Enter Three Witches (17 page)

“And the best is what you’ll get,” Eli said with a grin, and went back to the light booth to turn off the spot and put the board to bed for the night. Soon he too was gone, and Edward Behrens was left alone in his dimly lit theater.

At least he should have been alone, since all the cast and crew had departed, but as soon as he reached the back of the house, he had a strong sensation that he was being watched. This part of the theater, which had been dark during the rehearsal, was now faintly illuminated by wall sconces turned low. He was being watched, and now he was being addressed from the shadowy corner under the balcony to his left.

“Hello, poor, tired Bear,” said the voice, which was female and quite beautiful. “I wish I had some honey to give you, but sympathy is all I have to offer.”

Behrens whirled and saw the tall woman who sat, relaxed and smiling, at the far end of the back row. She had a black scarf over her head which now she pulled off, releasing a cloud of bright hair. “Miranda West,” she said, holding out a slim hand. “Come sit by my side and tell me all your woes.”

Behrens’s first reaction had been one of outrage that some stranger had sat there for God only knew how long watching the horrible floundering of his rehearsal. Now, as he leaned over the row of seats and took the proffered hand, he was not sure it was such a bad thing after all. Bren’s mother was certainly an astonishingly attractive woman, and he found himself thinking that he had spent not only the past weeks but several centuries in the exclusive company of high school students.

Miranda moved over and pointed invitingly to the place at the end of the row. Behrens sat down. He found himself wondering whether Bren had a father and inhaling a faint, unfamiliar, but curiously intoxicating perfume. Even in the gloom at the back of the theater, the woman’s eyes were disturbingly blue. Her smile was at once mischievous and friendly. The impulse to tell her everything about himself was almost irresistible, but not quite. Sophisticated and laconic, he said to himself. That’s what you want to be at a time like this.

“All my woes,” he asked, “or only those occasioned by this wretched play?”

“We could start with the play,” Miranda suggested, “and work backward.”

“Do you have all night, then?”

“I don’t see why not,” she said, and settled back in her chair.

Behrens laughed. “No, really. You don’t want to hear it. The feelings one has after a technical rehearsal are better left unexpressed, since they are bound to be greatly exaggerated and mostly suicidal. It will all look better in the morning.”

His companion seemed genuinely surprised. “I thought it went remarkably well,” she said. “What’s a little falling scenery and a missed light cue or two? They won’t happen again.”

“You’re probably right that the same things won’t happen again,” he said. “It’s the things just like them that are waiting to happen. It’s the disease, not the symptoms. The damn play is just not ready, and I have no one to blame but myself.”

“Nonsense,” Miranda said briskly. “Anyone can see that you have done a marvelous job against frightful odds.
Macbeth
is not the easiest play in the world, you know.”

“I don’t know what possessed me to choose it.”

“You can’t be the first person to ask himself that question,” she said, “but it has a fatal fascination. Even the fact that it carries a curse doesn’t seem to discourage people from producing it. Rather the contrary, I suspect.”

“A curse?” Behrens said. “That’s all I need.”

Miranda’s eyes widened, and she leaned toward him, studying his face intently. “I can’t believe you didn’t know about the curse of
Macbeth
. If I’d had any idea, I wouldn’t have mentioned it, but maybe it’s just as well I did. You’ve still got almost a week to straighten things out with the dark powers.”

“Lovely lady,” Behrens said. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, but I do know that if this play is cursed, it’s cursed by incompetence and nothing more mysterious than that.”

“I suppose you’ve been going around saying ‘
Macbeth
’ all the time,” Miranda continued, as if he hadn’t spoken. “I suppose you say things like, ‘Now we’ll take Scene One of
Macbeth
,’ or ‘
Macbeth
is a difficult play for young people,’ or ‘The lighting for
Macbeth
is a challenge,’ don’t you?”

“It seems more than likely that I do,” Behrens said dryly. “What am I supposed to say?”

“People call it ‘the Scottish play,”’ Miranda explained, “or, I suppose, just ‘the play,’ if they are actually in it, but never ‘
Macbeth
.’”

“Does this curious proscription apply to mentions of Macbeth in the script?” the director asked.

“Of course not. Don’t be silly.”

“Silly! Who’s being silly?”

