“Pah!” The girl—for she couldn’t have been older than eighteen—waved at Bertie with great enthusiasm. “I would sooner have dancing and music and a play than food.”
Ariel knew a cue when he heard one. “‘If music be the food of love, play on.’” He made her a lovely bow. “I take it you are the bride to be?”
She colored prettily under her flowered wreath. “I am.”
Ariel started to hum a song of spellbound honeybees. The air around him shimmered and turned faintly gold, and his familiars emerged to settle around his brow like a crown. When he lifted his hand to his hair, a perfectly white butterfly walked with delicate legs onto his finger.
“Oh, how lovely!” the bride exclaimed.
“Not so lovely as you.” Deftly transferring the compliment along with the unusual adornment to her carefully arranged curls, Ariel spoke with a purr. “Permit us, fair maiden, to work off our debt with songs and storytellings.”
Bertie broke between them. “Would you excuse us for a moment, please?” Without waiting for an answer, she grabbed Ariel by the arm and dragged him away. “Have you lost your mind? We can’t stop to sing for the fairies’ suppers—”
“Breakfasts.”
“Whatever!” Spinning like a compass needle, Bertie sought out the Scrimshander, though the growing cloud bank made it difficult to spot him. “I could be dragged off at any second!”
Behind them, the mechanical horses whickered, matching metallic whinnies that were a prologue to the rattle and shake of the caravan lurching forward. Bertie twisted around in time to see their clockwork livestock led away by a man with a blacksmith’s musculature.
“That’s ours!” she shouted as Waschbär’s nose peeped over the side. Bertie flapped a hand at him in a silent if agitated order to get down and stay put. “Just where are you taking that?”
“In lieu of payment for the damages.” But he halted, looking to the constable for orders.
“I didn’t say we’d trade the caravan!” Bertie tried to calculate how many people they might trample if she put the buggy whip to the mechanical horses.
“They are going to perform for us instead,” the bride said, intercepting the constable. “As part of the wedding celebration!”
“A limited engagement. One hour only!” Ariel nudged Bertie aside and ran back to the caravan, leaping atop it.
“Ah!” The constable and the blacksmith shared a whispered conversation that ended with the latter unhitching the horses and leading them away.
“Until the debt is paid,” the constable said in passing. “We’ll permit you to retain use of the caravan, since it no doubt stores your costumes and properties.”
“A thousand thanks, kind sir!” From one of the bags, Ariel had produced a black silk top hat. Buoyed by the shifting tides of excitement below his perch atop the driver’s seat, he rolled it deftly up one arm, across the back of his neck with a bounce, and down the other arm. “Ladies and Gentlemen, we are but a group of humble thespians, traveling the fair countryside in search of an audience to astound and amaze!”
Hat firmly in place, Ariel began juggling scarves of brown-patterned silk which, midair, transformed into flaming billets of wood.
“Oh!” said the crowd.
As the sticks turned into green-glass wine bottles, Bertie hoped the villagers’ subtext was “Oh! How amazing!” and not “Oh! They’re witches! Someone fetch the ducking stool!”
Ariel hasn’t been the King of All Games around me for a long time.
It was years ago that they’d crawled through the catwalks, played leapfrog over the auditorium chairs, whistled in scene changes that transported them to any fairyland they liked. Her nostalgia was short-lived, though, as the Scrimshander towed her several feet away from the crowd surrounding the performing air elemental. Contemplating a return to the lap belt, Bertie circled around to the side of the caravan.
Out of the corner of his smiling lips, Ariel hissed at her and the fairies, “Get a puppet show set up,” before raising his voice back to a ringmaster’s bellow. “We are performers of all sorts: mimes, mimics, and mummers, with a little magic thrown in for good measure!”
“I absolutely and unequivocally refuse to mime,” Cobweb announced, landing on Bertie’s shoulder.
She turned her head to glower at him. “You got us into this mess, you can help us get out of it.”
He deflated, but still managed a sassy “mimes are creepy. All that time spent not talking is unnatural.”
“Mimicking is fine,” Moth said, “but we don’t have enough bandages for mummers.”
