The Three Thorns (11 page)

“Come with me,” Peter urged, nodding his head gently as he reached out a hand to the disturbed boy.

“Warwickshire sure is a long way north of here.”

“Longer if you don’t have a map to get you there,” Peter said, unfolding his original copy in front of Sebastian.

“Oh no. The police already have a copy of that map, I saw them with it,” Sebastian moaned.

“Then we’ll have to be quicker on our feet than they are,” Peter replied excitably.

Sebastian crept out from behind the boxes gawking at Peter through his overly large and dusty spectacles. “I’m not sure about this,” he said hastily.

“I’m offering you a chance to know the real truth about yourself Sebastian, to know where you really come from, to know who your real parents were. This is your chance to do something great. You’ll meet new friends like you and explore your abilities. You can use your gifts to help others and advance the Brotherhood,” Peter said honestly. “Or you can stay here and look forward to washing Viktor’s laundry, if you’re not mopping the toilets for Greta after the show.”

Sebastian looked around the cold attic. Staring down at the holes in his rags, he noticed his true poverty compared to his rich foster parents and realised there was nothing keeping him there. Sebastian smiled, a sparkle for adventure filling in his eyes.

“This better be worth it.”

“I’m not going to lie to you Sebastian, if you come with me, you’ll never be able to come back,” Peter warned.

“That’s a crying shame. Not even for Christmas?” Sebastian said in a sardonic tone to his bemused guest. “That was a joke, Peter.”

“There isn’t much time left, Sebastian. The False One has sent assassins. They’ll be catching up to us if we linger. I fear they may have already tracked me down.”

“Who? The Inspector?” Sebastian gasped, dumbfounded.

“He’s one of them, I’m sure of it. I don’t know how he got here but I know it’s an assassin, even in that clever disguise. He’s here for us and I’ve led him straight to you.”

Sebastian took a deep breath again and looked hard at Peter.

“We must go now,” Peter warned.

Compared to the usual neediness of Benjamin or the rude childish temperament of Tommy, Sebastian was an island unto himself. The prop boy was different. He had wisdom.

“Then let’s leg it,” Sebastian insisted, kneeling down to look through a hole in the wall light. “It won’t be long now until the crowds pour in.”

“But I can hear them already,” Peter whispered back. “How will we slip past when it’s so busy?”

“We’ll have to become a part of the show,” Sebastian gloated, scrambling to his feet to search the back of the enormous attic for old props and costumes.

“Go on stage? That sounds too risky. The Inspector will be in the audience,” Peter reminded, cautious of the deadly assassin.

“It’s the only way,” Sebastian said courageously. “The stage will be the last place they’ll expect to look.”

“Then take this map, in case we lose each other,” Peter said, calmly handing the boy the map.

“We won’t lose each other, and we won’t get caught,” he smiled, stopping his large crooked spectacles from sliding off his nose with his free hand. “Besides, my encore is long overdue.”

“Let’s find some costumes then,” Peter said encouragingly.

Both tore the large attic apart as quietly as they could in search of the perfect disguise to fit in with the show.

“I hope you don’t get stage fright,” Sebastian teased, tossing a costume on the floor to Peter.

“Hey, this is some form of beast.” Peter stared warily at the grotesque donkey suit that was worn and torn.

“We used it for
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
a few months ago, but it’s okay because tonight they’re doing another Shakespearean play called
Macbeth.
”

“Macbeth?” asked Peter, his face undoubtedly honest by his lack of knowledge of the arts. “Well, the important thing is the play has horses in one scene as I recall,” Sebastian jittered with excitement in his voice.

Peter lifted the dusty worn out donkey mask by his index finger and sneezed before studying it.

“It’s perfect. Let’s get ready.”

Outside the auditorium an overflowing crowd of judges, politicians, barristers, doctors, and Shakespeare fans waited in line.

“What is taking so long?” one voice yelled amidst a muster of complaints.

A group of workers rapidly climbed to the top of the scaffolding to fix the ceiling lights as fast as their hands would allow them.

Peter and Sebastian could even hear one worker puttering around the inside of the ceiling space.

