The Rebirth of Wonder (3 page)

“
Oh, you don't have
to do that,” Art's father hastened to say, as he made his way
around to the stage right steps. “We'll take care of cleaning the
place out for you and getting it ready for your
show.”

“
Uh...” Art
hesitated, still standing in the “orchestra pit,” then asked, “What
sort of a show are you planning, Mr. Innisfree?”

Innisfree turned and gestured broadly, waving
both arms. “A grand and glorious spectacle, Arthur!” he proclaimed.
“My companions and I, we call ourselves the Bringers of Wonder, and
we have wonders indeed to show your sleepy little town!”
Innisfree's accent had changed yet again, to something Art couldn't
place that was still vaguely British. He wondered whether these
shifts meant the man was completely phony.

Probably born in Brooklyn, Art thought.

“
Oh?” he said
politely.

“
Yes, indeed!” Innisfree said. “We intend to stage our
first production of that mystical classic of the
stage,
The Return of
Magic
, here, before we take the show on
the road. One show and one show only, on the thirtieth of
August.”

Art blinked.
“
The Return of Magic
?” he asked.

“
That's right,
Arthur – right here in Bampton, Massachusetts, we will put on such
a production as the world hasn't seen in
centuries!”

Arthur climbed up onstage before replying,
“I'm not sure this theater has the facilities for a big production,
Mr. Innisfree. I mean, this isn't exactly Broadway.”

“
No fear, lad,”
Innisfree answered, looking about with interest, his gaze taking in
the inadequate flies, the ancient and rusty lightboard and patch
cords, the slightly frayed ropes and somewhat musty curtains, the
peeling, oft-painted dressing room doors. “I'm not seeking
Broadway, nor off-Broadway, nor off-off Broadway, to as many offs
as you might choose; there's nothing broad about the way we follow.
Ours is a narrow path of experiment, a route full of curious twists
and unknown byways, not the flamboyant and gaudy displays that
tourists attend.”

“
Well, then, I'm
sure that this theater will do just fine,” Art's father said,
forcing a smile.

“
And I am, too,”
Innisfree replied.

“
Then all we need to do is settle the terms of the
lease,” Dunham
père
said, his smile a little more genuine now. “One
month, correct?”

Innisfree nodded, then stared up at the
catwalk high overhead.

“
Rent is five
hundred dollars, plus you'll be responsible for the electric bill –
I don't think we need to worry about heat in August. Water is
included – they only bill quarterly anyway, so it's not worth
breaking it out.”

“
Indeed it's not,”
Innisfree agreed, tugging gently at the curtain.

“
Art, here, can
handle lights and cleanup – he usually gets six dollars an hour,
but that's between you. And he knows all the locals – he can get
you whatever other help you need.”

“
Oh, we shan't need
him,” Innisfree said, turning back to the Dunhams. “Or anyone else
local. We'll take care of our own lights.”

The elder Dunham, taken aback, paused for a
moment before asking, “Well, what about sets? Costumes?”

Innisfree smiled at them. “Sets, costumes,
cast, director, dancers, stagehands, roustabouts, janitors, music,
lights, darks, sound and silence, we'll take care of it all, Mr.
Dunham!” he announced.

Art's father glanced at Art, who
shrugged.

“
I don't know,”
Dunham began.

“
Mister
Dunham,” Innisfree said, “our
little group is a selective one, and our preparations are private –
you might even say secret, hidden, occult, cryptic. While I'm
certain Arthur here is a fine young man and the very soul of
discretion, we'd really prefer to take care of ourselves and clean
up our own messes. A closed set, as it were.”

Dunham's mouth tightened.

“
No,” he said. “I'm sorry, Mr. Innisfree, but this is
an old building, and it's got its delicate features, its little
quirks. There's a lot of valuable property in here, too, and these
old wooden buildings – no. I'm not just offering Art as a favor to
anybody; he's my agent here, and I won't rent to you unless he's in
here every day that your people are. He knows this place better
than anyone else, better than
I
do. I don't want anyone else
setting lights in here, I want someone who will keep an eye on
things like smoking, and any fire effects you use in your show –
it's too easy to start a fire in a theater, especially an old
wooden one like this. And that catwalk up there, the locks and
storerooms – no. I want Art in here regularly, and I want him
inspecting anything you do with the wiring, and nobody uses the
lighting equipment without his okay.”

Innisfree stared at him for a moment, but
Dunham's expression remained firmly set. Finally, Innisfree
sighed.

“
Very well,” he
said. “Your son will be free to come and go, and we'll pay him for
his time – but we won't be making much use of his
skills.”

Dunham looked at Art.

“
That's fine,” Art
said. “I don't mind a rest.”

“
Good enough, then!”
Innisfree grinned and thrust out a hand. “Shake on it, and the pact
is made, the bargain set!”

They shook, while Art watched.

Ten minutes later they were back at the
office of Dunham Realty; the paperwork was settled in short order,
and Innisfree put down the required deposit in the form of a
cashier's check drawn on a Boston bank. The two older men shook
hands again, and Innisfree turned to go.

“
Wait a minute,” Art
called. “When should I meet you there?”

Innisfree turned back. “Tomorrow morning at
eight? Would that be too early?”

Art shrugged. “That would be fine,” he
said.

“
Then at eight it
shall be. We'll meet in the lobby, shall we?”

“
If you get there
first, we'll meet out back,” Art said. “I still have the keys – I
need to get in there to finish cleaning.” He held up the ring and
rattled it. “Try the back door – if I get there first I'll leave it
open. The stage door, I mean.”

“
As you say, then,”
Innisfree agreed. “In the lobby at eight.”