“We could rip up some of the clothes,” Peaseblossom said. “I would like to be the Queen Mummer.”
They flew atop the caravan, where they put their little heads together and set to rummaging in the boxes and bags. Snippets of satin, sequins, and string drifted about them like gaily colored dust motes as they argued in undertones, pausing only to shout, “We need a stage!”
Casting about her for something that could serve as a performance area, Bertie asked “Will a hatbox do?”
“Cut a proscenium arch into the side for an opening!” Mustardseed ordered as the fairies pushed, shoved, pinched, and, in Moth’s case, bit Cobweb in the backside to be the first into the Dressing Room.
“You weevil-ridden bastard!” exclaimed Cobweb from the depths of the carpetbag decorated with vivid, pink roses.
“What’s a theater without a proscenium arch?” Bertie said with a dribble of sarcasm as she ducked into the caravan and rummaged in the drawers. A sudden tug from the Scrimshander landed her on her bum, hindering her search momentarily. In the mess on the floor, though, she located an ancient but wicked-sharp knife, the sort meant to cut meat tough as shoe leather and stale loaves of bread. Carrying it gingerly outside, she sat upon the stairs and braced the hatbox against her knees, sawing away at the cardboard until a scalloped proscenium arch emerged, somewhat crooked for her haste to finish and set the knife down before a wayward tug caused her to pull an inadvertent Juliet.
“Is the stage ready yet?” demanded the carpetbag.
“Only just.” Bertie placed the hatbox on an upturned barrel and dumped the contents of the talking luggage inside the miniature theater without further ceremony. As they took their places, she caught glimpses of trailing yarn and rouged cheeks. “Where’d you get the makeup?”
It was Peaseblossom who answered. “Moth found a lovely bit of red satin. When he spat on it enough, the color came off.”
“That was certainly creative, if not quite hygienic.”
“We are improvising, after all,” Peaseblossom said before rushing to whisper something in Ariel’s ear.
His patter drowned out even the fairies as he beguiled the crowd. “Marvel at the World Premiere of The Montagues and Capulets Are Dead! The first four rows are forewarned … there will be spatter!”
The children in the crowd detached from their parents and surged forward, drawn by the promise of bloodshed. The adults followed, and Bertie sidled over to Ariel to watch the performance.
After a bit of scuffling and a protest of “you’re standing on my costume,” the curtain went up. The fairies had tied bits of twine to their wrists and elbows for an ingenious sort of puppet show. Cavorting about the stage and posturing in wicked imitations of the other Players, they launched into their version of Romeo and Juliet with gusto.
“Two households, both alike in dignity …”
There were difficulties, of course. Their strings got tangled up in the fight scenes, and there was an unfortunate costume malfunction that exposed Moth’s nether regions to the audience.
“Your bum is showing!” Cobweb hissed at him.
“My what?”
“Your bottom!”
“Bottom is in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I thought we were doing Romeo and Juliet!”
“Your arse! Your arse is naked!”
Moth looked over his shoulder at it. “Fancy that! Why didn’t you say something?”
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Peaseblossom, left to handle all the women’s roles, handily managed to perform the scene with Juliet, her mother, and her nursemaid.
“The schizophrenia works for me, somehow,” Bertie whispered to Ariel.
He nodded his agreement. “I am horrified to admit that it has a certain perverse charm.”
The fairies then butchered themselves and the lines with enormous quantities of fake blood and groaning, killing every last Capulet and Montague, an acceptable revision as far as Bertie was concerned. The miniature actors took their curtain call to a hearty round of applause.
Less pleasant was the expectant hush that followed.
“My guess,” Ariel said in a low voice, “is that a puppet show and a bit of juggling isn’t going to settle our debt.”
“I’m at a loss as to what to suggest for an encore,” Bertie said, “because my guess is the fairies are out of fake blood.”
“Right then. There’s no helping it.”
“Helping what?”
“This.” He grinned and turned to the crowd. “The lovely Beatrice, Mistress of Revels, will now tell you a tale.”
