The Jumbee (8 page)

“Yes,” he said softly. “I’m aware of that. And you truly don’t mind the darkness?”

Esti opened her eyes again to look around the stage. “Does it matter? You seem pretty good at hiding, even with the lights on.”

When he didn’t answer, she managed a half-teasing smile. “I’m used to working in the dark.”

“Please walk to the back of the stage,” he said. “Quickly, before Niles returns. There’s a small door hidden behind the stage curtain.”

“A secret room?” She almost clapped in delight.

“I’ll probably regret this,” he said faintly. “But I can’t seem to help myself.”

As Esti followed Alan’s voice through a pitch-black passage a moment later, she hoped
she
wouldn’t end up regretting it. She thought she heard the faint beat of footsteps as she followed his voice down a tiny hallway, and she suddenly, desperately, wanted to see him.

Determinedly trailing her fingers along the wall, she closed her eyes and created the role of a blind girl falling in love with an exotic, brilliant boy. The girl refused to fear this stranger, and since she would never see his face, she could invent anything she wanted. With his intelligence and sophisticated voice, he had to be descended from European nobility, or British aristocracy. Very good-looking, of course, with blue eyes and a thoughtful, crooked smile she would die for. She suppressed a giggle, and by the time they reached a dark room at the bottom of a steep staircase, she’d worked herself into a giddy sense of anticipation.

She carefully eased herself onto a wooden chair, reaching into the darkness with a smile. “Will you let me see you now?”

“No,” he said. “And you won’t try to look for me either.”

Taken aback, she let her hand drop.

“If you’re afraid of me,” he added stiffly, “I’ll take you back upstairs.”

“I’m not afraid.” Despite her frustration, she managed to keep her voice calm. “Am I going to work on Lady Capulet or what?”

“Yes, let’s do that.” Alan seemed to relax. “Think of a feeling you can summon at will; something you can sustain onstage. An intense memory is best. Perhaps a painful or frustrating moment with your father?”

An unexpected ache squeezed her heart like a giant fist. Alan couldn’t possibly know about Esti’s deep frustration with her dad; she’d never talked about it with anyone, not even Aurora. She wondered if she could somehow put the complex confusion of her father’s death into the shallow Lady Capulet.

“Tell me what you’re feeling,” Alan said. “Quick—don’t analyze it, just tell me.”

“Sadness and confusion.” She closed her eyes. “Panic. Anger.”

“Show me. You are now Lady Capulet. ‘I swear it shall be Romeo,’ Juliet says to her mother, ‘whom you know I hate, rather than Paris.’”

Esti rubbed her temples. “Here comes your father,” she said to Juliet, picturing Lord Capulet entering the bedchamber. “Tell him so yourself, and see how he will take it at your hands.”

“When the sun sets,” Alan began in a commanding voice.

As Lord Capulet began chastising Juliet, every inch the controlling patriarch, Esti found herself back in Oregon. When she had played The Great Legard’s daughter on television, she’d been reduced to literal tears by Lord Capulet as he raked Juliet over the coals. Her dad had made it so real, so devastating. He had controlled every aspect of the scene, playing her emotions like he owned them.

“How now, wife!” Alan said haughtily. “Have you deliver’d to her our decree?”

“Ay, sir,” Esti replied, shaken by her memories. “But she will none, she gives you thanks. I would the fool were married to her grave.”

She felt herself shrinking from Alan as his voice filled the room again, his righteous wrath growing stronger with every word of Lord Capulet’s monologue.

“Go with Paris to Saint Peter’s church,” he finally raged, “or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither. Out, you green-sickness carrion! Out, you baggage, you tallow face!”

Her stomach churned at his hateful words. “Fie, fie,” Lady Capulet cried. “What, are you mad?”

“Hang thee, young baggage,” he said to Juliet. “Disobedient wretch!”

Lady Capulet listened to her husband, appalled and confused by her own chaotic thoughts. Maybe they were wrong to judge their daughter so strictly? Didn’t he realize she had her own life to live, away from her father’s ironclad control?
Control,
The Great Legard had said,
is nothing more than attitude. If you believe you’re in control, then people will believe you.
He controlled everything, even his own daughter’s identity. When she wasn’t reflected in the mirror of his vast presence, she became invisible.