“Not I, I promise you,” Miranda said with a satisfied little smile. “You see, I know about these things. But maybe it’s not too late. If you will just watch your tongue for the next few days, all may yet be well.”

“I’d rather watch my kids,” Behrens said. “I’m trying to figure out why the lousy ones are improving and the terrific ones are going all to pot. The first witch, for example, a fantastically talented girl who was lifting those scenes right up into the realm of art, and now she’s tripping over her own feet. And your son, not to mince words. I thought I had found a new genius in stage lighting, and tonight he couldn’t even find his place in the script.”

Miranda looked thoughtful. “Of course, it’s complicated,” she said after a pause. “It might be the curse, and then again, it might be love. I’m not sure which is worse. Probably it’s both, and if it is, you’re going to need a lot of help, Edward Bear.”

“Love!” he said. “Curses. What I need is more rehearsal time.”

“Time may do wonders for the torments of the heart,” Miranda said, “or make them worse. Only an expert can lift a curse.”

Behrens was beginning to feel that enchanting though his new friend might be, she was surely a little mad. It was not a quality he felt prepared to cope with at the moment. He rose from his seat. “Well, lacking an expert,” he said, “and since I can’t possibly remember not to say the name of my play for a week, perhaps you’ll pray for me.”

“Would you really like me to?” There was no mistaking the eagerness in her voice.

“It can’t do any harm,” said Behrens, extending his hand.

She pressed his fingers lightly, and he felt a tingling wave pass up his arm, through the base of his neck, and into his brain.

“I’ll give it my most serious attention,” said Miranda West, and, following him up the stairs and out into the street, she turned toward the river and vanished into the night without another word.

During the next four days, only Miranda could have been said to be on top of the world. She felt extraordinarily well—younger, more beautiful and, to her intense satisfaction, more powerful than she could ever remember. Perhaps it was the renewal of the great Sabbat of Halloween, the witches’ New Year, when the tides of darkness turn to flood, and the rest of the world shrinks from the prophetic gales of November; but there were other things to make her happy.

Boredom had driven her to attend the technical rehearsal of
Macbeth
, and her impulse had been well rewarded. She had met an attractive man and had begun to see the vague outlines of a fascinating professional challenge. Her promise to Behrens that she would pray for him had been both playful and extremely general. She had, in fact, not the slightest idea how to lift the curse from
Macbeth
if, indeed, it was cursed at all. Miranda was a serious witch and not impressed by most old wives’ tales. In her opinion, if a play was going to be cursed, it would have to be cursed by someone who knew the ropes. Whatever an innocent like Behrens might say or fail to say would surely have little influence on the princely powers she could command.

On the other hand, the play certainly appeared to be in trouble. What more agreeable task could there be than to work some potent magic for the improvement of
Macbeth
and to please a well-favored, single male at the same time? Only the method remained to be discovered. Miranda studied the script in the privacy of her tower and tried to question Bren, who was sullen and withdrawn. Still, though no plan came immediately to mind, she was not discouraged. It was good to have a major project in hand, and besides she had received a piece of news that gave an added boost to her spirits.

Alia was sick. Bren had discovered this on Sunday when he called to invite his father to the opening of
Macbeth
. “Mom is coming too, of course,” he said. He was standing in the empty kitchen, one ear cocked for his mother’s light step in the hall. “So maybe if Alia didn’t…”

“I wasn’t born yesterday, Bren.” His father sounded tired and irritable. “Besides, she’s not well—won’t go anywhere or do anything. I feel sorry for her, but it’s no fun. She just mopes and carries on about odd aches and pains.”

“Some sort of low-level flu?” Bren suggested.

“Something like that. Anyway, it’s boring. I’ll be glad to see your play and even your mother’s always invigorating face.”

Bren was cheered by this report of Alia’s malaise, and Miranda was transported. Witches are supposed to have perfect confidence in their powers. Without assurance, without what amounts to an act of faith, the most ancient and elaborate spell stands not a chance of success. Still, as Miranda said, it’s always nice to have some positive feedback. Bren enjoyed the affection and prestige that fall to the bringer of glad tidings and went back to brooding over Erika.

