Chapter 1: Attendance in a House That Should Be Empty

The lantern came to the speaker’s hands with a soft clink of glass, colder than it looked. The light inside it did not so much burn as watch. The speaker held it close, like a teacher about to begin roll call.

“I shouldn’t be telling you this,” the speaker said, and the Circle seemed to lean in without moving. “Not because it is too strange, but because it is too useful. Someone I knew learned it like a lesson, and lessons stick.”

Someone I knew had been a substitute teacher in a coastal town that still smelled of smoke from the war years. The men who came back sat in the rear of the classroom with their caps in their laps and their eyes on the windows. The teenagers sat too straight, like they were afraid of being scolded for breathing. Someone I knew believed in facts, in schedules, in names written neatly on paper. When the district office offered extra pay for a weekend inventory job, someone I knew took it.

“It’s just a building,” someone I knew said to the secretary, taking the key ring. “A theater. Props and costumes.”

The secretary did not look up. “Bring back what you’re given,” she said. “And don’t stay after dark.”

The theater stood near the sea, not close enough to hear waves clearly, but close enough for salt to live in the bricks. Its marquee was blank. The letters had been taken down years before, leaving pale rectangles like missing teeth. Inside, the lobby smelled of old candlewax and damp fabric. Posters hung in frames with glass gone cloudy, their faces faded into soft ghosts of smiles.

A caretaker met someone I knew at the door. He wore a coat too thin for the weather and a hat that seemed borrowed from an older man. His eyes were bright in a way that made someone I knew think of stage lights.

“You the teacher?” the caretaker asked.

“Just filling in,” someone I knew said, and held up the clipboard. “I’m here for the inventory.”

“Good,” the caretaker said. “Good. We like lists. Lists keep things in order.”

He led someone I knew through aisles of seats that sagged like tired shoulders. The stage was hidden behind heavy curtains. The air was still, but the curtains had a slight curve to them, as if something had leaned against the fabric and then stepped away.

In the prop room, someone I knew found a folded map tucked into a drawer with old programs. It was hand drawn, labeled in careful block letters: LOBBY, AUDITORIUM, STAGE, DRESSING ROOMS. Someone I knew smoothed it on a table.

“That’s helpful,” someone I knew said.

The caretaker’s smile tightened. “Maps,” he said, as if tasting the word. “Yes. Helpful.”

Someone I knew had already walked the hall to the prop room. On the map, that hall was shorter. On the map, there was a door marked STORAGE that someone I knew had not seen. On the map, the staircase was on the other side of the building.

Someone I knew laughed once, the way a skeptic laughs when a detail does not matter. “This isn’t right,” someone I knew said.

The caretaker’s eyes flicked to the curtains, then back. “Buildings change,” he said. “Especially ones that used to be full.”

Someone I knew did not believe that. Someone I knew believed in blueprints and measurements. Someone I knew tucked the map into the clipboard and began writing down the first item on the list, trying not to notice how the pencil trembled in a room that had no draft.

Someone I knew wrote: MASKS, TWELVE. And then, without meaning to, wrote it again beneath in a different hand, sharper and slanted, as if someone else had borrowed the pencil for a breath.

Someone I knew stared at the second line. The caretaker watched like a man waiting for an answer on a test.

Chapter 2: The Storm Writes the Lock

By late afternoon, the sky had bruised itself dark. Someone I knew worked through shelves of cracked masks and tarnished candlesticks, calling each item by a plain name and putting a mark beside it. The caretaker drifted in and out, sometimes whistling, sometimes silent, always appearing in doorways like he had been waiting there.

The first thunder sounded like a heavy trunk dropped upstairs.

“Storm’s coming in,” the caretaker said, peering toward the lobby as if he could see through walls. “Sea’s got a temper tonight.”

Someone I knew kept writing. “It’s only rain. I’ll be done before supper.”

The caretaker made a small sound, almost a chuckle. “You say that like the weather listens.”

When the rain hit, it hit hard. It rattled the high windows. It drummed on the roof in a steady, angry pattern. Somewhere in the building, water began to drip, then to run, a thin stream that smelled of rust and salt.

Someone I knew walked to the lobby to check the front doors. The glass panes shivered with each gust. Outside, the street had turned into a slick ribbon, shining under the storm’s gray light. The ocean was not visible, but its presence was in the air, thick and cold.

“I should go,” someone I knew said, raising their voice over the rain.

The caretaker stood behind, too close. “Road floods,” he said. “Phone line too. Always does when the wind comes from that direction.”

Someone I knew frowned. “You didn’t say anything about that.”

“I thought you knew,” the caretaker said, and then, oddly, he added, “You were told.”

Someone I knew turned. “By who?”

The caretaker blinked, like he had forgotten the question. “By the office,” he said, but his tone was uncertain, as if he was trying on the answer to see if it fit.

The lights flickered once, twice. Then the lobby lamps went out. The building sighed into a deeper dark, lit only by a weak emergency bulb near the exit sign that painted everything a sickly green.

Someone I knew swallowed. “All right,” someone I knew said, trying to sound practical. “We’ll wait it out. Where’s the breaker?”

The caretaker pointed down a hall that someone I knew did not remember seeing. It was narrow, lined with peeling wallpaper. The pattern looked like faded vines, but the longer someone I knew stared, the more it looked like rows of tiny crescents.

Someone I knew held a small flashlight. The beam caught dust in the air, dust that clung to skin when it landed. Halfway down the hall, someone I knew stopped.

“This wasn’t here,” someone I knew said.

The caretaker’s footsteps behind paused. “Sure it was,” he said, too quickly. “You just didn’t notice. People don’t notice until they need something.”

