Eyes Like Stars (2 page)

Bertie contemplated her reflection. “Perhaps I could have shown more self-restraint.”

The girl in the mirror didn’t blink, so Bertie averted her gaze and looked instead around her room. Viewed from any of the seats in the house, it would create the proper illusion of a teenager’s abode. Mr. Hastings, the Properties Manager, permitted her to sign out bits and pieces to make it feel cozier, but most of her knickknacks and trinkets were glued or nailed down so they wouldn’t scatter about the stage when the scenery was changed. The audience would never know it, but there wasn’t anything in the dresser; all Bertie’s clothing was kept backstage in Wardrobe, laundered and pressed by Mrs. Edith. The bed, an elaborate four-poster, resided on a circular lift that disappeared below-stage.

And then there was The Book.

THE COMPLETE WORKS OF THE STAGE

Sitting atop a pedestal in the far corner of Stage Left and just in front of the proscenium arch, it was the only thing that remained constantly onstage. Resting there, it emitted
a soft, golden radiance usually lost under the thousands of watts of power that poured from the floodlights.

No one dared touch it. Even Bertie, who dared a lot of things that the others never dreamed, did not touch The Book.

“You have dye on the end of your nose,” Peaseblossom said.

Bertie set down her brush and wiped her face with a handkerchief that came away smeared with Cobalt Flame. She peeked at herself in the mirror, confirming that quite a lot of her skin was now blue. Cobweb and Moth, who’d paused in the middle of attempting to draw-and-quarter each other to look at Bertie, fell to the dusty stage floor, laughing themselves silly. Mustardseed landed on her shoulder and smeared his hands around in the dye.

“Stop that!” Bertie swept him off with a practiced flick of her finger.

He somersaulted backward, then rushed to swing his tiny fist at her nose. Cobweb and Moth tackled him, leaving miniature explosions of glitter twinkling in the air. Flying fists and booted feet kicked over the bowl of hair dye, and Cobalt Flame flowed across the stage floor to surround Bertie’s Mary Janes.

She made a mad grab for the fairies. “Come back here! You’re making a huge mess—”

“I’ll cut off his ears!” said Moth.

“I’ll slice off his nose!” added Cobweb.

“And we’ll cast the bits into the sea!” they howled together.

“Forsooth!” said Mustardseed. “You’ll never take me alive!”

Bertie tried to get in between them, but it was tricky not to step on someone. “Stop it!”

Mustardseed grabbed the wet, sloppy brush and hurled it at his attackers, missing them only to hit the side of Bertie’s head. Several wads of aluminum foil fell off, and dye-sticky strands of hair snaked over her shoulders. Bertie used a pithy curse common amongst the pirates, but Peaseblossom was the only one who noticed the air turning blue to match the spreading mess.

“Good thing you’re wearing so much black,” she said.

The boys rolled past them. Tufts of fairy hair, ripped out by the roots, drifted into the orchestra pit. Tiny scraps of clothing exited the brawling tumbleweed at sporadic intervals: a sleeve, a sock, a pointy-toed shoe.

“I’ll beat you for a living!”

“You and what army?”

All at once the fairies froze, like butterflies pinned to a piece of felt-covered cork. They were only ever utterly still for one reason: Someone had placed a notice on the Call Board.

“What’s it say?” Bertie asked.

The fairies shook free of the trance.

“All Players to the stage,” Peaseblossom said. “Ten o’clock.”

Bertie swore under her breath again. “Everyone to the stage, you say?” She waved her arm at the floor, which was covered in smear marks and miniature shoe prints. “The stage that’s currently decorated with a crazed ballroom dancing pattern? ‘Tarantella for Three Miscreants in Pandemonium Minor’ perhaps?”

“Maybe we should clean up?” Moth suggested, sounding sheepish.

“You think?” Bertie ducked into the wings. Backstage, it was all black paint and dim lights covered in sheets of red gel. “We need to get rid of this mess before the Stage Manager sees it.” She located his headset, lifted the mouthpiece to her lips, and whispered, “Cue scene change.
The Little Mermaid
, Act One, Scene One.”

