At the Twilight's Last Gleaming (4 page)

CHAPTER FOUR

I
N MY VICTORIAN World, the sun had been coming up and shining on me through the smile of my beloved!

Suddenly, it was a dark and stormy night.

Disaster! Unmitigated disaster!

Two dark forms moved like shadows, settling down into seats, separating Peter’s bright eyes from my hopeful smile. One shadow was tall, yet stooped. The other was short and squat. One was male and one was female.

They looked like cut-outs from a particularly creepy Charles Addams cartoon. They were talking to each other in a kind of loud mumble I could not decipher and didn’t care to at the time.

Peter, of course, used the opportunity to shrug, wave a kind of sweet toodle-loo, and immerse himself back in his books.

“Do you two
mind
!” I said, losing control. “We were just having a conversation here!”

“Pardon?” said the guy.

His head was covered in long, limp hair that didn’t look recently washed. He had a long high forehead, and deep set eyes. He had high cheekbones and a sharp regular chin, but any good looks were diminished by the extreme pallor of skin. He had the paleness of a dead earthworm you find washed up on your sidewalk after a storm.

His companion was a short lump of a girl, dressed in black, with limp black hair too, but with a doughy face too, pale and not much character. Only her eyes showed any life about her. They had a kind of dim, almost interesting glow.

“Good morning, Rebecca,” said the guy.

“Good morning,” I said, with cutting politeness. “You kind of interrupted us.” I whispered pleadingly.: “Could you move?”

“Move?” said the girl. The glow in her eyes turned a bit crimson, almost baleful.

“Ummm…or how about this,” said Harold. “We trade places, okay. Only six minutes till the bell. What’s the harm?”

The guy’s eyebrow furrowed. He got a look of righteous indignation on his face, flavored with a bit of hurt.

I knew this guy.

Not well, but I’d talked to him.

His name was Emory Clarke. He was the son of a U.S. Senator who’d been in Congress since before Emory had been born.

Emory Clarke had a soft-spoken Southern accent and seemed to have more manners than your average high school teenager. He wore dark clothes, and liked dark baggy suits and ties. His clothes were always clean but unpressed, and he smelled of lilacs. Nobody bothered him much because of who his father was, but he was the kind of guy who’d get taken out in an alley by his fellow Southern good ole boys and beaten up on suspicion of homosexuality if he didn’t have connections.

I’d been naturally drawn to talk to him once in awhile, especially since I saw a copy of
Confessions of Nat Turner
by William Styron, a popular book of the sixties about a slave rebellion, tucked into his book bag. I’d just read that book and I talked to him about it, but didn’t get much more than monosyllables from him.

“The table was free,” he said, voice dripping his sarcasm. ‘Pardon the intrusion, Rebecca, but please, do not bother me with this. Can’t you deal with your own petty needs.”

He wasn’t looking at Harold. He was looking at me.

“Petty?” I said. “Petty! Look, we were having a civilized conversation without mumbles.”

“I resent that,” said the girl.

I rolled my eyes. “Oh please, please….look, let’s just calm down. I’m sorry…”

“My friend Emory has received nothing but derision from people like you.”

“People like me? I know Emory. I’ve tried to talk to him,” I said. “Sorry, but look, let’s just…”

But there was nothing for it. They’d descended in a cloud of fumes. I hadn’t noticed the volatile nature of the fumes, and had struck a spark.

Her name was Cheryl Ames. I knew her because she was in my English class. She resented me, I think, because she was a very good English student….but I was better.

She got up and started toward me. I noticed that her fingernails were sharp and painted a bright hue of red. They reached for my face.

“Bitch!” she snapped.

I dodged backward just in time to avoid the first swipe of her nails. She was right in my face, though, and I got a strong smell of something a bit rancid.

“Cheryl,” growled a stern voice.

Cheryl snapped back.

She choked a bit, and gasped. Emory Clarke had extended a long arm, hooked her with long fingers and had dragged her back away from me.

