Chapter 16

16

O ver at the theater, Zale looked ready to pull his hair out. He stood on the lip of the stage as Sergei and Ethan attempted to toddle around on the stilts we’d found in the storage building. They were supposed to be learning to walk on them, and instead, they kept trying to sweep them out from under one another, and make the other fall.

“Will you two stop dicking around, and learn how to use those things already!” Zale shouted, looking close to tears.

“We are learning to use them,” Ethan insisted, as he lurched dangerously to one side and took a vicious swipe at Sergei’s knees, which Sergei successfully dodged, but then lost his balance and toppled backward into the curtains.

“Not as weapons!” Zale shouted. “We have the staffs for that!”

“Yeah, and we don’t even get to carry them!” Sergei complained, as he disentangled himself from the curtains. “The whole reason I took this part was because I get to do the fight scene, and now you’re telling me someone else is going to be controlling the arms on these things? What’s the point if I don’t get to hit someone?”

“The point is to put on an entertaining performance!” Zale snapped.

Off to the side of the stage, four of the girls stood holding staffs and the branchy arms Zale had built for the puppets. They looked bored and aggravated, and kept rolling their eyes at the boys on the stilts.

“Are we ever going to get a chance to do anything?” Petra whined.

“Not if we have to wait for those two to grow up,” Kaia grumbled.

“I’m not going near them until they can keep their balance,” a third girl added. “I don’t want to get trampled.”

Zale’s hair was sticking straight up from the number of times he had run his hands through it. He turned toward us as we walked up the aisle, looking like a mad scientist with anxiety.

“How’s it going?” I asked.

Zale let loose a hysterical cackle of laughter in reply.

“That good, huh?” Eva asked, grinning.

“My goddess, they are so pretty, but so impossibly immature. Like, what minor deity did I piss off to be born attracted to them? At this point, I’m seriously considering giving them each a real sword, and letting them take each other out so I can recast them,” Zale huffed.

“You’re telling me you think you can get someone else to play these parts?” Eva asked.

Zale opened his mouth to retort, but I interrupted him.

“Bea has something to show you.”

“Oh, hey, Bea. What’s up?” Zale asked.

Reluctantly, and with much mumbling and blushing, Bea explained her sketch to Zale. As I predicted, his face lit up like a Christmas tree.

“Are you serious? Do you think we can really make these?”

“We need some more supplies, but yeah, I really think we can,” I said. “Bea’s gonna do the painting, and Eva and I will add these details to the costumes. Do you think the Meyers family would let us dig around for some more stuff to borrow?”

“Probably,” Zale said. “We could text Luca and see if…”

At that moment, a door to the left of the stage opened, and Veronica Meyers stepped through it, a ring of keys in her hand.

“Oh, hello, Wren.”

“Hello, Ms?—”

“Veronica, please,” she said with a smile. “Ms. Meyers always makes me feel like I’m turning into my mother. What are you… oh, that’s right, of course. You’re helping with the pageant. You mentioned that when we met. I’m sorry, I forgot.”

“Yeah, and we were actually wondering if it might be possible to borrow a few more things? Bea came up with some awesome designs, but I’m not sure we’ll be able to pull them off with what we’ve got.”

“Do you mind if I take a look?” Veronica asked, smiling down at Bea.

Bea did not return the smile. She seemed to have retreated into herself, reverting to the shyness that had caused her to hide under the table the first time we’d met. Bea took half a step behind Eva, looking very much like she would like the floor to swallow her up. I guessed she hadn’t expected she would need to share her artwork with so many people, and certainly not with a stranger. I tried to catch her eye, to give her an encouraging smile, but she just kept looking warily at Veronica.

Eva sighed impatiently. “Sorry, she’s a bit on the bashful side. Here,” and she plucked the sketchbook from Zale’s hand, and held it out for Veronica to see.

Bea took a step forward, like she meant to snatch the sketchbook back; but she restrained herself, swinging her hands behind her back, and clasping them tightly together.

“My goodness, what a talented young lady you are,” Veronica said, looking down at the sketch. “Did you really come up with this all on your own?”

Bea nodded her head once, tensely. “I’ve seen that pageant lots of times,” she said.

Veronica smiled gently. “Of course, you have. And you realized that what it needed was a healthy dose of childhood imagination. Not that you’re a child anymore, of course,” she added quickly. “I can see that you are, in fact, quite the grown young lady now.”

Bea’s lips twitched into the suggestion of a smile, and Veronica’s smile broadened, recognizing her victory.