At the end of the hall was a door with a padlock. The lock was new, bright metal in a place of old things. Water ran down the door as if it had been outside in the storm.

Someone I knew lifted the key ring. None of the keys fit.

“That’s strange,” someone I knew murmured, and felt foolish for saying it out loud, like the building might correct them.

The caretaker leaned in. “Try again,” he said, like a teacher insisting a student recheck their work. “You’ll get it if you try again.”

Someone I knew tried every key. The lock did not budge. In the flashlight beam, the caretaker’s face looked wrong for an instant, as if the shadows had shifted his features into a different arrangement. His nose seemed slightly too long, then normal again. His eyes seemed set a little wider, then not. It was the sort of mistake a bad drawing makes.

Someone I knew stepped back. “We can’t get to the breaker,” someone I knew said.

The caretaker’s smile returned, but it did not reach his eyes. “Then we stay,” he said. “Just overnight.”

Behind them, somewhere in the auditorium, there came a sound like a seat folding up by itself. Then another. Then a soft, slow rustle, as if someone had drawn a curtain an inch to peek.

Someone I knew did not ask about it. Someone I knew did not want an answer.

Chapter 3: Curtains That Move Without Wind

They made a small camp in the lobby, because it felt safer than the auditorium. The caretaker found candles, thick ones with wax that smelled faintly sweet, and lit them with a match that shook in his fingers. The flames leaned slightly, though there was no breeze.

Someone I knew sat on the edge of the ticket counter with the clipboard in their lap, as if holding onto work could keep the night ordinary. The storm pressed against the building like a hand. Now and then the walls made a low groan, not quite wood settling, more like a throat clearing.

“You can sleep in the office,” the caretaker said. “Back there. Safer.”

“Safer from what?” someone I knew asked, and regretted it immediately.

The caretaker stared at the candle flame. “From forgetting,” he said, softly, as if it was a line from a script. Then he cleared his throat. “From drafts. Theater’s full of drafts.”

Someone I knew almost laughed. It came out as a breath. “Curtains move because of drafts,” someone I knew said, more to themselves than to him.

The caretaker’s eyes lifted. “Curtains move because they remember,” he said, and then he blinked again, like he had said something he was not meant to say. “You should check the stage,” he added quickly. “Make sure nothing’s fallen.”

Someone I knew did not want to go. But someone I knew had the kind of mind that hated loose ends. So, with the flashlight and one candle cupped in a hand, someone I knew walked into the auditorium.

The seats rose in rows like dark waves. The stage at the front was a rectangle of deeper shadow. The curtains hung heavy, red once, now the color of dried leaves. The air smelled of damp earth, though there was no soil inside a theater, only boards and plaster.

Someone I knew aimed the flashlight at the curtains. The beam made them glow dull and soft. The fabric rippled.

Someone I knew froze. The candle flame did not flicker. The air did not move. Yet the curtain shifted, a slow inward pull, like a breath drawn in.

“Hello?” someone I knew called, and the word felt foolish the moment it left the mouth. The theater swallowed it. The sound did not echo as it should. It died too quickly, as if the seats had leaned closer to listen.

Someone I knew stepped down the aisle, shoes sticking slightly to the floor. Near the front, the smell changed. Iron, faint but sharp, like pennies held too long in a warm hand.

On the stage boards, just at the edge where the footlights used to be, a thin smear ran across the wood. It was dark in the flashlight beam, almost black, but it shone wet.

Someone I knew crouched. The smear was too clean to be dirt. It had a shine that made the skin on someone I knew’s arms prickle.

Blood, someone I knew thought, and then immediately thought, No. Not here. Not now.

Someone I knew touched it with the tip of a finger. It was sticky, but cold. The smell of iron grew stronger, as if the stage itself had been cut and had not healed.

Behind the curtain, something tapped lightly, like a fingernail on wood. Once. Twice. Then a soft, distant sound, not thunder, not rain.

Applause.

It was faint, like hands clapping far away, behind walls, behind years. Someone I knew stood, heart thudding hard enough to feel in the throat.

The curtain moved again, a slow draw to one side, as if inviting someone onto the stage.

Someone I knew backed away. The flashlight beam wobbled. The applause stopped at once, replaced by a sudden silence so complete it felt like pressure in the ears.

From the back of the auditorium, the caretaker’s voice called, too loud, too cheerful. “Everything all right in there, teacher?”

Someone I knew did not answer right away. Someone I knew stared at the smear on the stage and saw, in the wet shine, a shape like a crescent, as if something had been pressed into it and lifted away.

When someone I knew finally spoke, the voice sounded small. “It’s fine,” someone I knew lied. “Just damp.”

The curtain shivered, pleased.

Chapter 4: The Cassette Labeled Only with a Date

The office the caretaker offered was not the one someone I knew expected. It was not near the lobby, but behind a door at the side of the stage, a door that the map on the clipboard did not show. The caretaker produced a key without looking at the ring, as if it had been waiting in his pocket for this moment.

Inside, the office smelled of paper left too long in a closed drawer. A desk sat under a dusty lamp. Filing cabinets lined one wall. On the desk, a portable cassette recorder rested like an animal asleep, its plastic casing dulled by age.

Someone I knew frowned. “I didn’t know theaters used tapes.”

“Rehearsals,” the caretaker said. “Sermons too, once.”

The word sermons made someone I knew glance up. “Sermons? In a theater?”

The caretaker’s smile was thin. “People gather where they can,” he said. “After the war, they gathered anywhere that had seats.”

Someone I knew set the candle down and opened the top desk drawer. Inside were old pencils, a crumpled ribbon, a small stack of playbills. Beneath them, a cassette tape in a clear case.

