The Playhouse on Holly Lane

She waltzed with the devil and wagered her soul—when the stage was young and her feet were nimble. But now maiden roles were a distant dream, and the mothers she played were grand only in name. For Liza had been a crone for far too long; every prop was a cane, every set had a chair, and choreographers questioned her every move.

This would be her final role, she decided. One last run in a theater as run down as she was.

The Playhouse on Holly Lane was the country’s oldest theater—only missing Shakespeare by half a century—yet Liza had never even seen a matinee in the landmark, let alone performed in it. Not that its caretakers bothered to take much care: the carpets were tattered, the box office infested, and the air was so dry that coughing was a fire hazard.

But the stage. The stage was magnificent.

Crimson curtains entrapped a thousand ovations within their velvet grasp. Its proscenium arch curved around reality so fervently that glimpses of neverborn lands could be seen around its edges. And the floors. The floors were warm to the touch, making her body forget all the fancy words the podiatrists and oncologists had diagnosed her with; melting aches and age like ice.
Before she could question where the music was coming from, she was dancing. She was dancing with a man half the age she looked and twice the age she felt. He was handsome and strong and laughed in a baritone that shook the world when she accidentally stepped on his toes.

“Who do you play?” Liza asked as she twirled beneath the midnight silk of his well-tailored suit.

“I play many roles, my dear. None of them are any good, I’m afraid.”

“There are no small parts.” She told him, as she had often told herself before her fate had changed.

“They’re all small parts. People just like to convince themselves otherwise.” His smile was ominous and omnipotent all at once. “Let me show you backstage.”

Liza grasped his hand as they swam through the curtain and flew down the wing, beyond the crafted sunsets and painted ruins, past a sea of dresses and a mountain of wigs. She dodged an avalanche of scripts and eluded a cavalcade of seamstresses, each donning clothes older than the ones they were sewing.

At last, she reached the elevator. Its wrought iron bars were half-deliquesced, and its mechanical hum sang loud and out of tune.

“After you, my lady,” her dance partner insisted, ushering her in with a chivalrous nudge.

“But there’s only room for one.” The gate closed, and the cacophony of hums and needles faded away, taking with it all the light and her acquaintance’s broken smile.
Beneath the stage, or so it felt, the contraption released her.

She had quit smoking in her sixties, but now she regretted not having a flame to reveal what lay ahead. “I have no hips left to break,” she muttered. Though her usual shuffle gave way to a brisk march as she followed the sound of a young girl singing. The tone was inconsistent and the pitch was wanting, not unlike her own as a child. ‘Good enough for church but not for Broadway,’ as her mother would say.

But somewhere between God and fame was regional theater, where Liza spent her career.

“Why are you rehearsing in the dark?” she asked the disembodied voice. But it did not answer, it merely glided past her like the waning cries of a speeding bat, gentle vocals descending into the abyss.

Far, far ahead, a dying sconce waved its incandescent hand—a trifle of a beacon, but a beacon nonetheless. As its tawny rays and amber shadows christened her path, she saw the fiery silhouette of a dancer. She was tall and slim, with auburn hair spouting forth from a once pristine bun, and red tears escaping her tired eyes.

Rejection. Liza grew nostalgic for it, like longing for an old friend.
“It takes more than talent alone, darling,” Liza offered.

The woman turned, but not toward her. A second figure, whom the light refused to touch, reached out a hand and asked the slender beauty to waltz. He whispered heavily in her ear. Liza couldn’t make out the words, but she knew them all the same.

“How far are you willing to go? How much are you willing to lose?” The voice asked in her memory as it did in the dark halls of the Playhouse. “I cannot grant you talent, but I can grant you luck.” The elegant creature with the baritone voice unraveled a long scroll. “All you have to do is sign.”

Mediocrity never tasted so sweet. And at twenty-six, forever seemed so far away.

Reddened hands shook in agreement as her blood fell softly upon the parchment.

Again, there was darkness.

Again, there was music.

Liza followed the sounds of laughter and cheer through a blackened stairwell. Sweat dripped down her brow with each flight, and her skin burned from the rays of an unseen sun. And as the erupting audience swallowed her ears, the well-dressed man led her through the darkness and onto the stage.

He waved a sinister arm across the sea of patrons, more than could fill even the largest of theaters. She recognized them all. She recognized him. And she remembered what she sold.

“Every audience. From every show. Everything you ever wanted,” he stated hollowly. “Take a bow. As if it was all worth it.”

When Liza curtsied before the throngs of yesteryear, the walls began to crumble, and an old memory came crashing down. She was protesting the demolition of The Playhouse on Holly Lane. “The last thing this city needs is another hospital,” her twenty-year-old self shouted through a megaphone.
She watched as the nurses pulled the sheet over her body. The world went black again as the curtains closed behind her.

And she waltzed with the devil one last time.