by RABE, JEAN
“No,” Alice lied as she grabbed the dress for the first act and headed for the closet the cast called a dressing room. As she changed, her nerves jumped and her stomach tightened. She was glad she hadn’t eaten. A castmate helped her with her hair just as Gene called for everyone to take their places.
Alice scrambled to the wings and took a few deep breaths. From the murmurs of the crowd, the auditorium sounded half-full, which would be the most people Alice had performed for at once. She had to nail this performance. She gave her arms and legs a quick stretch. As she straightened her skirt, she saw the necklace resting on her bodice. She’d forgotten she still had it on. “Shit.” She looked on stage and saw that everyone was ready. Her cue came up within thirty seconds of the curtain rising; there’d be no time to dash to the dressing room. As she moved to tuck the necklace into the high-necked dress, she remembered what the shopkeeper had told her. She whispered “bear” before she could tell herself she was being silly.
Instantly, the noise of the audience stopped and her castmates froze. Alice dropped the pendant as if she’d been burned. “Sally? Toby?” When they didn’t acknowledge her, she said their names louder. Finally she walked on stage and touched them with shaking hands. They didn’t move.
“Oh no, oh no. This isn’t real.” She peeked through the curtain at the audience and found them similarly frozen. Some looked at the curtain, most read the program, a few picked their nose, and one couple looked to be serious about examining each other’s tonsils with their tongues.
Alice snapped the curtain closed and began to pace. “This can’t be happening. It isn’t real.” She flicked Toby on the ear. He didn’t flinch. She touched the necklace and mentally replayed the afternoon’s transaction in her mind. As she remembered her wishes, her eyes snapped to the industrial wall clock hanging backstage. The second hand didn’t move. Tonya’s accident, the reporter . . . she shivered. Her wishes had been granted.
Alice bit her lip and returned to her place in the wings. Clutching the pendant, she whispered “bear” and gasped when the audience noise started again as though it had never stopped. On stage, Toby and Sally found their marks and waited.
Alice dropped the necklace and said “bear.” Nothing. She touched the pendant and said it again. Everything stopped. Again. Movement. Again. Stillness.
Alice smiled. She’d have plenty of time to warm up for her performance.
First thing the next morning, Alice rushed to the nearest newspaper stand and looked for the reporter’s review. She seemed neutral about the play and the rest of the cast, but she spent a whole paragraph rhapsodizing about her performance. Alice read it twice more before buying every copy the stand had.
After another sold-out performance a week later, Alice received a call from the ICM Agency in LA. One of their junior agents had read about her, and was she interested in screen acting? Alice was. She packed her bags, sublet her apartment, and sent a check for two thousand dollars to the shopkeeper on her way to the airport.
A year to the day after she had purchased the necklace, Alice had lost twenty pounds, filmed three commercials, played a waitress in two different independent films, and landed a spot as a regular castmember on a half-hour sitcom. While not rich by industry standards, she was making more money in a week than she ever thought she’d see in a year. Her ability to memorize lines after seeing the script once became legendary, as did the unusual necklace she took off only when the cameras rolled.
During the winter hiatus, Alice lounged on a private beach in Mexico and sipped a margarita. She thought about stopping time so she could enjoy the solitude for as long as she wanted, but the last time she’d done that, she’d fallen asleep and got sunburned as hell. The makeup ladies would have killed her had she shown up for taping that way, and so she’d had to keep time frozen long enough to heal. At first it’d been cool seeing an entire city stopped as though they were playing Statue. After a few days, though, she felt like a creepy, lonely voyeur. She didn’t want quiet bad enough to go through that again.
Her iPhone rang, and she groaned. Just because she didn’t use the necklace didn’t mean she wanted to talk to anyone. She checked the display. Her agent. She sighed and said, “Hello?”
“Alice, Brent,” he said. He sounded as though he was on a speaker phone. “You need to get home right away. There’s—” his words became lost in a jumble of blowing horns and curses.
