The Juliet Spell
Douglas Rees
I’m Juliet. At least, I wanted to be. So I did something stupid to make it happen.Well, stupid and wonderful. I wanted the role of Juliet more than anything. I studied hard. I gave a great reading for it (even with Bobby checking me out the whole time). I deserved the part. I didn’t get it. So I decided to level the playing field, though I actually might have leveled the whole play.You see, since there aren’t any Success in Getting to Be Juliet in Your High School Play spells, I thought I’d cast the next best—a Fame spell. Good idea, right? Yeah. Instead of bringing me a little fame, it brought me someone a little famous. Shakespeare. Well, Edmund Shakespeare. William’s younger brother.Good thing he’s sweet and enthusiastic about helping me with the play…and—ahem—maybe a little bit hot. But he’s from the past. Way past. Cars amaze him—cars! And cell phones? Ugh. Still, there’s something about him that’s making my eyes go star-crossed.…
I set everything out on the kitchen table and said the spell. “Powers that be, harken to me. Send me success in the thing I confess. To the universe proffering, I make this offering. I want to be Juliet. Please, please, please, please, please. Make me Juliet.”
And I lit the match.
There was a quiet whoosh and orange flames licked up all over my little volcano. The red cube burned. It was pretty. Very theatrical.
But it was casting too much light. And for some reason, the light was coming from over my head.
I jerked my head up and saw a bright white glow hanging about three feet over the table, right over my flame.
“Aaah?” I said. Or something like that.
And with the bright light came a sound like a low bass note that turned into a sort of rumbling thrill, something like an earthquake.
Everyone in California knows what you’re supposed to do when a quake hits. You stand in a doorway. And that’s what I did, even though this was no quake and I knew it. I clutched the door frame with both hands while the white light suddenly filled the whole kitchen, so bright I couldn’t see anything. There was a bang, and the light was gone.
My baking dish was shattered. It lay in two exact halves on the floor. Smoke curled up from each one of them, but there was no crust. They were clean as a pair of very clean whistles.
But that was not the main thing I noticed. No, the main thing I noticed was the tall young man standing on the table in the middle of my glass round. He was about my age, and for some reason he was dressed in tights and boots and a big poofy shirt like he was supposed to be in a play like, say, Romeo and Juliet.
He even looked a little like Shakespeare.
Long hair, a bit of a beard…
I screamed.
The Juliet Spell
Douglas Rees
www.miraink.co.uk (http://www.miraink.co.uk)
To Carol Wolf
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
HISTORICAL NOTE
QUOTES NOTE
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
“Miranda Hoberman.”
That was me. My turn. My chance. My audition. Now. With all the cool I could muster, which felt like exactly none, I left my seat and climbed up onto the stage.
Down in the front row, Mr. Gillinger glared at me, looked at my audition sheet and glared at me again.
“You’re reading for Juliet?” he drawled in his deep voice.
“Yes,” I gulped.
“Very well, go ahead.”
Bobby Ruspoli grinned, sizing me up. He was already Romeo, and everyone knew it. It just hadn’t been announced, yet. Mr. Gillinger would post his name along with the rest of the cast on the theater office door tomorrow or the next day. But we all knew he was Romeo before the play was ever announced, the way people in drama know who’s going to get what, when the fix is in. So with that weight off his mind, handsome Bobby was checking out every girl who might be his Juliet.
As if I wasn’t nervous enough. As if I hadn’t been studying this part every day since it had been announced that we were doing Romeo and Juliet. As if I hadn’t spent the last week lying awake nights worrying and thinking about how to do this moment better, I had to have Bobby checking out my boobs and butt. As if—
“Begin,” Mr. Gillinger commanded.
Bobby shrugged, inhaled, the way he’d seen real actors do in some of the acting DVDs we’d watched in class, and announced:
“He jests at scars that never felt a wound.”
Then he looked up, like I was hanging from one of the Fresnel lamps that were glaring down on us, instead of standing right in front of him, shaking.
“But soft! What light is this that through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief
That thou her maid art far more fair than she….”
He rattled off the next nineteen lines of the speech exactly the way he had done them all afternoon, racing down to:
“O that I were a glove upon thy hand, that I might touch that cheek.”
My turn. My line: “Ay me!”
I know, it sounds lame. But I said it like I wanted to die. Because that’s how Juliet feels right then. But had it been too much?
Bobby went on, “She speaks.”
Out in the auditorium, someone giggled.
Bobby continued.
“Oh, speak again, bright angel, for thou art
As glorious to this night, being o’er my head,
As is a winged messenger of heaven
Unto the white upturned wond’ring eyes
Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him,
When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds
And sails upon the bosom of the air.”
Me again. My first real line in the scene. The one everybody knows—usually wrong: “O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?”
You probably thought Juliet was asking where Romeo is, right? Wrong. She has no idea he’s anywhere around. He’s just been thrown out of the party her father was giving. He’s gone. She’s asking why the guy’s name has to be Romeo, and the next lines make that clear.
“Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.”
“Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?” Bobby asked the invisible balcony where Juliet was supposed to be standing. Me:
“’Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What’s a Montague?—”
“Thank you,” Mr. Gillinger said. Like he was saying “Thank you for shutting up now, please.”
“Auh?” I said. I was kind of surprised. That was an awfully short audition.
“Let’s see. Next. Vivian Brandstedt. Also Juliet, right?” Mr. Gillinger said.
I got down off the stage. I was done. I could leave. But I wanted to see what the rest of my competition looked like.
I went to the far back of the auditorium and moved into a corner seat.
Vivian Brandstedt slithered up onstage and began to play Juliet like she’d been the hottest babe in Verona. It was funny, except that Vivian really was a hot babe, so nobody thought it was funny but me. Certainly Bobby didn’t. He fluffed his lines twice. Of course, it was hard for him to talk with his tongue hanging out of his mouth like that.
Mr. Gillinger let Vivian go on all the way to the end of the scene. He even read the nurse’s offstage lines to keep the thing going to the point where Juliet says,
“Good night, good night. Parting is such sweet sorrow That I shall say good night till it be morrow.”
And Vivian wasn’t bad. She just read it like she was tossing Romeo down her panties and her room key.
Why, why, why hadn’t Mr. Gillinger let me read the whole scene? Was I that bad, or was I so good that he didn’t need to see any more of me? Or was Juliet pre-cast like Romeo?
There was a noise down at the end of the row and a shape came toward me. Drew Jenkins.
He sat down beside me and whispered, “You were good. You get it.”
Then he got up and went back down to the front row where he’d been.
I was absurdly grateful. Drew Jenkins, for reasons nobody could understand, was total BF best friends with Bobby Ruspoli, and if Drew liked me, maybe Bobby did, too. And maybe Bobby would say so to Mr. Gillinger and maybe—or maybe Drew had inside information. Maybe “You get it” meant “I just saw Gillinger’s notes. You’ve got the part,” not just “You get who Juliet is in this scene.” Or maybe Drew had some kind of weird hold over Mr. Gillinger and was going to make him cast me—Drew was kind of mysterious for a sixteen-year-old geek. He knew all kinds of things. Maybe he had something on Gillinger, like an old arrest for marrying his own ego.
I forced myself to stop thinking like that. I didn’t want the part because Bobby Ruspoli liked me, or even because Mr. Gillinger did (which would be amazing, since Mr. Gillinger thought he should be directing on Broadway and didn’t like anybody). I wanted to play Juliet because I was the best actor who read for it, not because some guy hanging out with some guy thought I was good.
Which is not to say I wouldn’t have taken the part under any conditions. Play Juliet in Swahili? I’ll learn it.
But if I wasn’t going to think about whether Drew’s opinion counted with Bobby and Bobby’s opinion counted with Mr. Gillinger, or whatever, what was I going to think about? I was going to think about why I hadn’t been allowed to finish the scene. Of course.
Had I said “Ay me,” too loudly, or not loudly enough? Had I sounded convincing when I said “Wherefore art thou Romeo?” Did I even sound like I knew what it meant? Yes, I had. No, I hadn’t. Yes, I—
He likes me, he likes me not. He likes me, he likes me not. That was what it came down to, and I couldn’t stop obsessing even though I knew it was all out of my hands.
Two more girls read for Juliet that afternoon. They were both awful. I’m not just saying that. They were awful. One read like she was reciting a recipe: “Take one part Romeo and one part Juliet and stir until done. Then separate and—”
And the other was total emo.
“O Romeo, Romeo WHY ART THOU CALLED ROMEO?”
(Which is not the line, right?)
“DENY thy father and REFUSE thy NAME;
Or if thou wilt NOT, be but sworn my LOVE,
And I’ll no LONGER BE A CAPULET.”
When she was done, and the stage was awash in her saliva, Mr. Gillinger stood up. He looked over the fifty or so of us sitting there, people from his drama classes, people from outside the high school who’d come down to read in the middle of the day—a half-hundred theater junkies, hanging on his every word.
