The Troupe (32 page)

“What?” said the wolf in red. “Oh, yes, yes. To destroy it. But I’m beginning to think that we’ve been going about this all wrong… It is not a light, really, but something else. Something more like a sound, I believe…”

“Very good,” said the fat wolf. He looked extremely angry. “But you seem to be forgetting that this boy is a very big coup for us. He is a veritable mine of information. You are letting your curiosities get the better of you, and putting too much at risk. We should simply interrogate him, which is why we restrained him in the first place.”

“My interests and… unique predicament allow me truths you are blind to,” said the wolf in red. “Let me handle this interrogation. Can you imagine anyone better to do it than I? I, the one who knows more about their company and what they do than anyone else?”

The two wolves looked mutinous at this, but reluctantly nodded.

“Then that’s settled. Here,” said the wolf in red to George. “Come on. Stand up. That’s it, there we go.” He looked George up and down. “You seem to be in working order. All your… parts are functioning?”

“Yes?” hazarded George.

“Very good. Very, very good. Then come down with me. Let’s sit in the front row together, and we can talk.” He nodded and said to the two other wolves, “That will be all.”

“What!” said the reedy-voiced wolf. “That will be all? What do you mean, that will be all?”

“I mean that’s all I require from you,” said the wolf in red. “You’re no longer needed.”

“You can’t just order us about!” snarled the fat wolf. “We’re not your underlings!”

“But we took this theater for me, for my researches,” said the wolf in red. “It’s mine. I am the one who knows what this project is about, and I am the one in charge of it. And you are interrupting. Or would you like me to tell—”

The wolf in red then said something that George did not understand. It was not a word, and it was not quite a noise. If George had not had the First Song within him, and been so attuned to the silence of the wolves, he would not have heard it at all. But as he did, he heard the wolf in red say something that was like a burst of pure, cold silence, one so complete and awful it was like George had been slapped on either side of his head. His skin erupted in goose bumps and his bowels turned to water, and a tremor ran through the shadows all around them as if in anticipation. He did not know what the wolf had said; he only knew he did not want to hear it again, and he definitely did not ever, ever want to know what it referred to.

The two other wolves stiffened at its mention. “You wouldn’t,” said the fat one.

“I was given approval,” said the wolf in red. “My works have the
blessings, the authorities. I am allowed. And you are not. And today, here, you are no longer needed.”

The two wolves stared at him. Then the reedy-voiced one nodded, and retreated into the shadows, and disappeared. But the fat one lingered, and said, “You should be careful. It is possible that your works are tainting you. And remember: we are all underlings to the one you name. And it is watching you very carefully.” Then he withdrew as well, and was gone.

The wolf in red shook his head once when they were gone. “Silly things,” he said. “They are so eager, but they really don’t understand.”

George felt very confused. While this wolf seemed too unhinged to trust, George was keen to stay in his good graces, since he was the only thing keeping him from horrible abuse. So as politely as possible, George said, “Excuse me, but—”

But the wolf cried, “No, no! No, don’t say anything yet! Please don’t! For now, please, just…
look
.” He leaped down the aisle steps to the front row before the orchestra pit. He gestured to all six of the dummies, and said, “Just look, and please, tell me what you think. Look carefully, and… oh, dear. It looks like someone has stolen the impresario’s head. But ignore that. Please, ignore that, and just… tell me your thoughts.”

George was not sure what he meant. He looked back over the tilted, distorted figures that were so horribly reminiscent of his friends, leaning this way and that in the dancing ash. “It’s… it’s meant to be the troupe.”

“Well, yes, obviously,” said the wolf. “But how close are the representations? Are they very close? Are they exact? I conducted dozens of interviews, kept hundreds of theater bills… Please tell me where I went right and wrong, please.”

The wolf was earnestly watching him, waiting on his every word. George was reminded of an artist bracing himself for criticism.

“They’re extremely close,” said George.

“But not exact?”

“Well, n-no…”

The wolf tutted and shook his head and began rifling a stack of notes. “What is wrong? What’s different? Please spare no detail, it’s the details that trouble me so.”

