Eyes Like Stars Part 24

Bertie hedged. "We just discovered it."

"When did Ariel take it?"

Bertie tried to think of a plausible lie, but Ariel lifted his head and divulged, "When your Director left it under a sofa in the Properties Department."

The Stage Manager looked back to Bertie. "You touched The Book?"

"I took it to protect it from Ariel, but he destroyed it anyway!"

"Wait until the Theater Manager hears what you've done." The Stage Manager raised his voice so that everyone could hear his p.r.o.nouncement. "I told him over and over again that you were a troublemaker. A destructive little menace. Perhaps now he'll listen. See if you're not out on your backside within the hour!"

"Is that so?" Bertie walked over to the Chorus Member standing guard over Ariel and retrieved her sword. She turned and flicked it over the Stage Manager's s.h.i.+rtfront, slicing through the fabric. "Call me a destructive little menace again."

"It's the plain truth!" The Stage Manager scrambled away from her.

"Shut up." Bertie followed him. "Or the next thing I cut off will be an ear."

"The Theater Manager will hear about this!"

"Don't say I didn't warn you." Bertie poked a hole in his earlobe. He squealed like a piglet, clapping his hand to the wound and falling to the stage alongside Ariel. "I will not be threatened. Ever again. Not by you or anyone else."

"Beatrice." The Theater Manager strode onstage. "What is going on here?"

Bertie let her sword arm fall. "A little housekeeping, sir."

The Theater Manager looked from Ariel to the Stage Manager to Bertie's bloodied sword. "This doesn't look like Hamlet. Why are these men playing captives?"

"Because I threatened to kill them if they moved." Bertie lifted the leather husk of The Book and held it out to him. "This is how Ophelia escaped before."

The Theater Manager sucked in a breath. "She's done it again."

"It wasn't her this time." There was another shudder underfoot, and a shower of sparks fell from the overhead lighting as Bertie pointed down. "It was him."

"The only page that would not come out was my own," Ariel said with a groan.

"You were written a slave," the Theater Manager said slowly. "I suspect that someone else must free you. Someone who wields more power than Prospero. Someone who can unlock the fetters of the written words that bind you here."

Ariel looked at Bertie, a thin edge of triumph in his gaze. A howl built in his throat before he cried, "I knew it. It is in your power."

Bertie pointed her sword at him. "Even if the Theatre falls down around my ears, I'll never set you free-"

"Silence!" The way the Theater Manager said it made it so. "When I gave you my permission to change things, I warned you this might happen!" His unprecedented ferocity lashed out against Bertie's anger and anxiety.

She returned his glower with a glare of her own. "And you should have told me it was Ophelia who escaped! But we can trade blame and accusations later. Right now you have to tell me how to fix The Book."

His right hand spasmed. "I don't know the answer to that, Bertie."

Her gaze slid immediately to the water-maiden, standing still and silent on the fringe of the gathered crowd. "How did you get your page back into The Book before?"

Ophelia stepped forward to answer the summons, albeit reluctantly. "I . . . I don't know."

"Come now," Bertie coaxed, struggling to keep her voice even and calm. "Think back. You must remember your return."

Ophelia bit her lip, eyes clouding as the darkest depths stirred. "I . . . was in the lobby. The Stage Manager was there."

"Why does that not surprise me?" Bertie wished she'd cut his ear all the way off and not just pierced it for him. "Then what happened?"

Ophelia grasped Bertie's hand, her grip iron and ice. "Everything was red with blood."

"It took a blood sacrifice to get your page back in?" Bertie blanched at the idea.

The Stage Manager whimpered, no doubt fearful Bertie would put his head on the chopping block without a second's hesitation.

"And the page?" Bertie whispered.

"One minute I had it, the next it was gone." Ophelia looked bereft, her next words no more than flower petals strewn on a grave. "Do you doubt that?"

"What do you mean?" Bertie said with a frown. "I don't doubt you, if that's what you're asking."

"It's my first line in the play," Ophelia said. "I heard the words echo in my head, so I asked him that very question. . . ."

"She's forgotten what really happened, if she ever knew." The Theater Manager shook his head. "I don't know how her page was returned to The Book, or I would surely tell you how to fix this."

The scrimshaw revealed the truth in his words to Bertie as the sun reflected on a still pond, but when she looked harder, the water wavered. Secrets swam under his surface; some were delicate things, no more than an air bubble breaking, while others were hard and dark and sharp. One of them jabbed at her as he said, "I, too, wanted to be a playwright. But you already have more power over the written word than I ever did."

"Not by choice." Bertie stepped back before she could stop herself.

"No," he said. "Perhaps not. All the same, it's yours, and with it the responsibility. You are the only one with the ability to repair The Book, and you must do so with haste. I'm not sure how much longer your trees will keep this place standing."

As though to ill.u.s.trate his point, another hunk of plaster slid down the wall of the auditorium and landed in the aisle. Whispers filled Bertie's ears: The Theater Manager. You're the only one with the ability. . . .

Ariel. I knew it. It is in your power.