“Brent? What’s going on?”
“People need to learn how to drive on the 405, I swear,” he said.
“Why’d you call?” She knew she shouldn’t have answered the phone.
“Judd Apatow wants a meeting with you. He’s casting for a new comedy, this one about two brothers and the woman they fight over. I need your ass in LA, pronto.”
“I’ll take the next flight.” Alice found a pen and paper in her beach bag and scribbled the information Brent gave her.
“Be careful,” Brent said. “Call me when you get here.”
“Of course,” she said. Brent probably cared more about his meal ticket than her well-being, but she appreciated the sentiment.
Before two hours had passed, Alice sat in the back of a little commuter plane that would take her to the first of two layovers. The only others on board were the pilot and a slim woman with dark hair and sunglasses. Once the plane left the ground, the woman opened a magazine and pretended to read it as she snuck glances at Alice. Alice looked out the window. Sometimes she wished she could turn fame on and off as easily as she could time.
Alice looked out the window at the clouds as she absently rubbed the pendant around her neck. Over the past year she had come close to using her last wish, but something held her back. Using it to secure a role seemed like cheating somehow, as did wishing for all the other actresses she auditioned against to fail. A role in a major motion picture, though . . .
Alice’s thoughts were interrupted by a loud thunk somewhere underneath the plane. She grabbed her armrests and said, “Did you hear that?”
“Yeah,” the woman said, closing her magazine. “What do you think—” Another thunk.
“Murrda,” the pilot said. “Pajaros.”
“What’d he say?” Alice said to the woman next to her.
“I don’t know. ‘Birds,’ I think.”
“Right.” Alice didn’t need to pull out her Spanish-to-English dictionary to know the man sounded scared. Her stomach dropped as the engine quit. Silence had never sounded so horribly wrong. Alice’s bowels loosened as the woman next to her screamed. The plane’s nose tipped forward and her body strained against the seatbelt. As they plummeted to the ground, the pilot crossed himself and prayed the Hail Mary.
Alice looked out the tiny window. The wings wrenched through the air, twisting this way and that. She had no idea how long they’d stay on the plane. Her ears popped as the ground rose to meet them. Her death would be a quick and messy one, and she felt unreasonably calm. At least the waiting was over. Briefly she wondered if she were famous enough to rate an obit in The New York Times.
“Do something, oh, God, save us, do something,” the woman screeched.
Alice moved to slap her—hysterics wouldn’t do anyone any good—when she remembered the necklace hanging from her neck. Of course. She clutched it and yelled the word that had saved her neck more times than she could count.
Instantly the plane stopped moving. The woman sat frozen in midscream while the pilot had covered his eyes with his hands. Alice could see the man had wet himself and felt a moment of pity for him.
Alice took deep breaths until she stopped shaking. She had one wish left and all the time in the world to think about how to word it. She turned it over in her mind a dozen different ways before she clutched the necklace, closed her eyes, and said, “I wish this plane hadn’t taken off yet.”
Nothing happened. Alice opened her eyes and found herself surrounded by the same frozen chaos as before. She chuckled and tried without success to get her hands to stop shaking. �
�Bear.”
The woman’s screams and the scent of urine filled the cabin as the plane hurtled toward the ground. Alice clutched the necklace in both hands and yelled her wish again.
Before her eyes everything changed. One moment she hung suspended from an airplane seat by a seatbelt and the next she sat in the waiting room of the little airport in Mexico. It had worked. She’d saved them all. The sudden transition left her shaking and dizzy.
A woman sat a few chairs down from her. “Are you all right?”
Alice looked up to find the woman from the plane, her relaxed and tan face smiling. “I’m fine,” she said. “Just got a little light-headed for a minute.”
“I bet you’re dehydrated. If you’re like me, you won’t drink the water down here.” She pulled a bottle of water out of her bag and offered it to Alice. “Want some?”
