“No, it couldn’t,” Ned answered, obviously horrified at the suggestion.
“But, yes, listen.” Imogene stood as tall as a frog wearing a wig of feathers could and recited:
“ . . . beneath the cover of the creeping fog . . .
Fly, fly, and tell him thus, my faithful frog.”
“That makes no sense,” Ned objected.
“As much sense as your version.”
Ned looked appalled that anyone could say such a thing.
Imogene continued, “And my way helps that one line about the new fallen snow, where there are too many syllables.”
“That’s why it’s new fall’n snow,” Ned said, swallowing the last syllable of fallen.
Imogene opened her mouth to protest some more, but Ned cut her off. “I am the writer,” he told her. “You are the actor.”
“I,” she corrected him, “am the frog who is being made to look ridiculous.” She thought about that for a moment, realized what she’d just said, and changed that to “the princess who is being made to look ridiculous.” She once more mentally ran through the lines, then added, “But surely those words are spoken to the crow, not by the crow?”
Ned inclined his head in agreement. “They are spoken by Stoc, the dwarf lord.”
“And do I answer?”
“No. But four scenes later you deliver the message. You must remember to speak slowly, loudly, and to enunciate, so that even those in the back rows can hear.” Looking well pleased with himself, Ned declaimed:
“Lord Stoc of the talons, your greatest foe,
has sent you this message for you to hear:
Those who would save you lie dead in the snow,
their blood like rosebuds n’er destined to bloom,
beneath the cover of the new fall’n snow.
You are alone, my king—they cannot come.
Thus I have spoken, his messenger crow.”
When it became clear there was no more, Imogene said, “That’s it? That’s just a reworking of what Stoc said.”
Apparently, Ned knew this already. “Well, yes, the messenger crow has been sent to deliver a message. That is, in fact, why it is called a messenger crow and not a why-don’t-you-go-visit-the-king-and-tell-him-whatever-your-little-crow-heart-desires crow.”
“You don’t need to raise your voice,” Imogene told Ned. “I understand what you’re saying from a messenger point of view. I’m just saying that—from a play point of view—does the audience want to hear the same thing it’s already heard before?” Imogene thought she was being tactful with his writerly feelings by not saying “the same foolish thing,” but apparently this wasn’t enough.
“Just say the lines the way I’ve written them,” Ned snapped. “I will decide if and when they need to be changed. You’re just lucky I could think of any part for you.”
He’d written the role specifically for her, Imogene knew. The crow had been mentioned before—a necessary plot device to explain how King Rexford knew not to wait for the men he had sent for at the end of act two—but the crow had never actually appeared before. How could it have? Ned could never have dreamed he’d have someone on hand who was the right size to play a crow.
Still, lucky wasn’t the word that came to Imogene’s mind.
But she did start to feel as though things might be looking up when Ned told her he wanted the people of Balton Keep to see her up close—and without her silly costume, thank goodness—before her debut in the play, so that they could truly appreciate that she wasn’t just a trick of stagecraft. People who could be expected to know about stagecraft was a good sign. They would be a more sophisticated group than the farmers and few tradespeople of St. Eoforwic and Mayfield. They wouldn’t easily swallow a story about a frog who was—as Ned always said so dramatically—Princess of the Frog Pond, and who just happened to know how to talk.
While Imogene doubted King Salford or his queen would come to a performance such as theirs, at the very least she could expect him to hear about it and to recognize her name. He might question the idea of a frog who claimed to be the stolen-away princess of a neighboring realm—especially if news of her disappearance had reached here.
In any case, it was the best chance she’d had since Luella and Bertie had made off with her. So she started out hopeful when, once more, Ned gathered in a crowd by chatting with the local children.
As ever, Ned talked to Imogene, then held her up to his ear for her “answers,” until some child—this time it was a sweet little boy who almost broke Imogene’s heart by reminding her so much of her little brother, Will—complained that he couldn’t hear.
“Come closer, Tom,” Ned said once he’d found out the child’s name, and then he held Imogene up so that she could whisper, “Hello, Tom.”
But this time, after the child proclaimed that the frog did, indeed, talk, Ned interrupted the hooting of the older children by saying, “Now, let me tell you something about my frog. This is not an ordinary frog—as Tom here can attest. For, as you fine people have so rightly indicated”—he held his arm out to include them all—“frogs can’t talk. Absolutely. You are entirely correct. What an outstanding audience.”
The change was a little one, the kind Ned called “a tweaking,” and disconcerting only because it came so close to where she was normally called on to start speaking. Imogene waited for him to work his way back to the part she knew.
Ned asked, “So how can my frog talk? Well, let me tell you: He’s no ordinary frog.”
He? Imogene’s tiny frog eardrums quivered. What?
But her eardrums were downright vibrating when Ned leaned forward and told them, “He’s a prince.”
What?
“His name is Jack.”
WHAT?
Ned said, “So, now, my fine people, you tell me: How would a prince like Jack turn into a frog?”
And all the younger children and quite a few of the older ones shouted, “Witch!” and “Magic!” and “Magical spell!”
