Waking Rose: A Fairy Tale Retold (14 page)

Rose picked up her book bag and followed the two girls to the back of the theatre. There was a lot of scenery stacked up, and lumber, and tools scattered about, not leaving much room for working in.

“Do you want to work on blocking too?” Rose said doubtfully, looking at the cramped quarters. “There’s not much room to work back here.”

“Maybe later,” Donna said, with an odd smile at Tara. “Right now, let’s just focus on lines. Run the whole scene.”

Rose found the place in her script and began. The other two girls worked without scripts, and they seemed to know their lines well. First, following Donna’s assertion that “This was how we always did it in our local theatre,” they ran through the lines rapidly, without intonation, just to get the words perfectly. Then they began the scene again at the proper pace.

It was a good practice, and Rose, engrossed in her character, didn’t notice until they stopped that the theatre was unusually quiet. Remembering that Fish would be waiting, she said, “Can we stop now?”

“We need to do the Gloucester scene,” Donna said. “Dr. Morris said I have to be off book by next rehearsal.”

“Oh,” Rose said, a bit surprised. She hadn’t heard Dr. Morris say that, but then again, the director had talked to Donna privately at several points during the evening. She turned to the correct pages. “I’ll read all the other parts,” she said. “Shall I start?”

Tara cocked her head, listening. “I think the stage is cleared,” she said. “Let’s go back out.”

“But we need the chair,” Donna reminded them as they worked their way out of the back quarters. “Oh, there it is.”

Rose looked, and saw that Gloucester’s chair had been dragged backstage by the stage manager. “Well, let’s just do it over there,” she said. It was a bit less cramped than the space they had been using.

She crossed over to the chair and set down her book on the wide arm of the throne. “All right. I’ll be Cornwall.”

She began the scene:  “Post speedily to my lord your husband; show him this letter: the army of France is landed. Seek out the villain Gloucester.”

Tara spat, “Hang him instantly,” and Donna added with a sinister smile, “Pluck out his eyes.”

Rose continued as Cornwall and the other characters until Gloucester’s entrance. Then she stepped into the part of the captured lord. “What mean your graces? Good my friends, consider. You are my guests: do me no foul play, friends.” And added Cornwall’s harsh command, “Bind him, I say.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Tara holding the rope that had been used in the rehearsal. Apparently she had taken the part of the servants.

Donna breathed, “Hard, hard. O filthy traitor!” and pushed Rose onto the chair, as the blocking commanded.

“Unmerciful lady as you are, I'm none,” Rose as Gloucester said, a bit indignantly, adjusting the book on her lap. She found Cornwall’s line. “To this chair, bind him. Villain, thou shalt find–”

She cut herself off in a surprise that was unacted as Donna and Tara pulled the heavy ropes around her. A fragment of a memory chilled her, and she struggled as they tied the knots. But Gloucester was supposed to struggle, she remembered, and went on as they continued their work. “By the kind gods, 'tis most ignobly done!...” 

The script slid off her lap, and, her hands being pinned to the arms of the chair, she couldn’t retrieve it. It flopped onto the floor, and there was silence except for the movements of the two girls working on the ropes.

She couldn’t remember what line came next. She needed the text. Now she pulled against the ropes insistently but they didn’t budge. No one picked up the fallen script. She became aware that Donna had not said her next line, and that she and Tara had finished, and were standing next to her, strange smiles on their faces.

7
...It was the last fairy, who came uninvited, full of wrath and seeking to punish the king for his impudence…

H
IS

Something about the atmosphere of the church slipped him into timelessness and, caught up in the stillness and his own thoughts, he didn’t notice how long he actually stayed there. When he finally came to himself and looked at his watch, he saw it was over an hour since he had left the theatre.

Rubbing his eyes, he quickly got up, crossed himself before the tabernacle, and hurried out.

A small figure was moving along the back of the church and met him in the vestibule. The little nun in the blue habit. He saw that she must be about sixty, but she moved as lightly as a ballet dancer. Her blue eyes shining, she gave him a sweet smile.

“You know Rose Brier,” she said to him.

He paused, surprised. How could she have known that?

“Yes, actually, I do. How did you know that, Sister?” he asked respectfully. Father Raymond had told him one always addresses a nun by her title, even if you don’t know her name.

“I saw you at her sister’s wedding,” the nun nodded at him. “You greatly resemble the man her sister married.”

“Oh!” (He did?)  “—Yes, I’m his brother.”

She bobbed her head again. “It was a lovely wedding. I saw you dancing with Rose. You care about her, don’t you?”

“Well, yes,” he was puzzled, and a bit wary. Of course he cared for Rose. But what did this mean? Was this nun Rose’s confidant?

Disconcertingly, the nun took his arm and spoke fervently. “You must guard her. She has every need of your care. There is a shadow of evil over her family. A serpent lies in the grass. You must not let it harm her.”

Now completely thrown, Fish was about to reply when the nun released him and smiled her innocent smile again, and nodded. “We are praying for you both,” and walked away.

Part of him wanted to go after the nun and demand an explanation. But he was late to pick up Rose. And the nun reminded him of some of the odd ducks one met on the streets in New York City, self-proclaimed prophets with deep sayings for every passerby, little grounded in reality. All the same, the nun’s words gave him a peculiar feeling as he strode back up the hill towards the theatre. The night had turned dark, except for the glare of the spotlights on the walkway. He traveled from one pool of bright light through another patch of inky darkness, into light, into dark, and as he walked, a strange anxiety took hold of him.

