Victor shifted his focus from the thing that was... and wasn't there, to the formerly flappy curtain. He'd not been a ghost long, but he knew that if he had a curtain this nice that his undead attention would most certainly be gotten by someone haphazardly fiddling with it.

So that's exactly what Victor decides to do. With both hands.

My my, clearly the greatest curtain I've ever encountered.

[Attempt to draw out the spooky by messing with the curtain.]

You shake at the curtain and...

Something about that was... off. Huh. You try it again, more forcefully. There's definitely something strange about this curtain but you aren't quite sure what it is.

One more time, and this time you actually pull the curtain to the side and open the rest of the stage.

And at first, nothing happens, but then the lights surge with power until the entire auditorium is lit, and the old spotlight beams to life, right into your eyes. It would have blinded you, if your vision still worked the way it used to. Small blessings. Then the light falls, down to your chest, to your feet, and then slowly tracks down into the center of the stage, where it stops, and the light itself takes on a form.

You see an approximation of a person. But only an approximation.

It's a figure far more spectral than yourself, like the swirling dust from the air taking shape in the beam of the spotlight, and into the staticy form of what you think might be a woman.

It-- she turns to you and tilts her head. Her mouth moves, but no sound comes out. And that's when you realize what was strange about the curtain:

It made no noise.

You haven't heard a single thing besides your own voice since you entered here. The lights, the curtain, the entire building... nothing's made a sound.

Everything is silent.

The spotlight tracks closer to you, and with it the woman. She seems to be awaiting your response to a question you could not hope to hear.

Something shifts.

You feel it in the air around you. It's almost like a wind, and it sets a chill down your spine. It's only like a wind, however. Natural air never felt quite so intimidating.

You go to ask for clarification, to charm and soothe this fellow ghost, but nothing comes out, this time. Your voice is as silent as the rest of the room around you. You try again, but it's not even muffled static. It's like the sound was never there at all. And you start to panic, because some part of you understands that this is something new. This place couldn't do this before. You'd heard yourself all those times you shouted and spoke in awe of this place, but now, nothing.

You almost try to move to leave, but the being speaks again, and this time... you don't hear it, but you understand. And what you understand is that something has gone wrong, and you can't move.

The ring of light on the stage tracks closer to you, and with it the ghost, before finally it jerks forward, and you're standing in the full light of the spotlight.

Victor, you've gotten in over your head.
That's a thought that comes to mind, unbidden, and you can't quite tell if it's your own... or not.

If you could, you would yell. But you can't.

You tried to make a deal with the devil, but you forgot that the devil could make a deal back.
And this devil, well, she's been around much, much longer than you have.

She's been waiting for someone like you to help her for a long, long time.

Gwendoline Hartford-Beaumont smiles, as she feels her reach extend beyond the theater that has been her gilded cage for almost one hundred years.