Eyes Like Stars Part 27

Bertie flinched when she thought of her tears. .h.i.tting the scrimshaw, the auditorium instantly ocean-filled. She slammed through the door and into the deserted hallway. "He was kidnapped."

"Ah." Ariel said only the one word, but it was more than enough. "He's being held against his will somewhere?"

Bertie pressed her back to the Call Board and her fists to her eyes. She didn't want to imagine the lair of the Sea G.o.ddess, nor Nate in shackles. "Yes."

Ariel grasped her hands with his own and pulled them away from her face. "It's not your fault, Bertie."

She kept her eyes on the floor, refusing to meet his gaze. "It is. I summoned her."

Ariel put a finger under her chin and coaxed her to look up. "You would free him if you could."

"Yes." The word was more than a promise.

Ariel's smile was all things wounded and rueful. "Yet you won't do the same for me."

"It's not the same thing," Bertie whispered.

"Why not?"

"Because I don't trust you, Ariel."

He pulled her close. "Someday, I will win your trust, and you will be the one to set me free. I know it."

"I won't." Bertie recoiled from both him and the a.s.sertion she would do such a thing. "Not ever."

Ariel made no move to touch her again, though his words were a caress. "Don't make promises you won't be able to keep."

CHAPTER TWENTY.

But a Walking

Shadow

Bertie didn't let him corner her alone again. For the next forty-eight hours, she positioned herself in the center of the noise and chaos, well guarded by the fairies, constantly surrounded by unwitting chaperones. Even now, the morning of the performance, a stream of minions carried props backstage while carpenters smashed bits of scenery in and out of place. Mrs. Edith and a horde of fluttering a.s.sistants seemed to be everywhere at once as they pinned, trimmed, and hemst.i.tched costumes.

The Players kept at their lines, and every page acted back into The Book repaired a bit of the Theatre. The healing was as noisy as the destruction had been. Dust swirled and coalesced to reconstruct plaster statues and moldings. Gilt paint spread like gossip. Rents in both fabric and wood knit themselves back together. Bertie led the cast of Hamlet through rehearsal after rehearsal, and with each run-through, the Players coped better with the decorative changes. But Bertie still fretted over every dropped cue, every misstep. If the play was a failure, she could blame the lack of time to prepare compounded by the constant stream of interruptions and the shouting that threatened to deafen them all.

"Get out of the way!"

"Line! Someone give me my line!"

And always, the never-ending litany of "Bertie! Bertie!"

"The next person who calls my name gets a boot to the head," she told Peaseblossom just before a scenic flat came crashing down on Oberon and t.i.tania.

"Bertie!"

"That's my cue." She ran for the stage and arrived just as Mr. Tibbs and the Stage Manager levered the fallen pyramid off the fairy king and queen. "I know the acting was bad, but attempted murder is a bit much."

"I beg your pardon!" Oberon struggled to his feet and still managed to look haughty with a sc.r.a.pe down his cheek. "There wasn't a single thing wrong with my performance."

Bertie corrected him. "Certainly you're the ultimate personification of the Bard's vision for the fairy king, but I've noticed a few changes for the worse since you started reading entrance lines."

"Such as?" t.i.tania righted herself and sulked as hard as someone covered in glitter and flower petals was capable of sulking.

"Overacting, posing and posturing, giving in to inherent ego, hogging the limelight, upstaging one another. . . . Shall I continue?"

t.i.tania didn't look the least bit abashed. "Perhaps we wouldn't have to overact if you could do something about these people running amok."

"The people running amok are loading the scenery for the performance scheduled to take place tonight."

"The scenery normally moves of its own accord-"

"Yes, but normally Hamlet doesn't take place in Egypt, does it? The show must go on, but that's contingent upon your ability to move your royal backsides and finish reading the entrance lines you were a.s.signed."

"The impudence!" said t.i.tania.

"The rudeness!" said Oberon.

"The schedule!" Bertie repressed the urge-for the hundred millionth time that day-to run everyone through the nearest wood chipper.

Surely they have one in the Scenic Dock? I can be the Demon Director of Whatever Street the Theatre is on. Double bonus points if the Stage Manager has a heart attack when he sees the resultant mess.

Bertie's homicidal thoughts must have showed on her face, because Peaseblossom spoke out of the side of her mouth, "You can't kill them. You need them."

"For now," Bertie added in an undertone before she raised her voice. "I'm sorry that pyramid landed on your head, but it's not like someone yoinked your brain out through your nose."

"Did someone call for mummification?" Moth appeared, armed with a b.u.t.tonhook. "We'll prepare you for eternal slumber, internal organs removed and body wrapped in gauze, for one low, low price!"

"But wait!" Cobweb added. "If you act in the next five minutes-"

Bertie shooed them offstage and let the Fairy Court go back to swaggering. "Don't I have enough to worry about, without the two of you contributing to the commotion?"

The door to the auditorium opened to admit the latest recaptured character. Bertie whirled around, only to suffer fresh disappointment.

Come on, Nate. You've had time to crawl back from the ends of the earth. What's she done to you?

"Bertie!"

She turned to find Mr. Tibbs's cigar in her face. "Yes?"

"You tell that little shrimp-tail of a Properties Manager that the necropolis is part of the scenery, and I'll thank him to leave it alone!"

"Necropolis?" Maybe she needed more coffee, but she'd already had four, and her entire body was starting to vibrate.