The need to construct a whole new tower and reinforce the rest of the scenery against a repetition of Saturday’s catastrophe kept Erika busy but not amused. She was tired of stage carpentry, of bent nails and mashed fingers and the gluey smell of stage paint, and she was monumentally tired of Jeremy.

“He might as well wear a gorilla suit all year round,” she grumbled to Polly, who was patiently holding up one side of the tower while Erika banged on the other. “All he talks about is sizing and two–by–fours. Ouch! Damn! I can’t seem to hit a nail anymore, and I should be practicing. I get worse every day.”

“You practice too much. Just let it go now, and it’ll turn out great.”

Erika gave the trembling structure a savage wallop. “I wish everyone would stop telling me that when I know better.”

“But it’s true,” Polly said. “Even the Bear says we should relax and turn it all over to our subconscious minds.”

“The subconscious mind never did anything for a dancer’s legs, so far as I know.”

“Oh, stop it. Go find Bren and tell him you’re sorry or whatever he wants to be told.” Polly stepped back with an exasperated gesture, and the tower swayed ominously.

“I’m not sorry. I haven’t got anything to be sorry for. Hold on, dimwit! This thing isn’t braced yet.”

“Don’t get riled,” Polly said, rescuing the wavering construction, “but hurry up. This is terminal boredom, my dear.”

“Riled,” Erika muttered, going backstage for another handful of nails. “Riled. If that were even the half of it.”

On her way home that Monday night in the chill November wind, Erika thrust her hands deep into her jacket pockets and found a tattered cardboard rectangle. She stopped under a street light and gazed long and hard at the neat calligraphy.

The unhappy night of Halloween followed by the horrible technical rehearsal had driven her curiosity about Madame Rose into the back of her mind. Now, in spite of her disillusionment with Bren, it began to smolder again. “What difference does it make?” she said angrily. “So his grandmother’s a fortuneteller. She could have two heads for all I care.”

Still, the teasing sensation would not go away. She wanted to know about the house from which she had been so mysteriously excluded; and, without knowing why, she felt sure that whatever was hidden on West Eighty-fourth Street was the key to her present misery. Pretending she didn’t care was all very well, but it didn’t seem to be getting her anywhere. Far from putting Bren out of her mind, Erika had felt a pang of grief every time the lights changed during the rehearsal, every time she tripped over a cable, every time someone referred in the most casual way to the distant and largely unseen occupants of the light booth.

Erika stuffed the card back into her pocket and turned toward home. Well, I’ll do it, she said to herself. Why not? I’ll visit this bogus old lady, and it will turn out to be sordid and stupid and have nothing to do with me and Bren, and that will be the end of it. This made Erika feel better. Taking some action seemed preferable to hours of brooding stretching ahead into an infinite, gray future.

It was Wednesday before she managed to gather sufficient courage to cut her afternoon classes and set out for a consultation with Madame Rose.

It was a dramatic day, alternately bright and dark, as wind-driven clouds fled across the face of the sun. When she reached the house, the light shone full on the high stoop and dark paneled door. Erika ran up the steps in a burst of optimism, which was quenched a moment later as the sun disappeared again and she stood listening to the bell ring in the depths of the house.

At last the door was opened by a plump old lady with rosy cheeks and a malevolent eye. “No Girl Scout cookies,” she said angrily, “and if you’ve come for a consultation, you should have called.”

“I’m sorry,” Erika said. “It was sort of a spur-of-the-moment inspiration, and no, I’m not selling cookies or anything else. I found your card in my pocket, and I thought, well, why not?” She gave Rose her best silvery smile.

There was a crash at the back of the hall as Shadow, roused by their voices, knocked over the umbrella stand in his haste to greet an old friend. He’d give me away if he could speak, thought Erika, bending a disapproving look on the capering dog. “Don’t mind him,” Rose said. “He thinks he owns the place. I suppose you might as well come in. I’m not busy, as it happens, but call next time.”

“I will,” Erika promised, as she followed the fortuneteller into the front parlor. Bren’s living room, she thought, but there was nothing of Bren in the dim, Victorian interior. The windows were shrouded with heavy swags of silk, and she could barely make out the crouching shapes of horsehair sofa and rolltop desk. Then the old lady pulled the chain of a hanging lamp, and she saw the table draped in black with the great crystal glowing in the center of a white triangle.