No title. No performer. Only a date written on a piece of masking tape stuck to the spine.

It was written in neat school script: 10, 14, 1952.

Someone I knew’s throat tightened. “That’s last year.”

The caretaker leaned over the desk, too close again. “Was a night,” he said. “People remember it.”

Someone I knew lifted the cassette case. The handwriting looked too perfect, like a teacher’s model on a chalkboard. Someone I knew turned it in the light.

When someone I knew looked back, the date seemed slightly different. The numbers were the same, but the style had changed. The neat script had become hurried, slanted, as if written by an adult in a rush. The ink looked darker at the edges, almost like it had bled into the tape.

Someone I knew blinked hard. “Did you rewrite this?”

The caretaker’s face went blank for a beat, like an actor forgetting a line. “No,” he said. “It’s always been that way.”

Someone I knew set the cassette down and opened a filing cabinet to distract themselves. Inside were folders labeled with names, some typed, some handwritten. The handwriting varied wildly, elegant cursive beside blocky print. Someone I knew pulled one folder, then another.

The names repeated.

Not the same first and last, but the same pattern, as if someone had written names they half remembered, then tried again. Some letters were scratched out so hard they tore the paper. In the margins of one folder, a crescent had been drawn over and over, darker each time.

Someone I knew shut the cabinet quickly.

The storm boomed overhead. The office lamp flickered, and for a moment the room smelled strongly of damp earth, as if the floorboards had been lifted and soil was breathing beneath them.

“You can sleep,” the caretaker said. “In the chair. Or on the couch in the hall.”

Someone I knew looked at him. “Are you staying here too?”

The caretaker’s eyes darted toward the cassette recorder. “I’ll be nearby,” he said. “If you need reminding.”

“Reminding of what?” someone I knew asked.

The caretaker’s mouth opened, then closed. He seemed to search the room for an answer, like reading lines off the walls. “Of your name,” he finally said, and then, as if that was a joke, he laughed once, sharp and wrong. “Storm makes people forget silly things.”

He left, closing the door with care, as if sealing in sound.

Someone I knew sat at the desk, staring at the cassette tape. The date on its label looked neat again. Then, as the candle flame leaned toward it, the numbers seemed to tilt, impatient, like they wanted to be read aloud.

Chapter 5: A Sermon Slips into History

Morning did not arrive cleanly. It seeped into the theater as a gray smear through high windows, turning candle stubs into pale wax bones. The storm had not ended. It had only changed rhythm, less thunder, more steady pounding rain, like a teacher tapping a ruler on a desk.

Someone I knew woke with a stiff neck and a dry mouth, the taste of old dust on the tongue. The office door was open. In the hall beyond, the curtains over the stage were visible through a gap, hanging still, too still, like someone holding their breath.

In the lobby, the caretaker had arranged chairs in rows, all facing the blank screen where movie nights must have once been. The arrangement looked deliberate, like a classroom. Or a service.

He stood at the front with a playbill in his hands. A candle burned beside him, though the wax had pooled strangely, forming a crescent shape on the floor.

“You’re up,” he said, when someone I knew approached. “Good. We start on time.”

“We?” someone I knew asked. “I’m leaving as soon as the road clears.”

The caretaker smiled as if correcting a child. “Storm decides that,” he said. “Sit.”

Someone I knew did not sit. Someone I knew crossed arms and tried to look unimpressed, but the skin on the back of the neck prickled, as if the empty chairs were watching.

The caretaker began speaking anyway, voice rising and falling like a practiced sermon.

“Places have rules,” he said. “Not written rules, not on signs. Rules you feel. You come in, you take your hat off, you mind your mouth, you say thank you. You do not call a place by the wrong name.”

Someone I knew frowned. “Theater is theater,” someone I knew muttered.

The caretaker’s eyes flashed. “No,” he said, sharply, and then softened his tone again, as if smoothing a wrinkle. “A place is what it has heard. A place is what it has held. This one held applause, held prayers, held confession.”

He paced slowly before the chairs. His shoes made no sound on the floor, though the boards were old.

“After the war,” he continued, “they came here because the church roof had holes. They brought a lantern. They brought their shame. They brought their dreams. They said, Speak it out loud, and it won’t follow you home.”

Someone I knew felt cold. “Who is they?”

The caretaker’s mouth twitched. “People,” he said. “People who thought talking was safer than silence.”

He lifted the playbill. On its cover was a smiling actor, face half faded. Someone I knew could barely read the title. Revival Night.

“They sat in rows,” the caretaker said, “and they confessed dreams. Not sins, dreams. Dreams where the sea rose into the streets. Dreams where children laughed behind locked doors. Dreams where their own names sounded wrong in their mouths.”

Someone I knew felt the urge to interrupt, to laugh it off, but the words stuck. The caretaker’s voice had a pull to it, like a tide.

“They repeated each other,” the caretaker said. “Call and response. Like school. Like prayer. If one forgot a detail, another supplied it. If one forgot a name, another gave it back.”

He stopped and looked directly at someone I knew. “But you must give a name correctly,” he said, slow and careful. “If you give it wrong, something else answers. Something that has been waiting for a chance to wear it.”

Someone I knew’s hands tightened into fists. “This is nonsense.”

The caretaker nodded, as if pleased. “Skepticism,” he said. “Good. Keeps you sharp. But sharp things cut both ways.”

He stepped closer. Someone I knew smelled damp fabric on him, like curtains hung too long.

“You found the tape,” the caretaker said.

Someone I knew did not answer.

The caretaker’s smile widened. “Good,” he said again. “Then you can learn the lesson properly. From the right voice. From the date it happened.”

