The Rebirth of Wonder (5 page)

“
Makes sense,”
Maggie said.

“
Um,” Art said,
flicking off the lights in the big room. “Is there anything else
you'd like me to show you?”

“
Well... what's in
all the storerooms?”

“
Mostly costumes on
this side,” he said, pointing. “And props on the other. And smaller
set pieces; it's only the big ones we leave in there.” He jerked a
thumb toward the chamber beneath the stage, and as he did he
caught, from the corner of his eye, a vivid blue flash, shining for
an instant through the tiny openings in the floor
above.

“
What the hell...”
he said, angrily. “What are they doing up there?” He turned and
charged toward the stairs, forgetting Maggie.

She followed, calling after him, “Art, it's
okay! Don't worry!”

He ignored her, rushing up the stairs at full
speed and out through the open door into the backstage area.

“
All right,” he
shouted, “who did that?”

The Bringers of Wonder all turned, startled,
to face him.

“
Did what?”
Innisfree asked.

“
I don't know,” he
said. “But I saw blue light, a bright flash of blue light – was one
of you trying out the lighting instruments?”

Some of them shook their heads; a couple
muttered, “No.” The black woman – Tituba, Innisfree had called her
– pointed at the shelves of equipment. “You mean those? Nobody
touched those, boy.”

Art could see that the lights looked
undisturbed; the main power switch for the lightboard was still
off, the pilot light dark.

“
Then what was it, a
flashpot or something? Damn it, if you're going to be using
pyrotechnics, let me know, so I can check 'em out and make sure
we've got sand buckets ready!”

“
No one used any
fireworks, Mr. Dunham,” the woman in green said.

Maggie had come up behind him. “Art,” she
said quietly, “I think it was just a camera flash.”

Art turned to look at her, then turned back
to find Innisfree holding up a camera.

“
Maggie's right,
Arthur,” he said. “Just snapping a few 'before' shots for a little
before-and-after.”

Art hesitated.

“
How'd you see it in
the first place?” the old woman in the kerchief
demanded.

“
The cracks in the
flooring,” Art explained, pointing. After a moment's consideration,
he said, “It seemed awfully bright for a camera
flash.”

“
A trick of the eye,
perhaps,” Innisfree suggested.

“
I guess so,” Art
agreed.

“
Young man,” the
woman with the gypsyish looks said, “are you going to be rushing in
here and interrupting us every time there's any little disturbance?
Because if you are, that could be a serious
problem.”

“
You know that our
show involves magic, don't you?” the woman in green said. “We'll
have things appearing and disappearing and flying about fairly
often. And I wouldn't be surprised by a few flashes and
bangs.”

“
Um,” Art said
thoughtfully.

“
It
would
be inconvenient,” Innisfree said.

“
Sorry,” Art said. He chewed his lower lip as he looked
the lot of them over, then said, “Okay, but listen,
tell
me before
you set off any fireworks, okay? And whoever's going to do lights,
talk to me first, and let me help you set up.”

“
Assuredly,”
Innisfree said. “Certainly, by all means, and most assuredly!” He
smiled ingratiatingly.

Uneasy but outnumbered, Art backed down from
any further argument. In fact, it seemed like a wise idea to leave
completely for a little while. “All right, then,” he said. “I guess
the basement can wait, anyway; I'll go take a little walk and leave
you folks in peace for a bit.”

“
Our blessings upon
you, then,” Innisfree said, bowing.

Reluctantly, Art turned and walked out the
stage door, uncomfortably aware of a dozen pairs of eyes watching
him every step of the way.

Outside, the sun was painfully bright; he
blinked, and shaded his eyes with his arm as he stood on the little
porch, waiting for his pupils to adjust.

Spread out before him was the theater's
little parking lot, only about a dozen spaces – for successful
performances, the patrons lined the streets for blocks and usurped
the parking lot of the bank across the street. The asphalt was bare
and gray, baking in the August sun; a thin sifting of sand had
found its way onto one corner.

The lot was empty.

His eyes had adjusted, but Art blinked again
anyway.

There were no cars.

He looked out at the street, and saw no cars
parked along the curbs. He scratched his head, baffled.

How the hell had the
Bringers of Wonder
got
there? There were no hotels within what he'd have considered
reasonable walking distance, and a motley bunch like that would
have stood out on the Bampton streets on a Monday morning like
seals in a schoolroom.

Someone must have given them a lift, he
realized. Maybe there was another member of the group he hadn't met
yet who was off buying supplies somewhere.

They'd have needed a bus,
but they might very well
have
a bus, for all he knew.

And it didn't matter anyway. It was none of
his business. As long as they didn't burn the theater down, they
could arrive by dogsled for all he cared. With a shrug, he
descended the four wooden steps and went for a stroll.

#

He didn't bother to knock when he came back
from his walk; he just slipped quietly in through the stage door,
trying not to disturb anybody.

The Bringers of Wonder were still sitting or
standing about, talking quietly or looking over the theater. They
had spread out somewhat – before, all but Innisfree had been
onstage, but now the man with the turban was studying the lighting
equipment – and not, Art was relieved to see, touching any of it –
while Tituba and the woman in green looked over the ropes and
ladders, the two Orientals studied the leftover sets, and two of
the men, the big black one and the short one with the mustache, sat
out in the middle of the house, chatting quietly. Innisfree was up
in the balcony, poking through the dusty junk up there.