He seemed to be enjoying it. I always thought this moment, when his opinion was the only thing that counted to a roomful of people, was the real reason Gillinger had decided to teach drama. Or maybe it was just the only reason he had left, after so many years of doing it. Anyway, I’d been watching him direct for a couple of years now and something about the set of his once-handsome head always said “God, I’m good.” He didn’t even need to open his mouth to be arrogant.
Gillinger sighed. “I’m not seeing what I want here. I’m not seeing what I need to see at all. Some of you know I didn’t want to do this play. It was forced on me by the administration when they wouldn’t approve my plans to produce The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus with the nude scenes. They said they’d permit the production only if everyone stayed fully clothed. I said the play had been successfully produced with the roles of Helen of Troy, and the Devil Woman, unclothed any number of times since the 1960s. They said there were children—meaning you high-school students—involved in the play. I said that I had no intention of casting Helen as anything but what she was, a woman of twenty-three to thirty-three. And as for the Devil Woman, she could be any age. She is, after all, a demon. Demons are ageless.
“They said that didn’t matter, everyone would have to stay dressed. I asked if they really thought that the children to whom they alluded had never seen a naked human body, when they could call up images involving every possible configuration of lust on the electronic goodies that they carried in their pockets, and study them. They said that didn’t matter, either, as long as they didn’t do it on school grounds. I said I wouldn’t do the play any other way. They said, in that case, I would have to do something else, and I said, in that case, you’ll have to decide what it is. Right now. What play, in your vast wisdom and deep knowledge of classical theater will you permit to be staged at this school? They said the first thing that came into their heads, and that thing was Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare’s most overrated piece of hackwork. Probably, it is the only work of Shakespeare’s that they have ever heard of.”
Gillinger sighed again and closed his eyes. “The point is, if I am going to do this show at all, I am going to do it right. I will not, repeat, not, be satisfied with anything less than an outstanding production. And that, unfortunately, will require at least some outstanding actors. Now, I’ve seen a few of you who are—good. I’ve seen a few more who aren’t bad. And many of you will do for the servants. This play is, after all, servant central. But there are key roles that cannot be filled by anyone I’ve seen so far.
“Fortunately, since this production is being funded by a grant from the city, it is, as you all know, open to the community at large. Thus, I do not have to cast just from the shallow talent pool at dear old Steinbeck High. So I’m doing something I’d rather not do, but which the lack of talent in this entire community is forcing on me. I am, in desperation, extending tryouts one more day. Go home, tell your friends if they have any acting ability at all to get down here and save this show. Otherwise—” He shrugged.
Maybe that meant “Otherwise I will not direct anything, and take the consequences.” Maybe it didn’t mean anything. Gillinger strode off into the wings with his jacket trailing from his shoulders like a cape.
That was it. We were done here. All over the theater there were thumping sounds as the seats went up and people started for the doors.
I slung my backpack and slid down the row to the aisle.
Bobby and Drew passed me.
“Break it,” Bobby said with a grin and a nod in my direction. This was Bobby’s version of “break a leg,” which is what theater types wish each other for luck before a show, which this wasn’t. But Bobby said “break it” any time. He thought it made him sound like a professional.
Drew gave me a thumbs-up, then flashed two fingers side by side.
What was that supposed to mean?
All the way home I wondered about that.
If it didn’t mean some weird sex thing, which was virtually unthinkable given how straight-edge Drew seemed to be, it probably was supposed to mean, “I think you’re the best one. But it’s between you and one other.”
Food for thought. Or, actually, dessert for obsession. If I was one, who was the other? Vivian the Terminally Hot? Or was it somebody who’d read the day before, when I couldn’t come to tryouts? Who would that have been? Were they even in our school?
Blah, blah, blah. I wished, in a brief rational moment, that I had a different head with something else in it. But we are all stuck with the heads we have, and mine was trying to think of anything I could do that I hadn’t already done to get that part.
This was not entirely and completely because I was a total drama nerd who only cared about getting a lead. That was a lot of it—but I had a reason all my own that nobody else did.
My mother had never played Juliet.
Right now you’re thinking, “So what? My mother never played Juliet. Nobody’s mother I know ever played Juliet. And none of the mothers’ mothers ever played Juliet. Your mother is right on track.” Which would be true, except that, before she was a nurse, my mother was an actor.
You never heard of her. Which means she was just like ninety-nine and nine-tenths percent of all the actors in America. But she went to Juilliard, and when she graduated she came out to the West Coast and joined what they call The I-5 Repertory Company.
The I-5 is the freeway that runs between Seattle and San Diego, and there are actors who make their living—or almost make a living—moving up and down it. There’s a lot of theater in Seattle, some in Portland, and there’s the Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon, which is huge. There’s work in San Francisco and Sacramento and Los Angeles and San Diego if you can get it, and there are side trips to places like Austin.
That’s what my mother did for eight years. She was good, she was pretty and twice she was nearly cast as Juliet, once in Ashland and once in San Diego.
When she turned thirty and she was still just almost making a living, and she gave up acting and went into a nursing program, the one regret she had was that she’d never played that part.
She’d plowed though nursing school, which she loved, gotten out and found work right away at Bannerman Hospital here in Guadalupe, California, met my dad and had me. And I’d caught the acting bug from her, and we’d all been happier than most people I knew, until my dad, who had a Ph.D. in psychology, decided he needed to “develop as an individual” and told Mom he was taking off.
I hadn’t seen him since ninth grade. That was almost two years. As far as we knew, he was wandering around America, sometimes working, sometimes not. Once in a while, we got a postcard.
Mom and I kept hoping he’d come back.
If I could play Juliet, I would give my performance to my mom. I would put it in the program as a dedication and say something nice. In one way, it wouldn’t be much. But in another way, it would be gigantic. It would be a way of saying “I love you” in big, fat, Elizabethan letters.
When I got home, the house was quiet. No surprise there. Mom was working a double shift over at Bannerman and wasn’t supposed to be home until tomorrow morning. But the note on the bulletin board where we communicated with each other was surprising:
CHILD SUPPORT! Your dad paid up. That means this is my last double shift at the hospital for a while. I’ll be home tomorrow about seven-thirty. Who knows? I might even see you before you go to school. It’d be nice to touch base with you again before you graduate.
Love,
Mom
My parents weren’t divorced. If they’d been divorced, things might actually have been better for us. Then at least we’d have had the law on our side when Dad didn’t pay the money he’d promised to help keep me alive. But they were just “separated.” He paid when he paid. Which was somewhere between not often and never. And when he did pay, it wasn’t much. But today there was a check on the fridge, and it was big. Almost a whole year’s back cash for the privilege of not seeing me.
I tried to ignore the pang that gave me, and thought about the good things that the money would mean. A dinner out with Mom to celebrate was one thing for sure. And some new school clothes. And some bills paid off. And Mom working eight hours a day instead of sixteen, at least for a while. Thank you, Daddy, wherever you are. For a few minutes, I wasn’t thinking about playing/not playing Juliet.
But then I was again.
The child support was a sign. When you’re an actor, everything is a sign of something else. Actors are the most superstitious people on the planet. And it was obviously a good sign. Anything I did now to move things in my direction would work. That’s what I told myself.
And it made me think of something else. A whole new obsession. Maybe, if I played Juliet, my dad would come home. I mean, I’d tried out, and here was the child support. Therefore, if I got the part, he’d come back. Perfectly logical.
This is what shrinks like Dad call fantasizing. They will tell you that it is immature and a sign of emotional distress. They will also tell you that it doesn’t work.
But I had nothing to lose by believing it. And fantasy is only fantasy if it doesn’t work. So I went into my room and got out my spell kit.
I’d read about spell kits the year before in a book called Spellcraft For the Average Teen. The writer, who called herself Aurora Skye, had written a sort-of cookbook for how to get things you wanted. And I’d put mine together and started using it daily.
What did I want? I wanted my father to come home. And I’d cast spells for it for over a month, every afternoon when Mom wasn’t home, which was pretty much all of them. They were called drawing spells, because they were supposed to draw the person to you.
You do not need me to tell you how well they worked. Daddy was still out there somewhere. But now was different. There was that check. That big check that meant he’d remembered us. Remembered me. So, fantasizing said, it was time. Aurora Skye said it, too. If a spell didn’t work, she wrote over and over again, don’t give up. Keep casting and the spell will work in its own time. Today, right now, I believed it.
So I got out the cardboard box where I kept the odds and ends you needed to cast spells and flipped open the book to Spells For Success. The chapter had a lot of subheadings: Success in Love, Success in Sports, Success on Tests, but nothing that specifically said Success in Getting Cast as Juliet. The closest I could come was Success in Becoming Famous.
First, draw a perfect circle eighteen inches across. (Everyone who’s taken geometry for a day knows there’s no such thing in real life as a perfect circle. This is probably the second-best escape clause anybody ever had for when something magical doesn’t work. The best is, “It must not be time.” But what I had for a circle was a round eighteen-inch piece of glass, a little tabletop I’d gotten at the garden section of a hardware store. It was better than anything I could have drawn.)