George had no idea where to begin. Stanley was not five feet tall, and Kingsley was not four feet, and Colette did not have such formidable biceps. But in the interest of humoring the wolf, George told him only about the incorrect pattern of Harry’s trousers, and also mentioned that Stanley usually wore a tie. The wolf immediately asked about the color of the tie as well as the waist size of Silenus’s pants. “This is good, this is very good!” said the wolf, scribbling quickly as George answered. “You have no idea how useful this is! I’ve been following you all for months, trying to get every bit of information on you I could! I traveled miles to find anyone who’d seen your show, and now to have a genuine member in my company… what are the odds? This will be perfect for my researches!”

“I’m sorry, but… researches?” asked George.

“Oh, yes!” said the wolf brightly. “We wanted to know all about you, so I asked them to take this theater for me, and then I could re-create one of your performances! This is where I collect all my little findings, all my little discoveries about you and your company of actors. This
is
a theater your company visited, isn’t it? I wanted the re-creation to be exact.”

“Well,
I
played here, yes,” said George. “But it was just me. Not Silenus.”

The wolf was very crestfallen at this. “Silenus… never came here? You never performed here together?”

George shook his head.

“Oh. Oh, dear,” said the wolf. “I… I must have gotten my information wrong, and chose the wrong place. So all of this… has been wrong from the beginning. How could I have been so stupid!” he
howled suddenly, and kicked at one of the seats. Such was his strength that it cleanly broke free of the floor and went flying across the theater. “I’ve wasted so much time here! And now we’ll have to go and take a new theater, and start all over again!”

George was alarmed to hear this. Not only did he want to keep the wolf in good spirits, but taking a theater apparently meant destroying the building and running off the staff and audience. That must have been how poor Irina died… Then George remembered Van Hoever’s grudge, and said, “But Silenus did play here once!”

The wolf halted his tantrum and looked up. “What?”

“He did play here, before I did! The manager hated him! So this
is
one of his theaters.”

“The manager?” said the wolf.

“Yes! When I worked here he hated Silenus because of his last performance. So this theater is one that both me and Silenus played at. It was just at different times. See?”

“So… I wasn’t wrong to choose this place?”

“No!” said George. He hoped he did not sound as desperate as he felt.

“Oh, good!” said the wolf. He clapped his hands together. “That’s quite a relief! I was very worried there for a moment. Then this is a close re-creation, yes?”

“Y-yes, absolutely,” said George.

“Excellent. Excellent!” He gazed around proudly at the theater and his mock performance, and nodded as though the charred roof and ruined stage were all intended parts of his creation. “I really wanted to
feel
it, you know, to sit in the audience and just watch. Just to get a sense. I’d love to actually see the performance. Ah, of course! I know. You can simply tell me where Silenus is playing next, right now, can’t you? Maybe there’s a chance I could actually catch his show.”

George stared at the wolf. He was not sure what to think of this
guileless ploy. The wolf could not possibly expect him to inform on his friends, could he?

Again, George’s face showed his thinking. “Ah,” said the wolf. “You think me one of them.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You think I am among those who hunt and chase you, who hunger for the Light you bear.”

“Well… aren’t you?”

The wolf looked a little uncomfortable. “Well, y-yes. Yes, I suppose I am doing these researches in order to, well, track you down, and kill you all and so on. But the circumstances are not as you think.”

“They aren’t?” said George. “Then what are they?”

The wolf thought for a moment, and smiled and said, “I will show you.” There was the familiar sound of eggshells breaking again, and a black claw protruded from the index finger of the wolf in red, just as the fat one’s had done. Yet rather than cutting his throat, the wolf in red made a large slash down the front of his chest. The slash flapped open, the coat and shirt stuck together as though they were all part of the same membrane. Then the wolf took the sides of the gash in either hand and said, “Watch.”

“Wait,” said George. “Wait, what are you doing?”

But the wolf ignored him and pulled the slash apart. George, helpless, stared into it.

