trees had already pulled up chairs.
Then the first ones came out.
A man in overalls, tall but sunken, with ash-gray hair and eyes that didn't blink as much as they should. His arm was linked with a round woman in a gingham dress. She had one of those big southern mama smiles, but her eyes moved too quick — darting from Kaito to me, to the trees, to the sky.
She gave me a tiny wave. I nodded back, polite but uncertain.
Kaito stepped off the stage to greet them. He kept his voice low, but I watched the way his back straightened. Not casual. Not nervous, either. Prepared.
The man lifted his hands and started to move them in slow, deliberate gestures — signing something I couldn't follow.
His wife translated with practiced ease. "He says y'all look ready. Says it's been a long while since the Hollow had proper performers."
She turned her head and yelled toward the house, "TAMMY! Bring the bag!"
And out came their daughter — or maybe granddaughter — a muscular woman with arms like braided rope and a kind of calm behind her eyes that didn't quite match the moment. She was carrying a velvet sack the size of a bowling ball.
She handed it right to Kaito.
Kaito blinked, caught a little off guard. "Y'all sure? We haven't even started."
He kept talking to the man, tone level and smooth, while the wife translated in her bright sing-song voice. It was weird watching it — like seeing two conversations happen at once. I should've been paying closer attention, but I caught myself staring at Kaito's backside instead. All long lines and quiet strength. I shook it off and focused, adjusting my veil and trying to follow the words instead of the view.
The wife translated again with a chuckle. "Even if y'all were terrible — and from what I see, you won't be — we believe in paying folks what they're owed. We got more coming if the crowd shows like we expect."
Kaito looked down at the sack in his hands. I saw his fingers twitch — not in greed, but in instinct. Like the weight told him something he didn't want to hear.
I stepped up beside him, still half-buried in chiffon and veil, and whispered, "This gig is strange."
He didn't look at me. Just nodded once and said, "Yeah."
But I caught the edge of his jaw — tight. Too tight. And when he turned to face the stage again, his pupils looked a little too wide. Like they were catching light that wasn't there.
And that's when I started wondering just who the real performance was for.
Maybe it wasn't the crowd they expected. Maybe it wasn't even a crowd made of the living. I'd heard stories — old ones. In the South, you learn fast not every show is for applause. Sometimes it's for ghosts. Spirits who just want one last dance, one last taste of joy before they drift.
There are tales of theaters reopening just long enough for the dead to clap. Of empty seats filled with memory. Of ghosts who pay in chills instead of coins. And deep down, I hoped that was all this was. A haunted gathering with kind intentions.
But the way Kaito stood — too still, too sharp — it made me wonder.
Because if this wasn't for ghosts, then who the hell was it for?
Later that day, Kaito took me to what passed for a performance space — a half-collapsing barn shaped suspiciously like an owl's face. It gave me chills. Not because it was creepy, but because we'd been surrounded by owl carvings, symbols, whispers for days now. Still, something about it pulled at my memory. The smell of hay. The old wood beams. The dust catching gold in the sun.
"Oh dear, do you remember when we first met?" I asked, holding my cheeks with both hands like a lovestruck schoolgirl. Kaito looked down at me, smiling — that crooked, radiant thing he only gave me when he let his guard drop.
"You saved my pale ass, lass," he laughed, thick Irish accent curling through every word like smoke.
He started pacing the barn then, scanning like he was looking for something that mattered. I tapped his shoulder. "What are you looking for?"
Normally, I let Kaito be weird without pressing. But this job? Something felt different. And I thought — just for a second — I saw his shadow twitch the wrong way.
He paused, rubbed the back of his neck. "Would you believe me if I told you something surprising?"
I narrowed my eyes. Was he about to propose? Right here? Now? I'd take it, sure, but maybe pick a better backdrop than murder-owl farmhouse. I held out my hand and teased, "So you planned all this? The brochure really undersold the ambiance."
Kaito looked at me like I was the odd one, then gently took my hands.
Suddenly, owls exploded through the rafters like shrapnel with wings, feathers slicing the air in a silent chaos storm. Before I could gasp, Kaito dropped into motion — fluid and fast like he'd trained for this moment in secret. He slashed the bottom of my dress open with a hooked knife I hadn't even seen him draw, catching the hem mid-air with one hand as the other shoved a gleaming axe into my grip.
"Showtime," he hissed, eyes glowing like forge metal. "If they move, you swing. If I fall, you run."
It wasn't a plea. It was a cue.
"I'm sorry, dear. I was sent here on business. My family handles magical law — mostly deity abuse cases. That place we were just in… it was wrong. I know this is a lot — hell, I know this makes zero sense right now — but I need you to trust me. If they come at you—swing and dance, baby. Just swing and dance."
Tammy came crashing into the barn, charging like she'd been born of rage and feathers.
I froze—until Kaito grabbed me and spun me into our old choreography. It kicked in like muscle memory, our old rhythm. I twisted, dropped, and sliced low.
Her leg snapped back — hollow, full of feathers. She hit the ground hard.
And the show had only just started.