The Juliet Spell (27 page)

I put out my hand to Mom. Then I laid it over my heart. Then I dropped into a curtsey. And when I rose, I saw that she understood what I was saying, that this night had been for her. She was clasping her hands under her face almost like she was praying.

The actors bowed. We bowed again. We bowed a third time and started to leave the stage. But they wouldn’t let us. Not until we’d taken seven more bows and Gerry had flashed the lights to say “Enough already.”

“I know what—let’s all do this again tomorrow night!” Bobby shouted.

But the best thing was Shakespeare came over and took my hand and Edmund’s and said, “I have finally seen these roles done rightly. Thank ye, brother.”

“Oh, Will,” Edmund said. “Thank ye.”

Chapter Thirty.

Three

Those hours just after an opening night are like nothing else in life. The show is over, but you don’t have to go right back to reality. You can’t go back. You have to have some time to decompress, to share what you’ve just been through with everyone else who’s just been through the same thing. You have to enjoy feeling special and know that you’ve earned it.

Tonight, the party was at our house. And when I got there, I saw Mom and Dad had been busy. Paper lanterns had been strung in the trees, and a banner hung from the porch with big black old-fashioned letters that said: SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS ARE MADE ON. There were a couple of immense, corny Greek masks glittering silver on either side of it, and a couple of cardboard shields with the Capulet and Montague crests on them. All over the lawn were small white signs with lines from the play.

“Alas,” Shakespeare said when he saw the sign. “Your no.ble father has quoted the wrong play. My line is, ‘We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.’ ’Tis from Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

“To hell with you, Shakespeare,” I laughed. “It’s exactly right.”

That night took off and flew and danced among the stars. Edmund and I clung to each other even while we hugged and kissed everybody else in the cast, in the world, and knew that this was only the first night of the rest of our lives.

After a while, when things were soaring past Venus, and Edmund was teaching a bunch of the cast how to dance a galliard, and I was deep in a conversation with Drew and Bobby about how we were all going to go to New York and take over Broadway next year, I turned around and saw Mom and Dad.

“Thank you, baby,” Mom said and took me in her arms. “Thank you.”

And I knew she was thanking me, not just for Juliet, but for all our lives together.

“Where have I been?” Dad asked as he held me. “Where have I been?”

“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “You’re back now. Older and wiser.”

“Thank you,” Dad said. “For wanting me to come home.”

I hugged my dad and he held me like he’d never let go again. I had never felt so good hugging him, not since I was little. I was so happy I didn’t even pay attention to the screams coming from the house. Not until I heard the words, “Oh, my God, he’s got a gun!”

And the sound of the shot that came rocketing out into the night.

“What in hell?” Edmund said, and ran toward the house.

I tore loose from Dad and followed him.

“Miri, don’t,” Mom said.

But we were all running toward the sound.

Inside, in our living room, everyone was backed against the walls. Some of them had their cell phones out trying to reach 911.

In the center of the room was Mr. Brandstedt. He had a short black pistol in his hand, and the air was full of bitter smoke.

Crouched in one corner was Phil Hormel.

Vivian was on the floor. She had her arms around her dad’s legs like an actress in some old-time melodrama. “Daddy, no…” she begged.

Mr. Brandstedt was speaking in a tight voice, speaking rapidly as if the words had been waiting years to come out and couldn’t be held back any longer. I don’t remember what they were. They didn’t all make sense.

But the essence was clear.

Mr. Brandstedt walked stiff-legged across the floor to where Phil was cringing, trying to hold on to Maria, who was trying to pull away from him. He pointed the pistol at Phil’s head, then at Maria’s, then back at Phil’s.

I could see Edmund crouching, getting ready to spring onto Mr. Brandstedt’s back. I could see Dad trying to move up to get between Mr. Brandstedt and Phil, talking in his best shrink voice, saying he understood how much Mr. Brandstedt was hurting, how bad things must be. All this at once, and all in one second.