“Enough, Cheryl,” said the voice.

That voice, still soft-spoken, was now edged with something more, something deeper. Cheryl Ames was no lightweight, and she’d had quite a bit of momentum in her lunge toward me, yet Emory had stopped her as though she’d been some Raggedy Ann doll. I looked at him. There was strength there.

And some kind of power.

Cheryl immediately lost her fire. She collapsed into herself, nodded, and lowered her hands.

I wish I could say that the aborted altercation ended at that, but before I could do a thing to further dampen the fire and lighten the situation with apologies, a joke, whatever, a sonorous voice swept down upon us all.

“What seems to be going on here?”

We all looked up.

I could almost feel Harold cringe.

Maybe I would have, but for my own cringing.

Standing there in his usual garb of office suit, dark narrow tie and big face was none other than the Principal of Crossland High School.

Croydon Canthorpe, Ph.D.

Dr. Canthorpe, as he had everyone call him, was a burly man in his late thirties with a big face and a great deal of hair. In fact his hairy brow almost touched his hair line. His eyes were sharp and steely, and though he wasn’t the Vice Principal in charge of discipline in the school, he’s been one once at a junior high in a tough neighborhood, and hadn’t lost his lust for a good confrontation.

“Nothing!” I said. “Nothing at all. Uhm… Cheryl was just showing us something she saw on a TV show last night. Right, Cheryl?”

“Oh, yes — right,” said Cheryl.

“Doctor Canthorpe,” said Emory. “I quite assure you, we are civilized beings here.”

The Principal looked down at the stooped figure of Emory Clarke. He looked angry. Dr. Canthorpe usually looked angry, but it was a cool, controlled anger. As he looked at Emory, though, his nostrils flared. I could almost hear his teeth grinding. Something about Emory truly bothered him.

“I thought I smelled a fight,” he said.

“Doctor!” piped Harold, finally. “C’mon, do we look like wrestlers!”

“Doctor Canthorpe,” another voice said.

The Principal turned and there was Peter Harrigan. He stood there, looking for all the world like Peter O’Toole as Lawrence of Arabia, easing a confrontation with the force of his mile.

Dr. Canthorpe straightened. With his broad shoulders unhunched, you could see that he was over six feet tall and big. He smelled of authority. His features lightened though as he noticed Peter.

“Well, top of the morning to you there, Mr. Harrigan,” growled the principal.

“Doctor Canthorpe! You’re looking so wonderful today! Doctor, as it happens, I’ve been here the whole time, and there’s nothing here to concern you. These are top scholars, Doctor! I believe if there is any altercation, they’ll take it to the Debate Club!”

The Principal’s big mouth was suddenly full of teeth. He was grinning.

He barked a laugh.

“So I believe they would.” He turned to Cheryl and then to me. “You two were having a problem, though, and as good students you’re expected to set an example to the other students. Is that understood?”

“Yes sir,” said Cheryl.

“I know you, Cheryl,” said the Principal. “And I, of course, know you, Emory. But I don’t know you.”

His voice was like a gentle growl. His dark eyes looked into mine and I felt frightened. His big nostrils quivered, as though he was sniffing out my character through scent alone.

“Rebecca. My…my name is…. Rebecca Williams….sir.. I mean, Dr. Canthorpe.”

A smile glimmered in his eyes. He sensed my fear, and I could feel some kind of excitement at it. This was a man who enjoyed his job.

“Rebecca, on your way to home room, please stop by the office. My schedule is fairly full today, but I think I have some time tomorrow. I think an introductory talk might be in order.”

“Okay, Doctor Canthorpe.”

He spun around and stalked off, shoulders hunched again.

We all were quiet, waiting for the blessing of distance from the disciplinarian.

Emory turned to Peter.

“That was quite remarkable,” he said, his voice, with its Southern accent, suddenly rather beautiful. “All I can say is thank you. I loathe that kind of ugliness.”

