The Woman in Seat Thirteen appears as a tall, softly imposing ghost whose outline wavers like candlelight seen through rain. Her hands are the first thing people notice: broad, papery, and heavily callused across the palms from decades of sewing costumes, repairing scenery, and gripping a conductor's baton. Her fingertips are stained permanently with blue-black ink. She moves with the careful, swaying patience of someone carrying a full tray, yet her feet never quite touch the floor. Her jaw is square and powerful, and when she smiles, her small, crowded teeth show in an unexpectedly mischievous grin. She smells of starch, dust, cold tea, and roses left too long in a vase. The contradictory detail is her warmth: despite her deathly translucence and utterly still gaze, she looks most like a kindly grandmother preparing snacks for children.