“Now, as I told Wren, I’ve spent very little time here at the theater,” Veronica went on. “But as I’m here this summer, I’ve made it my business to get to know the place. In fact, I’ve spent quite a bit of time in our costume shop as they prepare for the coming season, and I think we might have just what you need. Come on, I’ll show you.”

Zale’s face lit up, and we all turned to follow Veronica up the aisle toward the front lobby of the theater. “Take five, everyone,” Zale called. “And for the love of the goddess, try not to kill each other.”

“No promises,” Ethan shouted, as he took another lunge at Sergei on his stilts.

Veronica led us on her clacking heels out of the main theater, and through the front doors, to the first building that stood to the right of the theater.

“I think you’ll find everything you need in here,” she said, as she unlocked the door. “This is where the costumes are designed and constructed.”

We walked into a huge space full of bolts of fabric, racks of trims and ribbons, cutting tables and sewing machines, and a long row of dress forms standing at attention like half-dressed soldiers. One wall was hung with rows of design sketches, each accented with swatches of fabric pinned to the corner. Another wall was covered in wooden pegs from which hats and headpieces of every variety hung above several rows of wig heads, bearing every hairstyle I could imagine, from every conceivable time period. My very first thought, as I took it all in, was that if Charlie could see this place, they would squeal with uncontainable delight, like a kid on Christmas morning.

“Wow,” I whispered.

Veronica smiled, looking pleased. “This was always my favorite place to come when I was a little girl. I think I liked it better than watching the performances,” she admitted. “Now let’s see if I remember where… ah, yes. Here we go.” She opened a large cabinet to reveal hundreds of jars of craft and fabric paints, bottles of glue, cans of spray glitter, and all manner of craft supplies. “I imagine this should be sufficient to get you started.”

“Wow!” Zale murmured, and started toward the cabinet. I reached out an arm to stop him.

“This is amazing,” I said, “and we’re so grateful; but I really wouldn’t want to use up anything that the designers will need for the current season.”

“That won’t be a problem. Just write down what you use here,” Veronica said, handing me a clipboard, “and I’ll make sure it’s replaced.”

“This is really generous of you,” I said, taking the clipboard.

“Nonsense. This town has been our theater’s home for decades. A bit of glue and glitter and fabric is the least we can do. Ah, you’ve discovered our wig collection, I see,” Veronica added, her gaze falling on Bea. I turned to see Bea taking a deliberate step away from the nearest wig head.

“I didn’t touch anything,” she said quickly, looking mortified.

“Whyever not?” Veronica asked, smiling. “That was my favorite thing to do as a child.” She walked around the nearest cutting table, so that she stood right beside Bea. “Go on. Which one is your favorite?”

Bea barely glanced at the wigs. “I… I don’t know.”

“Oh, come now. There must be one you like! I think I’ll pick… this one,” Veronica said, seizing a wig that looked like it might have rolled right off Marie Antoinette’s neck when she was beheaded. She shook her own glossy hair back from her face, and slipped the wig on her head, tucking and adjusting it in the mirror until it was just right. “There now. What do you think?”

Bea couldn’t help but smile just a little. She gave Veronica a thumbs up, and Veronica laughed.

“Now it’s your turn. There must be one you’d like to try on!”

Bea hesitated another moment and then, her smile widening, she pointed to a wig on the far end of the display. The long, shiny hair was a kaleidoscope of colors—turquoise and seafoam green and vibrant lavender. Starfish and seashells had been woven into a few of the scattered braids. It looked like the hair of a mermaid or a water sprite.

“Excellent choice,” Veronica said, clapping her hands in delight. She pulled it from the wig head with a flourish, and helped put it on Bea’s head. She straightened and adjusted it for a moment before turning Bea by the shoulders to face a mirror on the wall. As Bea’s face split into a real grin, so did Veronica’s. “You see? It’s like magic!” she said.

For the next hour or so, Eva, Zale, and I collected the necessary materials, while Bea and Veronica continued to try on wigs. Finally, when we had found everything we needed, we recorded it all on the clipboard, and loaded it into a pair of cloth tote bags.

“Oh, are you finished already?” Veronica asked. She and Bea were wearing identical blonde pageboy wigs.

“Yeah. Thanks again,” Zale said. “I should really get back up to the rehearsal. Goddess only knows if they’ve all just fallen off their stilts and broken their necks. I suppose I’m not that lucky.”

“Are they really that hard to manage?” I asked.

“It’s like herding kittens, Wren. I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

“Do you think it would help if I came to tomorrow’s rehearsal? I can bring the finished costume pieces and help you wrangle everyone,” I offered.

“Could you really?” Zale asked, looking relieved. “I could really use the help. This whole directing thing is a lot harder than I thought it would be.”