All the villagers turned as one to scrutinize her, and Bertie froze, pinned against the side of the caravan by the unexpected nature of the attack. With a glance that inferred she would repay him thrice over for this fresh humiliation, Bertie managed to stammer, “I’ll be just a moment” before fleeing inside.
Bolting the door shut was her first priority, and lighting the tiny lantern her second. Cherry-tinted glass filtered the light. For half a heartbeat, Bertie was backstage at the Théâtre Illuminata again, where the red-gelled glow of the running lights was the color of secrets and compulsory quiet. She could almost hear the hushed whispers of the Players waiting in the wings.
The illusion was broken when she had to shove detritus out of the way with her foot in order to open the latch on the closet; while the backstage area smelled strongly of ironwork and rope, it lacked the musty, nostril-tickling tang of mothballs, and Mr. Tibbs would have never permitted it to remain in disarray.
The tiny alcove housed only one change of clothes, and though she half expected it, Bertie was still taken aback to see the Mistress of Revels’s costume hanging inside: the dress of emerald and black silk with embroidery extending from belt to hem, all moons and stars and mystic symbols. The metallic threads winked in the half-light, and Bertie reached out a hesitant hand to stroke it. A gentle jingling of metal proved to be the belt a-dangle with golden disks. The perfect costume for a rhymer, a singer, a Teller of Tales.
The same costume Mrs. Edith had worn all those years ago when, at the Theater Manager’s behest, she’d taken Infant Bertie away from the Théâtre. Away from Ophelia.
Closing the closet door, Bertie exchanged one persona for another, shucking her sadly tattered and muddied Opening Night dress and underthings. If wishes were washcloths, she would have bathed first, but she still managed to hurriedly splash off the worst of the frosting facial with the contents of a battered ewer. Only then did she reach for the Mistress of Revels’s vestments.
While she’d had the occasion to wear all sorts of costumes over the years, none of the spangled capes or thigh-high pirate boots changed Bertie so instantaneously. The moment the silk slithered over her skin, she was someone else: a person as much at home in royal halls as in the village. Campfire smoke kohl-rimmed her eyelids, while the kisses of a thousand courtiers reddened her cheeks and lips. Bertie found a pair of delicate golden sandals, perhaps more appropriate for the Pantheon than a village performance, yet the moment the long ribbons were tied, they were as much part of the ensemble as the countless bronze bangles she threaded on one arm.
When Bertie was done, someone else’s face stared back at her from the tiny, green-tinged mirror: the water-wavering image of another woman ready for her entrance.
I look like Ophelia, the ever-drowned, she of the broken memory.
No flowers twisted in her hair, no gown of floating chiffon, but the shape of Bertie’s face was the same, as was the tilt to her eyes, the bow of her rouged mouth. It seemed impossible she’d never noticed the similarities before, but makeup and lighting—the sort that illuminated thoughts as well as features—made all the difference indeed.
Turning away, Bertie went to slip the journal into her pocket and realized she was still without one. The alternatives—the waistband of her skirt or tucked into the golden belt—were woefully insecure. A second glance at the belt, and clarity jangled like the disks decorating its hem.
I can pay for the fairies’ damage with some of the gold disks!
Hastily adjusting her laces, Bertie managed to squeeze the journal down the front of her bodice. Then, with a deep breath that was almost a gasp, she quickly opened the door of the caravan.
During her hasty costume change, Waschbär had drawn the crowd off some distance with tales and tricks. Bertie spotted Ariel, his back to her as he supervised the sneak-thief’s turn, but before she could tell him about the money, a swift, dark shape dipped out of the sky. It caught hold of Bertie by the back of her fancy dress, talons scratching down her back as it gripped the fabric. The ground fell away from under her feet, her panicked scream lost to a sudden happy roar of the crowd, delighted by some new sleight of hand. There was only time for a single, fleeting glimpse of the troupe, the caravan, the village, before the Scrimshander tilted his massive wings and the trees stepped between Bertie and the possibility of a rescue.
With the wind rushing around them, the Scrimshander lifted her into the sky and spat with ill-concealed fury, “I never took you for a fool, Ophelia.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
You Should Be as Your Mother Was
A moment of twisting panic as Bertie kicked her gold-sandaled feet and tried desperately not to look down. “Take me back at once!”