Below the wolf’s skin was a deep, terrible darkness, not the absence of light as much as the impossibility of it; light was still unthought of, undreamed of, in the deeps where that darkness existed. And yet… there was some small, glittering light in the dark. Some tiny, diamond-bright star that was crawling in little circles in the endless, churning blacks of the wolf’s heart. And George thought he heard that little light singing, somehow…

No, thought George. That’s
impossible
…

The wolf closed the slash. The two sides knit together and became whole again. “You saw it, did you not?”

George said, “You… you’ve got…”

“Yes,” said the wolf. “I have the Light in me. Just the tiniest, tiniest bit. It took us so much time to even figure out what it
was
… We could feel it hurting us, burning us, pushing us back, but we could never understand it. It was by sheer chance that we discovered this tiny shard, lost in the deepest arctic ices, where the shadow lies so thickly. We had to understand what it was, what it did. And we engaged with it in the same way we engage with anything—we ate it.

“Or, more specifically,
I
ate it,” said the wolf mildly. “It is very strange. I used to never say ‘I.’ I always thought in ‘we.’
We
always thought in ‘we.’ But ever since I consumed that little bead of Light, things have… changed. As such, it was decided that I would be the one most suited to learning about your troupe, and what it is you do, and I was given this theater for my studies.”

The wolf gave George a slightly demented smile. “It is all a very new sensation, having the Light in me. I’ve begun trying new things, from colors to hats to even… why, even to
names
. I’ve got so many questions for you, and I am eager to hear your answers. I’ve asked others, but they were mostly confused by my questions… But then, they did not know my circumstances. You do, so perhaps you can help me understand, and further my studies, yes?”

George shrugged. “A-All right?”

“Excellent!” cried the wolf. He ripped out two seats from the front row and set them up in the orchestra pit, facing one another. He grabbed a notepad and sat in one. Then he gestured to the other. George, feeling faintly absurd, sat.

“Now,” said the wolf. “Now, now, now.” He flipped through several pages to find the right starting place. “My first question is—do you have a
name
?”

“A name? Yes.”

“Ah!” said the wolf. It wrote several extensive notes. “And what is that name?”

“George.”

“I see,” said the wolf. “And how long have you been George?”

“How long? As in, how long have I been alive?”

“Oh, were you here in some way before you were alive?” asked the wolf, interested.

“I… don’t really know,” said George. “I don’t think so.”

“So you don’t know if you were here? Or if you were here before your George-time? Is it possible for you to be here, but not know it?”

“My what time? No, I mean, I was born, and then they just named me George.”

“So you are
not
George,” said the wolf. “George is just a name. A word. A propulsion of air modified by the flexing of throat-parts.”

“Well, I am George, but… yes. Yes, and… no.”

“Is it possible that you became George at a later time, having been originally named that thing?” asked the wolf. “What if the naming had been different, would you still be George?”

“I… yes?”

“Really?” breathed the wolf in awe. “This is all so confusing.” Yet he seemed very pleased with George’s answers. “I don’t know how you all do it. It seems so marvelously complex to simply… be.”

“I’m… not sure if I would be the best to answer these sorts of questions,” said George.

“Why not?” asked the wolf. “Do you not exist? Trust me, I would be aware if you did not exist. My brothers and I, in a very, very fundamental way, have not existed since before anything could ever exist. Though that’s recently changed for me, of course.” The wolf looked up, thoughtful. “Do you understand what I mean?”

George looked at him. He realized that the way the wolf was dressed and the way he was acting were akin to how children would dress up and pretend to be their parents, mimicking the ephemera of adult life without ever really understanding its meaning. “I think I’m starting to.”

“It is a very troubling and confusing thing,” said the wolf. “But simply from our short discussion, I’ve learned something. Your exis
tence seems to have been gradual. You weren’t, and then you slowly were. But mine was not gradual. I wasn’t, and then I had a bright little core of… of
everything
dropped inside me. And then I
was
. And it is shocking, and painful.”

“Really?” asked George.