The fairies cheered the blackout. In the pale echo of light, vague outlines moved through Bertie’s field of vision, but their details were lost to the dark. Her bedroom walls took flight in a soaring arc before disappearing into the rafters. The bed dropped below the stage while the armchair and dresser chased each other into the wings. Huge wooden waves slid in from Stage Left with the clank and wallop of mechanical water. Seaweed hit the stage with wet thumps, sand gathered in drifts, and saltwater misted the floor. Ground row lights painted the cyclorama in undulating shades of blue and green.

“Fabulous!” Moth shouted, and the words were bubbles. “Come on, losers!”

The others joined him, trailing froth and brine. Mustardseed climbed the pearl garland while Peaseblossom and Cobweb darted in and out of the coral reef in an elaborate game of tag. A chorus of starfish entered Stage Right and began to tap-dance, very softly, in the sand. Scrubbing the dye off herself and the floor with handfuls of kelp, Bertie watched the Sea Witch also make her entrance.

“Sad, isn’t it?” said someone just behind Bertie.

She turned to find Ophelia trailing flowers and chiffon through the saltwater-and-dye puddles. Like the fairies, she came and went as she pleased, walking the ragged edge of her sanity and drawn to the ocean by some unwritten instinct.

“What’s sad about it?” Little puffs of sand lifted and settled again as Bertie slogged from one dye splotch to the next.

“She loved once and lost.” Hair drifting over her shoulders in unseen eddies, Ophelia looked at the Sea Witch’s wavering image projected on the back wall. “You’d think she’d show more mercy.”

“Whatever you say.” Done with the stage, Bertie still had to deal with the dye on her head. “What are you doing here?”

“I heard the water running.” Ophelia lifted her arms up and smiled into the ghostly, aquamarine lighting. “I thought I’d come and drown myself. I won’t be in the way, will I?”

“Just watch out for the starfish.”
Psycho
, Bertie mouthed
to the fairies, who made looping finger gestures at their temples behind Ophelia’s back.

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing back there,” Ophelia said before she drifted off to do what she did best.

The fairies, taken aback by the cheerful admonishment, were caught unawares by the smoke machine. Lights tinted the artificial fog the same dark blue as Bertie’s hair, and the scene transitioned into Coming Storm, complete with rattling of the thunder sheet and flashes of brilliant lightning-white. The massive prow of the
Persephone
soared out of the mist, safeguarded against evil by the gold coin Nate had placed in the hull and the one of silver under the mast.

Jus’ in case
, he’d said when Bertie teased.

Despite the protective charms on the boat, the Sea Witch attacked with curses and errant waves, just as she did in every performance.

“Man overboard!” Nate’s only line; he bellowed it with his usual gusto, the words underscored by the creak of the
Persephone
’s wooden planks and straining ropes. Bertie peered into the flies and caught sight of him leaning over the ship’s railing, tendrils of hair torn free from his braid. Her heart gave a queer little flutter, which she instantly dismissed as both ridiculous and embarrassing.

Nate pointed at her and mouthed,
I’ll be right down. Don’t go anywhere
.

Bertie remembered what a mess she must look and
tried to figure out how much time she had to remedy it: One minute until the ship reached Stage Left, another two minutes to see to the rigging, and thirty seconds to disembark added up to hardly enough. With a muffled oath, she shoved her head into the bucket behind the wooden wave.
Splash!

“That’s going to be a lovely shade of blue,” Peaseblossom said, pulling out the bits of foil.

“Shut up and help me get this stuff off!” Bertie scrubbed at her head with her eyes squeezed shut, wondering how much time she had left.

“Bertie!”

None, apparently. She came up streaming water; through the dripping cobalt, she caught a glimpse of clenched muscle under soiled linen and the glint of his earring before Nate wrapped her head in an enormous towel.

“Yer makin’ a terrible mess,” he observed.

Bertie flapped her arms, hardly able to hear him through the terry cloth cocoon. “Give me just a second to finish—”

“Best we get ye off th’ stage as soon as possible, lass.”

Bertie pulled the towel back so he would be sure to see her dismissive eye roll. “Don’t give me that ‘lass’ stuff. You’re not written that much older than I am.”

“Years scripted an’ years lived are two diff’rent things,” Nate said. Greasepaint, false sunshine, and fan-machine winds had weathered his face, and though his hair and eyes
were dark, lighter threads of copper wove through the plait that snaked down the back of his neck.

Bertie caught herself gazing up at him like a mooncalf and turned away, twisting the towel into a lopsided turban. “I’ll be fine.”

