Eyes Like Stars (8 page)

Mr. Hastings squinted at the paper. “Aisle 88F.”

Nate set off at a jog. Bertie shook her head over the entire idea as she retrieved her favorite toaster from the collection on a nearby shelf. Victorian vertical stands required open flames, and later electric models lacked the ornate worksmanship and array of push buttons she found most intriguing, though the fairies always moaned that this particular
nickel-plated box took too long and sometimes burned the toast.

Bertie plugged it in and reached for the bread, safeguarded from both vermin and fae in a tin picnic basket. “I really don’t need a . . . what’s it called?”

“Scrimshaw,” Mr. Hastings said.

“Scrim, like the curtain?” Moth said, his forehead wrinkled with concentration.

“And Shaw is a playwright!” Cobweb added with a bounce. “Good ol’ George Bernard.”

“No.” Mr. Hastings tapped the file in his hand. “All one word: scrimshaw. A carving on bone, an artform made popular by whalers in the nineteeth century.”

“That would explain how Nate knew what it was,” Bertie said, fitting slices into the toaster’s mesh baskets. “Did he carve this one?”

“I did not.” Nate had returned. A chain of dull, heavy metal dangled from one finger, its circular pendant gleaming in the late afternoon sunshine.

“Oh!” Bertie held out her hand.

Nate lowered the scrimshaw into it. The chain slithered over her fingers, significant and serpentine, and the bone disk settled against her skin, immediately warming to her touch. Whorls of gold ran through the medallion’s rich patina and accented an engraving of the Théâtre’s art nouveau façade.

The likeness of the building, reproduced on thick cream card stock for every program, every ticket, had been rendered on the bone with an expert eye to detail. There was the dome-roofed ticket booth, flanked by massive revolving doors likewise inset with stained glass and blooming vines of wrought iron. With robes flowing and never-to-fade flowers framing their lovely faces, gracious gilded statuary held the portico aloft in delicate hands.

Bertie rubbed her thumb over the scrimshaw’s surface and marveled at the infinitesimal crosshatches that created the illusion of depth and shadow. “It’s gorgeous.”

Nate took the medallion back from her, swept her hair aside, and fastened the chain about her neck. The fairies and even Mr. Hastings crowded close to get a better look.

“It’s pirate booty!” said Cobweb from Bertie’s shoulder. He reached for it, but she shook her head at him.

“You’re all sticky,” she said. “Don’t touch it.”

“I’ll give ye a warnin’, too,” Nate said. “Don’t get it near saltwater.”

“I’ll have to stay away from the
Little Mermaid
set. The Stage Manager will be thrilled.” Bertie started to laugh, but trailed off when he didn’t join her. “What makes you say that?”

“Saltwater will call her.” Nate reached out and stroked the scrimshaw’s surface with his fingertip.

Bertie peered up at him. “Why are you being so cryptic? Who will the water call?”

Nate glanced at Mr. Hastings. “Th’ Sea Goddess. Th’ real one. That scrimshaw’s carved from a bit o’ her bone.”

“Really?” Mr. Hastings began to flip through his paperwork. “That’s fascinating!”

“That’s not fascinating, it’s disgusting!” The medallion’s weight dragged at Bertie’s neck. She reached for the clasp and did a frantic sort of dance. “Take it off.”

“I won’t, an’ neither will ye,” Nate said. “That’s th’ most powerful talisman I have ever seen. Close yer eyes a moment an’ listen. What does it tell ye?”

“Are you drunk?” Bertie sputtered. “Have you been in the rum again?”

“Jus’ do it.” Nate used his sternest Giving Orders voice.

Without meaning to, Bertie let the rest of the room fade into the background. When she focused all of her attention on the medallion, something crawled over her skin and left it spangled with salt. “It feels very old and very sad, somehow.”

“Duh!” said Mustardseed. “It’s ivory from a dead animal. Of course it’s sad!”

“Not in death, but in life,” Bertie said, unable to look away from the engraving of the Théâtre. “The sadness seeped into her very bones and was locked inside.”

“Exactly,” Nate said. “I’ll tell ye her story later. Just know fer now that a bit o’ Sedna’s bone is th’ best protection ye could possibly have.”

“Fine. Whatever. I don’t have time to argue with you.” An acrid odor alerted Bertie—too late!—to the toast. The fairies wailed over its loss, but Bertie shook her head. “Leave it. We have to go convince Mr. Tibbs that I’m not a hooligan. Will you be all right on your own, Mr. Hastings?”