The rest were sitting either on the edge of
the stage or in the front row, talking.

There were no signs that anything had been
done toward organizing a performance; nobody was pacing out
blocking, no scripts were in evidence, no one was giving
direction.

Maggie, seated on the edge of the stage,
turned at the sound of the door. She hopped up to her feet and
crossed toward him, as several of the others cast unfriendly glares
in his direction. Innisfree took a quick look, then turned and
disappeared into the shadows farther up the balcony's slope.

“
How's it going?”
Art asked Maggie as she approached.

“
Oh, fine,” she
said. “How was your walk?”

“
Fine.”

“
We're almost done
for today, I think.”

“
But it isn't even
noon!” Art protested, startled.

“
Oh, well, today was
just sort of preliminary,” Maggie said, with an offhand gesture.
“You know, make sure everyone knew where the theater was, make sure
we all knew each other, and so on. We can't really start on
anything until the moon... I mean, until tomorrow
night.”

Tituba and the other – Faye, had someone
called her? – moved away a little as Art and Maggie walked
downstage.

“
Make sure you all
knew each other? I thought you folks had been together for a
while,” Art said.

Maggie shook her head.
“Not really. We all knew
of
each other, I guess, but... well, Ms. Morgan
wasn't on speaking terms with some of the others for the longest
time, and Merle's been away, and I'm sort of filling in for my
grandmother, I'm not... I haven't been around as long as the
others.”

Art nodded. “How'd you people get together,
then?”

“
That's hard to
explain,” Maggie said. “Family connections, you might
say.”

“
Sure.” Art stopped
walking. “So today was just introductions? That's why there aren't
any scripts or anything?”

“
That's
right.”

“
Are all the parts
cast, though?”

Maggie hesitated.
“I
think
so,” she
said.

“
So who do you
play?”

“
Oh, I'm just in the
chorus, really.”

“
What's the play
again?”

“
The Return of Magic
. It's not
exactly a play, it's... it's a performance.”

Art nodded. “Hope it goes
over. Bampton's kind of old-fashioned; about as experimental as
anyone's ever gotten around here was when they tried putting on
Shaw's
Man and Superman
. And that was a disaster – must've been less than a third of
the audience that stuck it out to the end.”

“
Oh, we're not
worried.”

“
Well, that's good,
I guess.” He looked around, and then added, “Guess I'll go clear
out that stuff downstairs. When you folks are ready to leave, let
me know, and I'll lock up.”

“
All right.” She
smiled at him, then took his hand for a moment, gave it a quick
squeeze, and turned away.

He watched her cross back to the edge of the
stage; then he marched over to the stairway and down into the
crypts.

Chapter Five

“
Art?”

At the call Art looked up from the pile of
dust and wood shavings that he'd swept together. The wrap and mask
and lantern and the rest were all safely stashed away in the
appropriate storerooms, which just left sweeping up.

“
Art, we're going
now; you can lock up any time.” It was Maggie's voice, coming from
the stairwell.

“
Thanks,” he called
back. He leaned the broom against the wall, fished the key ring
from his pocket, and headed for the steps.

After he'd locked the door at the foot of the
stairs he found that Maggie was waiting for him on the second
landing.

“
Mr. Innisfree said
to tell you we'd need to be in by noon tomorrow, but we won't be
doing any more mornings,” she told him as he climbed the steps
toward her.

“
That's fine,” he
said. “I never heard of anyone doing theater work in the morning
anyway.”

“
Well, I haven't
done much theater,” Maggie said. “I don't think any of us have,
really, except maybe Ap... Mr. Tanner.”

He reached her level, and the two of them
proceeded up the narrow steps with her in the lead. “Why are you
all doing it now, then?” he asked.

“
Oh, well,
The
Return of Magic
is special, and when Mr.
Innisfree offered us a chance at it...” She shrugged.

“
It's special?” Art
asked. “I never heard of it.”

“
Hardly anyone has,”
Maggie agreed. “That's one reason it's special.”

They reached the door at the top of the
stairs and emerged backstage.

“
Well, if it's like
that,” Art asked, “how'd you people hear of it,
then?”

“
Well, we're all
interested in... well, magic,” Maggie explained.

“
Stage magic, you
mean.”

She smiled crookedly. “Yes, of course, stage
magic.”

“
That
explains things,” Art remarked.
“You mentioned magic before, too; I should have realized. No
offense, but you folks don't look or act much like any other
theater people I've worked with – but magicians, yeah, I can see
that.” He closed and locked the stairway door, after making sure
the lights were all out.

He looked around and found the stage and
wings empty.

“
The others have
gone already,” Maggie explained.

Art nodded. “If you want to go on, I can
finish up myself.”

“
No, that's all
right, I'm not in any hurry.”

“
Okay, then, next
stop is the lobby.” He led her around by the stage-right steps,
rather than jumping over the edge, and made his way up the
aisle.

Maggie followed.

“
So, you said your
grandmother got you into this?” he asked, just to make
conversation.

“
That's
right.”

“
She was a
magician?”

“
She was... well,
she liked to claim she was a witch.”