“Do you see him?” Viktor called up to the workers. His voice was troubled. “What’s happened to my lights?” he demanded. “Can you see anything?”

“Of course they can’t, you great brute, the lights are still out,” Greta chastised, walking up the side steps of the stage. She steadied her cigarette holder to her lips and took a long puff. “We will deal with that indolent brat later; just get the lights working. The bouncers are ready to open the main doors. Hurry up and get that hideous thing out of here,” she added, tapping the side of the scaffolding.

“I’m gonna kill him!” Viktor grumbled back to his wife, marching backstage to ensure his workers were performing their jobs properly.

It was hard to tackle the task, for the group had hardly managed to fix the lights until half of them went out again. Viktor was left no choice but to solve the slight setback later and go on with the show without them.

As the boys waited in the large attic space of the opera house, a trembling noise of feet echoed through the airshafts like a stampede of sound. The doors had finally opened.

Sebastian wore an old crumply archer costume covered in tin foil.

“Look at me, I’m Sir Lancelot,” Sebastian laughed, swinging a piece of tinfoil and cardboard that had been shaped to resemble a sword. Its visible glue spots made the costume look cheap and shabby.

“What is Lancelot?” Peter asked. Peter’s naive expression made him appear more alien to Sebastian than anyone he had ever met.

“You really haven’t heard of any of these people, have you?” Sebastian asked, staring widely into the slits of Peter’s donkey mask.

“We should go now,” Peter replied.

“One moment. I have to make sure,” Sebastian pleaded, scrambling toward the crack in the dusty floor to spy on the unsuspecting crowd below them. Audience members kept coming by the dozen to take their seats.

Sebastian spotted the prop boy who had taken over his job, ushering in the guests that evening using a flashlight. A feeling of relief swept over him at the prospect of a new life where he would never have to show some ill-mannered aristocrat to their favorite seat again.

The loud chatter from the crowd created the very advantage they were waiting for.

“Shortcut,” Sebastian said, opening an old airshaft that led to Greta’s changing rooms backstage. Both climbed into the airshaft dropping feet first down the chute.

A group of extras in the pantomime didn’t seem to take notice of Peter and Sebastian’s raucous entrance into the changing rooms when they shot out the bottom end of the airshaft and stumbled over each other. One extra gave out a sarcastic laugh at Peter’s donkey mask that fell off his head and slid across the floor. Struggling to pick it up, Peter and Sebastian slid on the polished wet floor, appearing almost like a comedic duo act.

Luckily for him, Sebastian’s knight helmet remained securely fastened on his head and was large enough to hide his face.

“I want you all behind the curtain, now.” Greta belched from behind the changing room door. She was ready to head back out the door when she caught sight of Peter’s donkey costume from the corner of her eye. Sebastian’s heart almost stopped.

“Well, don’t you two look adorable?” she cackled back at the camouflaged fugitives. Each boy awkwardly nodded back to her at the same time. It was obvious that the woman was too drunk to talk to them further. Dropping her keys at the doorway, Greta pulled the door behind her and slammed it shut. Both boys turned their heads slowly to one another and comically shrugged.

Sebastian swiped Greta’s keys off the ground. “Now we can lock them in after we sneak out,” Sebastian said excitably. “It’ll better our chances.”

The curtains rolled and the orchestra stirred until it roared wildly. To the audience’s delight, the show started off strong. Everyone remained glued to their seats, apart from one member who sat in the upper balcony.

The Inspector’s eyes kept searching around the auditorium for any signs of Sebastian. He had ordered his policing staff to search certain back parts and out of bounds areas of the opera house. Preoccupied giving out his orders, the lethal assassin in disguise hadn’t checked an unlikely blind spot—the main stage, where Sebastian and Peter joined the rest of the extras in one of the crowded battle scenes. It was the last place anyone would think to look.

But as soon as Peter grabbed Sebastian to make a hasty run for the side exit, an extra unintentionally danced her way in front of his path and accidentally slammed into him. The unforeseen accident caused an immediate domino effect amongst the other extras on stage.

