The Arcata Cliffs Playhouse situated just outside of Arcata on the east side of town was the building in which theatre happened in Arcata.  The college students would sometimes work the playhouse in the summer when production and performance met in full force.  In mid spring though it was open to independents wanting to sharpen their craft and where college students could practice without the prying eyes of too many.

Lark found herself just offstage on the evening of Friday, April 5th in some fellow student's written performance, a fifteen minute piece that had to do with Greek muses and lax stage direction.  She had just turned 22 a few days past and remembered the small party that her friends threw for her while she waited in the wings.  She held a deep blue bowl of water with a trio of votive candles floating inside the bowl.  It was only half full and spilling was not going to be an issue.  It seemed to create a nice presence on stage and her part in this was only to walk out onto the stage and stand with a few others while the three main characters talked about them and interacted with one another. 

While she waited, she watched the flames dance in the bowl and was startled by a man's voice behind her.  She nearly dropped the bowl and the votives sloshed from side to side, not going out, but flickering threateningly, "It's not true you know," the voice said.  It wasn't a voice of anyone she knew, someone with a deep timber and a casual confidence.  "You can say MacBeth all you want, the old Codger doesn't really care that much to ruin the lives of everyone who utters his name on theatre grounds."  He gives a little 'heh' afterwords and chills run down Lark’s spine, but has no time to turn to look and see who it is, as her cue has already passed. 

Someone cleared their throat onstage and a line is repeated, "And the flames of inspiration burn and float despite the primitive austerity that is the lacking in my mind."   Lark heeds the cue and slides out onto the stage spying the poor design up close, but her attention is quickly diverted when she turns to face forward as per her direction and the three actors on stage walk a circle around her delivering their bits about trapping the flames, grabbing the flames, and then not knowing what to do with them once they caught them.

Walking out onto the stage, standing at the front of the stage and facing the actors, looking directly at Lark, a man dressed as a roman from the play Julius Caesar gaped.  None of the others took any note of him or even acknowledged his presence.  Shocking considering that Thomas would normally be having the largest drama queen fit on the west coast if he even thought that someone was hiding in the shadows in the back of the theatre let alone standing in the middle of the stage staring them down.  While staring into Lark's eyes, he carefully sidestepped down the length of the stage so that she would have to turn her head to continue to look at him.

Thomas, quite serious got the look he normally did when he was pissed off but would ultimately forgive, "Not.  Funny.  Fine, so we are tired.  It's just a week before the graded version, and all this stuff will need to be transferred to the main theatre for the final performance.  Fix what needs to be fixed and I'll catch up with you all Monday.  Same time."

Paulette was laughing about it quickly enough and gave Lark a hug before heading off.  Quickly enough, the sound of Thomas' car could be heard idling away.  Ivonne and Paulette silently hummed off in their hybrid.  William at the forefront of the stage was lying down and looking up into the rafters.

"For a little more than 400 years.  Walking through walls is over rated though, and for the record, this play, if you want to call it that, is terrible."  William glances at her and smiles.  "I never thought that someone would see me ever again.  Tell me, how do you do it, or are you a figment of my imagination?"

She had to smile when he said the play was bad, he was right. Thankfully her grade didn’t depend on that. “I… I don’t know. When I was little I had an imaginary friend, but I’ve never seen a ghost before. I certainly never expected to see one that spoke to me, and looked,” Lark stuck out her finger and tried to poke William, “so real.” Her hand passed into him like he was a projected image, only the telltale sign of light projecting from one direction was missing.  There was no distortion, just an odd sensation that two bodies shouldn't occupy the same space at the same time.

"England, right at the front of the seventeenth century.  I was a thespian, much like yourself working with the Bard.  A rendition was Julius Caesar was on my docket and after consuming a good batch of headcheese and sourdough drenched in butter, I had this pain and the rest of me was history," William sat up and breathed deep.  "But now, I have you.  You can see me, for some reason or another.  I'm not the imaginary friend in this case, but in all these 400 some odd years I've never had a conversation like this."

William exudes a heavy sigh, and shrugs.  "After almost a hundred years of wandering I've lost ambition for anything other than simply maybe being noticed.  After all, ghost stories aren't exactly things of romantic glory.  I guess I could just follow you around.  I've had years, decades, centuries of theatre experience.   I've traveled the world looking for something more and I've only recently come here to listen to more bad productions or half-assed reproductions of great plays.  What I would give to have a smoke of pipe though.  My friend and I would mort and pestle a bud into a fine black powder and burn it for the heady exhiliration that certain kept my humours good.   I've only talked with other ghosts and then only briefly for the past few centuries.  Maybe you can tell me about yourself?"