Peter laughed. “What can I say? I love to perform. And seeing as I was the cause of the problem.”

“Cause?”

“Well, sort of. I believe there was some upset about my attention being lost.”

I reddened, fear replaced by embarrassment.

“Oh, I see,” said Emory

“No problem. I’ll get mine soon. I’m going to get my share of performing tonight at the tryouts.”

“Tryouts?” said Emory.

“Yes,” said Peter. “For the big Winter Crossland Players production. And oh my is it a doozy! It’s none other than the play version of Bram Stoker’s
Dracula
.”

He feigned swinging a cape around. His eyes opened wide.

“Listen! The children of the Night!”

I shivered with awe and anticipation.

“Oh right, Peter,” I gushed. “You know, I’ll be there too!”

CHAPTER FIVE

T
HE BIG BLACK heavy curtains on the stage opened.

A figure in a long cape stepped out of the shadows. With great gravitas, he stared down at us all. His red eyes glared. He drew himself up to his full height regally.

“Good evening,” he said. “I am…. your Count.”

The students clustered around the stage laughed and applauded.

The man bowed graciously, sweeping his hand slowly and languorously down, almost touching the top of the stage. He stood back up and then opened his mouth.

Two long sharp fangs hung from the top of his mouth, like ivory icicles.

The small crowd hushed for a moment, there were a few nervous giggles, and then a spattering of applause.

William Crawley, the English teacher director, dug his hands into his mouth and pulled out the fangs. He had longish black hair that swept back in a rough wave, oddly suspended behind his head. His expressive eyebrows lifted, and he surveyed his audience for a moment, allowing silence to seep into a room once thumping and clattering with lunch trays and milk boxes.

“Fun, huh?”

His audience laughed.

I laughed too, a giddy laugh, a release from tension. Harold, sitting beside me, guardian of my bag, sitting beside me, laughed as well.

“My faithful thespians!” he said. “As the Beach Boys immortally proclaimed. “Fun, Fun, Fun.” Let that be our motto as we forge onward into this less than immortal production of
Dracula
.” Mr. Crawley had on his best enunciation for his speech, getting all plummy and rich with his vowels. “I speak of fun, however, not in a campy way.. We do not wish to make sport of the Victorians or ridicule them. No. This is rich material. It can be fun to simply leave this troubled, complex world of 1968. To forget method acting for a bit, and use good old fashioned tricks of the trade….but in an immersive, joyous fashion.

“This is not drama. It is melodrama. But it is a play of a novel and a tradition of the supernatural that drives deep into our psyche.

No number of silver ships of science going to a cold lump of rock that orbits in the sky will ever erase the power of the full moon in a dark forest with the howl of wolves in the wind.”

He let this pronouncement hang in the air. Then he clapped his hands together.

“Very well, my friends! Fun! Let’s have some fun as we do some readings and pick out the players who will bring
Dracula
to Crossland Senior High School, Prince Georges County – and, perhaps, if we do it right, a far larger and perhaps more important audience.”

I’m pretty sure that went over the heads of most of the students, including me. What was he talking about? Statewide play competitions? Or was some nearby statesman or dignitary a possible guest?

It didn’t matter much to me. I wasn’t here to try out to show off, or to start off a stint in the Drama Club, many of whose members comprised this gathering. No, I had far less noble and far more pressing needs…

When I’d told Harold about my plan, he wasn’t too surprised, considering my love for Victorian literature. Novels of the gothic persuasion to be precise.

However, Harold
was
surprised at the real reason I wanted to try out for a role.

And what role I wanted to try out for.

He did know the book
Dracula
as well as I did. But he had not heard about the play version.

It took me a while to get to
Dracula
. I’d already consumed Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein
, of course, not long after discovering the Bronte Sisters and then George Eliot’s
Middlemarch
. (I read Dickens and Poe, of course — how can you avoid them on a Victorian and pre-Victorian binge?) But
Dracula
? A little too shabby and corny, I told myself.