Eyes Like Stars (29 page)

An unseen clock tolled midnight.

There was a long, high cry.

Three wet smacks.

A baby’s wail underscored by Ophelia’s muted weeping.

“Hush now, my dears,” Not-Mrs.-Edith said over the loudspeakers. “There’s no need to cry. Everything will be right as rain, you’ll see.”

The music swelled.

“That’s all I remember,” Ophelia said from the dark. “So that’s the end of the play.”

“No, no, no!” Bertie jumped down before Ariel could stop her and charged Center Stage to catch hold of Ophelia. The lights faded back up slowly, as if with reluctance. “This can’t be right. There are too many pieces missing. Who was my father?”

“I . . . I don’t remember,” Ophelia said, her face crumpling.

Hamlet poked his head in from Stage Left. “I told you she was a harlot!”

“Shut up!” Bertie and Ophelia said in unison. Bertie pointed her finger at the Conductor. “Stop playing the curtain call music! We aren’t finished until I say we’re finished.”

The real Mrs. Edith entered, and Bertie ran to her.

“What about the Mistress of Revels? The prophecy and the caravan?”

The Theater Manager stormed onstage. “Bertie, you’d better have a good explanation for all of this.”

“I could say the same to you!” Bertie shouted at him.

“This is neither the time nor the place—” the Theater Manager started to say.

“I’ll have no more of your excuses and no more of your lies!”

Ariel grabbed Bertie around the waist as she lunged at the Theater Manager. “I don’t think you want to do that,” he said.

“Oh, yes, I do!” Bertie said, kicking at Ariel through the skirts of her ball gown. “There’s more to the story, and he’s hiding it!”

The Theater Manager recoiled as though she’d struck him. “I don’t know what you are implying, young lady.”

“Verena’s skirt and belt! I found them! That part of my play is true, too!”

The Theater Manager turned to Mrs. Edith. The Wardrobe Mistress met his gaze, unflinching.

“I kept my promise,” she said. “I
said
nothing.”

Someone in the second balcony shouted, “Tell the rest of the story!” The suggestion was met with some laughter and a smattering of applause as the audience took up the chant. “Tell! Tell! Tell!”

“It’s a command performance,” Bertie said. “Those are your patrons and benefactors. Don’t disappoint them.”

The Theater Manager sagged as though something inside him had finally broken. “Go ahead. Tell her.”

“Oh, Bertie! My dear, I’m so very sorry!” The words poured out of the Wardrobe Mistress as though a cork had been pulled from her mouth.

“Don’t apologize!” Bertie said. “Just tell me where she is. Tell me why you have her skirt.”

“The skirt and the belt are mine, my dear,” Mrs. Edith said. “I was the Mistress of Revels.”

M
rs. Edith’s voice
carried over the startled gasps of the audience.

The second revelation of the night slapped Bertie in the face. “It’s like a bad comedy of manners, with mistaken identities set to rights and everything.”

The fairies peered at Mrs. Edith with varying expressions of surprise and fascination.

“Can you really do jujitsu?” Cobweb asked.

Instead of answering, the Wardrobe Mistress put her dexterous fingers to her mouth to let loose an ear-piercing whistle. Seconds later, mechanical steeds entered, pulling a wooden caravan. The intervening years had left their mark: The horses’ joints creaked a bit, and rust flecked their noses and ears. The red paint on the cart had faded, the curtains
were moth-eaten, but otherwise it was all just as Bertie imagined it.

Except I didn’t imagine it. I remembered it
.

Thunder rolled through the rafters. The stage lighting shifted to Coming Storm, and Mrs. Edith was suddenly attired as the Mistress of Revels.

Bertie blinked at the quick-change, but all she said was, “I want to know the rest.”

Mrs. Edith nodded, speaking her line. “Would you like a moonrise by which to hear your story?”

“No, thanks,” Bertie said, “I’m good.”

“It’s a bit chilly, though.” Another snap of Mrs. Edith’s fingers brought the prop campfire up through a trapdoor.

My cue
. Bertie couldn’t suppress a shudder of anticipation as she crossed the stage. “It’s my Past I want told, not a pretty bedtime story.”

Mrs. Edith studied Bertie for a moment, her smile wistful. “You have stars in your eyes.”

“It’s a lighting special,” said Bertie.

“Go along with it,” Mrs. Edith said. “What do you think of your life here in the theater? Is it all roses and curtain calls and champagne?”