“I’d be happy to,” I said earnestly. “Don’t worry, Zale. I’ve never let a show go up without everyone being whipped into shape, and I’m not going to let you, either. Have you had any luck improving the script?”

Zale rolled his eyes. “No, and it’s probably too late to do anything about it. By the time I manage to write anything worth performing, there won’t be any time to learn it. I think we’re probably stuck with the script we’ve got.”

“Well, we’ll do our best with what we’ve got, then,” I said, “and hope that the costumes are cool enough to distract from the words.”

Back at Eva’s house, we worked for several more hours on the costumes, doing our best to bring Bea’s vision to life. Maricela came up to join us, assisting with some stitching and hemming, while Bea was hard at work painting the masks. By the time I left, we’d made good progress, and we agreed to meet up again the next day to finish what we could before the next evening’s rehearsal. It was important to rehearse in the full costumes as much as possible, to make sure the actors could maneuver the way they needed to without tripping, or getting tangled up.

Bea was as talented with a paint brush as she was with a pencil. The masks, when she had finished with them, were truly works of art. The face of the Holly King was that of a silvery, apple-cheeked Father Christmas, with a beard made of glittery cotton batting that we tucked twinkle lights inside of, so that it looked like a storm cloud impregnated with lightning. Icicles made of glue dangled from the tip of his nose and the line of his jaw. The Oak King was the embodiment of the forest in summer, all greenery and blossom and trailing vine. His hair and beard were braided of fiery red, orange, and yellow, and his crown looked like the sun coming over the horizon of his head. Even Sergei and Ethan stopped goofing around long enough to look impressed when we carried it all into the rehearsal that night. It was an arduous process, getting all the pieces to work together —tying and pinning and adjusting, until before us stood two apparitions of the seasons, at once beautiful and terrible, looking like they had sprung to life from the pages of a children’s storybook.

“I think I’m going to cry,” Zale said, when we were finally able to stand back and admire our handiwork.

“Try to hold off until they start moving around in them,” I said. “Depending on how it goes, you might really want to cry.”

Maricela entered with the costumes for the wood nymphs and the frost fairies. All the girls started squealing over the trailing, glittering skirts and the tiara-like headpieces. They immediately pulled out their phones, looking up makeup tutorials that would compliment their costumes, and comparing hairstyles accented with bright flowers or wintry snowflakes.

“I’ve got just the right palettes to do these,” Kaia promised, and for the first time, the cast looked excited rather than apathetic. It was precisely the shift in attitude we needed to start practicing again. I’d seen it a hundred times: the magic of seeing oneself transformed into a character that suddenly feels real. It always breathed new life into the homestretch of rehearsals, reinvigorating everyone’s enthusiasm. And we needed all the enthusiasm we could get, because we had a lot of work to do in a short amount of time.

We spent the next three hours working through the choreography step by step. The nymphs and the Oak King had to move as one unit, matching the swing of the arms to the teetering steps of the body. The frost fairies and the Holly King had to do the same, and all of it with a smoothness and synchronicity that made the onlooker forget they were watching a puppet and a group of puppeteers. We kept them motivated by taking videos of their progress and then playing them back for them, so they could see from an audience’s perspective how it would look. Then Luca saved the day by drawing open the black backdrop to reveal a wall of mirrors. Now the actors could watch the effects of their coordination in real time, and they improved much more quickly. Zale had chosen sweeping instrumental music to play under the action, and the addition of beats they could count helped to keep them all moving together. In just a single rehearsal, we managed to evolve from chaos to some semblance of working together. It wasn’t nearly ready for an audience, but it no longer seemed impossible that it could be by the end of the week. Even Sergei and Ethan allowed themselves to express a modicum of enthusiasm for the performance. The subtle shift in their behavior revealed that, though they loved fooling around in rehearsals, they didn’t actually want to look like fools in front of the whole town.

“All right, that’s all we can do for tonight,” Zale called when Luca appeared to lock up at ten. “Same time tomorrow, and don’t forget to practice your lines!”

“Everyone, hang your costumes up! The hangers are labeled; find the one with your name! And all props go back on the prop table!” I shouted, as everyone broke into conversation. “Don’t forget to check the list of things you need to bring with you for tomorrow’s rehearsal. It’s posted on the door at the back of the house!”

There was the general scrum around the costume rack, followed by the milling about as people gathered their belongings, and made their noisy progress out of the theater. I sighed and went over to tidy the rack, which, despite the clear instructions, looked like a jumbled mess. Luckily, I’d labeled everything with the actors’ names, so they were easy to identify when they inevitably fell off the hangers.