“I will not,” was the grim response. “Then I will—” Here, a squawk threatened to swallow the words, but he forced them out. “I will return and carry Beatrice to the theater as well.”
About to shout that she’d pull every one of his feathers out if he did that, his words penetrated Bertie’s swirling haze of panic. “I’m not—”
“Oh, you are, make no mistake!” The Scrimshander’s furious shriek accompanied another surge in height, and the terrible noise was the ragged edge of Waschbär’s obsidian dagger jammed into Bertie’s ears. “Had I realized you were with her, I would have—”
“You would have what?” Seizing an unparalleled opportunity, Bertie took care to pitch her voice a scant measure higher, to soften the edges of her consonants. If it’s Ophelia he wants, Ophelia he gets. “You would have kidnapped me earlier?”
“It’s a rescue, whether you understand that or not.”
“A girl will wonder about her father.” Not entirely true, but it didn’t take a trained musician to pluck heartstrings, if only to slow him down a bit. “She simply wants to get to know you.”
“One so young knows not what she wants.” A noise of disgust, ill-muffled by another massive downbeat.
“You underestimate her.”
A moment of breathless gliding passed before he said, “I haven’t the luxury of entertaining any notion about her at all.”
Bertie’s stomach clenched. “Of course not. Easy enough to shove her back into the theater, to shove all your responsibilities aside.”
“Seeing the both of you to safety is my responsibility.”
“Careful now, you almost sound concerned.” Equal parts Ophelia and Bertie that time.
“Seventeen years since we parted, but some things are impossible to forget. Like the fact that there’s no reasoning with you when you’re in this stubborn mood.” The jewel-toned edges of his anger bled color so that, under the vehemence, there was a pale wistfulness.
She didn’t want to feel sympathy for him, but the same would-that-things-had-been-different pricked at the skin around her eyes. Quickly clasping one hand over the medallion, Bertie wiped angrily at her traitoro
us tears and running nose. The scrimshaw thrummed in response to her touch, a reverberation that moved through her and opened a space inside her chest.
The rhythm of flight settled into that empty place. Heartbeat and wing beats synchronized.
Pieces of her—including the useless, human fear of falling—tumbled to the sullen earth. Aspects of Ariel she’d never understood came into sharp focus as the air grew thin and infinitely more sweet. The wind kissed her skin until it glowed, and her thoughts grew more disjointed as she took in the quilt of the fields, the last sun-shimmer smothered on the horizon, the sky’s loom weaving gray yarn over fading blue.
She stretched out her arms, and time slipped from her grasp. Instead of minutes, hours, she noted the changing position of the sun, the distant presence of other birds, the subtle shifts in the air currents. Only when the Scrimshander adjusted his grip on her dress, scratching Bertie through the rents in the silk, did she recall her human form. A warm trickle wormed its way down her back where he’d drawn blood.
Then she remembered what it was like to fall. “Maybe we should land somewhere.”
He struggled to maintain their altitude. “It’s been some time since I carried you, but I promise I haven’t forgotten the knack of it.”
Below them, the terrain had changed. If her father was a stranger to her, the landscape was just as foreign and unfriendly: Water-filled marshes like holes poked in a pie crust, with ragged cattails and miserable, stunted trees growing at sporadic intervals.
I know it was full dark, but I would remember if we’d passed such pitiful excuses for trees last night.
“This isn’t the right way.”
“‘As the crow flies’ is faster than the twisted abomination of the road.” But his voice was strained, as though he carried more than her weight as a burden, and there was a sudden, stomach-knotting dip.
“You’re going to drop me!”
“Never.”
But the word was a lie; she could feel it in her bones. Bertie reached up, trying to catch hold of something besides thin reassurances, and the journal wiggled its way free of her bodice, spiraling away like a pirouetting ballerina. As she twisted about, trying to see where it had fallen, they encountered another air pocket and plummeted toward the ground. When Bertie screamed, abject terror stripped away the thin veneer of her mother.