Esti had pushed her father away after that performance, avoiding his award ceremonies and his parties, dropping her friends when they dared compare her to him. She knew it hurt him, but how could she tell him that he was just
too
good? Even at the end, when he breathed through his tubes and clutched her hand, she’d been too intimidated to tell him the truth. A coward, that’s all his daughter was. A coward who didn’t deserve what she’d been given.

“Talk not to me,” she spat at Juliet, “for I’ll not speak a word. Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee.”

“Incredible,” Alan said. “You did it.”

Stunned, Esti took a deep breath, trying not to cry.

“You’re shaking, aren’t you?” His voice touched her soul like a gentle hand.

Esti felt the rage and confusion drain out of her as if Alan had pulled a plug. “Ouch,” she whispered. “That hurt.” The words sounded ridiculous as soon as she said them.

“Acting is not supposed to be easy.” To her relief, Alan’s reply held only respect. “And that’s why very few people are good at it.”

She leaned against the rough wooden table in front of her, cool in the humid darkness of the basement. “You’re good at it.”

Silence followed her words, slowly replaced by singing voices drifting through the air in lilting harmony. The utter absurdity of listening to an ancient madrigal in a spooky old basement after a mind-blowing rehearsal in the dark made her smile. Especially because it felt . . .
right
. “Where’s the music coming from?” she asked.

“My iPod,” Alan said dryly. “Did you think it was magic?”

“You’re crazy.” Esti laughed and closed her eyes. “Or I’ve gone over the edge.”

“Maybe we both have.”

They listened to the cheerful music in silence for a few minutes, then Esti smiled again. “This is perfect.”

“Yes,” he said in contentment.

She opened her mouth to ask if she could please see him—
please, for just a single minute?
—but he suddenly inhaled sharply.

“Niles is back,” he said.

“That figures.” Esti tried to hide her disappointment. “How do you know?”

“I always know.” He sighed. “I’ll show you a different way out, but first I have something for you.”

Squinting at the brightness outside a few minutes later, Esti let the back door swing shut behind her. Clutching a small package, she made her way up the hill through a tangled path in the wild tamarind, as Alan had described to her. She couldn’t see the back door at all from here, and she raised her eyebrows. Even though it
was
perfectly camouflaged, she wasn’t sure she believed that no one knew about it but him.

She stealthily emerged from behind the building, checking to make sure she was alone. Suppressing a smile, she half skipped across the round courtyard before sinking down on the stone bench to look out over the water.

From here, she saw no warning signs on Manchineel Cay. The island was beautiful, with its picturesque cliff rising from silky white beaches. A dark rain column drifted along the water beyond the cay, its edge sharply outlined in silver where the rain hit the sea. Thick white clouds piled up around it, fluffy and stunning against the blue sky. Esti had never seen a place less likely to be haunted.

Her eyes wide in anticipation, she opened Alan’s gift. A local specialty called
roti
, he had explained when her fingers found it on the dark table. With a growing smile, she studied the unexpected dinner. A curry smell wafted up from tortilla-wrapped chicken, and a flower lay to one side, sweetly fragrant even over the curry.

A perfect white flower.

Esti let her eyes trace the blossom, enveloped in its warm scent as she touched her fingertip to a velvety petal. She already knew she was totally falling for Alan, despite his odd quirks. Could he possibly feel the same way about her?

She felt a tremble growing inside of her. Lady Capulet might actually steal the show for a few moments; Esti now knew it was possible. Starting with the Christmas performance, she might finally face the critics on
her
terms. Esti Legard, creating her own legacy at Manchicay School, without her father. Accompanied by her . . . her boyfriend instead. It wasn’t an impossible idea. He’d told her he wouldn’t be back until next Monday, though, and she didn’t know how she could wait another endless week before she talked to him again.

For the first time, she allowed herself to imagine the feel of his fingers on hers, his lips touching her face. Her smile grew dreamy as she leaned back to eat her roti, savoring the blossom’s sweet fragrance, the taste of curry, and a soft, moaning whisper beneath the breeze brushing her skin.

Act One. Scene Six.

“Rumor has it,” Carmen said, “Steve was set up.”