“That was really awesome,” said a voice much too close to my ear. I spun with a gasp to see Luca standing behind me, arms folded over his chest. “I caught a little of the performance at the end. Those puppets are really something else.”

“Thanks,” I said, and silently cursed the blush that was creeping up my neck. “It’s starting to come together, I guess.”

“I might actually go down and watch this year,” Luca said. “I think the outsiders will be impressed.” He winked, grinning, and I felt the blush creep all the way up to my hairline.

“Oh yeah, you… you should definitely come down. I mean, everyone should…” I babbled.

“Maybe we can watch it together… you know, unless you have to be backstage or something.”

“I… oh, yeah, that would… I mean, no, I don’t have to be… I think I can watch…but I’m not really sure. I’ll have to check with Zale to see where he needs me…” Oh my God, Wren, shut up, like literally just stop making sounds.

“Sure, sure, just let me know. I’ll probably come down to watch it anyway. Well, see you tomorrow,” Luca said, and loped off the stage and up the aisle.

I stuck my head in among the costumes on the rack, like an ostrich hiding its head in the sand. “Kill me right now.”

“Excuse me? Why are we killing you?” Eva’s voice cut through all the layers of fabric.

“Because I’m a babbling idiot,” I moaned.

“Explain.”

“Luca basically just asked me if I wanted to go to the festival with him, and I short-circuited. Like, my brain stopped working.”

“Okay, well, rewire yourself and try again tomorrow,” Eva said with a shrug. “We’ve all gone to pieces in front of a beautiful human before. It happens.”

I groaned again. I couldn’t imagine Eva going to pieces in front of anybody. She always seemed to know exactly what to say. “He literally just wanted to stand next to me in public, and I couldn’t even say yes. I’m such a useless coward.”

“Do you always talk about yourself that way?” Eva asked, looking suddenly stern.

“Huh? What way?” I asked, my voice still muffled.

“ That way,” Eva said, “like you can never do anything right.”

“I… didn’t realize I was talking about myself that way.”

“Well, you do, and frankly, it’s starting to piss me off,” Eva snapped.

I blinked, a little shocked, and pulled my face out of the fabric to see Eva, arms crossed over her chest, glaring at me. “I… I’m sorry?”

“Good. You should be sorry. I don’t let anyone talk about my friend like that,” she said, and then ruined her stern expression by winking at me.

I nervous laugh escaped me. “For a second there, I thought you were actually mad at me.”

“Oh, I am mad at you. I’m furious,” Eva insisted. “How can you call yourself useless after everything you’ve done for this pageant!”

I felt my cheeks burn. “Eva, I’ve barely done?—”

“Wren, for the first time ever, we won’t be a total laughingstock, and that’s all down to you! You really have a creative eye! You knew exactly what this pathetic little pageant needed, and now, for the first time, someone besides Zale is excited to be a part of this thing!”

“I’ve just hung around a lot of shows, that’s all,” I muttered, still feeling embarrassed. “I wasn’t even in them. I just sat backstage calling cues because I was too much of a coward to audition.”

“Bullshit. You were definitely doing more than that. You get how what makes a show work. You know how to put the pieces together so that they create exactly what you envisioned. You don’t have to be in the spotlight to play an important role, you know.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said, feeling a smile trying to break through my embarrassment.

“And as far as you being a coward… well, I don’t know who you’re talking about, but I watched you that night on the beach, and that girl was no coward.”

“Okay, okay, oh my GOD,” I said, sure my face must be purple at this point. “I can’t take any more pep talk; it’s literal torture. I promise I won’t talk about myself like that anymore. Can you please please just let it go…”

Eva pursed her lips. “Are you sure? Because I can also give a lengthy speech about how beautiful you are, if that’s another area of self-confidence that you strugg?—”

“YES. YES, I AM SURE,” I yelled. God, why did floors never swallow you up when you wanted them to? There was a full five seconds of silence. Then Eva’s face broke into a grin.

“Do you react like this any time someone tries to compliment you?” she asked, sounding positively giddy at the prospect.

I was wary now. “Kind of?”

The grin widened. “Oh, I am going to abuse this power so, so much.”

I groaned again, and walked away from her to find Zale putting the top on the old box of costumes and props we were no longer using.

“After tonight, I think it’s safe to say we won’t need these again,” he said cheerfully, tapping the box with his hand.

“Well, let’s make it official, then,” I said, and picked the box up. “I’m taking this to the dumpster.”

“The perfect place for it!” Zale agreed, laughing.

