The scrimshaw revealed the truth in his words to Bertie as the sun reflected on a still pond, but when she looked harder, the water wavered. Secrets swam under his surface; some were delicate things, no more than an air bubble breaking, while others were hard and dark and sharp. One of them jabbed at her as he said, “I, too, wanted to be a playwright. But you already have more power over the written word than I ever did.”
“Not by choice.” Bertie stepped back before she could stop herself.
“No,” he said. “Perhaps not. All the same, it’s yours, and with it the responsibility. You are the only one with the ability to repair The Book, and you must do so with haste. I’m not sure how much longer your trees will keep this place standing.”
As though to illustrate his point, another hunk of plaster slid down the wall of the auditorium and landed in the aisle. Whispers filled Bertie’s ears:
The Theater Manager. You’re the only one with the ability. . . .
Ariel. I knew it. It is in your power.
Even her Mother, speaking to the Mistress of Revels about the stars in an infant girl’s eyes. She’ll have magic enough because of the cursed things.
Some unseen, golden scale tipped, and Bertie lifted her chin.
It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.
She thought of Nate, and the “Drink Me” bottle backstage, broken into smithereens, its power to change less potent than the determination already unfurling inside her. Variegated vines wrapped around her bones, steadying her, planting her feet in a stance favored by Commanding Generals and Pirate Captains. “Do me one favor?”
“Yes?”
“Get him out of my sight.” She pointed at the Stage Manager.
The Theater Manager grimly nodded and heaved his colleague up. “Come on, old chap. We’d best get out of the way.”
Bertie turned, ready to dispense orders. “Ophelia?”
The water-maiden stepped forward. “Yes?”
“I need you to fetch the Managers.”
“Of course.” Ophelia didn’t drift away this time. Instead, she walked with purpose, her steps firm and steady upon the floor.
Bertie looked down at Ariel. “What am I going to do with you?”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “Another tango, dear heart?”
“Something involving hot pokers and salt in your wounds would be more apropos, but I don’t have time for that now. What we need is a brig, or a nice scummy dungeon.”
“Those wouldn’t be able to hold me.”
“That sounds like a challenge to me.” Bertie reached for her clipboard. “Yours is the last page in the book; without it the theater cannot survive. And though you can’t tear it free yourself, you can certainly stir up more trouble. I guess I’ll just have to write you into imprisonment. I hear tell I have some power over words.” He started to protest, but she raised her voice. “Someone dim the lights.”
Bertie uncapped her pen and started to write.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Tribunal
The blacksmiths meet under the
light of the new moon.
The trapdoor opened Center Stage. A forge spiraled into place with the groan of wood and metal-shudder. A luminescent moon rose in the background on wires so thin, it appeared to float.
When the Blacksmiths entered, Bertie shook her pen at them. “Be careful about the sparks. The Book’s pages have been through enough already.”
The men took their places around the forge and waited for her to write another direction. Bertie let the tip of her pen bleed a puddle of ink before she thought of what to write next.
They fashion a collar of earth
and fire and water: punishment
enough for a creature of the air,
to be so shackled.
The Blacksmiths started to pound on glowing metal in three-quarter time. Smoke spiraled up like a ballerina dancing en pointe. There was the unmistakable boiling hiss of hot metal hitting water.
“They bring him forth bound, as befits a criminal,” Bertie said.
Two Chorus Members hefted Ariel to his feet, though he struggled.
“The villain is still weakened by his misuse of the magic,” Bertie continued, determined and merciless. “So he cannot stop her when the Righter of Wrongs places the collar around his neck and binds him to the place that he hates most of all.”
“It is ready,” the largest Blacksmith said.
Bertie set the clipboard down on the stage and reached for the collar; it glowed brighter with the growing power of her enchantment even as the forge’s heat faded to a dim memory. “If you please.”
“You’ll need a witch to bless it,” he said through his beard.
“I am the Witch,” Bertie said. “I am the Writer of Words and the Changer of Scenes. The truth spills from my mouth, painting this world the color of my choosing.”