And then, there was a flash of light that filled the room, a clap louder than a gunshot, and Phil Hormel was gone.

Chapter Thirty.

Four

Everyone screamed.

Mr. Brandstedt fired at the place where the flash had been. Then he dropped the gun.

“I—what’d I do?” he said. “Where is he? Did I kill him?”

Maria was yelling at her husband in German.

Vivian was sobbing, still on the floor.

Dad bent over and helped her stand up.

“Come and sit down,” Dad said, and took her out of the way.

I could hear sirens. In a minute the cops were there and the rest of the night was ugly. Mr. Brandstedt got taken away in handcuffs.

The police questioned all of us, over and over that night. They got the same story, with minor variations, from ev.eryone. But they couldn’t, wouldn’t believe Phil had simply disappeared in a noisy flash of light. No one blamed them. Half the people who’d seen it said, “I don’t believe it, either.”

Very early in the morning the police finally let everyone go, and left.

They’d talked to everyone but the Shakespeare brothers, who had, thankfully, managed to disappear amid all the con.fusion. But when Mom and Dad and Drew and Bobby and I were the only ones still sitting in the living room, they came out from wherever they’d been, leaping gracefully over the yellow tape that declared CRIME SCENE a hundred times all around our house.

“’Twas just like hiding from the game wardens in Strat.ford,” Shakespeare said. “A most pleasant evening.”

“I have never had so much fun with ye, Will,” Edmund said.

“Oh, whew—you’re all right then. Great,” Drew said. “Well, good night, everyone. Gotta go before my mom—”

“Not so fast, Drew,” Mom said. “You want to tell us what you did?”

Drew didn’t answer.

“Man up, man,” Bobby told him.

“We might be able to help,” Dad said.

Drew sighed heavily.

“I put the Zeno program on my phone,” Drew said. “So I could work on it away from home.”

“I thought I had your promise not to contact Doctor Dee anymore,” Mom said.

“I couldn’t keep it…. I tried. I never opened that program until ten nights ago. Then I found this in my bedroom.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a funny-looking coin. He handed it to Mom, who read its engraving aloud.

“1596.”

“Read the other side,” Drew said.

Mom squinted and read, “Attend me. Dr. J. Dee.”

“And I ignored it,” Drew said. “But…then I got this one.”

He handed Dad another coin. Scratched onto one side were the words AT ONCE, and on the other side, FOR GOD’S SAKE.

“They were appearing on my desk,” Drew said. “Just coming out of nowhere. Anyway, I broke my word to you. I had to. I sent a message to Doctor Dee. He wrote back with a message for Shakespeare. It was the message he tried to give you the night you had your dream, Doctor Hober.man.”

“What is my message, friend Drew?” Shakespeare said.

“It’s not good. First of all, Doctor Dee told me that a man had been found wandering around Yorkshire begging for help in a dialect no one could understand. He was nearly out of his mind, but he kept saying something that sounded like ‘Get me back to Omaha’ over and over again. They didn’t know what to do with him, so the Archbishop gave him a room in the cathedral. But he ran off and now no one knows where he is. Doctor Dee just found out about him.”

The equation, I thought. That was the man who had to bal.ance out Edmund.

“Then when Will came here, it meant that someone from here had to go to England,” Drew went on. “Someone did. A Russian soldier named Yuri Kuznetsov. He was walking around London with a Kalashnikov rifle and a lot of attitude. The constables tried to arrest him, and he started shooting. By the time he’d used up all his ammunition, a lot of people were dead. The queen was furious and worried. What was going on? So her spies were everywhere trying to find out what was happening. Of course, Doctor Dee was the first person they thought of. Who else could do something like this? And Doctor Dee told them everything he knew. So now her majesty has demanded that both the Shakespeare brothers come home and all connection between us and En.gland stop for all time. Otherwise, she’ll execute Doctor Dee

for treason. And hang Joan Hart for witchcraft.”