Behind him, one of the chairs creaked, though no one sat in it. Someone I knew’s gaze flicked to the empty rows.

For a moment, someone I knew thought they saw a shape in a seat, a darker patch of shadow shaped like shoulders. Then the light shifted, and it was only an empty chair.

The caretaker held out his hand. “Bring it,” he said. “We listen together.”

Chapter 6: Play the Tape, Hear the Wrong Voice

Someone I knew carried the cassette recorder back into the office, hands unsteady despite stubborn disbelief. The caretaker followed, humming softly, a tune that sounded almost like a school song, almost like a hymn. The storm made the windows tremble.

The recorder clicked when someone I knew pressed the buttons. The cassette slid in with a dry plastic scrape. The date on the label, 10, 14, 1952, looked slanted again, the numbers leaning forward like they were eager to fall.

“Just a tape,” someone I knew said, and the caretaker nodded too quickly.

“Just a tape,” he echoed, but his eyes stayed on the speaker grille.

Someone I knew pressed play.

At first there was only static, faint and even, like rain on a far roof. Then a voice emerged, clear enough to raise gooseflesh.

“Class,” the voice said, firm and calm. “Settle. Eyes forward. This is a lesson in names.”

Someone I knew’s stomach tightened. The voice had the crisp patience of a teacher, the kind that could quiet a room without shouting. Someone I knew had heard that tone in staff meetings, in classrooms, in their own throat.

The caretaker whispered, “Listen.”

On the tape, the teacher voice continued. “You think your name is yours because you answer to it. That is not proof. Dogs answer to whistles. Children answer to nicknames. A name is a door, and doors open both ways.”

The static rose for a second, and beneath it came something else, faint and rhythmic.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

Applause, distant, like hands clapping behind a wall.

Someone I knew stared at the recorder. “Do you hear that?” someone I knew asked.

The caretaker’s smile trembled. “Audience,” he said. “They’re always polite.”

The voice on the tape paused, as if waiting for the clapping to end. When it did, the teacher voice resumed, but now it sounded slightly different, as if the speaker had shifted closer to the microphone.

“Repeat after me,” the voice said. “I will say my name once. Only once. I will not let anyone else say it for me.”

Someone I knew’s mouth went dry. “This is a script.”

The caretaker leaned in. “Go on,” he urged. “It’s just words.”

On the tape, the teacher voice corrected itself mid-sentence, like a person catching a mistake. “Only once, I mean twice, no, once. Once is safest. Twice invites correction.”

Someone I knew felt a pulse of irritation, as if grading a paper with sloppy edits. “It’s poorly recorded,” someone I knew said.

The voice continued, “If someone says your name wrong, do not answer. If someone says your name sweetly, do not answer. If someone says your name like they have always known you, do not answer.”

The static swelled again, and now the applause sounded closer, mixed with faint laughter, children’s laughter where no children should be. It ran under the words like a hidden track.

Someone I knew glanced at the caretaker. His expression had changed. His brow was furrowed, like he was trying to remember the next line.

The tape voice shifted again, and for a moment it sounded like the caretaker, then like someone else, then back to the teacher.

“Attendance,” the voice said. “We take attendance so we know who is here. We take attendance so we know who is missing.”

Someone I knew’s hand hovered over the stop button.

The tape voice said, very softly now, “Say your name.”

Someone I knew’s finger trembled. “No,” someone I knew whispered, and the caretaker’s head snapped up.

“What?” he asked, too loud.

Someone I knew pressed stop. The recorder clicked, and the sudden silence was worse than the sound. In that silence, someone I knew heard the theater itself, the faint creak of boards, the wet hiss of rain, and beneath it, the softest scrape, like a chair being pulled back from a row.

The caretaker’s voice was gentle again. “You stopped before the important part,” he said.

Someone I knew backed away from the desk. “I’m leaving,” someone I knew said. “Storm or not.”

The caretaker’s smile did not move. “Then follow the map,” he said. “Maps keep things in order.”

Someone I knew grabbed the clipboard. The hand drawn map felt damp, as if it had been held against a sweating palm for hours.

Someone I knew did not notice until later that the map’s lines had shifted slightly, as if the ink had moved while the paper stayed still.

Chapter 7: The Map Contradicts Their Feet

Someone I knew headed for the front doors with the kind of determined stride used to break up a fight between students. The lobby candles had burned low. The chairs the caretaker arranged were still in rows, but now several had turned slightly, not all facing the same direction, as if they were following a moving speaker.

The front doors would not open. The handle turned, but the door did not give. Someone I knew pushed harder. The glass shuddered. Outside, rain blurred the world into watery streaks.

“It’s stuck,” someone I knew said, more to themselves than to the building.

From behind, the caretaker’s voice came, mild. “Storm writes the lock,” he said. “That’s what my uncle used to say.”

“You said you were the caretaker,” someone I knew snapped, turning.

The caretaker blinked. “I am,” he said. Then, after a pause, “Was. Am. Same thing.”

Someone I knew looked down at the map. “There’s a side exit,” someone I knew said, pointing. “Here, by the storage.”

The caretaker nodded, too eagerly. “Yes. That way.”

Someone I knew followed the map into a corridor that should have led behind the lobby. The wallpaper here was different, striped and peeling. The flashlight beam caught dampness on the walls, as if seawater had seeped through brick.

The first turn should have brought someone I knew to a door marked STORAGE. Instead, the corridor opened into a dressing room with cracked mirrors and a row of bulbs, most broken. A faint smell of powder and old sweat lingered, like performers had just left.

“This is wrong,” someone I knew said.

The caretaker’s voice came from behind, but his footsteps were not there. “Keep going,” he called. “Sometimes doors trade places.”