Then, finally—finally—Ned turned back to Imogene and said, “Tell the people your full name, Prince Jack.”
Imogene stamped her foot. “I am not Prince Jack. I am Princess Imogene Eustacia Wellington.”
The crowd howled.
“Oh dear,” Ned said. “It sounds as though being turned into a frog has gotten Prince Jack confused about quite a few things.”
Even more laughter.
“I am not Jack!” Imogene said in her loudest croak. “I am not a boy! This man has kidnapped me and stolen me from my home. My parents, King Wellington and Queen Gloriane, will give a great reward to anyone who returns me to them. Tell King Salford about me!”
Was there ever a more appreciative audience? The more she shouted that King Salford must be told, the more the audience cheered.
Until, finally, without even doing the bit about talking like other animals, Ned took pity on her—or, more likely, decided to leave the crowd while they were still wildly enthusiastic for more. He told them, “Pay heed during our play. Prince Jack has a small but important part in act three.” As Ned carried her back to the cart while the other actors dispersed among the crowd with outstretched hats, she heard some of those adults who knew about stagecraft asking each other, “How did they do that?” And the answer was . . .
“He must be one of them new ventriloquy artists.”
Imogene covered her face and moaned. This just kept getting worse and worse.
There was still no sign of Luella, but the other actors continued to collect coins from the crowd, who were eager to show their appreciation of the act, when Ned set her down in the pot of water. Although this cooled her skin, it did not cool her temper.
“Just for that,” she announced, “I am not performing in your play.”
“Don’t pout and be unpleasant,” Ned told her. “They wouldn’t have believed you anyway. I just made things more entertaining.”
“You made me look like a crazy person.”
“Well . . .
” Ned actually had a pleasant laugh—except that he was laughing at her. “ . . . maybe a crazy frog . . .”
“That’s not funny.”
“Still,” Ned said, “you must perform. Otherwise I might have to drain the water from this pot and leave you to grow dry. What would that gain either of us?”
Imogene climbed onto her rock, then dove off, intentionally splashing him.
It wasn’t that big a splashing, and Imogene caused no damage to Ned’s King Rex costume. Ned told her, “I’ll take that as a disgruntled acceptance of my terms.”
Imogene kept swimming and refused to answer.
Suddenly a shadow fell over her, like a cloud passing across the sun. Only it wasn’t a cloud, it was a scarf—and Ned was positioning it to cover the opening of the cauldron. Seeing her noticing him, Ned said, “I am aware that your promise to not try to escape was given to Luella. And that you might perhaps no longer feel bound to that promise since dear Luella no longer graces our company. This is just a little safeguard until we come to our own arrangement, you and I.”
Imogene was so very angry, she decided that she’d be foolish not to try anything she could. “I agree,” she said.
Ned quirked an eyebrow at her.
“Shall we kiss to seal the arrangement?” she asked.
Ned tipped his head—looking at her. Evaluating. Considering.
Imogene’s breath caught. She hadn’t really expected this might work. Could it? Possibly?
Instead of fastening the scarf, Ned reached into the water and held her in the palm of his hand. For the first time in days, she let herself dare to hope.
Ned looked directly into her eyes. Then, again, gave his low, throaty laugh. “Not a chance,” he told her.
Luella still had not returned by the time the play started, and Imogene guessed that was final proof the farm girl must be well and truly gone.
“Don’t you miss her?” she asked Bertie, as he plopped Imogene into her costume and drew it up so that only her face showed.
Bertie, great sentimentalist that he had turned out to be, said, “The play must go on.”
For all that it seemed overwrought and overwritten to Imogene, The Valiant Adventures of King Rexford the Bold and How He Rescued the Beauteous and Virtuous Queen Orelia from the Underground Halls of the Evil Dwarf Lord Stoc of the Red Talons appeared to be going well. The stage was actually just a clearing in the middle of the square. Scaffolding that could be rotated and that was draped with various gauzy fabrics stood in for walls to indicate the changing scenes. The crowd cheered every time King Rexford appeared, booed every time the dwarf Lord Stoc came on, and whistled and yelled, “Nice ankles!” at Bertie as Queen Orelia, wearing the noticeably too tight, too short dress.
Imogene had to be in all those scenes that took place in the dwarves’ underground citadel, even though she had no lines for the first two acts. She just sat in the birdcage that hung from a bracket that was fastened to the scaffolding. In her first scene, she heard several of the children call and point her out. (“Look, it’s the frog! It’s the frog that thinks it’s a princess, pretending to be a bird!”) Which was sweet, even if in an annoying sort of way, and made her want to please the children. Even though all four of her feet were encased in the feathery pouch, she managed to give a little hop, which she thought a caged crow might do. But apparently the actor who was playing Lord Stoc thought that distracted the audience from his lines at the time, and when next he passed close to her cage, he hissed at her, “Stay to the script!”
Then came act three.
Bertie—who didn’t have much to do in the third act, and so was helping behind the scenes—came up and tied a string to what, previously, Imogene had thought was just a loose bit of thread in her costume. Now she suddenly realized there were two loops, one under each of her wings, and that certainly looked intentional.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Bertie assured her.