“Yes, yes, of course.” The Properties Manager frowned, rifling through papers at a startling speed.

“Are you certain?” Bertie asked, already halfway to the door.

He didn’t reply as he turned back to his filing cabinets and straightened his glasses. “I will have to make a notation. I don’t seem to have the provenance for that particular scrimshaw in my paperwork. . . .”

“So?” Bertie held onto the doorframe.

Mr. Hastings looked up, startled. “Hm? Oh, are you still here, Bertie dear?”

Wholly accustomed to his absentmindedness, she shook her head and waved. “Never mind. We’ll be back later . . . and see if you can find me a basket of asps!”

“Are you insane?” Cobweb demanded as they headed for the Scenic Department.

“For requesting asps?”

“For burning the toast!”

Bertie skimmed down the hall, fueled by success and
adrenaline. Sconces poured warm light on the rich mahogany paneling, but shadows, like creatures long of tooth and nail, gathered in the narrow places. “We’ve more important things to worry about right now than food.”

Mustardseed said reproachfully, “I’m certain you don’t mean that.”

“She’s under duress,” Peaseblossom said.

“I don’t care if she’s under duress, over it, or alongside it,” Moth said. “Nothing in this world supersedes cake.”

“Pie does,” Cobweb corrected.

Moth glared at him. “Are you under duress, too?”

Bertie did her best to ignore both the fairies and the insistent thumping of the scrimshaw against her skin as she planned her attack upon the Scenic Department. She would need all her wits if she was going to convince Mr. Tibbs to help her.

Considering the ongoing dispute between the Properties and Scenic Departments, it didn’t help that Mr. Hastings had always favored her.

MR. TIBBS

(yelling)

If you can pick it up with your hands and move it, I’ll agree it’s a prop! Anything too heavy to lift is a piece of dash-blasted scenery and therefore belongs to me.

 

MR. HASTINGS

(standing his ground)

With enough leverage, anything can be lifted and moved, my dear Mr. Tibbs.

 

MR. TIBBS

I’m not your dear anything, you upstart nincompoop!

 

MR. HASTINGS

Be that as it may, you bullying chimney stack, the vase from the third act of
The Lake
most assuredly belongs to the Property Department.

(He pulls out reams of paperwork.)

I will direct your attention to line 45A and the Stage Manager’s signature. . . .

 

MR. TIBBS

Signature or no, that vase is coming with me.

“Ye goin’ t’ need t’ charm him,” Nate said. “He still carries a grudge against ye fer all th’ times ye painted yer room.”

“You don’t have to remind me,” Bertie said as she opened the door and eased inside the Scenic Dock. “Yoo-hoo, Mr. Tibbs!”

The Scenic Manager’s lair was as tall as it was wide, storing the flats and backdrops of every set imaginable. Frosted glass windows spanned the length of the room, and sunlight
flowed like molten gold over projects under construction. Just now, the room was eerily quiet, with a distinct lack of hammering, sawing, or any of the other thousands of noises normally associated with set production.

Bertie turned in a slow circle. “Everyone must be on a break—”

“What do you want?” a voice like an air horn blasted behind her. Bertie leapt aside, and Mr. Tibbs brushed past her as though she smelled.

If Mr. Hastings was a pale and shrunken stalk of celery, Mr. Tibbs was a livid beefsteak tomato. The Scenic Manager was round and red of face; he had plump cheeks and a wide slit of a mouth usually opened in a roar or, as it was at this moment, clamped around a malodorous cigar. He wore coveralls, trailed sawdust wherever he went, and the one time Bertie had seen him without his battered newsboy cap, she’d been simultaneously appalled and awestruck by the three strands of hair plastered over his bald spot. Today, she was glad to see his hat was affixed firmly in place.

“Well?” he bellowed in her face.

“I . . . er . . . that is . . .” Bertie stammered.

“Get out, get out,” he said. “I have a schedule to maintain. Maintenance and production, replacement and refurbishment. You’ll only be in the way.”

“In th’ way o’ what?” Nate asked. “There’s no one here an’ nothin’ t’ do at th’ moment.”

“Shouldn’t you be packing your things, young lady?” Mr. Tibbs stomped over to a half-painted flat and scowled at the bucket abandoned on the concrete floor.

“So you’ve heard,” Bertie said.

“I heard, and it’s about damn time.”

“Probably,” Bertie agreed.

The others looked at her as though she were crazy, while Mr. Tibbs exhaled smoke and suspicion. “What foolishness are you up to?”