The Blacksmith nodded and placed the collar in her hands. The warmth in the metal, like ember-glow, spread through Bertie’s fingers as she took one step toward Ariel, then another.
His eyes begged her—for mercy, for something—but she didn’t hesitate to place the band around his neck. The moment the two ends touched, they sealed shut, and he moaned.
“You are bound here, Ariel, to serve and protect the Théâtre. Your page is still in The Book, and so shall it remain.”
He writhed as though he could hardly bear the weight of her sentence upon him. “I hope it all crumbles to dust.”
“I believe you wish that.” Bertie tapped on the collar so that the metal vibrated. “But as long as you wear this, your page cannot be torn from The Book. By anyone.” She raised her voice. “Can everyone hear me? None shall be persuaded to free this creature.”
“We hear,” they said.
Bertie nodded to the ones that held his arms. “You can untie him now.”
Ariel remained on his knees, neck bowed, hair tumbling over his shoulders to obscure his face. “Bertie.” Her name on his lips was a plea.
“Get up,” she said.
Against his wishes, Ariel stood.
Bertie pushed his hair back until she could see his eyes. “If I tell you to dance a jig, you will. If I ask you to mop the floors with your tongue, you will. Is that quite clear?”
“Yes.” He lifted his eyes to meet hers. “Was the collar really necessary?”
Bertie gestured to the pages that littered the stage. “You tell me, Ariel. Tell me that you didn’t do your best to destroy The Book. Tell me that you won’t try to sabotage us again at the first possible opportunity. And if you speak, let it be the truth.” When he could not, Bertie stepped back and tried to ignore the remorse already pricking her. “You brought this upon yourself.”
“Quoth the jailer,” he said.
“It’s the truth,” Bertie said. “You betrayed us all.”
“The truth is in the mouth of the orator, and your truth is not mine.”
“Save it, Ariel. . . .” Bertie’s voice trailed off as she realized that neither his hair nor his clothes moved with his customary wind.
He stood coffin-still, as though carved from stone instead of poured from quicksilver. “Do you really hate me so much?”
“I hate what you did, Ariel. Help me to make it right.”
“I won’t deny you,” he said, “because I cannot. But don’t think for a moment that I do it for you or this place.”
“Understood.” Bertie hardened her heart against him.
“What would you have me do first?” Ariel asked with a stilted bow.
“Go find me a quad-shot cappuccino.” Bertie turned her back on him, as clear a signal as any that she no longer considered him a threat; harder to admit, she feared she would cry if forced to look upon the defeated slump of his shoulders one second longer. She heard him move away and counted to three before she turned around.
Ariel was gone. At her feet, two of his red-and-gold familiars lay on the stage. Bertie knelt next to them.
I k
illed them, and Ariel’s probably passed out backstage because the damn collar strangled him.
Bertie tasted something foul in the back of her throat. For a moment she thought she might throw up, but one butterfly twitched its delicate antennae and the other fluttered its wings. With a shaky sigh, Bertie gathered them up before someone could squash them. Once in her hand, they recovered enough to crawl into her hair and perch there, like brilliant barrettes.
The fairies flew back onstage at full speed, preceding Ophelia.
“I got them, Bertie!” the water-maiden called.
Sure enough, the Department Managers were heading toward Bertie like a cavalry at full charge. The triumvirate collectively goggled at the pages, the assorted damage to the house, and Bertie’s thoroughly disheveled appearance.
“What on earth—” Mrs. Edith started to say before words failed her.
“It looks worse than it is,” Bertie promised.
“I don’t see how that is possible,” Mrs. Edith said, “because it looks very, very bad indeed.”
“It’s not her fault!” Peaseblossom rushed to Bertie’s defense. The other fairies chimed in and, with a jumble of cross-corrections and one fistfight, they managed to bring the Managers up to speed. Bertie didn’t interject so much as a peep of disagreement, even when they suggested that she’d cut off the Stage Manager’s head and fed it to a crocodile.
