Stage 14 always feels colder than outside, but today the air bites through my jacket before I even clear the soundproof doors.
A low hum from the air conditioning presses into my ears, mixing with the faint hiss of a fog machine warming up. The scent hits next: damp concrete, metallic tang, a thin thread of chemical sweetness from fake smoke fluid. Someone has done their homework on what a river town smells like when it never fully dries out.
“Don’t look yet,” a voice says. “Give me three more steps, Hayes.”
Greg, the production designer, jogs up beside me, his lanyard swinging, a tape measure hooked to his belt. His eyes glitter with that particular zeal that only comes from spending too many weeks inside SketchUp and obsessing over reference photos.
“You dragging me into a horror maze?” I ask. My voice sounds lighter than my chest feels. “Because I didn’t sign up for a seasonal attraction.”
“You did the minute you agreed to a prestige drama with a trauma budget,” he says. “Come on. We saved the big reveal for you.”
He covers my eyes with his hand in a gesture that would give intimacy coordinators a coronary if anyone else tried it. I let him anyway. His palm smells like coffee and the powdered sugar from craft-service donuts. He steers me forward, my boots echoing off plywood disguised as concrete.
“Ready?” he asks.
“Not at all,” I say. “Do it.”
His hand lifts.
The mill rises in front of me.
Brick walls tower up to the grid, pitted and blackened with water stains. Rust streaks down from fake bolts. A metal staircase climbs from the lower level, hugging the wall, its rails scabbed with orange and brown. Tagging sprawls across the far wall—curling letters, cartoon ghosts, a crude heart with initials I once knew carved between geometry tests and thousand-watt lights.
For a second my brain lags, grinding through two realities. The Stage 14 grid and catwalks hang overhead, lines of fresnels and flags and safety cables. But my muscles brace for river air and November fog sliding through broken windows.
“We went off the location photos from your hometown scout,” Greg says, vibrating with pride. “And some, uh, fan forum screenshots. People online remember that old show better than the studio does. They had side-by-sides of production stills and the real mill. It was photographic gold.”
My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. I can taste stale diner coffee from ten years ago.
“Looks great,” I manage. “Seriously. It’s… eerie in a good way.”
“Thank you,” he says, glowing. “Check this out.”
He gestures at the brick nearest us. Under a smear of fake moss, someone has painted a tiny river symbol, the same doodle a bored grip once scraped into real mortar between takes. My stomach drops.
“We even matched some of the graffiti,” Greg says. “Legal cleared it. Too iconic not to use.”
Iconic. I press my nails into my palm, counting the crescent moons they leave in my skin.
“You walk me through?” I ask. “Before the director starts calling it a ‘journey’ and I lose my patience.”
“My honor,” he says.
We step onto the concrete floor. It’s slightly tacky from sealant and the last layer of sprayed water. The damp creeps into my lungs. Over near the base of the stairs, a puddle reflects the rigging above, turning the lights into trembling stars.
“We’ll have about half an inch of water when we roll,” Greg explains. “Director wants that reflective glow. Safety’s signed off. Elle’s all over it.”
My gaze finds her automatically.
Elle stands near a stack of apple boxes, headset around her neck, arms crossed. Black cargo pants, soft T-shirt, hair pulled back. She talks quietly with a rigger, fingers sketching out arcs in the air. Her profile cuts sharp against the haze. When she senses my stare, her eyes flick to mine, brief and unreadable, then back to her conversation.
Greg keeps chattering. “We distressed the rails with salt and vinegar, so they look corroded but they’re sealed. Non-slip paint on the steps, but wardrobe wanted real boots for you, so watch your footing.”
“Non-slip until it isn’t,” I say.
“Elle will kill me before the union does,” he says. “Promise.”
I nod, but my focus drags toward the staircase. Toward that middle section where memory fuzzes out like bad signal.
“We matched the elevation changes,” Greg says, leading me closer. “From the old plans the location coordinator dug up. Winding rise, drop, landing. You remember?”
My breath stutters.
“I remember enough,” I say.
We reach the base of the stairs.
Up close, the rail looks wrong and perfect at the same time. The rust is painted on, a careful pattern of oranges and browns. But the curve of the metal follows the same arc my hand once grabbed in panic. The step edges have the same slight dip in the middle, a craftsman’s pride in imperfection.
“Go on,” Greg urges. “Take her for a spin.”