Even her Mother, speaking to the Mistress of Revels about the stars in an infant girl's eyes. She'll have magic enough because of the cursed things.

Some unseen, golden scale tipped, and Bertie lifted her chin.

It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.

She thought of Nate, and the "Drink Me" bottle backstage, broken into smithereens, its power to change less potent than the determination already unfurling inside her. Variegated vines wrapped around her bones, steadying her, planting her feet in a stance favored by Commanding Generals and Pirate Captains. "Do me one favor?"

"Yes?"

"Get him out of my sight." She pointed at the Stage Manager.

The Theater Manager grimly nodded and heaved his colleague up. "Come on, old chap. We'd best get out of the way."

Bertie turned, ready to dispense orders. "Ophelia?"

The water-maiden stepped forward. "Yes?"

"I need you to fetch the Managers."

"Of course." Ophelia didn't drift away this time. Instead, she walked with purpose, her steps firm and steady upon the floor.

Bertie looked down at Ariel. "What am I going to do with you?"

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Another tango, dear heart?"

"Something involving hot pokers and salt in your wounds would be more apropos, but I don't have time for that now. What we need is a brig, or a nice sc.u.mmy dungeon."

"Those wouldn't be able to hold me."

"That sounds like a challenge to me." Bertie reached for her clipboard. "Yours is the last page in the book; without it the theater cannot survive. And though you can't tear it free yourself, you can certainly stir up more trouble. I guess I'll just have to write you into imprisonment. I hear tell I have some power over words." He started to protest, but she raised her voice. "Someone dim the lights."

Bertie uncapped her pen and started to write.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

Tribunal The blacksmiths meet under the

light of the new moon.

The trapdoor opened Center Stage. A forge spiraled into place with the groan of wood and metal-shudder. A luminescent moon rose in the background on wires so thin, it appeared to float.

When the Blacksmiths entered, Bertie shook her pen at them. "Be careful about the sparks. The Book's pages have been through enough already."

The men took their places around the forge and waited for her to write another direction. Bertie let the tip of her pen bleed a puddle of ink before she thought of what to write next.

They fas.h.i.+on a collar of earth and fire and water: punishment enough for a creature of the air, to be so shackled.

The Blacksmiths started to pound on glowing metal in three-quarter time. Smoke spiraled up like a ballerina dancing en pointe. There was the unmistakable boiling hiss of hot metal hitting water.

"They bring him forth bound, as befits a criminal," Bertie said.

Two Chorus Members hefted Ariel to his feet, though he struggled.

"The villain is still weakened by his misuse of the magic," Bertie continued, determined and merciless. "So he cannot stop her when the Righter of Wrongs places the collar around his neck and binds him to the place that he hates most of all."

"It is ready," the largest Blacksmith said.

Bertie set the clipboard down on the stage and reached for the collar; it glowed brighter with the growing power of her enchantment even as the forge's heat faded to a dim memory. "If you please."

"You'll need a witch to bless it," he said through his beard.

"I am the Witch," Bertie said. "I am the Writer of Words and the Changer of Scenes. The truth spills from my mouth, painting this world the color of my choosing."

The Blacksmith nodded and placed the collar in her hands. The warmth in the metal, like ember-glow, spread through Bertie's fingers as she took one step toward Ariel, then another.

His eyes begged her-for mercy, for something-but she didn't hesitate to place the band around his neck. The moment the two ends touched, they sealed shut, and he moaned.

"You are bound here, Ariel, to serve and protect the Theatre. Your page is still in The Book, and so shall it remain."

He writhed as though he could hardly bear the weight of her sentence upon him. "I hope it all crumbles to dust."

"I believe you wish that." Bertie tapped on the collar so that the metal vibrated. "But as long as you wear this, your page cannot be torn from The Book. By anyone." She raised her voice. "Can everyone hear me? None shall be persuaded to free this creature."

"We hear," they said.

Bertie nodded to the ones that held his arms. "You can untie him now."

Ariel remained on his knees, neck bowed, hair tumbling over his shoulders to obscure his face. "Bertie." Her name on his lips was a plea.

"Get up," she said.

Against his wishes, Ariel stood.

Bertie pushed his hair back until she could see his eyes. "If I tell you to dance a jig, you will. If I ask you to mop the floors with your tongue, you will. Is that quite clear?"

"Yes." He lifted his eyes to meet hers. "Was the collar really necessary?"

Bertie gestured to the pages that littered the stage. "You tell me, Ariel. Tell me that you didn't do your best to destroy The Book. Tell me that you won't try to sabotage us again at the first possible opportunity. And if you speak, let it be the truth." When he could not, Bertie stepped back and tried to ignore the remorse already p.r.i.c.king her. "You brought this upon yourself."

"Quoth the jailer," he said.

"It's the truth," Bertie said. "You betrayed us all."

"The truth is in the mouth of the orator, and your truth is not mine."

"Save it, Ariel. . . ." Bertie's voice trailed off as she realized that neither his hair nor his clothes moved with his customary wind.

He stood coffin-still, as though carved from stone instead of poured from quicksilver. "Do you really hate me so much?"