“The magic is breaking,” she said at that juncture. “We have to find a way to get the pages back in The Book before the Théâtre falls apart.”
Mr. Hastings pursed his lips, scanning the amount of paper piled onstage with a professional eye. “They should be filed straightaway, with every page in order.”
Mrs. Edith waved a pair of scissors under his nose. “Anything I can’t fix with my glue gun isn’t possible to fix.”
Mr. Tibbs chomped on a replacement cigar and glowered at them. “You’re both off your heads. Get this rubbish off my stage so I can start repairing the floor.”
“It isn’t rubbish, my dear Mr. Tibbs,” protested Mr. Hastings. “Were you not attending? These are pages from The Book, for pity’s sake!”
“I heard. Someone has got to clean this mess up, and right smart, too—”
“That’s enough!” Bertie shouted over the top of them. Everyone fell silent, as startled by the order as by the authoritative steel in her voice. “The only thing holding this place together is the last page, if I guess correctly.”
“Pages,” Peaseblossom corrected.
Bertie had nearly forgotten. “That’s right. There are two in The Book now.”
“But how’d the second one get in there?” Moth wanted to know.
“I don’t know.” Bertie turned to the second page, running her index finger along the words. “Sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
“It’s a famous speech,” Mustardseed said.
“That’s true. But why this famous speech? Why not the balcony scene, or Hamlet’s speech to the Players?” The butterflies opened and closed their wings, stirring a tiny wind in Bertie’s hair. “It was the one that Ariel quoted, right before we went to Venice.”
Cobweb wrinkled up his little forehead. “So?”
“Ophelia!” Bertie pointed at the nearest stack of pages. “Pick one up and read it to me.”
The rest of the Company ceased milling about aimlessly and suddenly looked very alert indeed as Ophelia cleared her throat.
“A little more than kin, and less than kind.” She paused. “It’s Hamlet’s first line.”
Moth zoomed in, trying to be helpful. “You’re not reading it with the correct inflections.”
Ophelia tilted her head, a wicked gleam appearing in her eyes. When next she spoke, it was in perfect mimicry of the Danish prince. “ ’Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, nor customary suits of solemn black. Nor windy suspiration of forced breath. No, nor the fruitful river in the eye!”
The page in her hand faded around the edges. Bertie whispered, “Keep going!”
“Nor the dejected ’havior of the visage,” Ophelia bellowed. Bertie could see the water-maiden’s hand through the paper now. “Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief—”
The page vanished completely. The Managers yelped, the Chorus Members swore in amazement, and Bertie opened The Book. She was almost afraid to look, but the missing page was back inside, bound firmly, she found, when she tugged ever so gently at it. Underfoot, the largest of the cracks in the floor sealed over.
“That’s it! That’s how we get the pages back inside!” Bertie hugged Ophelia around the neck. “You were brilliant!”
“Thank you.” The other girl turned a lovely shade of pink, the first color Bertie had ever seen on her that didn’t come from a pot of rouge.
She couldn’t linger over the transformation, though. “Peaseblossom, take the boys and put a notice on the Call Board. I want everyone onstage immediately. We have to act the plays back into The Book.”
“All the plays?!” Peaseblossom looked aghast. “Do you have any idea how long that will take?”
“Do you have any idea how long the Théâtre will remaining standing if we don’t do it?” Bertie asked.
“No,” the fairy answered.
“Neither do I, but it’s a better option than leaving the pages all over the stage to molder and rot, with the magic scattered everywhere and the theater reduced to rubble. Right?”
“I guess so,” said Peaseblossom. “At least it will give the Chorus Members something to do besides wander about.”
Bertie crooked a finger at Mr. Hastings, Mr. Tibbs, and Mrs. Edith. “I need you three to get back to your Departments and hustle up the necessities for the performance. It’s still going to happen.”
Before they could even twitch, the door at the back of the auditorium slammed open and everyone jumped. As someone stalked down the aisle, Bertie lifted her hand to block the glare from the footlights.
