The Rebirth of Wonder (8 page)

“
Where are you
going?” Maggie asked, startled.

“
Oh, I need to check
the place over,” Art said. “Make sure you people left everything
where it belongs. You go ahead, you don't have to wait for
me.”

Maggie hesitated, then answered, “All right,”
as Art descended the steps from the stage.

He waved a quick farewell; when he turned to
say good-bye the stage door was closing behind her.

He hesitated, slightly irked at her quick
exit – though he knew that was unreasonable of him. He'd said
himself that she didn't have to wait. Then he shrugged off his
annoyance and marched up the aisle to the lobby, through the lobby
to the box office, and back to the control panel.

The air conditioner was off, the thermostat
still set where he had left it; he put his hand on the air
conditioner housing, and could feel no coolness. The metal was room
temperature.

They must have turned it off a while ago, he
decided. But usually the theater heated up fast. Had it cooled off
outside? The weather reports hadn't predicted that.

Puzzled, he went on about his business,
checking all the doors. When at last he emerged at the rear of the
theater the sun was swimming on the horizon, bloated and red, and
the air was still furnace-hot.

He stood on the back porch for a moment,
trying to figure it out.

Then, with a shrug, he gave up and went home
for dinner.

Chapter Eight

The town library's copy of
the book Jamie had particularly recommended, Ray Bradbury's
Something Wicked This Way
Comes
, was already checked out; Art
checked the entire shelf twice, just to be sure.

He couldn't remember any other titles. He
could have just chosen a book at random, but he hated doing that;
he'd gotten too many boring volumes that way.

It was ten-thirty, and he didn't have to be
anywhere until two – well, quarter of, to be safe – and he couldn't
find the book he wanted.

Annoyed, he turned and saw the card catalog,
and a thought struck him. He crossed to the wooden cabinet and
found the title index, then looked under R.

Return of the
King
,
Return of
the Native
– no, there wasn't any “the” in
the middle.
Return of Nathan
Brazil
,
Return of
Monte Cristo
,
Return of Mr. Moto
,
Return of Martin Guerre
,
Return of
Lysander
...

No
Return of Magic
.

He flipped a few dozen cards in either
direction without finding it; then he tried under “The,” just in
case.

It wasn't there, either.

He gave up on the title index and tried by
subject, under “drama,” “magic,” and “theater.”

No luck.

Well, Bampton's library was pretty good for a
small town, but it still didn't amount to much compared to a
big-city library, or a university's. They probably just didn't have
the play in their collection.

But they might have a mention of it
somewhere; he left the card catalog and found the theater
section.

Most of the books were obviously not going to
help much, but a few looked promising; he pulled them out and
thumbed through the indices.

The Return of Magic
was not a Restoration comedy, apparently; he
found some impressive lists of those. It wasn't mentioned in books
on medieval mummers' plays, passion plays, and the
commedia dell'arte
. It
wasn't by Shakespeare or Shaw or Ibsen or Chekhov; it had never
been a Broadway hit.

He frowned.

Maybe if he knew who wrote it – going through
every single playwright's biography would take forever. And it
might have an alternate title, for that matter.

He would have to ask about that.

It was almost noon by the time he abandoned
the search, and even if he hadn't found a book, he had at least
managed to use up the morning; he went home for lunch, and then
headed to the theater at about one-thirty, equipped with a couple
of old magazines to read while waiting for the Bringers.

He had been sitting on the
edge of the stage reading the June issue of
Esquire
for perhaps ten minutes when
he heard footsteps behind him. He put the magazine down and turned,
and found Innisfree standing at center stage, ludicrous in Bermuda
shorts and a Hawaiian shirt.

Again, Art had not seen or heard anyone come
in; he was beginning to find these silent entrances and exits
rather aggravating.

“
Hi, Mr. Innisfree,”
he said, putting down his magazine.

“
Good afternoon,
Arthur, and a fine day it is, too!”

Art had his own opinion on that, which was
that it was still too damned hot out – he had turned the air
conditioning on as soon as he could, and it was just now beginning
to cut through the dry, dusty heat of the theater. He didn't say
anything about that. Instead, he remarked, “I've been wondering –
what's this play of yours about?”

Innisfree blinked at him. “What's that?” he
asked.

“
This play you're putting on,
The Return of Magic
– what's it about?”

Innisfree cleared his throat. “Well, that's a
bit hard to say.”

Art suppressed the urge to say, “Try.”
Instead he just looked up expectantly and waited.

“
Well,” Innisfree
said, “you see, it's about a group of wizards and sorcerers who are
worried about their magic fading away, and who gather together to
seek out a new source of power.”

“
Sounds
interesting,” Art said. “Lots of special effects and fancy
lighting, I suppose.” He glanced at the shelves where the lighting
instruments and cables remained untouched.

“
Well, I suppose; we
haven't got into that yet,” Innisfree said
uneasily.

“
Could I see a
script?” Art asked.

“
I'm afraid we don't
have any extra copies,” Innisfree replied, apologetically. “In
fact, some of us are sharing as it is.”

“
Well, I could make
some photocopies if you want...”

“
No, thank you –
that might get us in trouble. The proprietors are very picky about
that.”

Art nodded. “Maybe I could find you some
more, then,” he suggested. “Who wrote it?”

Innisfree smiled crookedly. “No one you ever
heard of, I'm afraid,” he said. “And I doubt you'll find
copies.”

“
I might,” Art said.
“You might be surprised what one can find here in Bampton. Who was
it?”

Innisfree smiled. “A fellow named Merton
Ambrose,” he said. “Or at least, that's the name he used; I suspect
it's a stage name.”

