Part 27 (1/2)
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 cras.h.i.+ng 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!”