"You know! The necropolis! 'Alas, poor Yorick.' The Graveyard scene?" Mr. Tibbs returned her blank gaze with impatience. "Are you playing the fool, or have your brains turned into pudding?"

"The Graveyard scene. The necropolis." Bertie nodded and did her best to look knowledgeable. "I remember now. My apologies, it's just that I've had more than enough of bones lately."

"Enough bones or not, you tell Hastings to keep his sticky fingers to himself!" Mr. Tibbs stomped off Stage Left.

Peaseblossom appeared. "Bertie!"

"Yes?"

"We have a little problem," the fairy said. "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are in the middle of a violent argument with the Properties Manager in regard to their daggers."

Before she could ask, Mr. Hastings shoved a handful of paperwork under Bertie's nose.

"I will not put up with this nincomp.o.o.pery!" he proclaimed, so angry that he was purple in the face. He stood ramrod straight for once, three full inches taller than usual. "Forms should have been filled out in triplicate, but these miscreants showed up at the Properties Department and started pulling weapons off the shelves without so much as a by-your-leave. I want them all returned immediately!"

"Mr. Hastings, I'm so sorry. I must have missed the daggers on the requisitions list. It's completely my fault." Bertie put her hand on his arm, turning on every bit of her charm. "Surely there is something we can do about this."

He held himself as stiffly as a bronze temple statue. "Nothing short of resubmitting the paperwork and giving me time to process it."

Bertie channeled every Southern Belle that ever was; all she lacked was a parasol and hoop skirt. "These gentlemen were just trying to help me. There's so much to be done yet, you see, and I'm starting to fret."

His nostrils flared. "Badinage, Bertie?"

"And persiflage," she said. "Your idea, remember?"

"It was, wasn't it?" The anger leaked out of him, and his shoulders resumed their usual hunched position.

"One of your better ones," Bertie said. "Now, what can I do to set the situation to rights?"

Mr. Hastings sorted through the papers, muttering things like "I can fill this one out myself" and "I don't know why we still even use this form, it's clearly recapitulatory" every so often. In the end, Bertie had to initial the pink one and sign the green.

"I'll waive the one-week waiting period," he said as he straightened the pile. "But don't let anyone know, or they'll all want it waived."

Bertie nodded, not wanting to remind him that if the new production failed to impress the audience, she wouldn't be around to let the secret slip. "Now, if you would be so kind as to rearm everyone? I can't have them pretending to stab each other with their fingers, can I?"

Mr. Hastings smiled, the first friendly expression he'd bestowed on her since the incident with Marie Antoinette's chaise. He even managed an eye twitch that might have been a wink. "Right away, Bertie."

"And Mr. Hastings?"

"Yes, my dear?"

"Mr. Tibbs is on the warpath about the necropolis."

Mr. Hastings held up a sheaf of papers. "The nerve! I have the paperwork right here for that!" He departed, muttering about signatures and inventory.

"Excuse me, dear," Mrs. Edith said. "I hate to trouble you with so much going on."

"No worries, it's your turn. What's wrong with Wardrobe?" Bertie waited to hear a complaint about the Chorus Girls wanting to wear high heels or the lack of beads and bracelets for Gertrude.

Instead, Mrs. Edith lowered her voice. "I wanted to speak with you in private for a moment."

"What about?"

"About how you arrived here."

The words jolted Bertie out of her caffeine-fueled stupor. "I thought you'd told me all you knew?"

"I gave my word to the Theater Manager that I wouldn't say more." Lines cut deep around Mrs. Edith's mouth, each word uttered as though it was a battle won. "It seemed like the right thing to do at the time."

"And now?" It hurt to breathe; with the hammering and shouting amongst the crew members, it even hurt to think.

Mrs. Edith's thin-rimmed gla.s.ses reflected the stage lights, and Bertie couldn't see her eyes. "I realize what a mistake that was." The Wardrobe Mistress leaned closer and lowered her voice. "That man is not as he appears. Please be careful. He-"

"Bertie?" The Theater Manager strode down the red-carpeted aisle. He'd loosened his tie, and the top b.u.t.ton of his shirt was undone. "How's the repair of The Book going?"

Bertie cleared her throat and tried to look blase. "We're making progress."

"Brilliant," he said. "I knew you could do it."

Bertie twitched, trying to reconcile the relief in his words with the idea that he was keeping secrets from her. "Mrs. Edith was just telling me-"

"That I'm having difficulty with Gertrude," Mrs. Edith interrupted. "She won't wear her new costume. In fact, she's refusing to go on in it, and I need our Director to speak with her."

Bertie nodded slowly. "Of course. Right away."

The Wardrobe Mistress pointed. "She's in the temporary Wardrobe. The costume you're looking for is in the trunk in the corner."

Bertie made her escape, threading her way through sawdust and ladders to the silk-swathed changing area Mrs. Edith's minions had constructed in the back of the auditorium.

"Gertrude?" Bertie ducked inside the tent. "I've come to sort out the misunderstanding about your costume. Mrs. Edith says you don't approve?"

No one answered, though dozens of servitor costumes in various stages of completion swayed gently on a metal garment rack. Bertie slipped past a padded step stool and a full-length mirror. She peered up, impressed by the swagged draperies, the cream-papered j.a.panese lanterns that illuminated the various work stations, the dress form modeling a flowing robe of darkest blue, the hatboxes stacked at regular intervals.

But Gertrude wasn't there.

Whatever are you playing at, Mrs. Edith?