Art nodded. “I'll take a look,” he said.

“
For what?” someone
asked. Art started, and realized that the woman with the curly
black hair was in the stage-right wings. He hadn't seen her come
in. She was wearing a low-cut sundress and white sandals, and was
walking toward them.

“
For
The Return
of Magic
,” Art replied. “Mr. Innisfree
said you could use another copy or two of the script.”

“
Oh, did he?” She
gave Innisfree a look Art couldn't even begin to interpret, and
stopped two paces away.

“
Yes, Ms... I'm
sorry, I didn't get your name?”

The black-haired woman turned her inscrutable
gaze on Art, then smiled wryly.

“
My stage name,” she
said, “is Kaye. Kier Kaye, K-I-E-R K-A-Y-E. I can't say I really
care for it any more, but I seem to be stuck with
it.”

“
It's pretty,” Art
said, truthfully.

“
Ha!” another voice
interjected. “The lad thinks he knows beauty!”

Art looked, and discovered the mustached man
off to stage left, in embroidered white shirt and loose black
pants.

“
Arthur Dunham,”
Kier Kaye said, “allow me to introduce Dr. Eugenio Torralva, a man
whose blessings sound like curses.”

Dr. Torralva bowed deeply. “Your servant,
sir,” he said.

“
Hello,” Art
replied.

Now,
these
two seemed like actors – the
flamboyant bow, the snide remark, that was the sort of behavior he
expected from theater people.

He discovered that while he had been speaking
to this pair, the rest of the Bringers of Wonder had somehow
arrived – though again, he hadn't seen or heard the stage door
open. “Hello,” he said again, this time directing it to the entire
group.

Old Ms. Yeager glowered at him; Maggie
smiled. One of the men gestured, and pulled a flame from thin air;
it seemed to burn without fuel between his thumb and forefinger, a
bright orange flame four or five inches high. Then he parted his
fingers, and it was gone.

Art hesitated, unsure whether he should
applaud, or whether the sudden sleight-of-hand demonstration had
any purpose at all. And of course, playing with fire wasn't
necessarily safe, in the dry old wooden building, and maybe, in his
role as fire marshal, he should say something about it. “Uh...” he
said. “Ms. Kaye, who is that?”

She smiled again.

“
Apollonius!” she
called. “Would you come here a moment?”

The man who had conjured the flame strode
over to them. He was tall and rather thin, old enough that his hair
was white, but he was still straight and strong, with few wrinkles;
he wore a white robe that looked vaguely Arabic, and Art was unsure
whether this was a costume or his normal street wear.

“
Kier,” he
said.

“
Your little stunt
caught our young friend's eye,” she told him. “Art, this is
Apollonius... Apollonius Tanner.”

“
Call me Al,” the
tall man said, holding out a hand.

“
Art,” Art said,
shaking.

Before he could say anything more, issue a
warning about open flames, Yeager interrupted, calling, “Can we get
on with this?”

“
Yes,” Innisfree
immediately said, rubbing his hands together and marching to center
stage. “I think we should get started.”

“
Then get that
damned kid out of here!” Yeager demanded, pointing at
Art.

The open flame wasn't worth arguing
about.

“
I'm going,” Art
said. He climbed up on the stage, tucked his magazines under his
arm, and marched toward the basement stairs. Behind him, he heard a
few murmurs uneasily raised in his defense; he ignored
them.

After all, he had plenty of sorting still to
go.

As he descended the steps he reviewed the
names he had learned so far, and concluded that he could now attach
a name to eight of the twelve Bringers; he still wasn't sure of
either of the two blacks, or the fat Oriental guy, or the one in
the turban, but he knew the others. And the black woman's name was
Tituba, he thought.

In the storeroom he found the boxes and props
as he had left them – but the gleam of metal caught his eye the
instant he turned on the light.

He knelt and looked over the heap of unsorted
objects, and saw what it was he had spotted. He pulled a foot-long
dagger from the pile.

It was a fine piece of work, a glittering
steel blade and a hilt of carved bone, colored dyes worked into the
patterns on the grip. It looked archaic, ancient, really, but the
metal shone like new.

He had never seen it before.

He was quite sure of that; he would have
remembered a thing like that. It looked valuable, and out of place
in the jumble of dusty, worthless props. How had he missed it,
yesterday?

He held it up, studying the play of light on
the razor-sharp blade.

Nobody would use that thing onstage, he
thought. Far too dangerous, with an edge like that; sooner or later
someone would get cut, would wind up with bloody fingers or a
slashed costume at the very least. So what was it doing here?

He looked down at the pile, puzzled.

Knives – where had he been putting prop
knives?

Hadn't there been a wooden one, with peeling
paint, in this pile? Had he put that somewhere?

It certainly wasn't here now.

He stared at the pile for a moment, then
sighed, seated himself cross-legged on the floor, and placed the
dagger carefully to one side.

That was an exotic, expensive-looking knife.
Perhaps one of the Bringers of Wonder had lost it, and it had
somehow wound up down here? Dropped through a trapdoor,
perhaps?

No, the traps all came out in the big room,
not the prop storeroom.

Maybe it had been caught in his clothes and
then had fallen out down here? Or maybe that Apollonius guy was
playing a little trick of some kind?

That reminded him that he had never issued a
warning about conjuring up fire, the way Al, or Apollonius, or
whatever his name was, had.

Well, it could wait. He would figure it out
later where the knife came from. For now, he had sorting to do.

He ignored the dagger and began pulling items
one by one from the pile.