Someone I knew’s irritation rose, then drained into unease. Someone I knew went back into the corridor and tried the next turn. It led to the stage.

Someone I knew stepped out into the open space and froze. The curtains were parted slightly, though no one had touched them. The smear of blood was still on the boards, but now it formed a thin line, like someone had drawn a boundary. The air smelled more strongly of iron.

Someone I knew backed away and tried a different hall. This one sloped downward, though the theater had no basement, someone I knew was sure of that. The steps were damp. Water beaded on the railing like sweat.

At the bottom was a door. Someone I knew opened it and found, impossibly, the lobby again, but not the same lobby. The posters were different. The chairs were arranged in a tighter pattern. The ticket counter had a fresh stack of playbills, their ink dark as if printed yesterday.

Someone I knew spun around. The staircase behind was gone. Only a wall, smooth and painted, as if it had always been there.

Someone I knew’s breath came quick. “This isn’t possible.”

The storm’s sound seemed to change, less like rain on a roof, more like waves hitting wood. The building felt closer to the sea now, as if the ocean had come up to the foundation and was pressing its mouth to the boards.

Someone I knew looked at the map again. The lines on it had shifted further. The side exit was now drawn on the opposite side. The staircase had moved. The word AUDITORIUM had been overwritten, the letters darker, as if a different hand had traced them.

Someone I knew rubbed at the ink. It did not smear. It felt raised, like dried blood.

From somewhere above, the faint static sound returned, not from the recorder, but from the walls. It was the hush of an audience waiting for the next line.

Someone I knew whispered, “I’m not playing along.”

A voice answered from a nearby doorway, warm and familiar. “You don’t have to.”

Someone I knew turned fast, relief flaring.

In the doorway stood a woman in a raincoat, hair damp, cheeks flushed from cold. She looked like someone from the school office, someone I knew had spoken to dozens of times.

“You’re here,” she said, smiling. “They sent me to check on you. You always take on extra work.”

Someone I knew’s relief was so sharp it hurt. “How did you get in? The road is flooded.”

The woman laughed softly. “You worry too much,” she said. “Come on. Let’s go home.”

Someone I knew took a step toward her, then stopped.

She had called someone I knew by a nickname that no one used anymore, not since childhood, and even then only one person had said it.

Someone I knew’s skin went cold. “Don’t call me that,” someone I knew said.

The woman’s smile faltered, just for a blink, like a mask slipping.

“Oh,” she said, and her voice changed slightly, as if trying again. “Sorry. I meant your other name.”

Someone I knew realized then that the theater was not only changing its halls. It was changing its people.

Chapter 8: The Imitation Gets the Details Wrong

The woman stepped into the lobby light, and someone I knew saw that her raincoat was dry at the shoulders, though she claimed to have come through the storm. Her hair clung to her face in damp strands, but the dampness looked placed there, like stage makeup.

“You look tired,” she said. “You always get tired when you grade papers late. Remember last winter, when you fell asleep at the desk and woke up with ink on your cheek?”

“That didn’t happen,” someone I knew said, voice tight.

The woman blinked. Her eyes did not blink at the same time. It was a small thing, but it made someone I knew’s stomach roll.

“Oh,” she said again. “Right. That was someone else. But you know what I mean.”

Someone I knew backed away until the ticket counter pressed into their spine. “Who are you?” someone I knew demanded.

The woman’s shoulders lifted in a small shrug. “A friend,” she said, then, as if reconsidering, “Family. No, a coworker. You and I, we have coffee in the mornings.”

Someone I knew shook their head. “I don’t drink coffee.”

The woman smiled wider, too wide. “Tea,” she corrected quickly. “You drink tea. You always say it helps you sleep.”

Someone I knew’s hands clenched around the clipboard. “Stop,” someone I knew said. “Stop guessing.”

The woman’s face twitched, like fabric pulled tight. For a second, her features seemed to soften and rearrange, cheekbones shifting, jaw narrowing, hair darkening. Someone I knew blinked, and she looked like the caretaker’s niece might look, younger, sharper, with a smudge of grease on her cheek as if she worked backstage.

“I’m here to help,” she insisted, voice now slightly different, higher. “Uncle said you were lost.”

Someone I knew swallowed. “He said you had a niece?”

The girl nodded too fast. “Yes. Always. I grew up here. I used to sit in the balcony and watch the shows. I laughed so hard once I spilled lemonade on a man’s hat.”

Someone I knew’s eyes flicked to the balcony above. It was dark, but someone I knew felt, very strongly, that something leaned over the rail, listening.

“What was the man’s name?” someone I knew asked, surprising themselves. It came out like a teacher testing a student’s story.

The girl hesitated. Her smile wavered. “Mr Holloway,” she said finally.

Someone I knew felt a chill at the sound of it, not because it meant anything clear, but because it felt like it was trying to.

“There’s no lemonade here,” someone I knew said. “There hasn’t been for years. And you said you grew up here, but this theater’s been closed.”

The girl’s eyes narrowed. “Closed to some,” she said, and her voice dropped, becoming rougher, older. “Open to those who remember.”

Someone I knew smelled iron again. On the ticket counter, a small smear had appeared, thin and dark, like a fingerprint made in blood. Someone I knew had not touched anything wet.

The girl leaned closer. “You’re making it hard,” she said, and her tone turned almost pleading. “Just tell me your name. Say it clearly. Then I can say it back right, and we can go.”

Someone I knew’s heart hammered. “Why do you need to say it?”

The girl’s mouth opened, and for a moment someone I knew saw, behind her teeth, not darkness but a pale curtain of fabric, like a stage drape pulled across a doorway.