William doesn't take a breath as he doesn't need to, but his final notes seem hopeful for something more than a chance meeting in a theatre.

"Anything you want, after all who am I going to tell?  Another ghost?  There are others around but most of them have given up.  They hang around their bodies clinging to some silly notion of Armageddon in which they will be reborn, or reincarnated, or some other such nonsense.  But not me.  I figured I had better make the most of it.  One never knows what might turn up.  I haven't been out of this place in a few decades.  Let's paint the town red.  Or you paint and I'll live vicariously.  You weren't planning on spending the whole night here were you?"  William sounds dubious like he truly didn't believe that she'd sleep there.  He hopped off the stage and walked a little down the aisle and turned and waited.

William wandered around beside Lark inspecting some of the packaging, "Apparently I haven't left the theatre is some time.  Sometimes I vaguely miss the taste of food, and some of the other sensations of life.  I have Billy's descriptions that I cling to, but there is nothing quite so profound as the sensation itself.  Can you buy a plum or a bushel of strawberries and tell me what they taste like?"

William pauses in front of the seafood section to inspect a few banded lobsters lazily waving their feelers against one another.

"As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last, Writ in remembrance more than things long past.  Moreso than the taste of strawberries, the soft feel of a woman's skin, the kiss of lost love returned, the dizzying heights of a good smoke, I wished that I could have given my performance for the royalty of England.  But let's not think on these things," he forces a smile and looks upward at the stars.  "I know that you will need to sleep sometime, patience is a virtue I've cultivated over time, and Sloth my favorite vice."

"Some but not all.  I've met many an animal whose less than playful attitude has caused them to hurt themselves in their attempt to attack an apparition.  Rarely an animal, or infant child as well, for that matter, feels the need to reach out to something that clearly isn't all there in body.  But lead on, I'll understand if our silence is screamed with looks instead of words."  William struts along making the most of the journey.

At her home, the lights are still on, the television is going and the door is unlocked.  Lark's boyfriend is sitting shirtless in front of the television when she enters.  He is watching some talent reality show on the lower channels.  He looks up and smiles as Lark enters.  Amber is in the kitchen stirring something in a pan on the stove.  It smells like some kind of vegetable broth.  Heather is no where to be seen.

Oak put his arm around Lark, "Average, yours?" was his short answer, which usually meant his day was worse than he would let on or even divulge.  The station went to commercial and he turned his head to look her in the eyes and smile. 

"I'm surprised your friend hasn't killed herself with the way she cooks.  There were cooks in the 18th century who would routinely loose the skin from the elbow up by doing that kind of thing while working over a blazing fire." William says from the kitchen area.

Lark smiled back at Oak, then lay her head down on his chest. She stroked his chest as they watched the show together once it came back on. She was having second thoughts about bringing William here. Was he going to follow her around everywhere? She and Oak still had sex just about every night. Was the ghost going to watch that? Comment on it? That thought gave her a little chill that surprised her, because it was a chill of excitement.

After a dorky red headed girl got voted off the show and it ended, Lark yawned and said she was going to head to bed. She stood up in front of Oak still holding his hand, “Are you coming with me?”

Oak smiled and took the offer, following her to the bedroom.  William was by the bedroom door smiling at her as she walked past, "In my day, the man lead the woman to the bedroom and then like a naughty dog, buried his bone where none else but he should find it.  Or more elegantly:

'Fondling,' she saith, 'since I have hemm'd thee here
Within the circuit of this ivory pale,
I'll be a park, and thou shalt be my deer;
Feed where thou wilt, on mountain or in dale:
Graze on my lips, and if those hills be dry,
Stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie.

But this is a play I've seen before with actors other than thee or he. I think I'll go find what light with yonder cooker breaks." William walks right through Oak and heads towards the kitchen.

Lark's mind was relaxing and the essence of sleep was overtaking her.  It was happening quickly, her eyelids falling, the last thing she saw was the shadow in the corner of the room.  It moved, leaned forward, stared at them.  The face was stern, the gaze unflinching, the slowly growing smile revealed a mouth of sharpened points.  The vision fading into the darkness of her sleep disturbed her dreams with a singular fact: That William was not the only spirit still roaming the Earth.

> To The Spectral Image of  a Spring Dawn - April 6th