It began with applause.
Soft at first — polite, almost shy — coming from nowhere and everywhere at once. Lena woke to it. A slow, deliberate clap echoing down the hall.
She sat up, disoriented, the clock blinking 3:12 a.m.
Eli stirred beside her. "Please tell me that's the wind."
"Unless the wind's got rhythm now," she whispered, "no."
They crept into the hallway. The sound grew louder, accompanied by faint murmurs — voices rising and falling in conversational tones.
Lena squinted into the dark. "Is that… an audience?"
Eli held up a finger, listening. "It's coming from the parlor."
They approached cautiously. The door was half open, light spilling through the crack — golden and flickering, like stage lights.
When Lena pushed it open, she froze.
The parlor had transformed.
Rows of chairs lined the room, facing a makeshift stage built of warped floorboards. Curtains — torn velvet, impossible and heavy — hung from the ceiling. And sitting in those chairs, pale and translucent, were dozens of spectral figures.
Her old audience.
The guests from the Valentine séance, the people who'd vanished during the storm, even a few faces she didn't recognize. They sat still, waiting, eyes glowing faint blue.
On the stage: a microphone.
And behind it — her.
Or at least, something wearing her face.
The doppelgänger smiled, flawless and hollow. "Hey, everybody," it said in her voice, bright and effortless. "Great to see you again. I died on stage once — finally found my audience!"
The ghosts laughed, the sound warped and tinny.
Lena's stomach twisted. "Eli…"
He nodded grimly. "Projection. The house is using your memories."
The fake-Lena went on, pacing with comedic precision. "You ever notice how life and death are just bad punchlines to each other? You die laughing, and you live dying of embarrassment!"
More laughter. Applause.
The floor shook lightly under their feet.
Lena took a step forward. "Stop it!"
The figure turned, head tilting in eerie mimicry. "Aww, the real me's shy."
Its smile widened — too wide.
"You should've stayed funny, Lena. The house likes funny."
The lights above them popped, plunging the room into strobe-like flashes. The fake-Lena split in two, then four, each version performing different routines, different emotions — laughing, crying, screaming.
Eli grabbed her wrist. "We need to break the loop. The house is feeding on your stage energy."
"How?" she shouted over the ghostly laughter.
"Turn it on itself!"
Lena ripped the microphone from the stage clone's grip.
"Alright," she said, voice trembling, "if you're gonna steal my act, at least give credit."
The ghosts turned toward her. Their smiles froze.
"Knock, knock," she said.
Silence.
She grinned. "It's me, bitch."
A ripple ran through the room — shock, confusion, something like interest.
She took a breath, stepping center stage. "You want a show? Fine. But you laugh with me this time, not at me."
Eli stood behind her, murmuring an incantation under his breath. The air shimmered gold around them.
Lena began performing. Not her old material — not the jaded cynicism she'd always hidden behind — but new jokes, raw and shaky, about fear and failure, about loss, about what it meant to keep trying to be human in a world that kept laughing at the wrong things.
The ghosts listened. Some laughed softly. Some wept.
The copies of her on stage began to fade, their edges dissolving like mist.
"You see?" she said, voice breaking. "Comedy's not about killing. It's about surviving! It's not about hiding the pain, it's about making it bearable!"
The laughter turned warm — almost human. The walls glowed faint amber.
Eli's voice rose behind her, the spell nearing completion. "Almost there!"
Then the laughter shifted — deeper, echoing. Wrong again.
Julian's voice slithered through the crowd.
"Beautiful speech, darling. Shame it's your final act."
From the back of the room, Julian emerged — no longer transparent, but solid, vibrant. The last of his essence pulled together by the house's own applause.
He looked glorious — terrible — radiant in spectral spotlight. "You freed me once," he said, grinning, "but every show deserves a comeback."
Lena whispered, "No…"
Eli stepped forward, sigil blazing. "You don't belong here."
"Oh, but I do. You made me part of the act."
He gestured to the ghosts, the lights, the trembling house. "This is what you wanted, Lena. An audience that never stops laughing."
She shook her head. "No. I wanted to be heard. There's a difference."
Julian smiled sadly. "Then tell your joke, darling. Let's see who they laugh for."
The room dimmed.
One spotlight remained — on her.
Lena felt it then — the pull between life and death, love and performance, fear and laughter — all swirling in the air like static.
She met Julian's gaze. "Alright," she said softly. "Knock, knock."
He hesitated, amused. "Who's there?"
"Closure."
He blinked. "Closure who—"
"Closure, Julian."
The sigil in Eli's hand flared, merging with her words, her breath, her heartbeat. The entire room lit up — golden, warm, blinding.
Julian's smile faltered. "Well played."
He began to fade, his outline breaking apart like ash in sunlight.
"You really did find your timing."
And then he was gone.
The ghosts vanished with him, the laughter dissolving into a single, pure note that hung in the air before fading.
Lena stood shaking in the silence. Eli caught her before she fell.
"It's over," he said.
"Yeah," she whispered, voice hoarse. "But I think I just bombed in front of the afterlife."
He laughed — exhausted, relieved. "They loved it."
"Good," she murmured. "Because I'm never performing again."
Hours later, as dawn crept through the shattered windows, Lena sat on the porch with a blanket around her shoulders. Eli joined her, two mugs of coffee in hand.
"Do you think it's really done?" she asked.
He shrugged. "Ghosts never really leave. They just change form."
She sipped her coffee. "So what are we now? Survivors? Performers? Homeowners of a semi-sentient comedy club?"
He smiled. "Maybe all of the above."
She looked out across the misty lawn, the first rays of light catching the broken sign half-buried in the dirt.
It read:
THE ECHO HOUSE — LIVE EVERY NIGHT
She laughed softly. "Figures."
Eli tilted his head. "What?"
She glanced at him, eyes bright. "The show must go on."