“Set up for what?” Barely listening, Esti studied the stage. She had strolled past the secret opening a dozen times during the horribly long week, casually brushing aside the curtain to reassure herself that the small door existed. She couldn’t help wondering if Alan had other secret passages as well; openings he could speak through, and strategic locations from which he watched and listened.

“Drug bust.”

“What?” Esti straightened, suddenly interested. “They caught Steve smoking
?
”

“Even better.” Carmen snickered. “A stash in his locker, confiscated by Headmaster Fleming over the weekend. Steve is history.”

“He was dumb enough to keep drugs in his locker?” Esti asked in amazement. “They can kick him out for that?”

“They have to kick him out.” Carmen almost sang the words. “School policy. Stupid Steve is gone.”

Esti looked around the theater as she realized the entire cast was buzzing with the news. “But who’s going to play Lord Capulet?”

Carmen burst into laughter. “You
would
worry about that! Hmm, I’ll use my own gift to read the future.” Her voice dropped an octave. “I now predict Lance as Lord Capulet. Want to put money on it?”

“I’ll take your word.” Esti had been wired with pent-up anticipation all day; this was icing on the cake.

Onstage, Mr. Niles’s expression was stony as he talked the boys through some fighting techniques for the Capulet-Montague brawl.

“I heard Danielle tell Niles that someone planted the stuff,” Carmen added in a softer voice. “Niles told her to shut up, which is the first time
anyone’s
ever told her off that I know about. You are making some good changes at this school, Esti girl.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Esti asked, startled. “I didn’t have anything to do with this.”

“Don’ vex.” They both whirled around at the unexpected whisper. Lucia sat down behind them, leaning forward so they could hear her. “Niles he talk like some freshwater Yankee, but he is West Indian, for true. Maybe ’tis someone he fear.”

“Who would he be afraid of?” Carmen glanced at Esti. “A jumbee?”

Lucia met Esti’s astonished expression with a steady, jet-black gaze. When Esti finally looked away, the overhead lights flickered, then dimmed. A spotlight swept the room, stopping briefly on Danielle sitting at the edge of the stage. She looked up with a tight, amused smile.

Carmen shot an impatient look behind them. “Lance keeps messing with the lights. I swear, he’s almost as bad as Steve. He deserves to inherit Lord Capulet.”

The spotlight made its way around the theater, gathering interest from the cast as it moved from seat to seat. Just as it fixed her in its piercing beam, Esti felt a tickle on the top of her head. With a disgusted sound, Carmen yanked something away from Esti and flung it toward the back. “Steve, what are
you
doing here?” she snapped. “Is this one of Danielle’s tricks?”

Esti spun around in time to see an evil-looking carnival mask land on the ground, made of black foam and glitter. As Steve ducked behind a row of seats, the main lights came on again, and the spotlight went dead. Onstage, Danielle didn’t bother to hide her growing laughter.

A sharp cracking sound cut the laughter short. One of the thin plywood sets was slowly tipping over, and with a shriek, Danielle scrabbled away from it on her hands and knees. She rolled off the edge of the stage, falling to the floor as the wall landed with a heavy thump where she’d been sitting an instant before.

“Who put these sets together?” she exploded, rising to her knees.

“Check Esti’s locker,” Steve yelled from his hiding place. “She’s got voodoo dolls in there. Who’s next on her list?”

Stunned, Esti felt her mouth drop open as Carmen jumped to her feet.

“Where’s Steve?” Carmen ground out. Striding to the aisle behind them, she stopped with her hands on her hips, glaring down between the seats. “Get off the floor, Stoner. I can’t believe you would dare accuse Esti.”

The shocked silence was broken by Mr. Niles’s steely voice. “Steve, I want you out of here,
now.
My theater department is not Carnival, and if the rest of you can’t keep your private lives off the stage, you will follow Steve out the door.” His eyes moved back and forth between Esti and Danielle. “No matter who you are.”

As whispers from the cast accompanied Steve’s sauntering exit, Lucia’s quiet voice startled Esti. “Don’ worry, gal.”

Esti spun around to look at her.

“Even if the jumbee he don’ like Danielle,” Lucia said softly, “he take care of you, mon.”