Just when Sebastian thought their situation couldn’t get much worse, Peter’s unstable donkey mask loosened again and rolled across the stage’s edge, landing directly on top of the musical conductor’s head, fitting his noggin perfectly. The audience burst into fits of roaring laughter at the unexpected and clumsy catastrophe. Even members of the orchestra laughed behind their instruments at the sudden shambles. Viktor stood at the opposite side of the curtain, cursing and shouting in Russian.

“I think it’s time to run,” Peter yelled, the moment Viktor came hurdling across the stage after him.

“He hasn’t spotted me. I’ve got the keys to lock them all in. Distract him and I’ll sneak out the side entrance,” Sebastian said.

Peter nodded and untied the rope that held the large velvet curtains in place. In one fell swoosh the left curtain came crashing down on set pieces, which fell on top of the cast, covering Viktor last. Laughter from the audience gradually changed to loud booing. The sudden disruption of the evening’s entertainment caused many in the audience to leave.

The Inspector had been too late to notice Sebastian sneak his way through the gang of extras on stage to the side exit of the auditorium. Just as his hands clamped down upon the large handle of the exit doors, Sebastian spotted his dinner suit stuffed into one of the hangers that sat behind the side of the stage. It was a snappy suit complete with newly polished shoes that he was to wear that night after the show. The Cains would usually show him off to exhibit the illusion of a perfect family to those in high society such as the Mayor of London, the press, and other aristocratic and political figures of Parliament or anyone who attended their after-celebration parties on a regular basis, before putting him to work the moment they were home.
Not this time
, Sebastian thought.

“Not ever again,” he whispered aloud to himself.

Folding up his dinner suit around his new shoes that Viktor had purchased for him, Sebastian tucked the light bundle under his arm and headed back toward the exit door.

As soon as he stepped foot outside the side entrance, Mr. Jennings and Mr. Porter stood in front of him, each with a cigar hanging out of their mouth. Two other policemen kept watch for any signs of suspicious activity from the side of the theater, without realizing they had just found it.

Mr. Jennings sputtered out some leftover chewing tobacco onto the wet cobblestones. “That’s a really shabby costume. Don’t they pay you actors enough to buy something a little bit more believable?”

Mr. Porter hooted when Mr. Jennings added another negative critique.

“For goodness sake, you look like an old dustbin. What cheap toot.”

Sebastian simply pointed inside to the stage through the side doors. The two policemen poked their noses through the door, curious about the loud booing and yelling from the audience. The heavy stomping and clapping from the crowd inside was enough to entice Mr. Jennings and Mr. Porter inside for a nosey look.

Once the policemen and orderlies were inside the building, Sebastian promptly pushed the side door shut behind them and locked it with the key he had picked out by touch. Sebastian had grown so accustomed to locking the theater doors and helping out with waste and rubbish that he’d learnt the shape and size of every key. Just by the sense of touch Sebastian could figure out blue prints, doors, locks and keys without giving it a single thought. It was a natural instinct, like magic.

Complaints echoed from the rowdy commoners who had paid for cheap seats at the back of the auditorium. The event had stirred an angry mob, all venting their anger at the cast and crew, but mostly at their larger-than-life Russian host.

Peter had secretly climbed to the top part of the main stage lights to reach the emergency balcony that was used as a fire exit. He was almost at the exit when the Inspector stepped in front of him on the stage rafters.

“Your disguise almost fooled me, traitor,” the Inspector growled. “What do you think about mine? How do I look?”

The assassin turned around in its human form like it was admiring itself through a mirror. Peter silently took a few steps back.

“I have felt your eyes on me the whole time,” it hissed, disgustingly. “Did I fool you…while you were spying on me?”

“Almost—you need to work on that stench.” Peter smiled, holding his own nose.

“So, you’re a protector? How pitiful. I can see this rescue isn’t as organized as His Majesty predicted. Very good.”

The false Inspector sneered at him as it took a step closer upon the rafter. Peter instantly armed himself, taking out his hidden blade from its pouch.

The assassin put its hands over its head, mimicking a surrendering stance. “You want to run little rabbit…so run.
We
will catch up,” the false Inspector said, confidently motioning its hand for Peter to leave.