From the auditorium, the sound of applause rose again, closer now, like hands clapping in the next room.

The girl smiled, and it was not a human smile. “Because attendance,” she said. “Because we have to know who is here.”

Someone I knew pushed past her, shoulder brushing hers. The contact felt wrong, like touching damp velvet. Someone I knew ran into the nearest hall, not trusting the map anymore, only wanting distance.

Behind, the girl called out, voice shifting as she spoke, cycling through tones, searching.

“Wait, sweetheart,” she called, then, “Wait, teacher,” then, in someone I knew’s own voice, “Wait.”

That last one stopped someone I knew cold. Hearing your own voice behind you, speaking from another throat, is like seeing your reflection blink when you did not.

Someone I knew did not turn around. Someone I knew ran harder, and the theater’s halls seemed to lengthen, like a dream where the door you need is always farther away.

Chapter 9: Handwriting That Will Not Hold Still

Someone I knew burst into what should have been the prop room, but the shelves were arranged differently, tighter, like a classroom supply closet. A chalkboard stood against the wall, though someone I knew was sure there had not been one. On its tray lay a piece of chalk, snapped in half.

The storm’s roar faded here, replaced by a low hush, like a crowd whispering before a show. Someone I knew’s breath sounded too loud.

On a table, a stack of playbills waited, neat as homework. Someone I knew grabbed the top one, intending to use it as a weapon if needed, then froze.

Across the cover, a message had been written.

WRITE YOUR NAME CLEARLY.
SAY IT ONCE.
DO NOT LET ANYONE ELSE SAY IT FOR YOU.

The first line was in neat school script, the kind a teacher demonstrates slowly. The second line was in hurried adult scrawl, letters leaning, ink pressed hard. The third line was in looping cursive, elegant and old-fashioned. Three styles, one message, as if several hands had taken turns holding the same pen.

Someone I knew’s mouth went dry. “No,” someone I knew whispered.

The chalkboard behind scraped softly, as if the chalk had moved by itself. Someone I knew turned.

On the board, a single crescent had been drawn, white on black. Then another, beside it. Then a third, slightly crooked. The chalk lay still on the tray, but the crescents multiplied slowly, as if an unseen hand practiced the shape again and again.

Someone I knew backed away until the table pressed into their hip. The playbill in their hand felt damp. Looking down, someone I knew saw a thin dark stain at the bottom edge, spreading like ink.

Blood where none should be.

Someone I knew dropped the playbill. The stain on the table remained, a small crescent-shaped smear, as if the blood had been waiting there and the paper had only revealed it.

A whisper came from the doorway, not loud enough to be words at first. Someone I knew strained to hear.

It became clearer, like a radio tuning in. “Say it,” the whisper urged. “Say it so we can write it down.”

Someone I knew clapped hands over ears. The whisper did not stop. It seemed to come from inside the skull, from behind the eyes.

Someone I knew grabbed the clipboard and flipped the map open. The ink had changed again. New corridors were drawn in, dark and confident. Old ones were crossed out. In the margin, someone had written in the same three shifting styles:

EXIT HERE.
TRUST THE MAP.
TRUST THE LESSON.

Someone I knew laughed once, a harsh sound that startled even them. “This is a building,” someone I knew said aloud, as if the words could anchor reality. “Wood and plaster.”

The chalkboard squeaked again. Someone I knew turned and saw that the crescents had formed a ring, almost a circle, but not quite closed. The gap looked like a mouth left slightly open.

From the ring, letters began to appear, chalk lines forming slowly. Not a full name, not yet, but the first letter of someone I knew’s name, the one they were trying not to think.

Someone I knew lunged forward and wiped the board with a sleeve. Chalk dust smeared across fabric, clinging to skin like ash. The crescents blurred, but the dust left a faint crescent mark on someone I knew’s wrist, pale against the skin.

From the hall, footsteps approached, slow and deliberate, like someone walking down an aisle to the front of a class. Someone I knew grabbed the chalk and wrote quickly on the board, not a name, but a sentence, the safest distance they could think of.

SOMEONE I KNEW.

The letters came out shaky. The chalk snapped again. Someone I knew stared at the words. They looked childish, but they were true, in the way stories are true.

The footsteps paused at the door.

A voice, gentle and correct, spoke from the hall. It was the teacher voice from the tape.

“Good,” it said. “Now keep it that way.”

Chapter 10: Dreamscape on the Stage

By afternoon, time had begun to feel loose, as if the storm had soaked the hours until they sagged. Someone I knew had wandered through rooms that repeated, doors that led back to themselves, stairwells that ended in blank walls. Hunger came and went without meaning. The theater’s air tasted faintly of static, like licking a battery.

Eventually, someone I knew found themselves back in the auditorium. Not by choice, but because every hall, every turn, seemed to bend that way. The seats waited in their rows, patient. The curtains were closed, but they bulged slightly, as if something stood behind them.

Someone I knew sat in the center aisle, exhausted. The flashlight beam was weak now, batteries fading. The clipboard lay on the seat beside. The map’s ink looked almost wet.

“Stay awake,” someone I knew told themselves, voice hoarse. “Don’t fall asleep.”

But the theater was warm in a wrong way, like a bed in a room you do not recognize. The hush of the storm became a lullaby. The faint static became the sound of distant surf.

Someone I knew’s eyes closed for a second.

When they opened, the auditorium was full.

Not with bodies, not with faces, but with shadows shaped like people sitting perfectly still. Every seat held a darker patch of darkness, shoulders and heads outlined by the faintest glow from the stage.

Someone I knew’s breath caught. “No,” someone I knew whispered, and the word felt like it belonged to someone else.