Next, mix ½ cup Epsom salts and ¼ cup rubbing alcohol in a baking dish. Form into a volcano shape. (This was pretty much the equivalent of bake at 350 degrees, apparently. Most of the spells started this way.)
Place in the cone of the volcano one cube of sugar dyed red. (I had a few left over from last year. They were faded to a sort of brown now, but I wasn’t in a mood to be fussy. They’d been red once.)
Place the dish in the exact center of the circle. (Ah, yes. There’s that word again. Exact. I lined it up with a ruler on four sides. But how could anything ever be exactly exact?)
Say the following spell: “Powers that be, harken to me. Send me success in the thing I confess. To the universe proffering, I make this offering.” Then say what it is that you want.
Light the volcano with an ordinary wooden match that has been blessed by a Practitioner. (A Practitioner is what the book calls people who sell stuff for spells. I had a box of Practitioner Matches with three left in it.)
When the alcohol is consumed, a thick crust will be left in the bottom of the dish. The crust is the obstacles in your path burned away. When the dish has cooled, remove this reverently to the trash.
I set everything out on the kitchen table and said the spell. “Powers that be, harken to me. Send me success in the thing I confess. To the universe proffering, I make this offering. I want to be Juliet. Please, please, please, please, please. Make me Juliet.”
And I lit the match.
There was a quiet whoosh and orange flames licked up all over my little volcano. The red cube burned. It was pretty. Very theatrical.
But it was casting too much light. And for some reason, the light was coming from over my head, like a stage light.
I jerked my head up and saw a bright white glow hanging about three feet over the table, right over my flame.
“Aaah?” I said. Or maybe Uuuuuh? Anyway it was something like that.
And with the bright light came a sound like a low bass note that turned into a sort of rumbling thrill, something like an earthquake.
Everyone in California knows what you’re supposed to do when a quake hits. You stand in a doorway. And that’s what I did, even though this was no quake and I knew it. I clutched the door frame with both hands while the white light suddenly filled the whole kitchen, so bright I couldn’t see anything. There was a bang, and the light was gone.
My baking dish was shattered. It lay in two exact halves on the floor. Smoke curled up from each one of them, but there was no crust. They were clean as a pair of very clean whistles.
But that was not the main thing I noticed. No, the main thing I noticed was the tall young man standing on the table in the middle of my glass round. He was about my age, and for some reason he was dressed in tights and boots and a big poofy shirt like he was supposed to be in a play like, say, Romeo and Juliet.
He even looked a little like Shakespeare.
Long hair, a bit of a beard… I screamed.
He smiled, held up one hand, got down on one knee, bowed his head to me and said some words in a language I didn’t understand.
“Speak English,” I said.
The boy looked up, shocked. “Ye’re never Helen of Troy,” the boy said, and leapt to his feet.
“What?” I said.
“These are never the topless towers of Illium,” the boy said, looking around the kitchen wildly.
I screamed again, and he, for some reason, crossed himself, yanked a crucifix out from under his shirt, held it out at me like he thought it was a shield, and shouted, “Doctor D., Doctor D., where are ye?”
Chapter Two
After those frantic moments, we just stared at each other for a bit.
Finally, the boy gulped. I could see his cross was trembling in his hand. He wasn’t the only one trembling.
“What ha’ ye done wi’ Doctor D.?”
“Who the hell are you?” I said.
“Who in hell are ye?” he asked.
“What are you doing here? How did you do that? What do you want?” I shrieked.
I’d cast a spell and it had worked. But it hadn’t worked right. Something was very, very wrong, and I didn’t have a clue what it was, or how to fix it. I was scared, more scared than I’d known I could be.
“Damned spirit, I charge thee, make Doctor D. appear!” the boy shouted. “By the power of the Cross I command thee!”
That made me mad. It was like some guy coming to your door trying to sell you his religion. And being scared already, being mad on top of it made me furious.
“Who the hell are you?” I said again. “What did you just do?”
“I am friend and follower to Doctor D.,” he said. “Who has power over such as ye. Ye know better than I how I come to be here. Release me and return me to him.”
“Get out of here,” I said. “Go back where you came from.”
“Summon Doctor D., or send me back,” the boy said. “I’ll not leave this circle.”
“Shut up and get off the table,” I said, and my voice was so tough even I was scared of it. “Get off right now. It wobbles.”
“Ha, ha. Ye’d like that very well,” the boy sneered. “Ye know well ye cannot hurt me so long as I remain within me circle.”
“It’s my circle,” I said.
“It is?” He looked down, and saw my round tabletop. “Oh, God, I am truly lost. Saint Mary, help me now.”
“If you don’t shut up and get off my table and get out of here, I’m calling 911,” I said, pulling out my cell phone.
He cringed when he saw it.
“No hellish engine shall conjure me from this spot,” he said. “Fetch ye Doctor D. at once, devil thing.” He waved his cross around some more.
I punched in 911.
“All of our lines are busy now,” a so-friendly recording told me. “Please wait and your call will be answered in the order in which it was received.”
“Shit,” I said.
“Doctor D.! Doctor D.!” the boy shouted. “Come ye to me.”
“The cops are coming,” I said, waving my cell phone. “I just said ‘shit’ because I’m excited.”
“Doctor D.!”
Then I had a wild idea. Before Dad went off to develop himself, he used to work out of the house. Maybe this guy was some new kind of crazy, and had come looking for him. This wouldn’t explain little things, like how he got here out of thin air, but like I said, it was a wild idea.
“Are you looking for my dad?” I said. “He’s a doctor, but he’s gone. He left us. But nobody calls him Doctor D.”
“Nay, ye evil wight, I call on Doctor John Dee—John Dee, the greatest man in England. What have ye done with him?”
I held the phone to my ear.
“—your call will be answered—”
A weird cold calm came over me. Whatever was going on, this guy was more frightened of it than I was. I could take control of this situation if I could get control of myself. Treat him like Dad would have: like a patient. Even if he wasn’t crazy, the situation was.
“If you get down off the table and sit down at it and calm down a little, I’ll put the phone away and try to help you,” I said. “Otherwise, you can explain it to the cops when they get here.”
“If ye are not a demon, give me a sign,” the boy said.
“What kind of a sign do you want?”
“Ye must say the Lord’s Prayer.”
“I’m not going to pray,” I said.
“Aha! I knew ye were a servant of the evil one! Help me, Doctor Dee, help me!”
“Oh, all right, damn it. One line. Okay?” I tried to remember Sunday school, but I’d only gone about six times and I hadn’t really liked it. Then I recalled something… “‘Our Father who art in heaven.’ Now get the fuck down.”
The boy looked really confused now. “Ye said the words,” he said. “Ye said the words and did not burst into flames.”
“Yessss… Now get down. And sit down over there.”
“If ye are not a demon, are ye an angel?” the boy asked.
“No,” I said. “Get down.”
“Then are ye a fairy?”
“Not even close. Get down. That table really does have a weak leg. I’m not kidding.”
“Return Doctor Dee and I will,” the boy said.
“I don’t know where he is,” I replied. “You’re the only one here besides me, and you shouldn’t be. But if you’ll start calming down I’ll try to help you.”
“Tell me first what manner of creature ye be. Tell me truly by the power of the Cross.”
“I’m just a girl who doesn’t like people breaking into her house and pitching their religion at her,” I said. “Especially when they erupt out of thin air.”
“A girl? Nay, wench. Ye are like no girl on earth. Ye dress in pants like a Tartary savage, ye’er arms are bare as sticks. Ye’er hair is shorter than mine own. Ye speak strange words in an unknown accent. And ye’ve a—a conjuring thing there in ye’er hand to summon— Copse, ye’er familiar, I doubt not. Tell me what ye truly are.”
“This isn’t getting us anywhere,” I said, trying for calm again. “Why don’t you get down off the table and sit over there in the corner and tell me what you think is going on? ’Cause I don’t have a clue.”
“I’ll not—ye are Queen Mab, or one of her servants.”
Mab, I thought. Queen of the fairies. Mercutio talks about her in Romeo and Juliet. He thinks I’m her?
Then the table collapsed. The boy fell backwards, my little round tabletop flew out from under his feet, and his head hit the wall.
“Ow! Blessed Saint Mary, save me now,” he yelped.
“Damn it, I told you that leg was weak,” I said.
“Don’t turn me into anything,” the boy begged. “I implore you, spirit, or fairy, or whatever thing ye be, have mercy on a poor lost soul.”
I put the cell phone to my ear again.
“—in the order it was received—”
The boy was cowering in the corner now.
“In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, amen,” he said, crossing himself a couple of times.
Well, at least I had him off the table and into the corner.
“Sit. Stay,” I commanded, like he was a dog, and pointed the phone at him.
He whimpered and drew his knees up to his chest.
One of the things Dad always said about dealing with crazy people was that, before you could help them, you had to find out what reality they were living in.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll have mercy on you, I promise.”
“Swear you will not turn me into a toad or other loathsome creature,” the boy said.
“I swear not to turn you into anything. Now, my name’s Miranda. What’s yours?”
“Edmund’s me name.”