“Sometimes.” Bertie thought of Nate, taken from her, and the Theater Manager’s lies. “But sometimes it’s ugliness and filth and greed.”

“Yet you have been happy here. I have seen your smiles and heard your laughter.”

“Yes,” Bertie whispered. “But why did you take me? Where did we go?”

Mrs. Edith stood. “Everyone clear the stage so I can tell it properly.”

The blackout didn’t bother Bertie this time, nor did the rustling noises of hundreds of people shifting in their seats with anticipation. She waited for Mrs. Edith to speak again, but it was the Theater Manager, playing himself, who entered and broke the silence.

“Mrs. Edith, would you be so kind as to come speak with me for a moment?”

Lights up on the Theater Manager’s Office.

“This matter with Ophelia is very serious indeed.” The Theater Manager poured himself a drink from the brandy decanter and held it up. “Will you take some, as a stimulant?”

“No, thank you,” Mrs. Edith said, sitting across from him.

The Theater Manager took a large swallow, coughed a bit, then continued. “I think it would be best for everyone if you took the child away from the Théâtre.”

“Why me, sir?” Mrs. Edith asked.

“You’re not bound to this place as the Players are,” he
said, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. “And you seem like the maternal sort.”

“I seem like a woman, is what you mean to say.” Mrs. Edith sniffed with barely concealed disdain.

“I seem to recall that you told me you wanted children of your own, once—”

“Don’t you dare use my longings-past as a weapon against me,” the Wardrobe Mistress flared. “Don’t you ever dare. My life before I came to the Théâtre is just that: my own.”

“Yes. Well.” The Theater Manager twitched and fell into an uneasy silence.

Mrs. Edith let him stew a while longer before she inquired, “What does Ophelia think of your plan?”

“Not a thing,” he said. “She remembers nothing of the outside world, nothing about the child.”

“As I came back to the Théâtre, my memories drifted away on a salt-laden wind,” whispered Ophelia’s small voice from the shadows.

Bertie’s hands curled into fists; she would not cry here, now, in front of all these people. “Then why did he send me away?”

The Theater Manager rose to look out the window, though there was nothing to see beyond the leaded glass. “I don’t understand how Ophelia’s memory was broken, but I fear she might recall everything during one of her more lucid moments. Take the infant away and return when the
child is older, less recognizable. If we keep her identity hidden, perhaps it will be all right.”

“Why bring her back at all?” Mrs. Edith asked.

“She’s our responsibility, isn’t she?” The Theater Manager turned around to pour himself another drink. “No different from a foundling child left on our doorstep.”

Mrs. Edith sat, her perfect posture evident in the line of her back, stiff and straight as an exclamation point. “It’s a mistake to keep the child’s past a secret. The truth will out.”

A knock at the door, and the real Stage Manager entered carrying a bundle in his arms.

“What are you doing here?” Bertie asked.

The Stage Manager glowered at her as he passed. “It wasn’t by my choice. You wanted your story told.”

“Hush, both of you. You’ll wake the baby.” The Wardrobe Mistress took the blanket-wrapped bundle from him. “What would you have me do, sir? Take her to a cottage somewhere in the forest until she turns sixteen? Keep her safe from spinning wheels?” There was a cutting edge to Mrs. Edith’s voice that forced the Theater and Stage Managers to take a step back.

The Theater Manager shook his head. “Don’t be ridiculous. Take the caravan. You will be able to move about as needed and earn your living as wandering performers.”

“If you will not be persuaded otherwise.”

“I will not.”

Mrs. Edith nodded. “We will leave within the hour.”

“And both of you will swear,” the Theater Manager said. “Not a word to anyone about this child’s mother or how she came to be.”

“We promise,” the Stage Manager and Wardrobe Mistress said together.

There was a noise, like a large, hollow door slamming shut. The Office set disappeared overhead, and light painted the cyclorama backdrop in shades of blue and green.

Mrs. Edith stood before it with the blanket-wrapped bundle in her arms. “You’ll need a name, poor child. I think I shall call you Beatrice. Of all Shakespeare’s heroines, she best speaks her mind and is put upon by no one. Perhaps the name will gift that strength of spirit upon you. Yes. Beatrice. Shakespeare will do for a middle name.”

“And the Smith?” Bertie stage-whispered, just outside the pool of light. “Where did the Smith come from?”