“That’s what we’re calling this now?” I ask. “A spin?”
“You know what I mean,” he says. “I need to know if anything feels off before we have fifty bodies and three cameras crammed in here.”
I wrap my fingers around the railing.
The metal is cool through my skin. Not cold like Pennsylvania winter, but the temperature difference is enough. My hand closes and my body moves backward through time without asking my permission.
My palm remembers slickness.
For a split second, texture rewrites under my fingertips: not sealed paint but rough steel, wet and sticky in patches. The ghost of old blood coats my skin, metallic and warm, mixing with river damp. I hear the mill water rushing under the floor, a low constant roar under the shouted lines and AD commands.
My vision narrows, stairwell tunneling around me. The AC’s hum twists into the memory of distant machinery grinding to life. The fake fog smell turns into river rot and machine oil. A breath catches in my throat and refuses to move.
“Nora?” Greg’s voice sounds far away. “You good?”
I nod too fast.
“Yeah,” I say. “Just… getting into it early. It’s really good work.”
I release the rail. A faint tremor travels through my fingers. The palm looks clean, only a faint smear of rust-colored paint where my thumb rested. No red. No proof.
“I’ll leave you to it,” Greg says, pleased. “Elle’s going to walk you through the movement once you’ve said hi to the space.”
He says it like I’m meeting a new partner, not an old crime scene.
When he heads off toward video village, I let out a breath in a shaky stream, then inhale the chilled studio air again. The fog machine gives a soft cough, sending another tendril of haze rolling across the floor.
“You’re white-knuckling my staircase,” Elle says behind me.
I jump, hand flying back to the rail before I catch myself.
“Occupational hazard,” I say.
She comes to stand beside me, close enough that her shoulder nearly brushes mine. Close enough that I catch plain soap on her skin, under the smells of gaffer tape and fake smoke.
“We’re starting with simple blocking,” she says, professional now. “No running, no water effects. I want you to feel where your feet land before we add anything else.”
“You sound like my old ballet teacher,” I say.
“She didn’t have to worry about wet steel stairs,” Elle replies. “We’ll do this in layers. You walk the path dry first. Then we add speed. Then water. Then extras. No jumping levels.”
Her voice has a steadiness that cuts through the static in my chest. I nod.
“Fine,” I say. “Show me my path.”
She points. “You start at the bottom, center, one hand on the rail. You look up, hit the mark on step six for the first camera cross. Land on step twelve when you turn back and yell at your co-star. Pause on the landing, two beats, then go up three more steps before the cut.”
Step six. Step twelve. Three more steps.
Numbers sink into me like coordinates.
“We counted from the old sequences,” she adds. “From River’s Edge. Do you remember where you used to stop?”
The question is casual. The subtext is not.
“It was a long time ago,” I say. “They did a lot of cheating with angles.”
“Not as much as you think,” she says. “Your body will tell you what the camera can’t.”
My jaw tightens.
“Let’s see what my body says, then,” I answer.
We start from the bottom.
I place my boot on the first step. The rubber grips the non-slip strip. The metal vibrates faintly under my weight, a studio echo of the old mill’s shudder. I take another step. The overhead lights flicker, intentional dimness programmed to mimic faulty industrial fixtures.
“Hand on the rail,” Elle reminds me.
I touch it again, more carefully. The cool pressure grounds me. I count under my breath when she calls, “Walk it out. One, two, three, four, five, six—mark.”
I pause on the sixth step, shoulders half turned toward an imaginary camera. The angle is familiar in my bones. A faint tingling races up my arm, muscle memory waking from a decade-long sleep.
“Good,” she says. “Now keep going. Seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve—mark.”
I reach twelve and stop.
My eyes land on a patch of rust-spattered brick at eye level. The pattern of stains matches a photo I once refused to look at for more than a second: the one uncropped screenshot of the mill staircase that surfaced before the studio’s lawyers buried it.
“You okay?” Elle asks softly.
“Fine,” I reply, the word mechanically smooth. “Landing?”
“Two beats,” she says. “Imagine your scene partner below you. You throw the line, then you turn and go up three more steps. Slowly for now.”
I follow instructions. Two beats on the landing, air heavy in my lungs, then I turn and climb.
One step.
Two.
On the third, my boot comes down on a slick stripe of something that did not exist a second ago.
The sole skids.