“Thanks,” Alice accepted the bottle and drank half of it down at once. Her face felt flushed and sweaty, and she knew she must look horrible.
“You’re on that show, aren’t you? The one about the neighbors in New York?”
That described about half the shows on the air. “Yeah.”
“I don’t really watch it myself,” the woman said, “but my boyfriend loves it. Could I get your autograph? He’ll never believe I met you otherwise.”
“Sure. Just don’t sell it on eBay,” Alice made the familiar joke before she could stop herself. “Cool paper,” she said as the woman pulled a notepad from her bag.
She smiled and blushed. “Thanks. It was a birthday gift from my mom.” She ripped of the top sheet and handed Alice the pad.
Alice scribbled her name on the paper as a man approached them. It was the pilot. She couldn’t help glancing at his dry pants.
“We’re ready for taking off,” he said in accented English.
“What plane are we taking?” Alice said.
The man pointed to the small tarmac. It was the same plane that she had boarded before.
“Has it been inspected? Are you sure it’s safe?”
“Si, it’s only a short flight, you be fine.”
“I’m not getting on that plane,” Alice said. “Find another one.”
“There is no other,” the man said, his impatience apparent.
“We need to find another. That plane isn’t safe. It’s got some mechanical malfunction.”
“It’s probably fine,” the woman said. “I’ve flown these little commuters before. They look scary, but I’ve never crashed.” She giggled at her wit.
“There’s a first time for everything.”
“Aren’t you a bright ray of sunshine.” The woman didn’t look as starstruck now.
“I’m not boarding that plane, and neither should any of you. I’m serious. It’s going to fall out of the sky.”
The woman gave her a wary look as she took the autographed pad of paper from Alice’s hand and backed away. “Suit yourself.”
“You wait for next one if you like,” the pilot said.
“Please, don’t go.” Alice clutched the man’s arm. When she’d made her wish she hadn’t counted on this.
The pilot extricated himself and led the woman from the waiting room. Once they were a few feet away Alice heard the woman say something about celebrities and their need for attention. The pilot laughed as they walked toward the plane on the tarmac.
Alice ran to the ticket counter where a man sat reading a newspaper. “You’ve got to do something.”
“Just a moment, Señorita,” the man said.
Alice reached over the counter and yanked the newspaper from his hand. “There’s a plane that’s getting ready to take off. You have to get on the radio and tell them they can’t leave.”
“This the plane you have ticket for?”
“Yes.”
He shrugged. “You miss plane, you wait for next one.”
“No, you don’t understand. The plane’s going to crash. You have to call them back.”
The man didn’t move. “You know this how?”
Alice nearly screamed. “I can’t tell you how I know. I just do. Please.”
“You plant a bomb?”
“No, but—”
“Then is fine.” The man pulled the paper from Alice’s hand and refolded it. “You transfer your ticket to the next one.”
“You’re really not going to do anything?”
“Your ticket, Señorita.”
Alice gritted her teeth and pulled the ticket from her bag. For the first time in her life she felt guilty to be alive.
When she arrived at LA, she walked into the first bar she found, paid the bartender to put CNN on the television, and watched. She drank Kahlua on the rocks and waved off offers of food as she watched the scrawl on the bottom of the screen. There was no mention of a plane crash, Mexican or otherwise. She finished her drink and left the airport.
The next day Alice drove to Brent’s to prepare for her meeting with the director. She walked into his office and plopped into a squishy chair.
“You look like hell,” Brent said.
“Thanks,” Alice said.
“I mean—”
“I know. I didn’t sleep well.” She’d stayed up all night surfing the web for any news.
“Wanna see something funny?”
“Sure.”
Brent turned his laptop around. “Bid’s up to twenty bucks.”
Brent had an eBay page pulled up on his browser. Alice leaned over and enlarged the picture. A piece of flowered notepaper with her writing on it filled the screen. Gooseflesh prickled her arms. It was the autograph she’d given the woman in Mexico.