“Fine,” I said. “Now, where are you from, Edmund? And how did you get here?” My voice was getting calmer. Almost like Dad’s shrink voice. He would have been proud of me.
“London,” he said. “Though as ye can tell from me accent I’m not born there.”
“Actually, I wouldn’t have known that,” I said. “Where are you from originally?”
“Warwickshire, of course.”
“Okay. And who’s this Doctor Dee?”
“As I told ye, Doctor John Dee is the greatest man in England. A mighty mind that knows everything, a valiant heart that dares everything, even the darkest depths of knowledge. Cousin of the queen, friend of all the greats of England. Ye must know of him!”
“Nope. Never heard of him,” I said, kind of amazed he expected me to know some guy half-across the world. “But go on. Tell me what he has to do with you.”
“We were in his secret rooms in Cheapside…. Doctor Dee was casting a spell. A necromancy.” He crossed himself again. “Greatly have we offended. Thus am I punished. Oh, my God, have mercy.”
“Just get back to your story,” I said slowly and calmly. “What’s a necro—what you said?”
“We meant to raise the ghost of Helen of Troy,” he said. “For Doctor Dee, necromancy remains the last great thing undone. He wished to question her about the Iliad. To know how truly it depicted the battles. For me—fool that I am, I wanted to see Helen. To see ‘the face that launched a thousand ships and burned the topless towers of Ilium.’ ’Twas why I addressed ye in Greek at first.”
I was actually calming down a little. And because I was, my legs started shaking really bad. “Edmund, I’m going to sit down now. Don’t be afraid.”
He didn’t say anything.
I sat down beside the broken table. That felt better.
There’s a quick test they give you to find out if you’re crazy or not. If you’re ever taken to the hospital unconscious they’ll give it to you when you wake up. Here it goes.
“Edmund, I’m going to ask you five questions. Real easy ones, okay?”
“What means ‘okay’?”
“Okay? It doesn’t mean anything. I mean, it means a lot of things. It just means okay, okay?”
“I’ll not answer any more questions of yours, save you answer as many questions of mine,” he said.
“Okay,” I said. “In this case, that means ‘yes.’ Okay?”
“Yes. Okay.”
“First question. What’s your name?”
“Edmund Shakeshaft,” he said.
“Almost like the writer.”
“Writer?” he said, as if he didn’t know the word.
“Never mind. You’re Edmund Shakeshaft. Fine. Second question. What country is this?”
“I’ve never a notion,” Edmund said. “What country is this?”
I decided to tell him. “The United States of America.”
“The what of America?”
“Let’s go on,” I said. “You can ask your questions next. Third question. What year is this?”
“1597.”
“Fourth question. What day is this?”
“’Tis the Ides of March,” he said.
“Which is what day of what month?” I said.
“’Tis March the fifteent’, o’course, or a day on either side.”
Maybe it was the Ides of March where he’d been, but here it was the beginning of May.
“One more question,” I said, knowing it would make no sense to him. “Who’s the president of the United States?”
“Who is the what of the what?”
“That’s good, Edmund. We’re done. Now you get five questions.”
Edmund shifted a little. He was getting a bit more comfortable, too.
“First question. Tell me what ye truly are.”
“I already did. I’m a girl named Miranda Hoberman. I’m not a fairy, or a demon, or any of the other things you think I might be. I’m a human being just like you.”
“’Tis easier to believe ye are a fairy…. But ye said a bit of the Lord’s Prayer, which they say no unhallowed wight could do. So I suppose I must believe ye. Well, me next question is, if this be the Americas, what part of them am I in?”
“California,” I said. “It’s part of the United States.”
“Nay, ’tis part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain,” he said. “Nueva España. Doctor Dee has shown me maps. Why d’ye not speak Spanish?”
“I’ll try to explain later,” I said. “Go on.”
“What year is it?”
When I told him, he turned pale. “How can it be? I’m never four hundred years and more in the future.”
“It’s the twenty-first century,” I said.
Edmund was quiet for a long string of minutes. Then he said. “Everyone’s dead. All me friends, all me family. Doctor Dee and everyone. Even the queen must be dead by now, and we thought she’d never die.” He looked so shocked I felt sorry for him. And, I realized right then that I believed him. I had to. Nothing else made any sense.
I held my phone to my ear.
“—order in which—”
I switched it off and stuffed it in my pocket. Being lost in time while Elizabethan wasn’t a crime in California.
“I have just one more question,” Edmund said. “’Tis a boon I would beg of ye. Will ye help me back. Back to me own time?”
“Edmund,” I said. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how this happened. I don’t know if it’s something Doctor Dee did, or something I did, or something that just fell on you out of nowhere. I don’t know how to reverse it. But I will help you all I can. And so will my mother when she gets home. Okay?”
Edmund began to cry.
Chapter Three
Edmund’s shoulders shook. His breath came in terrible gasps. He cried out to God, Saint Mary Mother of God, and Jesus. He called to his mother, his father, to Doctor Dee, and a lot of other names. Then he just wept. I’d never seen a man cry like that. I’d never seen anybody cry like that except my mother when my father left.
I felt so sorry for him. Strange as this whole thing was for me, at least I was still in my own time, with everything I knew about still around me. My mom and I had lost my dad. But Edmund had lost a whole world. And there was no way to get it back. I just sat with my hands in my lap wishing I could think of anything that would help.
Finally, when he had cried himself out, he crossed himself and said, “I am an Englishman. Many of us have been cast on strange strands before this. Come what may, I am still Edmund Shakeshaft. I thank ye, Miranda Hoberman. May God reward your kindness to me.”
“You’re welcome, Edmund,” I said. And then suddenly I had a brilliant idea. “Would you like some tea?”
“Tea?” he said, in a voice that was still shaking.
“Yeah. Mom and I have lots of different kinds.”
“What is tea?” he asked.
“I thought all you English guys drank tea all the time,” I said.
“No,” Edmund said. “Never heard of tea.”
“Well, I’d like some,” I said, hoping it was just a language thing. “Let me make a cup.”
I got up and went over to the stove. I shook the kettle, heard that there was no water in it, and filled it from the tap.
“How does yon work?” he said.
“I don’t really know,” I said. “Water pressure, I guess.”
I went back to the stove and turned on one of the burners.
Edmund stood up to get a better look. Dad would have thought that was a good sign. Getting interested in his surroundings.
“How is’t ye can cook without fire?” he said as the burner began to glow.
“It’s electric,” I said. “Sort of like lightning, but not dangerous. Look.” I walked over to the light switch and flicked it. The light over the table came on.
Edmund stared up at the ceiling. He didn’t look happy.
“Don’t panic,” I quickly said. “It’s not black magic or anything like that. It’s just science. Everybody does this. You can do it.”
“I can?”
I turned off the light. “Come on,” I said. “First lesson in twenty-first-century living.”
He slid along the wall until he was standing beside the light switch.
“Since this is me first time, must I say any special words?” he asked me.
“No. Just push up on the switch.”
He did, and the light, of course, came on. He turned it off. He turned it on. He did it back and forth until the tea-kettle whistled.
“See if you can prop up the table and we’ll sit down,” I said.
While Edmund crawled under the table and tried to stick the leg back on, I got out two mugs and filled them with hot water and tea bags. I figured English breakfast blend was the way to go.
When the tea had steeped, I brought it over to the table. Edmund was sitting at it now, and the thing didn’t shake even when he leaned on it.
“’Tis a simple break at the joint,” he said. “A man could mend it in no time at all.”
“Not my dad… He can fix people, though.”
“A physician, is he?” Edmund asked.
“No. A psychologist. But he’s very good at it,” I said.
“A psychologist. A beautiful word. What does it mean?”
“I guess you’d call him a soul doctor.”
“He must be very holy then,” Edmund said.
“Nope. He’s just good at fixing other people.”
“Mayhap I could mend the table for ye,” he said.
“Mom would like that,” I said. “Try your tea.”
Edmund sipped it.
“Take the bag out first,” I said.
He tried a second sip and made a face. “Strange taste. Have ye no beer?”
“How old are you?” I asked him.
“Sixteen, near seventeen.”
“You have to be twenty-one to drink beer in California,” I said.
“Twenty-one? What the hell for?” he asked. “Are ye savages?”
“Some people start a lot earlier. But it’s illegal if you’re not an adult. And my mom would kill me if I gave one of my friends beer. How about—wait a minute.”
I went to the refrigerator and pulled out a cola. “Try this,” I said, and popped the can open.
Edmund tried one sip. Then he tilted back the can and slurped. “Nectar,” he said. “What d’ye call it?”
“It’s just a cola. Some people call them soft drinks. There’s plenty in there. You can pull one out any time you want.”
Edmund got up and went over to the fridge. “May I open’t?”
“Sure.”
He jumped back when the chill air hit him. “’Tis winter in there!”
“Yep,” I said. “Refrigeration.”
He knelt down and carefully put one hand inside. He felt the food, picked it up and looked at it. Spelled out the words on the packages.
“Is it always so within this chest?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “You can adjust the temperature, but that’s what it’s for. To keep food cold so it doesn’t spoil.”
