Elise Rainier

In 1953, in Five Keys, New Mexico, young Elise sees spirits, and her father punishes her for it. Locked in the basement, she opens a red door and lets out the demon Keyface, who kills her mother. As a teen, Elise runs away from her father and leaves her brother Christian behind.

In 1986, Lorraine Lambert calls Elise to help her son Josh, who's being haunted by a woman in a black wedding dress. During the investigation, something unseen slashes Elise's arm. She decides Josh's gift for leaving his body is too dangerous and suppresses his memories.

In 2007, widowed and retired, Elise tries to reach Quinn Brenner's dead mother at the girl's request, senses something bad and tells her to stop. She's afraid to go back into the Further, where a Bride in Black is hunting her. Her friend Carl convinces her the living are stronger. Elise goes in, unmasks the spirit posing as her late husband Jack and helps Quinn beat the Man Who Can't Breathe. Along the way she meets Specs and Tucker, and the three team up. At home, without her noticing, the red-faced demon watches her.

In 2010, a man calls saying his house is haunted. It's the house Elise grew up in. She goes back with Specs and Tucker, meets Christian again, who never forgave her, and her nieces, Melissa and Imogen. She learns her father kept women locked up there, and that Keyface fed on their fear. In the Further, Elise nearly gives in to hatred for her father, but stops. With Christian's whistle, she calls her mother's spirit, who defeats Keyface. On the way out she opens the wrong door and sees young Dalton Lambert in his attic. Soon after, Lorraine calls asking for help with her grandson.

Elise tells the Lamberts that Dalton isn't in a coma: he left his body and got lost in the Further. She also reveals she helped Josh when he was a boy. She guides Josh into the Further, and he brings his son back. Just when it all seems over, Elise senses something wrong with Josh and snaps his picture. Josh strangles her. The photo shows that what came back in his body is the spirit of the old woman who haunted him.

Even dead, Elise keeps helping. In the Further she finds the real Josh and Carl, and destroys the spirit of the mother of Parker Crane, the Bride in Black killer, which gives Josh his body back. Years later, her spirit crosses paths with Josh and tells him he has a bright future ahead.

Two decades after 1999, Elise appears in the Further to Gemma Hall, a mother who has started leaving her body, and sends her to tattoo artist Clare. Speaking through Clare, she explains Gemma is a "courier" and that cult leader Cyrus Lam wants to use her to bring the dead back. Elise goes into the Further with Gemma, takes over one of Cyrus's followers to save Gemma's daughter Maya, and in the end says goodbye.