My center of gravity rockets forward into empty space. My stomach flips. The rail tears out of my grip. Sound drops out, leaving only the thunder of my own pulse.
My body takes over.
I twist, flinging my arm out. My palm slams into the rail hard enough to sting. Metal bites the heel of my hand. My knee smashes the edge of the step with a flash of white pain. The rest of me pitches forward, weight momentarily balanced between falling and catching.
Then I stop.
My chest ends up pressed against the rail, cheek crushed to cool, rust-painted metal. The angle mirrors a position I have only remembered in dreams: the moment after the shove, after the slip, after a body goes over the side and I lunge too late.
Sound slams back in.
Someone swears below. A grip drops a coil of cable, the thud echoing. The fog machine wheezes. My breath saws loud in my ears.
“Freeze,” Elle says sharply, footsteps pounding up behind me. “Do not move until I check your footing.”
Her hands clamp around my waist, firm and impersonal. She braces my hips, tests the stability of my boots on the step. Her fingers radiate heat through the fabric.
“Got you,” she adds, quieter, for me alone.
For a terrifying heartbeat, my body overlays another grip on my waist. Not Elle’s. A teenager’s hand, fingers digging into my jacket as she loses balance. Lila’s weight yanking against my own. The slick railing under us, the sudden absence of her when my hand slides off hers—or yanks away.
I flinch. The memory spikes brighter than it ever has.
“Nora,” Elle says near my ear. “I need you to breathe.”
I drag in air. It tastes of glycerin smoke and old river water. My knee throbs in time with my pulse.
“What the hell was on that step?” I ask.
“Condensation,” she says. “Fog drifted up. That’s on me. I’ll get a PA to towel and recheck every tread before we do this again.”
“The non-slip paint was supposed to stop that,” I say.
“And it did, mostly,” she answers. “Which is why you’re bruised instead of airborne.”
I let out a short, shaky laugh that sounds nothing like humor.
“Progress,” I say.
“Can you shift your weight back onto the lower foot?” she asks. “Slowly. I’ve got you.”
I follow her cues, easing my weight back, fingers glued to the rail. When both boots settle on stable ground, my muscles unlock a fraction. My knee complains loudly but holds.
“We’re done with stairs for now,” Elle announces to the crew. Her voice carries. “Reset Nora to the landing. No more movement until I adjust the plan.”
A murmur sweeps through the set. No one argues with her.
She turns back to me. Up close, her eyes are dark and sharp, reading every twitch.
“You hit the exact same step,” she says quietly.
“What?” My voice rebounds off the brick.
“From the old accident,” she says. “Third step from the landing. Same foot. Same side.”
My skin crawls.
“You can’t know that,” I say.
“I can,” she replies. “I counted when I watched the footage frame by frame. And I counted again today when you walked it.”
The footage we were told never existed. The footage I never watched.
The set swims around me for a second, Stage 14 blending with the original mill in a double exposure. My body holds more coordinates than my mind has allowed.
“Your body remembers,” Elle says. Her tone is neutral, almost clinical. “Whether you want it to or not.”
I press my fingers into the railing, feeling the indentations Greg’s team carved to mimic corrosion. Under that fake rust, under the paint and sealant, the shape is the same as the real steel that caught me the night Lila went over.
“Good,” I say, surprising myself.
Elle’s eyebrows tilt.
“Good?” she repeats.
“If my body remembers,” I say, words slow, “then I can stop pretending I forgot. I can stop letting other people tell me what happened. I just have to listen to the parts I’ve been editing out.”
She searches my face, like she is weighing whether I believe myself.
“Listening hurts,” she says.
“So does falling,” I answer. “I’m done falling blind.”
My knee throbs approval or protest. I can’t tell which.
Below us, crew members drag out towels and non-slip mats, their labor invisible in the final cut but crucial to whether anyone walks away. The hum of the AC deepens, pushing another breath of cold air down the stairwell. Somewhere outside, beyond the insulated walls, LA sunlight pours over the hills, bright and indifferent.
In here, in this replica of a rusted skeleton, my body has just handed me a map I have refused to unfold for ten years.
I cling to the rail and stare down at the third step from the landing, the one that tried to take my feet out from under me again, and I make myself a quiet promise: the next time it pulls me back into that night, I’m not letting go until I see exactly who reached for whom—and what I did in the second that changed everything.