From the stage, a single spotlight clicked on, though there was no power. It shone a pale circle on the boards. Within that circle stood a desk, a school desk, scratched and familiar. Behind it, a figure sat with a cassette recorder in front of them.

The figure lifted its head.

It had someone I knew’s face, but wrong in small ways. The eyes were set slightly too far apart. The mouth smiled too politely. The skin looked stretched, like a costume pulled tight.

“Class,” it said, in the teacher voice. “Settle.”

Someone I knew tried to stand, but the legs would not obey. The aisle felt sticky, like the floor had become glue.

The shadow audience leaned forward, not moving individually, but shifting as one, like a field of grain in wind. Someone I knew realized with a sick jolt that there was no wind. The movement came from attention.

On the stage, the imitation pressed play on the cassette recorder. Static filled the auditorium. Applause rose, louder now, as if the shadow audience clapped without hands.

The imitation spoke over the tape, matching it. “We take attendance so we know who is here,” it said. “We take attendance so we know who is missing.”

Someone I knew’s mouth moved without permission, forming the words silently, like a student forced into reciting.

The imitation smiled wider. “Now,” it said, “repeat after me. Say your name.”

Someone I knew felt the name rise in the throat like vomit, unwanted, unstoppable. The name felt strange, like a word in a language someone I knew had once known but forgot.

Someone I knew bit the inside of the cheek hard, tasting iron. The sharpness helped. Someone I knew forced the mouth shut.

The imitation’s face twitched, irritation breaking through the polite mask. “You’re making it hard,” it said, echoing the girl from before.

Someone I knew forced a whisper through clenched teeth. “Someone I knew,” someone I knew said.

The shadow audience made a sound like disappointed murmuring. The applause stopped. The silence that followed was thick, pressing against ears.

The imitation leaned forward. Its voice softened, coaxing. “That’s not attendance,” it said. “That’s a story. Stories are for after. This is now.”

The curtains behind it moved, drawing back an inch. From the gap came the smell of damp earth and old candlewax, the smell from the lobby, from the office, from under the floorboards. It smelled like somewhere below the building, somewhere that had never seen daylight.

Someone I knew felt tears sting, not from sadness but from disoriented fear, the kind that comes when the world’s rules slip.

The imitation lifted a piece of chalk and wrote in the air. The chalk left a line of white that hung there, forming the first letter of someone I knew’s name.

Someone I knew squeezed eyes shut and shouted, “No!”

The sound cracked through the auditorium, and the shadow audience flinched as one. The spotlight flickered. The imitation’s face blurred for an instant, features sliding like wet paint.

Someone I knew’s flashlight, forgotten in their hand, flared bright for a second, then died.

Darkness fell, complete and heavy.

In the dark, the imitation’s voice whispered close to someone I knew’s ear, though the stage was far away.

“I can say it for you,” it promised. “I can say it correctly.”

Someone I knew felt something brush behind the ear, light as a fingertip, and then a faint scratching sensation, like a crescent being drawn on skin.

Chapter 11: The Lesson of the Missing Name

Someone I knew woke on the auditorium floor with the taste of iron still in the mouth and the sense of having been called by something that was almost their name. The storm had quieted to a steady hiss. Dim light seeped in, enough to see rows of empty seats again. Empty, but not comforting.

Someone I knew sat up slowly. The clipboard lay beside them, open. The map’s paper looked wrinkled, as if it had been dampened and dried again. New marks had appeared in the margins, written in changing handwriting.

SAY IT ONCE.
SAY IT RIGHT.
LET US HELP.

Someone I knew pressed fingers behind the ear, suddenly afraid. The skin there felt tender. When someone I knew pulled fingers away, there was no blood, but the fingertips smelled faintly of old candlewax.

A sound came from the stage, soft and familiar.

The cassette recorder clicked on by itself.

Static filled the auditorium. Then the teacher voice, calm as ever, began again.

“Lesson,” it said. “If you cannot hold your name, hold your distance. Speak as if you are teaching, not confessing. Do not claim what can be taken.”

Someone I knew stared at the stage curtains. They were still closed, but the bottom edge lifted and fell slightly, like breathing.

Someone I knew stood, unsteady. “All right,” someone I knew said, voice shaking. “All right. If this is a lesson, then listen.”

No answer, only static, like a classroom waiting.

Someone I knew walked to the front, stopping at the edge of the stage, careful not to step over the thin blood line still marking the boards. It was darker now, dried, but it still smelled of iron.

Someone I knew spoke loudly, projecting like a teacher addressing the back row. “Someone I knew came here to do a job,” someone I knew said. “Someone I knew did not come to give their name away.”

The static wavered. The cassette voice paused, as if surprised.

Someone I knew continued, forcing the words into the safe frame. “Someone I knew found a tape with a date. Someone I knew heard a voice that sounded helpful. Someone I knew understands now that help can be a trap when it asks you to repeat yourself.”

In the seats, a faint creak answered, like a student shifting.

Someone I knew lifted the clipboard. “Someone I knew will leave,” someone I knew said. “And if anyone here wants to call after them, they can do it without a name.”

The theater was silent. Then, slowly, the curtains moved, not opening, but settling, as if disappointed.

From the side aisle, the caretaker appeared. He looked paler, his coat hanging wrong on his shoulders, like it belonged to someone else today.

“You can’t leave mid-lesson,” he said, voice strained. “That’s rude.”

Someone I knew stared at him. “Who are you?” someone I knew asked again, and this time the question felt like a blade.

The caretaker’s eyes filled with something like fear. “I keep the place,” he said. “I keep it in order.”

“Then tell me the layout,” someone I knew demanded, holding up the map. “Tell me why the map changes.”

