The Stagehand’s Shadow

I press the hem of Leonora’s blue silk gown between my fingers and a straightening iron, careful not to let steam kiss her skin.

“Pin here,” she says, not looking at me but at her reflection. “And there. No, higher. It drags.”

“It doesn’t,” I say, but I slide the pin a breath higher. “Better?”

She inhales and the gown sighs with her. “Nearly.”

Backstage smells like lilies—too many lilies delivered to her dressing room—mixed with old paint and dust. The orchestra warms in the pit, scales tumbling like restless birds. Crew voices hum on headsets. The stage manager, Rafi, walks by, eyes on his clipboard, headset pressed to his ear.

“Thirty minutes,” he calls. “Half-hour!”

A chorus of “thank you, half-hour” floats from every corner. Leonora doesn’t join. She studies herself in the mirror, multiplying into a dozen Leonoras under the bulbs.

I set the iron down. “Your hem is perfect,” I say.

“Don’t mind me,” I add, stepping back as her makeup artist sweeps in with a powder brush.

“Who are you again?” Leonora asks, not unkindly—more like she’s asking which drawer holds the pearls.

“Mara. Wardrobe and props.” I nod at the gleaming chalice for Act II. “I’ll bring it in scene three.”

She nods without nodding. “Don’t let me forget.”

“You won’t,” I say, because if I say you might, then she might.

Backstage is a maze of taped marks and narrow paths you learn to walk at a whisper. June from lights sits under the catwalk, tying her hair. “You good, Mara?” she asks, eyes flicking to the chalice.

“Polished within an inch of its life,” I say.

“Good. If she drops it, I’m dimming to zero,” June mutters.

“She won’t.”

Rafi taps through cues on his tablet. “Show crew check. Sound?”

“Check.”

“Lights?”

“Check.”

“Props?”

“Check.”

“Wardrobe?”

I pat my emergency kit—scissors, thread, pins. “Check.”

He glances up at me. “Big night.”

“They all are.”

“Yeah,” he says. “But this one’s bigger.”

The critics are in. Leonora has never looked so fine—or so fragile.

I slip into the wings, lean my back into cool brick. I open my battered script, notes crammed into the margins. I mouth lines, timing them with the orchestra’s prelude.

Tilda, silver-haired and pin queen, appears. “Why do you do that to yourself?”

“Do what?”

“Know everything. You fix sets, seams, actors. You’re running the show with your breath.”

“I just like to be ready.”

“Ready for what?”

Ready for when something breaks. For silence so wide you could lose a career in it.

“Measure twice, cut once,” I say.

Tilda nods like I’ve recited scripture.

I was nine the first time I stood in wings like these, our town’s community theater. My father built sets in exchange for tickets. I watched a girl my age in a paper crown sing about bravery. Lights made her larger than life. I tried to sing later in our kitchen, but groceries and my father’s tired smile kept me small. He handed me a hammer instead. “Some folks are the voice,” he said. “Some folks are the hands. Both keep the roof from leaking.”

I became the hands.

“Five minutes,” Rafi calls.

Leonora glides toward the stage. For a breath she isn’t a star but a woman unsure her feet remember how to walk. I hold out my palm. She steadies herself on it, warm fingers trembling.

“Breathe,” I whisper.

“I always forget how to do that before I go on,” she murmurs. Then she sees Armand, our director, and straightens, smile locked in.

“Break legs,” he tells her, too brightly. “You’re incandescent.”

“You always say that.”

“Because it’s always true.” He releases her like a lantern.

The orchestra hushes. The curtain rises.

Act I is a river. Leonora glides, every gesture rehearsed into inevitability. The audience leans in. My mouth moves with lines I’ll never say.

Act II. Scene three.

Leonora must confess betrayal: “I betrayed you, Ariadne. My love was a lie.”

She opens her mouth.

Silence.

The orchestra falters. A cough in the house. Nadia, playing Ariadne, holds still like a saint.

Leonora’s jaw opens, closes. Her hand reaches for words that aren’t there.

Not your job. Stay invisible, whispers the voice I grew for safety. I don’t belong here.

Then my father’s voice: When the pane slips, you don’t discuss it. You catch the glass. You save the fingers.

The chalice gleams in my hands.

I step into the light.

“Your love,” I say, my voice carrying like water, clear and steady. “Your love was a lie you wrapped in velvet words, Leonora.”

Gasps ripple.

Her eyes cut to me, flaring. For a second I see her without paint—terrified, furious at herself, desperate. She breathes. She takes the rung I’ve offered.

“It was a lie,” she says, voice raw. “Every inch of it spun for you to wear.”

We’re off-script by two degrees, but Nadia tilts with us, guiding us back. “And why?”

“Because truth was a harder dress,” Leonora says. Not the line, but a good one.

The audience leans forward. Yes. This is the play.

I kneel, offer the chalice with ceremony. She accepts it, steadier now.

“I would have forgiven you,” Nadia says.

“How generous,” Leonora answers, perfectly on text this time.

The scene stitches back together like a miracle seam.

When the curtain falls, the applause is thunder. Louder still when I step forward, hesitant, between Nadia and a boy with a spear. For once, the eyes of the house are on me.

Backstage is chaos. Leonora storms into her dressing room, mascara streaked.

“You humiliated me!” she spits.

“I saved the scene,” I say softly.

“You meant to be seen.”

“No. I meant for the audience not to carry our fear.”

Silence spreads.

Armand appears, shaken. “Where did you learn that?”

“In the wings,” I whisper.

“Not anymore,” he says.

The next morning’s papers call it a revelation: A stagehand who saved a tragedy from becoming one. Anonymous, but unforgettable.

Two weeks later, new programs list: Ariadne: Leonora Vale / Mara Clement (u/s).

Closing Night

Months later, I find myself smoothing the ribbon on Leonora’s gown, just as I did the first evening. My hands move with the same precision, but everything feels different—like the thread has stitched me into the fabric of the show instead of just its hem.

Leonora stands tall, calmer than I’ve ever seen her. She catches my eyes in the mirror, then nods once. Not thanks, not quite, but recognition. Enough.

I check the chalice, though it doesn’t need checking. Press one last pin into place, though the seam is already straight. Habit, ritual, love—whatever it deserves to be called, it steadies me.

“Don’t mind me,” I say, smiling. She does mind me now. They all do.

Rafi calls “places.” The orchestra stirs. The curtain waits.

Leonora steps toward the stage, and I step back into the wings, ready to catch whatever falls, ready to hold up the roof with both my hands and my voice.

And for the first time, I don’t just feel like a ghost in the shadows. I feel like I belong.