“All th’ same, th’ Stage Manager’s in a rare, odd mood.” Nate spat into the corner as a ward against evil. “Ye need t’ mind yer step.”

“If the spitting thing ever works, let me know. I’ll be sure to spit on the Stage Manager every chance I get.” Bertie thought about how Nate always stepped aboard his ship right foot first and would no sooner utter the word “drowned” than he would “Macbeth”; it was “The Scottish Play” or nothing at all. “You’re such a practical and mercenary soul, but that superstitious streak of yours runs bone deep.”

“I know ye don’ take it seriously, but ye’ve no need t’ tease,” Nate said.

“Don’t I?” Bertie pursed her lips.

“Bertie . . .” he warned.

“I feel like a little whistle,” she said, retreating with her mouth still puckered up. “Just a small one.”

Nate came after her. “No whistlin’ onstage, or are ye forgettin’ yesterday?”

He backed her against the heavy, velvet curtains and clapped a rope-scarred hand across her mouth just as she sucked in a loud breath. For a long moment, they looked at
each other, and Bertie was acutely aware of the taste of his fingers: salt and sardines (as befitted a pirate) and chocolate icing (which didn’t seem as appropriate).

A sudden, trumpeted fanfare sent them leaping apart, the blast of noise preceding the messenger from Act Four of
Richard the Third
. He entered Stage Right, unrolled a parchment scroll, and cleared his throat. In a strong, sonorous voice, honed to cut through the bedlam at court or merely backstage, he proclaimed, “And now, the bane of your existence, the killer of all joys, the Stage Manager—”

He was interrupted when the murderers from the same production leapt from the flies and stabbed him repeatedly with big rubber knives. The messenger pulled crimson scarves from holes in his tunic and did a lot of unnecessary groaning before his assassins dragged him offstage by the ankles.

“What was that all about?” Nate demanded.

“Early detection system,” Bertie said. “I get advance warning that the Stage Manager is coming, and the messenger gets extra stage time.”

“Clever,” said Nate as the scene shifted around them.

“I thought so.” Bertie bit her lip, watching the waves recede backstage, the watery lighting special click off, and the cyclorama fade from blue to white. The Sea Witch gathered her gauzy wraps and disappeared into the dim. Ophelia, drowned to her satisfaction, drifted out with the tide. The
seaweed and pearls skittered offstage, and the Stage Manager arrived with a broom and a glare.

“YOU!” he exclaimed, striding onstage like a bantam rooster.

Bertie put on her most innocent expression. “Yes?”

“YOU!” he bellowed, as though that was the only word not sticking in his throat.

Bertie struggled not to laugh at the image of him squawking at the sunrise with his imaginary feathered crest ruffled up. “What did I do?”

“Who authorized that scene change? Who gave you permission to touch my headset? Why is it
blue
?” He wagged it at her until dye dripped off the earpiece. When Bertie started to answer, the Stage Manager yelled, “Never mind! Just go! The stage is for Players only! We’re making an announcement!”

“I think you’ve used up all your exclamation points for today,” Bertie said. “What’s the announcement about?”

The Stage Manager smiled, a fearsome thing indeed. He looked mightily pleased about something, which didn’t bode well. “Ah, yes, the announcement.”

“You might as well tell me what’s going on.” Bertie glared at him. “I’ll know soon enough.”

“Ah, but you have an important appointment with the Theater Manager, and you shouldn’t be late.” He nodded to Nate. “See her to the stage door, please.”

Nate took her by the arm. “You’ve been summoned to the Office again?”

“Yes, but I want to know what’s going on!” Bertie dragged her feet. However, Nate could heave a wooden chest of pirate treasure without thinking twice, and she weighed significantly less than gold.

“I’ll find ye afterward an’ tell ye everythin’, I promise,” he said.

The fairies ducked into the hall with her just before Nate slammed the door shut.

B
ertie turned
and studied the gilt-framed Call Board as the boys whined about wanting a snack. Normally the cork would be peppered with schedules and notices, appointments for costume fittings and personal missives from one Player to another. All that had been cleared off so that only a single piece of official Théâtre stationery was affixed in the center with a brass tack:

ALL PLAYERS TO THE STAGE. TEN O’CLOCK.

Thousands of costumes rustled as the Players answered the summons. Bertie had once asked Nate where he was, when she couldn’t find him onstage or in any of the various departments.