Art frowned, but didn't bother to correct him
again. Instead he just watched him go.

When he stepped out onto the sidewalk himself
and headed back down Thoreau Street toward the theater, Innisfree
was nowhere in sight.

Chapter Three

It was almost midnight by the time Art was
finally satisfied with the theater's readiness for its new tenants.
He had everything as clean as he could reasonably get it, working
single-handed. The ropes were all coiled away, in two neat rows;
the lighting instruments were ungelled and stored away on the stage
left shelves, licos on top, Fresnels below. The gels, frames,
cords, and plugs were sorted and put away as well, the on-stage
work lights stripped back down to ordinary hundred-watt bulbs,
their power routed back through the regular wall switches.

The sets were disassembled, the pieces either
back in basement storage or, if they were too big for him to
manhandle downstairs alone, arranged along the back wall of either
wing.

The dressing rooms were swept and emptied,
the costumes back down in the basement, in wardrobe storage; the
ashtrays were dumped and wiped, the toilet scrubbed.

In the house the seats were all brushed,
litter removed, the floor swept. Posters had been removed from the
lobby walls, the red runner was hung over the fence out back to be
beaten, and the two burnt-out bulbs in the lobby chandelier had
been replaced.

No one from the cast
of
A Midsummer Night's Dream
had shown up except Marilyn. Of course, she was
technically crew, rather than cast, Art corrected himself; none of
the cast ever came.

Art hadn't really expected Marilyn, either,
but she had arrived late in the afternoon and apologized for not
being there sooner – family business had kept her away.

Marilyn's help had made the job considerably
easier. Art had even considered taking advantage of her presence to
haul the rest of the sets down to the basement – the mock stage for
“Pyramus and Thisbe” was the big one, and then the two sections of
Titania's bower were awkward – not all that heavy, but awkward.

He had put it off, however, as being of
secondary importance, and Marilyn had had to leave at eleven, so
the sets still sat in the wings when he locked up and went home to
bed.

He was in bed by 12:30, with the alarm set
for 7:00, and he was up again at 6:50; he had always hated alarm
clocks, hated having any machine ordering him around and telling
him he wasn't doing what he should, and he had long ago developed a
defense mechanism against them – he always woke up before they went
off.

A warm shower, then breakfast, and then down
the street to the theater, arriving at ten to eight – plenty of
time. He fished the key ring out of his pocket and let himself in
the front, with the intention of taking a quick look around, just
in case he'd missed anything, before opening the stage door for Mr.
Innisfree.

The interior was dim; sunlight spilled in the
door around him, and dust, stirred up by his cleaning the night
before, danced in the golden air.

“
Ah, good morrow to
you, lad!” Mr. Innisfree said.

Astonished, Art jerked away from the door and
turned to stare.

Innisfree was standing on the left-hand
balcony stair, wearing a light gray suit and smiling down at
him.

“
How'd you get in
here?” Art demanded.

“
Why, the door was
open!”

“
It was?” Art turned
and stared. “No, it wasn't; I just now unlocked
it.”

“
Not that one, my
boy, the stage door.”

Art frowned. He had locked all the doors last
night when he left, hadn't he? He had certainly thought so.

He remembered checking the front doors before
he walked home, and taking a look down at the big basement door
where the chain and padlock had been securely in place. He had come
out through the stage door – was it possible he hadn't locked it
behind him?

He
thought
he had locked
it...

“
We found it open
when we arrived, so we came inside to look around,” Innisfree
added, helpfully.

“
We?”

“
Certainly, we; didn't I tell you? Did you think I was
alone? I'm
sure
I mentioned the others; after all, what would one
man do with a theater?”

“
I knew you had a
group,” Art admitted. “The Harbingers of Wonder, or something like
that? But I didn't know you were... I mean, I thought you'd be
coming alone this morning, to sort of plan things out before the
others got here.”

“
By no means, Arthur!” Innisfree smiled broadly. “Ours
is a cooperative effort, and we must all
share
in the
planning, if our little production is to have the success we hope
for!”

Art nodded.

“
Oh, and it's the
Bringers
of Wonder, not harbingers,”
Innisfree added.

The door to the house opened just then, and a
face appeared between the two valves of the big double door. It was
no one Art had ever seen before, a rather tall, thin woman,
obviously Oriental – in fact, without knowing exactly why he
thought so, Art classified her specifically as Chinese. She was
wearing a long, utterly simple white dress – the sort of simplicity
that dress designers charged a fortune for. She wore her hair long
– lush, straight black hair that spilled past her waist, so fine
that it seemed to float about her in a cloud.

She was staggeringly beautiful.

“
Ah, Ms. Fox!”
Innisfree called. “Come on out here and meet young Arthur Dunham,
our landlord's scion and representative!”

The name Fox was hardly Chinese – but then,
it wasn't Asian at all. “Hello,” Art said.

Ms. Fox emerged two tentative little steps
into the lobby and then bowed, without making a sound.

Art blinked. He couldn't remember anyone
bowing to him before, ever, and was unsure how to respond.

Then Ms. Fox whirled and vanished back into
the theater's depths; the sudden motion sent her hair up into a
glorious black cloud, and perfume spilled from it into the
surrounding air. Art took a step after her, then looked up at
Innisfree.

Innisfree smiled. “Go on in, lad, and meet
the others!”

Art was getting tired of being called “lad”
or “my boy” – after all, he was twenty-six years old, he wasn't a
kid.

This wasn't the time to argue about it,
though. He went on into the theater.

The others were up on the stage, milling
about and speaking quietly among themselves; most of them were
smiling. As Art watched, Ms. Fox leaped up to rejoin them, jumping
the thirty vertical inches as if it were nothing.