“’Tis the wonder of the world,” he breathed.
“Wait’ll you see television.”
“Tell-a-vision?” Edmund said. “Prophecy?”
“Not quite,” I said.
“Whatever tell-a-vision be, it must wait—I must ask ye now to lead me to the jakes.”
“The what?”
“The jakes. The necessary. The outhouse. Surely ye have one of those.”
“Let me show you,” I said.
Edmund gulped when he saw the bathroom.
“’Tis like—a sort of temple, so white and set about with basins. It’s never a jakes.”
“Watch me closely,” I said in a voice that I realized probably sounded like a kindergarten teacher’s. “You sit on that. It’s called the toilet. When you’re done you wipe yourself with some of that roll of paper. Then you flush—” I showed him how the handle worked “—and then you wash your hands in the sink. Got it?”
“I’ll do me best,” Edmund said.
“I’ll close the door. But I’ll be right outside. Okay?”
“Ah, okay.”
I waited in the hall. I heard the sounds of flushing and of water running in the sink.
The door opened.
“Must I really wash me hands every single time?” Edmund asked.
“Of course,” I said.
“Feels unnatural.”
“Germs.”
“What?”
“Didn’t Doctor Dee ever tell you anything about germs?” I said.
“Nay, that he did not.”
“My mom will explain all about them. And there’s something else I just thought of.”
“What would that be?” Edmund said.
“We bathe. Every single day. Sometimes more than once.”
“What ever for?”
“Again, germs.”
“But what if I don’t want these germs?” Edmund asked, clearly concerned. “What if I just want to be the way I am?”
“No, Edmund. You don’t get germs from bathing. You’ve got them already. Bathing every day keeps them down. And germs give you diseases.”
“Ye mean like plague?” Edmund asked.
“Yes, exactly like plague,” I said.
“And ye’ve no plague here?”
“Nobody I ever knew or ever heard of has ever had the plague.”
Edmund shook his head. “Ye’ve conquered the plague,” he said. “O, brave new world that hath such people in it.”
“Mom says soap and water can solve half the problems in the world,” I said.
“Very well. I will bathe. Show me what I must do.”
“Wait a minute—I am not going to show you how I bathe,” I exclaimed.
“I never meant for ye to uncover yourself to me. Just show me the equipments.”
“Tub,” I said and pointed. “Taps. Hot water. Cold water. This little gizmo closes the tub. Soap. Shampoo for your hair. Washcloth. Towel for drying off after.”
Edmund was taking everything in like a dry sponge. He pointed over my head and asked, “What is yon?”
“That’s the shower. Some people like showers better than baths.”
“And what does it do? Does it bathe ye, too?”
“Yes. It’s sort of like standing in the rain, only you can make it the temperature you want.”
“I would try it at once,” Edmund said. And he twisted the faucets as far as they would go and plunged his hands under the water.
“Great idea,” I said. “Hand your clothes out through the door and I’ll wash them for you.”
“But they’re the only clothes I’ve got,” he said.
“I’ll find you some others,’ I said. “Trust me, Edmund. Nobody wears codpieces any more.”
“Very good,” he said. “I will fear no evil.”
“Just don’t be afraid of the soap, either.”
I was glad Edmund was being so good about the bath thing. Because he stank. He reeked. It was worse than being with Dad on a three-day camping trip.
I put the smelly tights, shirt, and filthy unmentionables in the wash on gentle, which, since there were no labels with washing instructions, seemed like the safest bet. Then I went back to check on Edmund.
The shower was running full blast, and I could hear him splashing around.
“Everything okay in there?” I shouted.
“Okay, indeed!” he replied. “I’m never coming out.”
“I should tell you, the hot water runs out eventually.”
“Then I’ll come out when it does so,” he said. “This is the greatest work of man since the creation. If only Doctor Dee could know of it.”
I figured this was a good time to find something to cover him up when he was done. I left him splashing away, went into my mom’s bedroom and went through the closet and chest of drawers she’d shared with Dad.
There was quite a bit of his stuff left. He’d been traveling light when he went off to develop as an individual, and I could have dressed Edmund in anything from a three-piece suit (ten years old, but in great shape) to a Moroccan caftan with about a hundred buttons down the front. I decided to go for simple: tan pants, and a polo shirt. I found a belt and some white socks. Nothing would be an exact fit; Dad was taller than Edmund, and Edmund had broader shoulders, but I figured it would get him through till tomorrow. Then Mom and I could get him some stuff.
“Edmund, your clothes are outside the door,” I called as I set them down.
“Thank ye, Miranda,” he said.
A few minutes later, he came into the living room. He was a shade lighter, and his hair was damp. He’d managed the clothes. The shirt was on all right, and the pants were okay, except that the zipper was down.
“Edmund, that little metal thing down in the front? Pull it up.”
It took him three tries. Then he worked the zipper up and down another ten.
“Marvelous strange,” he said.
“Are you hungry?” I asked.
“Not a whit. But I would like another cola.”
“Help yourself.”
On his way to the kitchen, he paused by our flat-screen TV.
“What device is this?” he asked.
“Television,” I said. “Get your cola and I’ll show you how it works.”
I wasn’t going to throw Edmund in at the deep end of TV. I had the perfect introduction to the whole concept ready to go. It was a DVD of Romeo and Juliet. I’d watched about six productions as part of my preparation for my audition, and this one was ideal for him. The whole thing was staged in Elizabethan costumes and was done on a copy of an Elizabethan stage. And Mr. Gillinger had told us that R&J was one of Shakespeare’s two most popular plays. Maybe it would turn out Edmund had seen it.
When he came back, I got all teachery. “Now. Edmund, this is television.” I turned on the screen. It flared up huge and blue.
Edmund pushed himself into the back of the sofa. His eyes got big.
“What are ye conjurin’?” he said. “Be this some hole like the one I just fell through? Are ye openin’ a portal to another world?”
“It’s okay. It’s just television, and it’s just turning on. There are a lot of different things you can do with TV. Right now, we’re going to show you a movie. It’s also called a DVD. See this little disk? The whole movie is on it. All we do is turn on the television with this thing called a remote, put the DVD in the player like so, turn on the player and then we get this screen that asks us what we want to do. Play movie, select scenes, special features, languages. Anybody can do this. You can do it, too. Ready?”
I put Romeo and Juliet into the player.
There were a couple of ads for British movies. They whipped by so fast that Edmund didn’t understand anything about them I’m sure. But that wasn’t what really confused him. It was the pictures themselves.
“Are these people or spirits?” he asked. “Why be they flat and small? Why do they jerk so, like mad poppets?”
“They’re just clips from movies,” I said. “To get you to want to watch the whole thing. Don’t worry. The thing we’re going to see will make sense to you. In fact, you may even have seen it in London.”
“I feel like me head’s being whirled about by a huracano,” he said. He grabbed one of the sofa cushions and held it across his chest. “I do not like this television.”
“You’ll get used to it,” I said. “Everyone does. Now watch.”
The screen changed and I hit the play movie button. There was a fanfare of old-fashioned music and the title came on the screen: Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare.
“Nay,” Edmund said. “’Tis never.” His jaw dropped; he held his breath.
“’Tis,” I said.
The movie started. An actor called Chorus was standing in the middle of the set that was supposed to be a street in Verona. “Two households both alike in dignity, in fair Verona where we lay our scene—” he began.
“’Tis never,” Edmund repeated.
“From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean—”
Edmund made a sound between a scream and a shout. He turned to me, and his face, which had been almost relaxed when he came out of the shower, was full of horror.
“Witch, by what enchantment have ye conjured up me brother William’s play?”
Chapter Four
“William Shakespeare is your brother?”
“Aye, if my parents are my parents and the world is the world,” he said.
“You said your last name was Shakeshaft.”
“Shakeshaft, Shakespeare, ’tis the same thing—the family goes by either. I use Shakeshaft to difference me from Will.”
I hit the pause button. The Chorus stopped with his mouth open.
“What devilishness is this?” Edmund asked. “What trickery? I thought ye honest, Miranda Hoberman, and kind, too. But now I take ye for a sly witch after all. Did ye pluck yon from my memory? What else have ye taken from me?”
“Edmund,” I said. “Get a grip. There’s a simple explanation. We’re still doing the play. Now. People today.”
“Four hundred years and more after we opened it?” Edmund said. “Go to. It isn’t that good!”
“We think it is,” I said.
“Who thinks so?” Edmund demanded.
“The whole world, pretty much. Romeo and Juliet gets done everywhere. Not just England. Here, too. Russia. Japan. Canada. Everywhere.”
“Never.”
“Edmund, you know how you think Doctor Dee is the greatest man of the age? Well, that’s what most of us think about William Shakespeare. Probably not one person in a hundred now knows anything about John Dee. But everybody knows Shakespeare’s name.”
Edmund looked totally shocked. “Ye’re lying! Ye must be. But why? Why do ye tell me this?”
“I can prove it,” I said. “Wait right there.”