If he hadn’t already been late, he would have ignored the uncanny sense, but since he was, he started to run.  As he ran, the feeling of urgency grew stronger. By the time he reached the theatre doors, he was racing so fast he had to slow himself to go inside. There was a light on in the vestibule, but the theatre building was dark, and silent. Panting, he looked in through the glass windows in the doors leading to the theatre itself and saw nothing but inky blackness. There was no sound but his breathing.

Carefully he opened the doors and stepped inside to listen. For a long moment he stood there, searching the dark, seeing nothing, hearing nothing. Then somewhere in the darkness, faintly, he heard a voice say, “Give me the line again, Brier.” 

There was a menacing edge to the voice that had spoken, but then he heard Rose’s voice, sweet and calm, saying, “If for I want that glib and oily art to speak and purpose not; since what I well intend, I’ll do it before I speak.”

The actors must be in the back of the theatre, someplace, running lines. Fish told himself to relax.

“Sister, you are jesting, and I am in deadly earnest.”  Again the voice was threatening, with a point to it that seemed more real than most of the acting Fish had heard this evening. Also, he didn’t recognize that line from the play.

“Such a tongue that I am glad I have not, though to have hath lost me to your liking,” Rose’s voice said blandly.

“You think we’re kidding, don’t you?” another voice said.

“I know what you are,” Rose said, and Fish sensed that she also wasn’t acting.

“Look, we’ll run this scene again until you get it right. What we want is your resignation.”

“I cannot,” she said, and her voice was almost lighthearted.

“Sooner or later you’re going to run out of lines from this play. And we can be here all night if we need to.”

Fish felt around for a light switch but couldn’t find one. He started making his way cautiously down the aisle in the dark.

“If I run Cordelia’s lines away, I can go on to another play,” Rose suggested with a laugh.

“Do you think you’re a better actor just because you think you know more Shakespeare?” the first voice was derisive. “You know I’d be better at the part than you.”

“Alas, that choice was not given me,” Rose said.

Fish had reached the stage. He remembered noticing that there was a door to the left, leading backstage, and tried to find it.

“It’s very simple, Brier. I’m your understudy. Tara is my understudy. All you need to do is resign, and we all get the parts we want.”

“If only it were so simple. Do you really think Dr. Morris will agree to this?” Rose asked.

He felt the doorway, but inside it was still black. The voices were louder, though. They sounded very close to him, but there was no sign of anyone. He put out his hand and felt a canvas screen. Scenery. He groped, found the edge of it, and stepped around it, almost bumping into another screen.

“He’ll do anything I tell him. All you have to do is use your mediocre acting ability to convince him that you really want to resign from the play.”

It was a maze back here. Fish moved silently, moving closer towards the speakers, whom he still could not see.

“And if I refuse?”

“Well, look at how easily you fell into our trap tonight. I’ll let you imagine how easily we can make your life miserable in the future.”

“And not just in the theatre,” the other voice said. “We know where you live.”

“Words, words, words, words,” Rose murmured. Fish felt for his handgun, which fortunately was in his breast pocket, and moved more quietly.

“You still don’t believe us. Maybe we’ll have to do that Gloucester scene again—see if you find it convincing this time. Hold her down, Tara.”

There was a scrape of metal.

Rose’s voice became melodramatic. “Is this a dagger I see before me?”

“But its handle isn’t turned towards you, is it?”

Fish rounded another corner and suddenly found he was looking down a corridor. At the end of it was a small stage light. In the glow he saw the heavy wooden throne from the Gloucester scene. Thick ropes on the arms and back bound Rose to it, and two figures stood around her. One held over her what was clearly a knife.

“We’ve told you what to say,” the taller figure, the first voice, was saying. “Now, this is your last chance—say the speech as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue.”

Rose’s face was impassive. “Lord what fools these mortals be,” she remarked calmly.

“Bravo,” Fish said, striding towards them. The two figures froze, and looked at him. Rose remained still, gazing at the girl with the knife.

“Quite impressive acting,” he said mildly as he reached them, his right hand still near his breast pocket, ready to grab his gun if necessary. The tall girl with blue eyes stared at him, her mouth open. “You almost convinced me.”

“We were just fooling around,” the shorter girl said defensively.

“Of course,” Fish said lightly, “you do but jest. Poison in jest. No offense in the world. But I think it’s time you ended your performance. I have to get Rose home.” He put out a hand to the tall girl, indicating that he wanted the knife.

“It’s only a stage knife,” she said flatly, and handed it to him.

Fish felt the blade, which was a thin flexible metal. “Still strong enough to damage someone’s eye, though, isn’t it?”  He put it in his pocket. “You’re a fine actress. You should do well in the part you have.” He looked down at Rose, who had visibly relaxed. “Why don’t you both help me get her untied?”

Sullenly the other girls untied the ropes from Rose’s arms and chest, and she got up and dusted off her jeans carelessly.

“Good night, sweet ladies, good night,” she said to the other two in the same tone she had been using.

The two girls melted away into the shadows, and Fish put a hand on Rose’s shoulder. “Let’s go,” he said.

“I have to get my bag,” she said in a whisper.

He walked out to the seating area with her where she hunted around and retrieved her knapsack, but he took it from her and slung it on his back. As they exited the theatre, he looked around for the other girls, but they had vanished.

They walked to his car, and he opened the door for her and she got in. Then he closed the door, scanned the darkened campus, and got in himself.

“Rose, we’ve got to tell someone what just happened to you in there,” he said once the door was closed. “I want to get a hold of campus security. And who’s the director of this play?”  He noticed then that her hands were shaking.

“Dr. Morris is the director.”

“Do you know where he lives?”

“Yes. He lives right in town.”

“You and I are going to see him tonight. Those girls should be expelled.”

“You didn’t think it was just a joke?”

“Not in the least. I let them think that I did until I got that knife away from the girl. What did you say her name was?”