“Our sister!” Edmund shouted.

“Monstrous,” Shakespeare said. “Doctor Dee is the queen’s own cousin.”

“The queen has a point,” Dad said. “She’s a ruler—she has to protect her people. And if Russian soldiers are slip.ping randomly into the sixteenth century, what’s next?”

Dad was being reasonable. How could he be reasonable at a time like this?

“So that’s when I started working again on the program,” Drew said. “Because I’ve never been able to send anything but words and ideas before. It’s Doctor Dee who can send objects and people. He gave me some ideas on pentagram.matic geometry that I thought might work. So I added a pentagram to the program.”

“So you tested it on Phil Hormel,” Mom said.

“We were hanging out on the front porch,” Bobby jumped in. “And we saw Vivian’s dad come up the walk. And it was dark, but Drew said, ‘Isn’t that a pistol in his hand?’ and the guy walked right past us and into the house and nobody but us even noticed the gun.”

“I knew what he was going to do,” Drew said. “I mean, it was obvious. And my first thought was, ‘I have to save Phil.’ I turned on the app and pointed the phone and hoped it would work.”

“So now Phil is running around 1597?” I said.

“Probably,” Drew said.

“Hey, at least he’s still alive,” Bobby said.

“Unless he’s not,” Mom said.

“Drew. You have to contact Doctor Dee,” Dad said. “There may already be another Elizabethan Englishman lost somewhere in this century.”

“Right,” Drew agreed, and started Achilles running after the turtle on his damned cell phone. No, I thought. This can’t happen. Edmund can’t go. There’s a way—but I couldn’t think of what it was. In a few minutes, Drew had mail.

One fellow is here, most confused, distressed and frighted. And he has good right to be, for if the Queen’s minions find him, he is a dead man as I may well soon be. Doctor Jenkins, if ye love me, send the Shakespeare brothers back. I will bend my best efforts to return this hapless one to you.

Everyone was quiet.

My mind was jumping like a caught rabbit. Edmund, Ed.mund, Edmund, Edmund. There’s a way for us. There has to be. We belong together. Here. Now.

Finally, Edmund spoke. “I am undone. I must go back.”

“Aye, and that soon,” Shakespeare said. “Damn her royal majesty to hell. But there is no choice.” He looked around at all of us with his huge, beautiful eyes. “I like this place,” he said sadly. “And willingly could waste my time in it.”

“No,” I said. “Don’t leave, Edmund. Drew will figure something out. He always does.” Even as I said it, I knew it was useless. What was Edmund supposed to do? Let his sis.ter hang and Doctor Dee be tortured to death?

“I would if I could,” Drew said. “Honestly.” “I know ye would, Drew. Though I know also we love

the same girl. Ye are a noble heart. No better friend—” Drew? Loves me? What the hell? No way. We’re friends. But it was true. I could tell by looking at him. Edmund crossed the room and took me in his arms for

what we both knew was the last time. “I shall never marry. Farewell, my lovely spirit. My admired Miranda.”

Now I knew what Juliet felt like when she woke up in the tomb and discovered Romeo’s body.

“Come, brother,” Shakespeare said. “Long goodbyes are saddest.”

“Edmund,” I whispered.

One last kiss. Then he pushed me away.

“Farewell, wondrous friends,” Shakespeare said. “Look for yourselves in my folio. Mayhap we shall meet again there.”

“Thanks for everything, guys,” Bobby said. His voice was choking. “Break ’em.”

“Are you ready?” Drew asked in a soft voice.

“Never,” Edmund said. “But begin anyway. Be good to her. I know ye will.”

Drew pointed his cell phone at Shakespeare and Edmund. There came the low, rumbling thrill, the flash and both men were gone.

I felt like my legs wouldn’t work. Like my heart had stopped. Like my head was going to spin off. I was icy cold, and my heart was bleeding.

I looked at the empty place where Edmund had been a moment before. Then I turned to Drew.