I went into the little room that Dad had used as his office when he was working out of our home. There were two walls of books in there. One was all his psychology stuff. The other was my mom’s. It held her nursing books and a whole lot of stuff on theater. On the bottom shelf on that side was a big red book called The Riverside Shakespeare. It had all the plays. I flipped it open to Romeo and Juliet.
“Look,” I said, and I dumped the book in Edmund’s lap. “If you’re Edmund Shakeshaft or Shakespeare, and William was your brother, then this is his book. And Romeo and Juliet’s on page ten fifty-eight.”
Edmund touched the title like he couldn’t help himself. “The Prologue…” he said. “Enter Chorus…”
Carefully, he turned one page after another. His lips moved. “Sampson. Gregory. Benvolio. Romeo. Mercutio.” He went through the play until he came to the last scene. “Aye, ’tis all here, seemingly,” he said. “Ye spell passing strangely, howbeit. Every word alike every time.”
“We think you spelled strangely,” I pointed out.
“But ’twas our language. Ye’re only using it,” Edmund said. Then he turned back to the beginning of the book. “’Tis a thick volume indeed. What more be in it?”
He studied the pages. Some of these were copied from the First Folio, the original collection of all Shakespeare’s plays, back in 1623. “A catalog of the several comedies, histories and tragedies contained in this volume,” he read. “Comedies. The Tempest. No, he’s written no such play.”
“Not yet,” I said. “We think that was his last one.”
“Two Gentlemen of Verona, aye,” he went on. “The Merry Wives of Windsor. That’s the new one. Measure For Measure, no. The Comedy of Errors, yes.”
He went through the whole list, going “aye” and “nay.” Then he looked at the other pages from the First Folio.
One of these was his brother’s portrait, and when he saw it, he hooted.
“Will, ha, ha, ’tis Will. Oh, I wish the fellow could see this picture of himself. Ah, Willy, Willy, ye’re four hundred years gone and the whole world thinks this is what ye looked like.” He clapped his hands like a little kid.
“What’s the matter?” I said.
“Nothing at all—nothing whatever. ’Tis the best of time’s revenges. Ah, Willy, Willy, ye pompous fool, I could almost feel sorry for ye.”
“Not a good picture, I’m guessing?”
“If ye take away his hair and add a calf’s-worth of weight, and a life of years spent in hard drinking, ’tis like enough to him,” Edmund said. “But when I saw him Tuesday he was a handsome fellow still, with a full head of hair, and a beard that curled over his jaw, and a jewel hanging from his ear. And very vain he is of his appearance.”
“So anyway, now you believe I’m not a witch, or a spirit, or anything but what I said I was, right?” I asked.
“I know nothing for sure any more. Save that in a world where my brother is accounted great and Doctor Dee is forgotten, anything is possible, fair or foul. The seacoast of Bohemia could be no stranger. And Bohemia has never a yard of seacoast.”
He put the book on the coffee table. “What more magics will ye show me, Miranda Hoberman?”
“Would you like to see the rest of the play?” I said.
“I would not,” he said. “’Tis too unnatural watching the poppets do it.”
“You probably saw it done in London, huh?”
“I have been in it. Will is not the only actor in the family.”
“You’re kidding,” I said. “Who did you play?”
“’Twas three years ago, so there was only one part I could play, of course,” Edmund said. “Juliet.”
“You are kidding me,” I said.
“I am what?”
“You actually played Juliet?”
“The first time anyone ever did. Since my voice changed, I’ve done some of the servants, and the Count Paris. Last time I did the Chorus, as well.”
“Ever play Romeo?” I asked.
“Ha! As if Dick Burbage would let anyone else play him,” he snorted. “Will did it once when Burbage was sick, and Burbage still hasn’t forgiven him. Not that Will gives a fart. But little a chance has any hired actor of playing such a role as that. Not unless the play be done a good long way from London where the Lord Chamberlain’s Men will never hear of it until ’tis too late.”
I knew some of what he was talking about. Gillinger had made us study some background material on Shakespeare’s times. Richard Burbage was the leading actor in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, which was also the acting company Shakespeare belonged to. The plays he wrote were their property, but other acting companies would steal a popular play if they could get away with it. And Romeo and Juliet had been very popular.
“You know,” I said, “I just read for Juliet this afternoon.”
Edmund shook his head. “Ye did what for her?”
“I read for the part. We’re doing it here, in town.”
“But girls cannot appear on stage. ’Twould be filthy.”
“No it isn’t. I know you guys used guys to play girls all the time. But we think that’s weird. There’s nothing wrong with having girls play girls.”
“Women on the stage. ’Tis something too French,” Edmund said.
“Well, maybe the French are just smarter than you English,” I said. “Anyway, there’s a lot of great English actresses now.”
“Even in England they do this?” Edmund said.
“Yep. That version of Romeo and Juliet I tried to show you has women playing all the women’s parts. Juliet, the Nurse, Lady Capulet, Romeo’s mother. And I’ll tell you something else. In our production some of the servants will probably be played by girls playing guys. ’Cause guys don’t come out for drama much.”
Edmund shook his head again. “’Tis strange. ’Tis mickle strange. Me best role ever, played by—a woman.”
“You know,” I said, “we’ve been talking a long time. Would you like dinner?”
“I do not feel hungry,” he said. “But perhaps I should eat.”
“Let me introduce you to the great American hamburger.”
Edmund followed me out to the kitchen. He followed every move I made with the attention of a hawk. The whole cooking thing fascinated him.
“’Tis all familiar and yet not,” he said. “This, more than yon television makes it seem as though I am a stranger in a strange land.”
I made us each two hamburgers with buns and all the agricultural trimmings. I didn’t want to trust the broken table with food on it, so we went into the living room again and sat down at the coffee table with our plates and glasses of milk.
Edmund watched everything I did, and copied it.
“Meat’s fresh,” he said chewing his first bite of burger. “Who does your slaughtering?”
“The store. We buy all our food at the store. I’ve never killed an animal in my life. Except flies and stuff. Have you?”
Edmund laughed. “My family are glovers,” he began. “There’s not a calf in Stratford safe from us. My brother Gilbert’s the best of us, though. Fast and neat, that’s Gilbert’s way. Will, for his part, would often make a speech in high style to the poor beast before he did the deed. ’Tis said he was hoping to bore the little fellow to death and spare them the knife thereby.” He tried the milk and smacked his lips. “Fresh, though it lacks body. Ye say ye have no cow of your own?”
“No cow, no calves, no garden, either,” I said. “Most people today buy their food.”
“’Tis as if ye’re waited on by spirits…. Invisible spirits.”
“Not really,” I said.
When dinner was over, I checked on Edmund’s laundry. I put everything on air dry. I was pretty sure heat would shrink those tights of his.
And of course he was fascinated by the washing machine and the dryer.
“Have all of ye such things?” he asked.
“Pretty much. If people don’t, they go to a laundromat and get their stuff done there.”
“Next ye’ll be telling me ye can all fly!”
Right on cue, I heard the heavy thumping of a helicopter passing overhead.
“Come on outside,” I said. “Got something to show you.”
We went and stood in our front yard.
At first, Edmund didn’t seem to understand what he was seeing. He crossed his arms, cocked his head and watched as though his eyes couldn’t quite focus on it. Then the copter curved around heading back the way it had come, and Edmund ducked back under our tree.
“Is it perilous?” he asked. “D’ye think it saw us?”
“It’s just a TV station’s news helicopter. It’s not interested in us. It’s probably out doing traffic reports.”
“Do men ride such things?” Edmund asked, mouth in a perfect O.
“And women, too,” I said.
Then a car went by, too fast, like most of the cars that use our street. It was a sports car of some kind and made a hell of a racket.
Edmund yelped, and ducked behind the tree. “And what was that?”
“A car,” I said. “And yes, most people have them. Sometimes more than one.”
“A car. Damned bland name for a demon thing like that. Have ye such a device?”
“We do, but it’s at work. My mom drives it. I know how, but I’m too young yet. I mean, I’m old enough, sixteen. But the insurance is so high for a young driver that we can’t afford it.”
“What makes it go?” Edmund asked.
“Gasoline.”
“Another word I never heard…” He came out from behind the tree and looked up and down the street. There were cars in driveways, cars at the curb. He studied them for a few minutes, then bent down and touched the pavement. “Hard.”
The street seemed to interest him more than the cars. He kept rubbing his hands across the asphalt, picking up bits of gravel and studying them. When he was done, he turned around and faced the house.
“A house I know,” he said. “And grass I know. And a tree, though ’tis a kind I’ve never seen before. Windows with glass, but such great panes of it. And flowers, though I know not their names. But all else is like an enchantment. I understand none of it.”
“Maybe you’d like to take a walk,” I said. “Get a little more oriented.”
“Oriented,” Edmund said slowly.
“Sorry. Is that another word you don’t know?”
“Doctor Dee do have some old maps,” Edmund said. “He turns them to the east, toward Jerusalem. He calls that orienting.”
“Well Malpaso Row is east of us. So I guess it’s the same thing,” I said.