“It was my name, once upon a time.” The Wardrobe Mistress climbed atop the caravan. “So it was mine to give you.”

The wagon lurched, “traveling” on a moving belt so that the horses plodded and the wheels rolled while the cart remained Center Stage.

“For a time, we two roamed just as you imagined,” Mrs. Edith said. “You learned to dance and make merry and speak in rhyme.”

Infant Bertie gurgled and cooed.

“I spoke in rhyme when I was six months old?” said Bertie.

“Who’s the skeptic now?” Peaseblossom sniffled. “You sound just like Nate.”

Nate
. Bertie couldn’t help but wish he stood on her left side just as Ariel stood to her right.
I wish you could have seen this
.

“The years passed.” Holding the edge of the baby blanket, Mrs. Edith let the bundle unroll toward the floor. Everyone gasped, but Young Bertie somersaulted from the folds and landed on her feet with palms upraised. The Player had fat, dimpled knees and an infectious laugh.

“At least I was a cute kid,” Bertie said. “I look happy.”

“Happiness is subjective,” said Mrs. Edith, because that was the line. “But I truly believe you were a happy child.”

As the caravan rolled forever Center Stage, Young Bertie scattered rose petals and turned cartwheels. She scrambled over boulders and up trees, leaping down with a fearlessness that took Bertie-the-elder’s breath away.

“Get down from there,” Mrs. Edith called to Young Bertie when the child stood on the roof of the caravan, her arms thrown out wide.

“But I like to see everything!” Young Bertie protested before she jumped off.

“It’s a miracle I didn’t break my neck!” Bertie exclaimed,
both fascinated and horrified. She suddenly recalled her maneuver on the chandelier, hanging upside down by her knees and reaching for Nate. . . .

“Our journey was fraught with danger,” Young Bertie said. “We hit potholes—”

The caravan hit a pothole with a bump and a shudder.

“See!” yelled Moth. “I told you there were potholes!”

“The horses stampeded,” continued Young Bertie, “although they did
not
run over us with their big metal-shod hooves.”

“Aw, nuts,” said Mustardseed. But he was cheered by the mad dash, which included sparking horse shoes and a small brushfire.

“We were set upon by brigands,” Young Bertie said as she sat upon the stage with a fat stack of paper and a box of crayons.

The Brigands charged in with weapons drawn.

“Who are you?” Young Bertie asked.

“We’re the bad guys!” their leader announced.

“What are you going to do?”

“Plunder and pillage!” one of them yelled.

The others immediately shoved him. “Not in front of the kid. Ralph! Fer cryin’ out loud . . .”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry! We’re here to take your candy!”

Young Bertie considered this idea as she drew a bright red jelly bean on the paper. “That’s not very nice.”

“Well, no, I suppose not,” said the Lead Brigand, scratching the end of his nose with a dagger.

“Do you steal candy from a lot of people?” she asked next, adding peppermint canes and chocolate humbugs to the drawing.

“Everyone we meet,” said another Brigand.

Young Bertie looked up from her paper. “I don’t think I believe you. You don’t look very trustworthy.”

“Brigands aren’t supposed to be trustworthy,” said their leader. “It ain’t in the job description.”

Young Bertie looked up from her paper. “See this word? C-A-N-D-Y spells ‘candy.’ Maybe now you want to turn out your pockets?”

“Er, well,” the Lead Brigand said, caught in his lie.

“Go ahead,” she urged. “I double-dare you.”

The Brigands weren’t about to ignore a double dare, and they turned out their pockets. Approximately seventy-nine pounds of jelly beans, peppermint canes, and chocolate humbugs hit the stage in a rain of cellophane-wrapped sugar.

“Whoa, wait just a second,” their leader started to protest. “Where did all this come from?”

“It’s there because I wanted it to be there,” Young Bertie explained. She held up her drawing. “See? I put the word on paper, so it’s true. Would you like to see me spell ‘avalanche’?”

The Brigands stormed out Stage Left, crawling over one another in their eagerness to flee.

“You always had a way with words,” Mrs. Edith said. “Anywhere you thought to go, we went: the mountains, the valleys, the mystical places, and the mundane. But over and over again, you were drawn to the sea.”

The shifting kaleidoscope of gray returned, but this time, Bertie could make out the call of gulls and waves smashing against the rocks. Chalk-white cliffs rumbled into place.