Bertie didn’t tie up her pitch with pretty words or a winning smile, knowing full well that neither of those things would have the slightest effect on him. Mr. Tibbs listened to the entire speech, shifting his cigar from one side of his mouth to the other.

“
Hamlet,
” he said finally.

“In Egypt. Yes.”

“Huh. That’s quite the harebrained scheme. Nice try, girlie, but you’re wasting my time. The Theater Manager will never give you permission for that.”

Bertie felt her cheeks get hot. “He might, if I had your support. I have Mrs. Edith’s already.”

“And Hastings?” Mr. Tibbs demanded.

“He’s agreed to help me.”

“Oh, he did, did he?” The Scenic Manager glared at the sunshine as though it offended him, too. “Run along, and take your ridiculous plotting with you!”

About to burst with ill-timed anger, Bertie had a stroke of diabolical genius. “It’s all right, Mr. Tibbs. I understand. In fact, I’m not even surprised.”

“You’re not, eh?”

“Oh, yes. Mr. Hastings said you’d be against it.”

“He did, did he?”

Nate cut in smoothly. “Aye. He said that ye were stuck in yer ways, an’ that ye wouldn’t know a good idea if it bit ye on yer arse.”

“Is that SO?” Mr. Tibbs demanded.

Bertie took a deep breath, crossed her fingers behind her back, and added her coup de grâce. “Mr. Hastings said not to worry, he’d manage the set decoration alone.”

Mr. Tibbs nigh on exploded when he heard that. “What?!”

Bertie nodded, striving to appear both earnest and innocent. “He said something about obelisks being the responsibility of the Properties Department.”

Not a lie! Even better!

If Bertie thought she’d heard every curse there was to hear in the Théâtre, she’d been wrong. Mr. Tibbs put the pirates to utter shame as he shouted that he wouldn’t be bossed about and who did Mr. Hastings think he was anyway, his tirade punctuated by profanity and expletives the likes of which curled Peaseblossom’s hair and left even Nate wincing.

“You’ll have your obelisks!” Mr. Tibbs’s shout rattled the
wrought iron curlicues that framed the windows. “Courtesy of the Théâtre Illuminata
Scenic
Department, and THAT is FINAL.”

Bertie grabbed him by the hand and was shaking on it before Mr. Tibbs could realize he’d been had. “A pleasure to hear it, sir. You won’t regret it, I promise!”

And then they ran for it, down a hallway that seemed far less gloomy and foreboding than it had only a short time ago. The fairies laughed and swooped, shoved at each other and dive-bombed Nate’s head.

“Brilliant,” Bertie shouted, holding out her arms and pretending to fly, too. “That’s all major departments accounted for.”

“That were a wicked bit o’ trickery, my miss,” Nate said, punching at the air. “Ye should be proud o’ yerself.”

The fairies whooped their approval as Nate gathered Bertie up to swing her about in triumph. Overcome by his enthusiasm, she gave him a loud kiss on his scruffy cheek.

He tastes like the ocean. And sweat. And—

Nate turned his head, his sandpaper bristles rubbing against her face. He inhaled very slowly, but a gust of cold air hit the two of them before he could say or do anything more.

Bertie twisted about in his arms, searching for the one she knew was listening. “Ariel.”

Nate set her down and reached for his cutlass, but no
one appeared to challenge them. “He’s not goin’ t’ be happy yer fightin’ t’ stay.”

“Isn’t that a tragedy?” Cobweb said.

“He’d better not try anything, or we’ll let him have it, but good!” Mustardseed said.

Peaseblossom flew back to alight on Bertie’s shoulder. “What are you going to do about him?”

“I don’t have time to worry about Ariel now,” Bertie said. “We still have to convince the Theater Manager, and I have an appointment for eight o’clock on the dot.”

Nate looked from her disheveled hair to her dye-splattered shirt. “First, I think ye need t’ consider a costume change.”

T
he meeting
will go well,” Mrs. Edith said around a mouthful of pins. “I feel it in my bones.”

“I’m glad you feel it in your bones,” said Bertie. “Because my bones aren’t the least bit certain about it.”

“Tsk, dear. You’re too young to be so cynical. Turn a bit to your left.”

“Do you often feel things in your bones, Mrs. Edith?” Bertie wrapped her fingers around the scrimshaw and tried to ignore the jabbing of needles near her backside.

“All the time, dear. Theater people are a superstitious lot, and my bones are quite reliable, I assure you.”