“Aye,” Edmund said after a moment of silence. “Come then, Miranda Hoberman, and orient me.”
I locked the house and we headed down the street. Malpaso Row was on the other side of the freeway from our neighborhood. Only a few blocks away, but totally different from our quiet, boring avenue. It was the newest shopping center in town, very high-concept. It had buildings designed to look like a neighborhood in Italy, with pricey apartments above the stores, fountains and things like that.
We walked slowly, Edmund taking in every detail of the houses and yards we passed. Then we turned a few corners and were in the middle of a whole new world.
My first problem was getting Edmund to cross the freeway overpass. It wasn’t the height that bothered him. It was the sight of all the cars below us, hood to trunk with their lights on, and even more the roar that came up from the eight lanes of traffic under our feet.
“This howling, this howling, how d’ye stand it?” he shouted to me, clapping his hands over his ears.
“Edmund, it’s okay,” I said. “It’s just rush hour. Every one of those cars has somebody in it who’s just trying to get home. It’s not dangerous. It’s normal.”
“’Tis hellish.”
“Well, okay. We don’t have to do this now,” I said. “We can go back to the house if you want to.”
I could tell that was exactly what Edmund wanted to do. But he wouldn’t let himself. “I must bear it,” he said. “Lead on.”
So we crossed the overpass. Then I had to explain to him about stoplights and crosswalks and taking turns. This was after he stepped out in front of a line of cars turning into the main drag of Malpaso Row from a left-turn lane and he nearly got creamed.
A driver shouted, “Watch it, you stupid bastard!”
And Edmund shouted back, “Ye’re the whoreson heir of a mongrel bitch, an eater of broken meats and the very flower of the pox!”
“No, Edmund!” I yelled at him. “No, no, no, no, no! Never when the light is red. Only when the light is green. And stay between the nice straight white lines. That’s how it works.”
“Must I wait the pleasure of some lantern to do as I wish about so small a thing as cross?” he said. “’Tis like a prison to walk your streets.”
“You’ll live a lot longer if you do,” I said, calming down.
“What of the yellow light?” he said.
“That means, ‘caution’.”
“Aha. So a man has some choice at least.”
“Come on,” I said. “You’ve survived your first stoplight. Let’s see what other trouble you can get into.”
Chapter Five
We cruised slowly up and down past the clothing stores and the restaurants and the bars. Edmund paused at one that had a sign hanging out that said:
Falstaff’s
A Traditional
English Pub
“Can we not go in here, at least?” he begged.
“Edmund, we’re underage. They’d throw us out so fast you’d meet yourself coming in. They’d lose their license if they let us stay.”
“Monstrous. Unnatural. Wrong.”
“Come on,” I said. “Let me show you something you’ll like.”
Down at the end of the street was a Corners Books. I was pretty sure Edmund would be interested in it. And it turned out he was.
“Books,” he said, like he might have said “Jewels.”
It was a big two-story place with a coffee bar in the middle of the ground floor. We walked around every section, taking it just as slow as Edmund wanted.
“So many, so many,” he kept repeating.
He took some of them off the shelves, touching them as if he thought they might evaporate under his hands, studying the way they were made.
“Paper’s different,” he said. “Aye, and the bindings. But what riches ye have, Miranda. Even in London there’s no such place as this.”
Finally we ended up in the magazine section, which was right next to the coffee. The magazines absolutely transfixed Edmund. Or anyway, the covers did.
“Such images. How d’ye ever…” he breathed as he looked at all the bright-color pics of cars, pretty girls and famous heads.
But before I could display my vast erudition again, there was a voice behind us.
“Hey, Miri. What’s up?”
I turned around and saw Bobby Ruspoli smiling at me.
“Hey, dude,” I said.
Edmund also turned.
“Bobby, this is my cousin Ed,” I said quickly, and feeling rather proud of myself for being such an adroit thinker. “He’s from England.”
“Hey, Ed,” Bobby said.
“Give ye good even.”
“Ed, this is Bobby Ruspoli from school,” I said.
“You guys busy?” Bobby asked.
“Not exactly,” I said.
“Then come on over and help me work on Drew. I’m trying to talk him into reading tomorrow. Stubborn geek says he doesn’t want to be on stage.”
I would have agreed in a ten-thousandth of a second, if I’d been alone. But I had Mr. Shakeshaft to consider. “What do you think, is it okay, Ed?”
“Yes. It is okay,” Edmund said.
So Bobby led us over to his table and we sat down with Drew.
“Hey, Drew,” I said.
“Hi, Miranda.”
He had an empty espresso cup in front of him, and a paperback copy of the play.
“Drew, this is my cousin Ed, Edmund, from England,” I said. “Edmund, this is Drew Jenkins. He’s in school with me, too.”
“Give ye good e’en,” Edmund said.
And Drew smiled and said, “Give ye good e’en, as well, fair sir.”
“Ye speak English,” Edmund said.
“Fairly well for an American,” Drew said, and the three Americans laughed.
“Bobby says he wants you to read for the play,” I said.
“No way in hell.”
“Please,” I said. “We need guys.”
“You need actors,” Drew said. “That lets me out.”
“Drew, there were guys on that stage today you could act the asses off of,” Bobby said.
“I agree there were some dreadful impersonations of acting,” Drew said. “But the fact that they were god-awful doesn’t make me good.”
“Dude, you have got to get over seventh grade,” Bobby said.
“Shut up—”
“This guy,” Bobby said, “used to do shows with me all the time in grade school. He was the beautiful white pony. I was the blue car smooth and shiny as satin. That was second grade—”
“Third. Second grade I was the woodcutter and you were the prince.”
“Oh, yeah,” Bobby said. “But the point is, he was good. Then in seventh grade—”
“Shut up, Bobby. Nobody cares what happened in seventh grade.”
“Apparently you do,” Bobby said.
“Okay, I do. So shut up about it,” Drew said.
“We were both cast in the Children’s Musical Theater Holiday Spectacular,” Bobby went on. “You didn’t know Drew could sing, right? Well, he can. Better than me. And he got a solo. ‘Christmas Is a Time of Giving,’ right at the end of act one. I mean, it’s the big act finisher, right? And he dries up. Can’t remember his song. Just stands there and—”
“Shut. Up. Now,” Drew said.
“All I’m saying is, it’s time to get back on the horse, Drew. The beautiful white pony. It’s been four years.”
“And all I’m saying is, you’re wrong. It’s not that I’m scared. Scarred for life, definitely. But not scared. I’m just not interested.”
“Miri,” Bobby said. “Explain to him why he’s interested.”
“I can’t,” I said. “But, Drew. Cast parties.”
“I come to those anyway,” Drew said.
Which was true. Whenever there was a cast party and Bobby showed up, Drew was with him. This was whether Bobby had a girl on his arm or not.
“They’re more fun when you’ve just finished a show,” I said hopefully.
“I have all the fun I can stand at them now,” Drew said. “Any more fun, I’d die from sheer pleasure.”
“Please,” I said. “We need people.”
“No.”
Edmund picked up Drew’s script. “I see ye have marked Mercutio’s speeches,” he said. “Friar Lawrence’s, too. Why have ye done so if ye are not interested?”
“I’ve been helping him,” Drew said. “We’ve been running lines for weeks.”
“I could see ye as Mercutio,” Edmund said. “Friar Lawrence, too, though ye be something too young. ’Twould depend on who else was in the company.”
“Ed’s an actor,” I said. “A real one.”
“Hey,” Bobby said. “You ever play in this thing?”
“Yes. Okay. I have,” Edmund said.
“What part?” Bobby asked.
“Different ones. I’ve played in it more than once. But tell me, what part do ye fancy for yourself?”
“Romeo,” Bobby said like there was no question about it.
“Romeo,” Edmund mused. “It would not be my first thought for ye.”
“Oh? Who would you cast me as?”
“Tybalt, mayhap, if ye can fence well,” Edmund said.
“Tybalt’s not a very big part,” Bobby said.
“Thirty-five lines,” Drew said. “But he’s on a lot.”
“Not a long part,” Edmund agreed. “But a large one. He tries to kill Romeo at old Capulet’s party. Later, he kills Mercutio. Thus Romeo slays him, and must flee Verona. If there were no Tybalt, ye’d have no tragedy and Romeo and Juliet would live to ripe old ages.”
“Well, anyway, I’m up for Romeo.”
Edmund turned to Drew. “Tell me, fellow. When ye went dry onstage when ye were a lad, what happened next?”
“What do you mean, what happened next?” Drew said. “Nothing happened.”
“What nothing?” Edmund persisted.
“I just stood there until I started crying. Then they pulled the curtain.”
“Horrible. D’ye mean no one came to your aid?” Edmund asked. “No fellow-actor came and said, aught like, ‘Will you not give us a song?’ or somewhat like that?”
“We were just kids. Nobody thought to do anything.”
“Would that happen now, d’ye think?” Edmund asked.
“Never,” Bobby said.
“No way,” I said. “We’d be there for each other.”
