Opening Night: The most nerve-wracking, chancy, uncertain, and exciting performance of a play. The Rose Theater was abuzz with nervous energy as everyone arrived for the hour and a half call.

Backstage, Jakob Jostein shuffled through his stack of papers, adjusting his glasses. "’kay…Ragtime, Curse, you two go on an’ do sweep an’ mop…soon as ya finish wit dat, Ragtime needs ta get all da props presets done, an’ Curse, you need ta help Rosa run all da flies." He flipped through the stack some more. "Riggin, make sure da wagons’re all on spike for Act I…Frankie, get a path clear ta da green room from heah…" Jakob continued to hand out jobs until the crew was all busy. In just an hour and a half, they’d be running the show.

In the offstage dressing rooms, actors were going through the process of getting ready for opening night. Anastasia Bradshaw and Bianca Carlson coolly applied make-up in their dressing rooms; Missy Franklin and Wilton Ash nervously paced about in theirs. Lizzy and Martin ran through their lines one last time in the green room while Judith and Dinah were bringing costumes out to the dressing rooms, laying everything out for the quick changes before and after the ball. Out in the lobby, McKay was running Verbal through the box office routine one last time, making certain that she’d be all right by herself. It was the opening night flurry in all its glory. Some loved it, some feared it, but everyone felt it.

Lord Carter Thomason was no exception. Despite having been deceased for twenty-five years, he was as excited about the show as any of the others. He’d watched the show slowly build from its earliest stages of design and rehearsal right up until the final dress the night before. When one considered that it was McKay’s first bout of directing as well as many of the cast’s first professional work, it was quite impressive. Even when one didn’t make that consideration, it was still a fine piece of work. Romeo and Juliet was one of Lord Carter’s very favorite plays; he’d been quite pleased to see young Mr. McKay choose it.

Though he likely wouldn’t admit to it, Thomason was quite fond of most of the employees of the Rose. He certainly liked the ones that could see him, at least. Melissa, Girl, Judith…even the spectacled janitor lad. Really, though he became impatient with those who couldn’t see him (particularly those dim-witted stagehands), he was even rather fond of them. Lord Carter found himself hoping very much that the show was a success, not only for the sake of his theater, but for the sake of those who worked there now. It was not a feeling he’d ever expected to have, but he couldn’t help but care about them. Angelique and Alan, of course, he remembered from the old days. But the others…It seemed that in each one of them, Lord Carter saw a bit of himself. Judith’s attempts to cheer everyone, Girl’s determination to have a clean shop, McKay’s hatred of paperwork, the spectacled lad’s dreams of acting, Riggin’s troubles with his parents…some of them seemed almost eerily familiar. Apparently some things never changed, even over twenty-five years.

When Jakob Jostein made the half hour call, Riggin and the young Italian lad were speaking with Judith. Another one of their silly conversations…this time however, it seemed that they were discussing the possibility of plotting the Italian lad’s death.

"Am I gonna be da Rose’s next ghost?" Ragtime asked jokingly.

Good Lord! That was the last thing he needed…a seventeen-year-old smart aleck to share eternity with.

Thomason faded into Judith’s view in the customary manner, slowly taking substance and forming the picture of a translucent, well-dressed man of forty years, all set to express his horror at the idea. "Bloody hell, I hope not!" Thomason said with a melodramatically exhausted sigh.

It was all Judith could do to keep a straight face. She’d had just enough minor slip-ups to know that Ragtime and Riggin would both look at her as though she were crazy if they saw her apparently talking to nothing. As curmudgeonly as he could be, though, Judith had to admit that the Rose’s ghost was entertaining.

"You’ll have to watch yourself, won’t you?" Riggin said jokingly.

"I will!" Ragtime replied through his laughter.

Thomason shuddered. "Good Lord, I’ll watch out for him!" he cried. "The last thing I need is a wisecracking Italian joining me for eternity."

Judith laughed outright, that time. Luckily for her, Riggin and Ragtime were laughing, as well. Also luckily, they were completely oblivious to the fact that they were laughing at completely different things.

"Ten minutes ta places!" Jostein called across the stage. Thomason found himself answering "Thank you, ten!" along with the other three, even though no one could hear it. Old habits die hard, it seemed.

"Now I really should be going." Judith said with a smile. Much as she enjoyed chatting with the stagehands and the ghost, the show wouldn’t wait.

"Yeah, we should be getting out of here, too." Riggin replied. He was perched on the catwalk for the show’s duration, making sure nothing went wrong with the flies or the lights.

Ragtime grinned. "Yeah…you guys have a good show." He was running set pieces and taking care of props, so he was more or less already where he needed to be.

Thomason, meanwhile, shuddered once more at the prospect of sharing his alternate plane of existence with either of the stagehands. "Please don’t kill him!" Thomason pleaded with Judith. Then he spared a glance over at Riggin. "And don’t you fall from the catwalk, either!"