“Thanks a lot.” Hamlet lit a cigarette and sagged against the wall.
“Sarcasm noted,” Bertie said. “You’re thanking us for what, exactly?”
“For whatever enchantment you performed to pull me back into the theater.”
“We didn’t do anything,” said Cobweb.
Bertie silenced the fairy with a look before she returned her attention to Hamlet. “You left.”
“Yes.” His floppy hair fell into his eyes.
“Why?”
“I was going to find a girlfriend who didn’t need medication,” he said, with a lazy smile for Ophelia.
Bertie was going to tell him not to be such a jerk, but Ophelia surprised all of them by making a rude noise. “I deserve far better than you, you know that?”
Hamlet gaped at her, and Moth took the opportunity to pose the question Bertie was already wondering. “Where did you go?”
“Some sort of drinking establishment.” Hamlet took a long drag and flicked ash on the carpet runner. “I’d just ordered something called a Hefeweizen.”
“And then what?” Cobweb took up the interrogation, trying to sound tough.
“The woman next to me offered to pay. Very forward of her.” Hamlet thought it over and added, “She was far too old for me. One-and-twenty, if a day, and I very much doubt that her virtue was still intact.”
Bertie sighed and tried not to think about how good it would feel to punch him in the nose. “And after the middle-aged harlot offered to pay for your drink?”
“I felt a prickle in the back of my throat. Words echoed in my head. My words, but not my voice, if that makes any sense.” He took another drag off his cigarette. “ ‘A little more than kin, and less than kind.’ Then I wasn’t there anymore.”
“You walked out of the bar?” Bertie said.
“No. I just wasn’t there anymore. I wasn’t anywhere. About the time I was thinking what a terrible bore eternity in limbo was going to be, I realized I was in the lobby.” Hamlet detached himself from the wall, taking quite a lot of plaster dust with him,
and ambled toward the stairs that led up to the stage.
“That’s how Ophelia came back,” Bertie said. “Someone said her opening line.” Then she made a noise like the Mouse King squeaking.
“What is it?” Peaseblossom demanded, looking alarmed.
“Man overboard!” Bertie bellowed.
The fairies looked about them in confusion. “Where?”
Bertie clutched The Book to her chest and fixed a piercing gaze upon the Exit door. “Man overboard, man overboard! Work, damn it.”
“Nate’s line!” Peaseblossom said, comprehension dawning. “We can get him back!”
“We can!” Bertie hugged her hopes close. “Man overboard!”
“Man overboard!” the boys shouted.
“How long did it take,” Bertie demanded, turning to Hamlet, “between the throat-prickle and reappearing in the lobby?”
“A few seconds only,” Ophelia answered for him. “I finished reading his lines, the page reappeared in The Book, and he was transported to the Théâtre.”
“Man overboard!” Bertie waited, counting to ten. Her heart thudded in time with the passing seconds. “Man overboard!”
Peaseblossom tried to look hopeful. “Sedna probably took Nate miles and miles away, so it will take longer than a few seconds to bring him back.”
“That must be it.” Bertie refused to believe it wouldn’t work. “Assign his line to one of the Players and have him repeat it until Nate walks through the door!”
“Will do!” The fairies disappeared from sight.
Hamlet edged closer to whisper in her ear. “You are quite fetching when you’re domineering.”
Bertie elbowed him swiftly in the gut. “Don’t you dare put the moves on me, Mister Melancholy. Start acting those pages back into The Book, and if I see you so much as twitch toward that Exit door, I’ll poison you myself.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Toil and
Trouble
By the time Ariel returned with Bertie’s coffee, a sort of controlled pandemonium reigned. The Danish Prince and a group of Chorus Members read pages from Hamlet as quickly as they were found, while everyone else sorted and stacked the rest into their play-appropriate heaps. Each seat in the theater housed its own pile, and the constant motion of the Players was a gliding court dance set to the music of shuffling paper.