Drew shrugged. “Look, I’m not being neurotic about something that happened when I was twelve. I’m just not interested anymore. Walking on stage, reciting lines. The same lines every night. It gets old real fast.”
“Is that what ye think acting is?” Edmund said.
“It’s all I know about it,” Drew said. “If you even call it acting.”
“Then ye do well to stay away from it—for ’tis nothing of the kind.”
“I’m always finding new stuff to do,” Bobby said.
“And ye, cousin Miranda,” Edmund said. “What is acting to you?”
“It’s hard to say,” I said. “But it’s the most important thing in my life.”
Edmund scratched his beard and looked up. “For me,” he began, “acting is queen, mother and mistress all in one. And more than a bit of a bitch. But I love her as I love no other thing. But, no. That does not speak to what acting is. Acting is—is finding the truth in the most artificial thing there is. For theater is a metaphor for all of life and all that is truest in it. Acting an endless race through a hall of mirrors seeking the one that shows, not yourself, but the truth of the character you’re playing. The truth in the shadow. And then reflects it, not to yourself, but to the audience at your feet. And when it works, there is nothing finer.”
“Man,” Bobby said. “I mean, word, dude.”
“I do not take your meanin’, friend.”
“He means you really told the truth about it,” I said.
Drew picked up the script and pondered the cover. It showed a balcony with the doors behind it open and light streaming through them. Romeo was in silhouette below, but the balcony was empty. No Juliet. We all had the same copy of the play. I thought it was a really stupid picture. Juliet was supposed to already be on the balcony when Romeo showed up. This cover looked like whoever’d done it hadn’t even read the play.
But now Drew was staring at it like it meant something to him. “I wonder if I could do that,” he said. “You do make a guy want to try.”
“What part do ye favor?” Edmund asked.
“I don’t think it matters,” Drew replied. “As long as I could have some of that feeling you were talking about.”
“’Tis hard to do. ’Tis not to be counted upon. But mayhap I could help ye toward it if ye would like.”
“Yeah. I would.”
Bobby burst into the conversation, excited. “Cool. Drew reads tomorrow, he scores a part, and Ed coaches him. Ruspoli and Jenkins together again, live on stage. Thanks, Ed!”
“Listening to meself, I wish—Cousin Miranda, may I not read tomorrow?”
“Do it, man,” Bobby said. “It’d be so cool to have a real English dude in the play.”
I felt a whoosh of panic. No, no, no, Edmund must not read. Edmund must not be cast. Edmund must be hidden away. But then I thought how stupid that was, and, really, how impossible. For better or worse, Edmund Shakeshaft was living in California, in this century, in my house, and he’d have to find a way to fit in. And maybe being part of the one thing he’d learned how to do in his own time that we were still doing in this time would help him to adjust.
“Yeah,” I said, though still a little weakly. “Tryouts are two-thirty tomorrow after school.”
“I will come then.”
“Okay,” I said, thinking that in one way at least this could end up being the most accurate Romeo and Juliet anybody had done in more than four hundred years.
Bobby and Drew started asking Edmund all kinds of questions about what it was like to be an actor in England. And I was really impressed with how he managed to answer them without giving anything away.
“How long have you been acting?”
“Oh, since I left school.”
“How many shows have you done?”
“I don’t recall for certain. About fifty, I think.”
“Have you done much TV?”
“Television? Nay. I do not think I would like to do it.” I kept thinking I ought to drag him away, but he seemed to be enjoying playing with the guys, and they were definitely interested in what he had to say. Finally, Edmund solved my dilemma for me.
“Cuz,” he said. “I am weary. Can we not go home?”
“Sure,” I said.
“Would you like a lift?” Drew asked.
“We’re close,” I said.
“Come on,” Bobby said. “Drew’s got a new ride.”
“It’s okay. We’ll just walk,” I said.
But Edmund was suddenly alert. “This ride ye speak of, friend Drew. Is it a car?”
“Sure,” Drew said.
“I would like to ride in it.”
I think he was trembling just a little.
“I call shotgun,” Bobby said.
Drew’s new car was an old car. A bug-eyed little thing that looked like clowns might burst out of it at any minute. I’d never seen anything like it.
“What is this?” I asked.
Drew smiled. “A Citroën 2CV. The most flawless meld of engineering requirements ever designed to run on gas. Intended to take French farmers out of the age of the horse and put them behind the wheel. Totally simple, modular construction. If you dent a fender, you unbolt it and slap on a new one. The backseat lifts out for cargo. The same cable that runs the speedometer runs the windshield wiper. And you can carry a bushel of eggs across a plowed field without cracking one. That was part of the design requirement. I love that about it.”
“And it can hit forty-five without even trying,” Bobby said.
“Actually, this is the last model. It’s capable of sixty-two.”
It also had a canvas top that slid along the roofline. Not really a convertible, but the same effect.
“Drop that top!” Bobby demanded, and he and Drew unlatched the canvas and pushed it back.
The little coffee-grinder engine started up and we bounced out of the parking lot and onto the street.
I could sense Edmund tensing up beside me. Being so small ourselves made all the SUVs and vans seem even bigger than they really were, and having the top down made them very, very close. But it was the speed that seemed to bother him most.
Not that Drew was speeding. We were doing thirty-five, which was totally legal on that street, but it did feel faster than it would have in a regular car with the wind in our faces, plus Edmund’s long hair was whipping around.
Edmund was pushing himself back into the seat the way he had when he was watching television, and his face was set like he was a sea captain on an old-time ship staring into the storm. He looked handsome as hell and vulnerable as a little kid all at the same time.
Then his hand grabbed mine and held it like he was never letting go.
“Ah!” I went, because it hurt and I was surprised.
“What?” Bobby said, looking back over his shoulder.
“Nothing. I just like Drew’s ride, that’s all,” I said, and I squeezed Edmund’s hand back.
That squeeze ran all the way up my arm and into my heart.
Uh-oh. This should not be happening, I thought. Must not happen.
But I couldn’t just let go of his hand. I held on to it all the way home.
Chapter Six
Drew pulled into our driveway. Bobby got out and opened the door for us. I crawled out of the back seat, but Edmund unfolded himself and climbed over the side of the car. Then he leaned on it casually, but I was pretty sure his legs were trembling and he needed the support. I walked around and took his arm.
“I thank ye, friend,” he said to Drew. “A most excellent ride.”
“Any time.”
“Well, good night,” I broke in. “See you at tryouts.”
“Cool,” Bobby said, and got back in with Drew.
Edmund and I waved as they took off down our dark street.
When we couldn’t hear the engine of the Citroën any more, Edmund barfed all over the lawn. Then he allowed himself to collapse onto the driveway.
“Dear God, do ye do that all the time?” he asked, looking up at me. “’Twas like being on a mad horse with no reins. Or a plunging ship with a gale blowing. How d’ye stand such a thing?”
“Edmund, it’s okay,” I said, sitting down beside him. “Really. Drew’s a good driver. There was nothing wrong. Cars are the best way anybody’s ever come up with for getting from one place to another.”
“How fast were we going?”
“About thirty-five.”
“Thirty-five what?”
“Miles an hour.”
“Thirty-five miles an hour?” Edmund said. “How is it we’re still alive?”
“Maybe you’ll like riding in our car better,” I said. “It’s bigger and safer.”
“My car riding days are over!”
“They can’t be,” I said. “Everyone takes cars everywhere. You’ll get over being afraid. And I’ll tell you something else. Sooner or later, you’re going to be driving.”
“No! Such a thing…d’ye think I could learn the manage of a car?” Edmund asked.
“I think you could do anything you wanted to.” I said it just to cheer him up. But when I said it, I realized that I meant it.
“I, do such a thing,” Edmund said. “It must be easier than it looks.”
“We’d better go in.”
It was still early, only a little after nine o’clock, but tucking Edmund into bed in the extra room seemed like the best thing to do with him at this point. I needed some private time to sort out a couple of things. Such as how I was going to explain to Mom that we had a new, permanent house-guest. And why my heart was still going thumpity thump.
And Edmund really was tired. “Saint Mary and Joseph, I am weary and ’tis late for a night with no ranging to be done,” he said. “Miranda, where may a poor player lay his head?”
I showed him the bedroom. But then there was another little problem.
“Edmund,” I said. “What do you sleep in?”
He thumped the bed and looked surprised at how much it bounced. “Oh. On such a warm night as this, I’ll need nothing. Thank you, Miranda.”
“Okay,” I said. “But if you have to—go to the jakes in the middle of the night—”
“I will cover myself up. I do have a proper sense of shame.”
“Well, good, then. Good night.”
“Miranda, before we say good-night, will ye pray with me?” Edmund asked.
“Uh…yeah. Okay, I guess,” I said. “What religion are you?”
“Church of England, of course,” he said. “Inclining more toward the old faith than some, as I expect ye’ve noted. What are ye?”
Dad was Jewish, and Mom wasn’t anything. My six-week stint in Sunday school had been because I was curious where some of my friends went on Sunday morning back in the second grade. My curiosity had been satisfied and I hadn’t been back since.
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