Part 22 (1/2)
The fairies took up the rallying cry with gusto. ”No potholes!”
”Peaseblossom, bring up a spotlight! Boys, go find the clipboard!”
”Got it!”
Bertie uncapped the pen with suddenly sweaty hands and caught the clipboard as they flung it at her. She braced it against a knee, her words a scrawl, but she didn't consider penmans.h.i.+p overly important at a time like this.
The lights fade up on a forgotten corner of the stage. A figure lurks behind the transparent scrim curtain.
One by one, he pulls the pages from a purloined tome.
A ripping noise.
The stage heaved as though it rode upon the back of an enormous, bucking horse. Bertie's pen flew out of her hand and vanished into the darkness that lay in wait for her beyond the spotlight. At the far back of the stage, an indistinct figure manifested.
”Write faster!” Peaseblossom urged from the wings.
”I can't! I dropped the pen!”
”It's over here!” Cobweb yelled, shoving it back into the light.
Bertie s.n.a.t.c.hed it up and scribbled as fast as she could.
An angry mob convenes onstage; as one, they surround him.
There was shouting, followed by scuffling noises and the sound of an ill-whipped wind. But louder than anything else was the continued destruction of The Book. The rip and tear filled Bertie's head until she could hardly think. Somewhere far below the stage, the very earth screamed in protest.
The madman tries to fight them, but finds his powers diminished from the harm he has already caused.
The crowd overwhelms him and binds his hands with twine.
Ariel's wind faded and died a quiet death. Bertie could make out other sounds now: the chants for justice, the heavy breathing of a captured animal.
As one, they bring the criminal to stand trial.
The scrim parted to reveal Ariel surrounded by the members of both Choruses. They'd bound his arms behind his back; his head lolled forward, and for a moment, Bertie wondered if they'd killed him.
Not that she'd care. ”Where's The Book?”
The crowd parted to make a path. The lighting s.h.i.+fted to a single beam cast from above.
”I tried to warn you.” Ophelia stepped forward, carrying The Book in her hands.
”You told him how to destroy it!” Bertie shouted at her. ”This is your fault!”
Ophelia opened the leather cover as a single tear ran down her pale cheek. ”There's only one page left.”
”No!” Bertie shook her head, lifted the clipboard, and struggled to scrawl different words across the paper. ”That's not in my script. I can change it.”
”Blackout,” Ophelia said as she was thrown into darkness.
”Blackout,” the others echoed before they, too, disappeared.
”d.a.m.n it, no!” Bertie couldn't see to write any more, but still she moved her pen across the paper. ”No, not yet!”
She tried to change the ending, tried to write the pages back into their resting place, tried to write Ariel's b.l.o.o.d.y, violent death by her own hands, but the only word she could manage was: BLACKOUT.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
Pins and
Poking-Sticks
of Steel
When the house lights came up, Bertie took what remained of The Book from Ophelia, tracing her hand over the cover and noting the lack of weight, the sense of insignificance and utter inconsequence. Her heart cried out against what she already knew was true: He managed to destroy it.
Everyone took a step away from Ariel, as though afraid the heat from Bertie's murderous gaze might spill over and burn them, too.
”I couldn't get my page out.” Ariel spoke softly. ”All the other pages came out, each with greater ease than the last. Why was my own impossible?”
Bertie's hand, the one holding her pen, twitched. ”Do you realize what you've done?”
”I failed.” The words fell like drops into an empty bucket. ”I wanted to be free, but The Book would not release me.”
With a noise like white thunder, a gilt cherub toppled off the wall next to the stalls. Cracks ran rampant through wood and plaster, reaching across the floor and walls with covetous fingers.
”At least I managed one thing,” Ariel said. ”The Theatre will fall.”
Bertie wanted him to beg for mercy. She wanted him to weep and cry out for forgiveness. She wanted him humbled and groveling, just so she could deny him. She would bring him down low, but to do so, she would have to keep the ceiling from caving in upon them.
Clutching the leather cover of The Book against her chest, Bertie closed her eyes and forced herself to think of paper. Of trees. The scenery changed without anyone touching the headset, the lights s.h.i.+fting to reveal a grove of ancient oaks. Immense roots crept over the stage; Bertie could feel them extend into the very heart of the theater and farther still into the earth. Ma.s.sive trunks and branches reached through the darkness overhead to stay the destruction.
Bertie opened her eyes to consider him. ”I should kill you now, Ariel. Slowly. By inches. In the most painful way I can imagine.”
”Carve his heart out with a sword,” suggested Moth.
”A poison-tipped one,” said Mustardseed.
”A slow poison,” intoned Peaseblossom, ”that will turn his guts to black oozing liquid while he begs us to put him out of his misery.”