I walked up the side aisle and out the fire exit door halfway up the house, which I knew led to the back side of the building, where the dumpsters were located. As I walked, I tried to shake off the rest of my embarrassment over Luca. Instead of focusing on my mortifying response, I should be focusing on the fact that he asked me to hang out. Wasn’t that the point? That he seemed interested? It wasn’t a sensation I had much experience with. For a moment, I allowed myself to imagine what it would be like arriving at the festival, and seeing him standing there, waiting for me. His face lit up with a smile when I appeared, and me, confident enough to return that smile without turning the color of a ripe tomato. Maybe even his hand reaching casually out to take mine as we walked. Looking over to sneak a glimpse of his face, only to find he was sneaking a glimpse at mine…

“Oof!”

I was so lost in my daydream that I didn’t see the small pothole in the pavement walkway. I caught the toe of my shoe in it and stumbled forward, losing my grip on the bin and falling painfully on my side.

“Shit, ouch!” I gasped, as I pushed myself into a seated position and examined the damage. My left palm was scraped up from where I’d thrust it out to catch myself, and I could tell my hip and thigh would be bruised before I could even get to my feet. Grumbling at my own clumsiness, I hobbled over to the overturned bin, and began shoving all the scattered items back inside. I vented my feelings by breaking one of the Styrofoam antlers off one of the crowns. As I snatched at the moth-eaten old Holly King cloak, something small and dark tumbled out of the folds, and I picked it up.

It was a book, small and old-looking, bound in deep green fabric, with a faded illustration on the front. There was no title, but it reminded me of old editions of Grimm’s Fairytales I’d seen in used bookstores. Curiously, I opened it, and began to skim the words. “Holly King”… “Oak King”… it was the story of Litha, I realized, in book form. There were color plate illustrations between the text pages, somewhat faded, but still beautiful in their details. I flipped forward a few more pages, and came to what looked like a poem. I started to read it…

“We are the Keepers of Forest and Flame!

We are the beacons of sun! Of Spring!

Wielding our power, to grow and to survive

We cast you out Darkness, so hence Light can thrive!”

A tingling excitement ran over me, like an electric shock. I turned the page, reading another passage.

“We are the keepers of Darkness and Ice!

We are the bastions of frost, and of sleep!

We blanket all nature in a mantle of white,

And wrap all the world in endless dark night!”

I forgot all about my bruises and scrapes, and I jumped to my feet. It was all I could do to chuck the bin and its contents into the dumpster before running back into the theater, my heart pounding.

“Zale! Eva! Look at this!” I cried, as I bolted back down the aisle to the stage where the two of them stood, looking alarmed. “Have you ever seen this before?”

Zale and Eva both examined the little book, each shaking their heads.

“Where did you find it?” Zale asked.

“It was in the bottom of that bin of old costumes,” I explained.

Eva snorted. “Where it’s probably been for like fifty years.”

“It’s… a children’s book?” Zale asked, flipping through it. “About Litha?”

“Yeah, but look here at the end. Read this poem and tell me it isn’t a million times better than that script we’ve been using.”

They huddled together, Eva’s chin on Zale’s shoulder as they read. I watched with satisfaction as their eyes grew wide, and their faces split into smiles. Finally, Zale looked up, looking both thrilled and devastated.

“Wren, this is amazing, but… the pageant is in four days. How is anyone going to learn this that fast?”

“They don’t need to!” I said. “We need a narrator, someone offstage, like a voiceover.”

“Oh, that’s a good idea!” Eva gasped.

“But who would—” Zale began, but Eva immediately cuffed him on the head.

“What do you mean, ‘who’? Isn’t it obvious? It’s you, Zale. It has to be you!” she said.

“Me?”

“Yes!” I agreed eagerly. “Zale, you are the resident storyteller around here! You had everyone captivated at the bonfire when you told the story of Sedgwick Cove. It was spellbinding! Even the story of this pageant sounded cool when you explained it! So instead of assigning lines and hoping people can stumble through them, just tell the story yourself and let the others act it out!”

“We could put a cool vocal effect on the microphone,” Eva added. “And maybe these parts,” she pointed, “we could have everyone recite together just before the battle begins, like a chorus in a musical. It’s only a few lines. They can learn that much.”

Each word we spoke seemed to illuminate Zale’s face more and more, until he was positively glowing with excitement. “This was it!” he crowed. “The final piece of the puzzle we were missing! Do you really think I should?—”

“Zale, you are the only person for the job,” Eva said firmly. “Your voice is a spell in itself —that’s what Davina has always said. If you tell the story, it will be sure to enchant the whole audience.”

The last of the doubt vanished from Zale’s face, and he clutched the book to his chest, grinning. “Sounds like I’ve got some rehearsing to do!”