Judith gave another slight laugh. "Both of you be careful." she said with a smile. There was no doubt in her mind that, were either of her friends to join Lord Carter, she would never hear the end of it. She was quite correct in this assumption; Lord Carter Thomason would be more than capable of and quite willing to complain endlessly about Ragtime or Riggin sharing his space.

As the three living people involved in the conversation went to their respective places, Thomason faded back to his natural state of invisibility. The balcony would be the best place to watch tonight’s show, so he transported himself there. How he did it, Lord Carter wasn’t precisely certain. He’d been a ghost for long enough that he’d stopped wondering about some things; it simply wasn’t worth it, especially now that he had the concerns of the living with which to entertain himself.

The red velvet grand drape was flying out just as Lord Carter arrived in the balcony. His breath caught in his throat at the sight of the stage finally finished (or at least, it would have if he still had breath). Jakob Jostein’s recreation of Verona was nothing short of magnificent. Thomason watched, rapt, as Melissa and Liesl walked on stage in Judith and Dinah’s visions of Elizabethan finery, taking the scene instantly.

"In fair Verona, where we lay our scene…" Melissa’s voice was strong and sure, drawing the audience’s attention. Carter closed his eyes, feeling the power of those famous opening lines, whispering under his breath along with her.

"…a pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life."

Oh, it was beautiful. Unbelievably, wonderfully, unbearably beautiful. From that very first instant, Lord Carter Thomason felt the pure energy of the performance. Throughout the rest of the play, it never flagged.

Angelique made him laugh as Juliet’s earthy nurse, playing the role cleverly with both humor and wisdom. She’d come a long way from the French lass who played Viola twenty-five years ago. Alan took the role of the Prince of Verona as smoothly as if he’d been born to it. Perhaps he could, in this instance, be pleased with his upper class rearing.

"This is she!" Wilton Ash’s Mercutio shouted frantically. It was perfect, with just the right edge of madness mixed with genius. Thomason felt chills up his spine, a physical reaction he oughtn’t be able to have.

"My only love, sprung from my only hate!" Lizzy whispered in anguish. "Too early seen unknown, and known too late!"

Elizabeth and Martin’s Juliet and Romeo meshed gorgeously, playing the doomed young lovers with grace and tenderness. Thomason watched their collision with fate as thoroughly absorbed as though he’d never in all his life or death read the play.

"For never was there a tale of more woe than this, of Juliet and her Romeo." Alan’s powerful, just barely controlled voice closed the play over the bodies of the dead couple. It was clear to Thomason that the cast had felt the power of the production just as greatly as he had. Somehow, no matter how many times a play is practiced, there’s no feeling like being in front of an audience. The single regret of Lord Carter Thomason’s life was that he’d never experienced it.

The clapping started quietly, with one man in the back left section, the first member of the audience to let the spell break and his senses return to normal. Immediately, a few others joined in, the sound growing and growing, building into thundering applause. Soon cheers were added, the ocean of sound rising into a typhoon of praise for the performance. Two curtain calls were required before the audience at last left the building. Thomason hadn’t seen such a response to a show since Edmund Kean played Hamlet. It was amazing. And it was his theater.

For a long time, Lord Carter merely stayed in the balcony. He heard the comments of audience members as the walked to the lobby. The young Scotsman was right about the swords…they were a few decades off from the period of the costumes. And Girl really should have taken over sweeping the stage sooner…the stage right steps were a bit messy. And Tybalt was wonderfully sinister, but he completely missed having any audience sympathy at all, and he really should have just a bit.

But it was wonderful.

He remained in his balcony until the stage crew had already left for their post-opening celebration, going to their favorite restaurant. The actors had long since gone home, needing a good night’s sleep to prepare for the next evening’s show. McKay and his wife went home last, locking the theater and leaving Lord Carter once again the sole master of his space.

The house empty, Thomason faded into sight at stage left, just below Juliet’s balcony. It was as though the performance had left its residue upon the stage, a mist of emotion filling the space. As Lord Carter looked up at the balcony, he could almost see Elizabeth on it again, her hand upon her cheek, speaking that soft, mournful "Ay me."

"But soft!" Lord Carter whispered. "What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun." His voice rose to normal volume, though only a few would have been able to hear him, had they been in the audience. "Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, who is already sick and pale with grief." He had no audience, no Juliet to borrow energy and life from, but in his mind, Lord Carter Thomason had taken on the part of Romeo, star-cross’d lover. He’d never played the role, but he’d dreamed. Oh, a thousand times he’d dreamed it. Lord Carter Thomason had seen his nephew live out the dream, seen the spectacled janitor pine for it just as he had, and seen others throw the dream away. But it Thomason’s ghostly existence, the dream would always continue. Perhaps it was what kept him going. Perhaps that passion, that drive for the stage was what kept his ghostly form extant. Perhaps…

Perhaps that dream is why every theater must have a ghost.