“Oh, thank God,” she said as tears blurred her vision.
Brent pulled the laptop back around. “I thought you’d get a kick out of it.”
“Yeah. You could say that.” She plucked a tissue from the box on Brent’s desk and blotted her eyes.
“I just took a call yesterday from a girl who said she was the next Alice Griffith. Plenty of actors in this town wish they were in your place right now, you know that?”
“Sometimes wishes come true.” Alice fingered the pendant around her neck. She wondered how many of those actors had a way of making it happen.
THE ADVENTURE OF THE RED RIDING HOODS
Michael A. Stackpole
Michael A. Stackpole is an award-winning author, editor, game designer, computer game designer, graphic novelist, and screenwriter. He’s best known for his New York Times best-selling Star Wars novels Rogue Squadron and I, Jedi. Last year he celebrated two milestones: his thirtieth anniversary as a published game designer, and his twentieth anniversary as a published novelist. When not writing or attending conventions, he enjoys playing indoor soccer and dancing (both of which can be tough on the toes).
Gray skies and a persistent mist brought a chill to late October. I had not seen my good friend for a fortnight. An outbreak of the swine influenza had laid low many a nightsoil mucker and bonepicker. By nature of my calling, I was obliged to care for my cloven-hoofed brethren. This I accomplished while refusing all payment, as I have little use for fertilizer or bone meal, and they need every farthing they earn.
So it was a great relief to receive a message from my friend in the morning post. He requested, were I free, that I visit him that evening. He directed me to bring a traveling satchel and, as he put it, “that fine machine by Webley et fils.” The promise of adventure made it difficult for me to concentrate for the rest of the day. Still, as he had known, the influenza had broken and by day’s end, the torrent of patients had become a drought.
I paid the hansom cab driver a crown and mounted the steps to 427 Butcher Street. A light was on in his window, but I detected no silhouette. He had learned well the lesson of that curious affair of the giant bat of Borneo.
His landlady, Mrs. Hanihan, met me at the door and took my overnight bag. She left me my medical kit. Alarm flashed through her bovine eyes. “Thank goodness, it’s you, Doctor.”
“There is nothing wr
ong with him, is there?” I glanced up the stairs anxiously. “Tell me, quickly.”
“No more than the usual, I suppose. His appetite is up, and he asked for pork, despite the flu. And then the piano-forte . . .”
“I hear nothing.”
“Exactly, Doctor.” Glass earrings flashed as she flicked an ear forward. “He is up to something.”
I bleated a quick laugh. “He’s back to himself, my good cow, fret no more.”
I mounted the steps, knocked once at his door, and then entered unbidden. Discourteous it might seem, but I had been invited previously, and such was my friend’s nature that, lost in thought, he would not notice my knocking or absence until well into the morrow.
It was half as I expected. He reclined on his davenport, stretching his long legs toward the fire. He had slouched down enough that his back rested where his buttocks should have. Slender, as were most of his kind, and of a grayish fur with only the first hints of white around his muzzle, he stared at the soft glow of embers. His fingers touched tip to tip above his chest, but he looked past them. His ears remained flattened back against his skull.
Then his nostrils flared. For the briefest of moments his lips curled back, flashing fangs. Then he smiled, displaying those fearsome teeth in a much more friendly manner. He did not move, save for the smile and his ears flicking forward, and then in one smooth motion he rose to his slippered feet.
“Ah, my good Woolrich, so kind of you to come.” His dark eyes narrowed and he sniffed. “By way of the fish market. And there, you saw two females—one Human, one a Sea Weasel—engaged in a struggle over a basket of fish heads.”
Despite my having known V. August Lupyne these many years, and having witnessed great feats of ratiocination, I could not conceal my shock. “I understand, Lupyne, catching the scent of fish and knowing the market, late in the day, can be a fast route from my practice here. How ever did you deduce I witnessed such a fight?”
