“I’ll be right in,” I say, riding my instincts, having a strong compulsion to take a moment to breathe before going in to see everyone.

She smiles warmly at me. “Okay. I’ll see you in there, yeah?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I just need a sec. I’ll be right there.”

She nods, gives my hand a last squeeze, and then we let go at the same time.

She opens the door, releasing an audial waft of festive fun.

I don’t know why I want to be alone. Right now, everything is as it should be. I have a deep sense of order inside me, an optimism about the future. An assuredness that things will never be as hard as they once were. I guess I sort of want to be alone with that for a second.

I sigh, basking in the bone-deep relaxation I feel. I’ve never felt this way. I’ve been a live wire of denial and gilded, hidden emotion for years and years. For as long as I can remember.

I breathe in deeply, then exhale.

That’s when I notice the silence. It’s absolute. Unyielding. Empty.

I strain my ears, listening for the laughter on the other side of the door. Listening for the yearning vocals of Nat King Cole’s “You Stepped Out of a Dream” through the wall, as I’d been able to hear a moment ago.

But there’s nothing.

I move toward the door and press my ear to it, unwilling to open it quite yet.

It takes everything I have to open that door. When I do, I’m met with darkness.

The theater is empty.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

No. No. No.

This cannot be happening.

I walk into the theater, almost expecting four hundred people to jump out and scream, “Just kidding!”

Of course, they do not. They are gone.

It smells different. Dusty. Musty. Like the room hasn’t been used lately.

There’s no sign of life anywhere.

The bar is gone. The kids in front of the stage are gone. Cillian is gone. No Kiera chatting up a critic. No crowd.

And the set—the set is gone too.

Oh my God.

I back up into the hallway again, fingernails digging into my palms, unwilling to believe it.

Maybe they all left? I must have not noticed the dust before?

Hello, denial, my old friend.

I know, in my heart, that at the very least, breaking down that bar would have taken longer than this. I worked too many catering events not to know that. And the set. It couldn’t disappear. It was simple, but it would take at least a day to strike.

I go back out into the hallway, then crash outside into the night. There’s no one out here. Only an empty road. Quiet fields. Sleepy houses, none with lights on. No smoky, green smell in the air.

It’s like the place has been abandoned.