“What do you mean nothing?” She tried to see where the strings he’d just attached to her led, but she could not.
Ned went “Ssst!” at her, since two actors were on the other side of the curtains, engaged in a scene.
Bertie placed Imogene in the crow cage, with the strings hanging outside and leading . . . leading . . .
Imogene kept leaning this way and that, trying to determine where the other ends of the string were attached, but Ned went, “Ssst!” again, and the town lads who had been hired to turn the scaffolding when needed now picked it up and swiveled it to reveal to the audience the gray curtains that signified “underground.”
Imogene’s cage was still swaying from the scene change when she realized that Lord Stoc was already delivering his lines to her. He said “fallen snow” instead of “fall’n snow,” which gave the line too many beats, and for which Ned would surely rebuke him, since Imogene had heard them specifically discuss this. But then Lord Stoc was saying:
“You are alone, my king—they cannot come.
Fly, fly, and tell him thus, my faithful crow.”
Imogene was expecting the scaffolding to be turned again, onto what was supposed to be the forest glade where the next scene took place. Not that anybody had actually told her this would happen. But what else could be done when there was a frog playing the part of a crow?
Except, instead, Lord Stoc flung open the door to the cage.
“What?” Imogene whispered at him.
He mouthed the word Fly! at her, then tugged at her dangling strings, which dragged her to the very edge of the cage’s opening.
Fly?
And then suddenly Imogene was lifted into the air.
It was sort of like falling—except, of course, without the ultimate release of hitting the ground. Which would have been a relief, compared to the sensation of never-ending hurtling through the air. “Rrr-bitt!” Imogene cried. Obviously, this was not the right thing for a crow to say, even if she hadn’t already been warned about not deviating from the script. The strings, she finally saw, were attached to a wooden pole that Bertie, behind the curtain, held: dipping it and swaying it and oh-my-goodness spinning it to simulate flight.
Well, not so much flight as bouncing in the air.
The crowd whistled and stamped their feet in appreciation, apparently willing to forgive her startled out-of-character outcry.
Imogene was sure she was going to die. If not from the flying itself, then from the fright. She was sure she didn’t breathe once. If she could have closed her eyes, she would have. At the very least, she wanted to let go of the edge of the pouch so that the material would slip up and encase her entirely. That way she wouldn’t have to watch. But she couldn’t get her froggy fingers to loosen.
Then, finally, the scaffolding was turned, ending Imogene’s ordeal.
Ned, standing off to the side, mimed clapping his hands to show that, all in all, he was pleased.
Well, a good thing somebody was.
“I hate you!” she croaked.
He pointed to his ear and shrugged to indicate he couldn’t hear above the still-cheering crowd.
“We’re not going to do that again, are we?” she asked, as Bertie tucked her back into the crow cage for safekeeping until her next scene.
Bertie was too busy fidgeting with his ill-fitting dress to answer.
Or maybe, Imogene thought, he just didn’t want to answer.
Because otherwise he probably would have unfastened the strings from the pole.
“Frogs are not meant to fly!” she croaked. But he—and all the other busy actors, too—ignored her.
Sure enough, when Ned was on stage as King Rexford in the tower prison, Bertie came to fetch her. There was a gap in the curtains, signifying a window, and Imogene could guess what was coming next.
She knew it was no use begging for mercy. The most she could do was to tell Bertie, “Easy with the swooping.”
“Yes, yes,” he said. “I’m a trained professional.”
Which migh
t have been more of a consolation if he hadn’t tripped over the skirt of his dress as he said it.
“You’ve pulled the hem out,” Imogene observed.
“It was too short. It was distracting to the audience.”
“Well, now it’s too long. And it’s ragged.”
“Yes, well . . .” Bertie looked down at the hem. “You don’t happen to know how to sew, do you?”
“That’s not going to happen,” Imogene told him. “Just walk carefully.”
Bertie had a bit of advice for her, too. “And you, even though you’re speaking your lines to King Rexford, make sure you face outward, toward the audience, or they won’t be able to hear you.”
And the next thing she knew, she was hoisted into the air and Bertie swung her around into the scene so the audience could see her.
“Yay! It’s the frog prince!” the children shouted.
Imogene saw a flicker of displeasure cross Ned’s face: annoyance at the disruption. Well, what had he expected, casting a frog in the role of a crow?
Ned spoke the lines of her cue:
“Hark! What dark-omened portent can this be?
Could’t be mine own death, come looking for me?”
Even while Imogene winced at the mangling that forced “Could it be” into two syllables, even while she was still soaring through the air, she took a deep breath (it was hard to tell what direction she was facing), and—with her voice shaking only a little bit, both for the flying and the acting—she started her own lines:
“Lord Stoc—”
Hiding behind the scaffolding so that he couldn’t be seen—but also couldn’t see—Bertie sent Imogene smack against the gray curtain below the opening that signified the window. Face first. Which meant she had been pointing in the wrong direction. Still, being loose fabric, this was more disorienting than painful—but the curtain was supposed to be passing for stonework, so quite a few people in the audience called out comments like “Ow! That must’ve hurt!”