The caretaker stared at the paper as if it hurt to look. “Maps are promises,” he whispered. “Promises get rewritten.”

Someone I knew stepped toward him. The caretaker flinched, then suddenly straightened, as if a string had pulled him upright. His face smoothed into a polite expression.

“You want an exit,” he said, voice now too calm. “There is one. I can show you.”

Someone I knew hesitated. “Why would you help me?”

The caretaker smiled. “Because attendance is almost done.”

He pointed to a door near the front, a door someone I knew had not seen before. It was painted the same color as the wall, blending in, but now it seemed obvious, like it had always been there.

On the door, scratched into the paint, was a crescent.

Someone I knew’s heart sank. The exit felt like a trick. But staying felt worse.

Someone I knew tightened grip on the clipboard and walked toward the door, speaking the only shield they had.

“Someone I knew,” they whispered with each step, “someone I knew, someone I knew.”

Behind, the cassette tape continued to play, the teacher voice murmuring, patient and relentless, as if the lesson would go on whether the student stayed or not.

Chapter 12: The Date Comes Due

The door opened onto the lobby, but the lobby looked different again. The posters on the walls were fresh, colors bright, faces smiling too clearly. The air smelled strongly of damp earth, as if the storm had dragged the sea inside and buried it under the floor.

The front doors stood ahead, glass panes shining with rain. Someone I knew rushed to them, hope flaring despite everything.

Then someone I knew stopped.

Scratched into the glass, as if carved from the inside, was the date from the cassette label.

10, 14, 1952.

The numbers looked wet, like they had been written in something darker than water. Someone I knew lifted a shaking hand and touched the carving. The glass was cold. The carved grooves were fresh enough to catch skin.

“That’s not possible,” someone I knew whispered. “That was last year.”

Behind, the caretaker stood near the rows of chairs, which had returned, arranged like a congregation. His face was unreadable. “Dates come due,” he said, softly. “Like lessons. Like debts.”

The cassette recorder, which someone I knew had left in the office, began playing somewhere in the building. Its sound traveled through vents and walls, filling the lobby as if the theater itself had become a speaker.

Static, then applause, louder than ever, right behind the ears.

Then the teacher voice, clear, firm.

“Class,” it said. “This is the part you did not finish. This is the part you must say in the dark if the lantern dies.”

Someone I knew’s blood ran cold at the words, not because they were impossible, but because they sounded like a rule that had been waiting.

Someone I knew looked at the candles. Their flames were small, guttering, as if oxygen was thinning.

The voice continued, “Say your name once. Say it clearly. Then you may go.”

Someone I knew pressed palms to the glass doors. Outside was only gray rain. The street beyond looked wrong, stretched, like a painted backdrop. The storm’s sound had become the sound of waves hitting wood, close enough to shake the floor.

Someone I knew turned back. The caretaker was no longer alone. In the chairs sat shadows, faint at first, then darker, filling rows as if an audience had arrived for the final act.

The imitation stepped from the side hall, wearing the face of the woman again, then the girl, then someone I knew’s own face, settling on the last one with a satisfied sigh.

“Just once,” it said, in someone I knew’s voice. “Then we can all go home.”

Someone I knew’s mouth opened, and for a moment the name rose again, heavy and familiar and wrong. Someone I knew felt the theater lean in, felt the audience’s attention like hands on shoulders.

Someone I knew did the only thing that had worked, the only distance that felt safe.

“I once heard,” someone I knew said, voice trembling, “that names are doors.”

The imitation’s smile faltered. The shadow audience hissed like wind through seats.

Someone I knew continued, louder, forcing the frame like a teacher forcing order. “Someone I knew came here. Someone I knew found a tape labeled only with a date. Someone I knew refused to give their name to a place that forgets details.”

The imitation’s face twitched, anger flashing. “That’s not how the lesson goes,” it snapped.

Someone I knew stepped backward, away from the doors, toward the center of the lobby where the floor felt softer, damp. The smell of iron rose again. On the tiles, small crescent smears appeared, as if blood had seeped up through cracks to mark a path.

The cassette voice grew louder, and then, impossibly, it changed.

It became someone I knew’s voice, exact, down to the slight rasp from lack of sleep.

“Say your name,” the voice said, and it sounded like someone I knew speaking into a microphone.

Someone I knew clapped hands over ears. The voice did not stop. It came from inside, from memory, from the part of the mind that rehearses what it fears.

The candles went out one by one, not blown, simply extinguished, as if the theater had decided the lesson was now in darkness.

In the dark, the curtains on the stage drew shut with a slow, heavy whisper, like eyelids closing.

Someone I knew felt a hand take theirs. Cold glass pressed into the palm.

The lantern.

Someone I knew looked down, and in the faint glow inside the lantern’s glass, someone I knew saw their own reflection, but the mouth in the reflection moved a beat behind, practicing.

“I shouldn’t be telling you this,” the reflection mouthed.

Someone I knew’s throat tightened. The lobby, the audience, the storm, all seemed to fold inward, like a map being creased into a smaller shape.

The last thing someone I knew remembered clearly was stepping forward, lantern in hand, into a clearing that smelled of damp earth and old candlewax, and seeing worn stones in a ring, and faces turned toward them, waiting.

Then the light shifted, and the teacher voice, their voice, began again.

“I shouldn’t be telling you this.”

The storyteller in the Circle stopped. The lantern’s pale glow trembled in their hands. For a moment, the glass reflected not one face but several, layered, as if different people were trying on the same expression.

The storyteller swallowed and passed the lantern on.

No one spoke right away.

The silence lasted just long enough to feel like someone else was about to continue the lesson in the wrong voice.