by Finn, K. C.
Lawrence and Lily nodded, both intrigued, but Havers said nothing more. Guess I’ll have to wait until class starts to uncover more evil. Lily checked her watch as she suddenly remembered the meeting.
“I’m sorry Professor I’ve got to dash, if you don’t mind,” she breathed. “The IMLS, I just joined and-”
“Say no more,” Havers replied, waving her hand. “It’s nice to see a young girl who reads more than just magazines these days. You go.”
Lily gathered her things and stuffed them into her handbag unceremoniously, whilst Lawrence did his best to stay out of the way of her wild arms. She flashed him a friendly smile as she headed for the door, but Havers called her back just as she made to leave.
“Oh, Lily.”
“Yes?”
“You won’t be going to that dreadful theatre with them, will you?” the professor asked, a disdainful look creeping in and pulling her mouth down at the corners. “Only it’s so low-brow, a very unprofessional business, run by rather unscrupulous people, if you ask me.”
Lawrence got up from his chair and he too came to the door. His expression was level, but there was a tension in his muscles that hadn’t been there a moment ago. Lily let him pass her by and he exited with a very mumbled farewell.
“I, um,” Lily stammered. “Well, everyone says it’s quite fun.”
“So is clubbing at Guttersnipes, until you spend the whole next day with your head in the toilet,” Havers quipped, raising an eyebrow. “Do you follow my meaning?”
“Even if it might be good, it’s not advisable to go?” Lily tried.
“Correct,” Havers replied with a parental nod.
A Night on the Town
Lily was late for the meeting by the time she arrived, but it transpired that the Illustrious Minds were a very casual lot; they were sitting with coffees and Pepsis, just having a chat when she got there. She slunk in, attempting nonchalance, which would have been a lot easier if her chest hadn’t been convulsing like a combine harvester after running up the Tower Block’s three stairwells in mid-heels. Lily took in the scene as she regained lung function. Michael was seated on the far side of the room with the redheaded girl, who was talking at him whilst he made copious notes. Jazzy had saved her a seat at a table with Molly and two others girls who she quickly learned were called Bianca and Jess. Bianca, a Chelsea-born socialite, was the president of the society and a third year English Literature student. Jess was her best friend since primary school who had come up with the idea that Bianca was the one destined for the presidency.
“Of course we’ve picked up quite a lot of history students over the years,” Bianca drawled with a false smile, “but we’ve never had an Essex girl in the mix before.”
Lily groaned inwardly, but on the surface she just grinned.
“Yeah, well we’re not all thick tarts, you know, just like you London girls aren’t all uppity bitches.”
Bianca raised an eyebrow at her. Your move, Chelsea girl. She laughed off the comment with a horsey kind of snort.
“Oh, you’ll be wanting your tickets,” Jess said, fumbling in an envelope next to her coffee. “We swung by to collect them last night.”
She had a much more genuine smile on her face than Bianca as she slid the two slips of paper across the table. Lily looked down at the elegant gold leaf adorning them. They looked handmade, written in flourishing script that lounged its way across the paper to denote the date and time of the performance. They weren’t like the usual cardboard tickets that were printed from machines, and Lily felt a peculiar delicacy overcome her grip, like she was holding onto something precious.
“Do they really only do one show a month?” Jazzy asked as she inspected hers.
Bianca nodded and put out an emphatic hand to touch her forearm.
“Yes, but it’s so worth it. They’re artistes, you know? Very independent.”
To Lily, it was beginning to sound like Professor Havers might be right about the legitimacy of the theatre troupe. Nothing about them looked or sounded very professional, yet she couldn’t help but be intrigued.
“Where is this place?” she asked.
“It’s about a twenty minute walk from Bean’s Coffee Place,” Jess explained, “that’s just behind the Wellesley Dorm.”
“That’s our dorm,” Jazzy said with a big smile.
“We always meet at Bean’s at eight-fifteen and walk down together,” Bianca added with another drawn-out drawl, “so do meet us there. If you’re late-” She gave Lily a pointed look at that remark. “-then we’ll go on without you.”
“A week Saturday,” Jazzy said as she studied the ticket again. “We’ll be there.”
In the time that elapsed after being given the golden ticket to the Theatre Imaginique, Lily went back and forth about whether or not to attend the show. She didn’t really want to disappoint her most important professor right at the start of term, but then again it wasn’t likely that Havers would find out even if she did go, so long as she didn’t mention it in the classroom. The first few days of her classes on campus were all so boring and introductory that she could think of little else but the folded up ticket in her purse.
If she was totally honest with herself, she wanted to go. Curiosity had had her in its grip from the moment Michael and Molly had put the playbill on the table, but then again all those proverbs about the dangers of curiosity were there for a reason. In the end it was Jazzy that sealed the deal, by promising to treat Lily to a Chinese takeaway on Saturday night if she would then agree to come out and meet the group at Bean’s as planned. Spring rolls and a freak show were certainly more appealing than a night alone watching the X Factor on her crappy laptop, and she agreed with a vaguely reluctant heart.
They were early for the arranged meet-up due to Jazzy’s overeager nature, so Lily wandered past Bean’s Coffee Place to the shop next door. Waite’s Jewellers had a steel mesh over its windows at that time of the evening, but she could still peer through the gaps and marvel at the sparkling goodies inside. Lily hadn’t had a new piece of jewellery since her mother bought her the obligatory golden ‘18’ necklace for her last birthday, but she always liked to see the treasures that she might be able to own someday.
“Ooh I like those earrings,” Jazzy exclaimed, pointing her finger through the mesh at a pair of dangly yellow stones.
Lily scanned along the shelves until her eyes fell upon a stunning golden ring. It was a thick band set with at least a dozen small diamonds, interspersed with another pinky-red stone that she didn’t know the name of. It glimmered in a light all of its own, overshadowing everything in the display around it. The price tag put it at over a thousand pounds, nearly nine weeks’ worth of rent in her student dorm. Lily sighed.
“I want that ring,” she told Jazzy with a pout.
“Then you need a rich sucker to buy it for you,” her friend replied.
Some of the other IMLS members had arrived at the coffee shop, so the girls sidled back towards them. Michael was grinning at Lily as they approached, shifting from foot to foot impatiently.
“Are you rich Michael?” Jazzy asked. Lily shot her a wicked look.
“Only in friends and muscles babe,” he replied, “why’d you ask?”
“No reason,” she answered, turning to show Lily a face that was both mockingly apologetic and highly amused.
The walk to the Theatre Imaginique took the small party of students through a park that was thick with pine trees. In the early evening light of September it was rather pleasant, but Lily was grateful to be walking in a group all the same. It was hard to tell what might be lurking within those branches later on in the night. Their destination, Old Mill Lane, was a side street all of its own, and the single building that stood upon it was the theatre itself. It was a masterpiece in Victorian elegance, all buttresses and filigree, but it had an old grey feel to it, a bit like an abandoned farmhouse in a slasher movie.
The contents of the queue outside the Theatre Imaginique waited with
more impatience than excitement. They were a strange mix of the young and old, mostly in small groups rather than couples or individuals. Lily noticed right away that there were no families with children present. She joined the very end of the queue, behind Michael and Jazzy, just as it started to move into the building at a fair pace. As the structure came closer, Lily took in the sparkling golden interior of the theatre foyer, which might have been more inviting if it had been properly lit. Once she was within its doors she felt enclosed by the shadows cast everywhere from little crimson lanterns on the walls. The grand chandelier above the line was dim and flickering. It even swung to and fro precariously, despite the lack of a breeze.
Lily felt a growing trepidation in her stomach as she and Jazzy got closer to the front of the line, until a smooth, exotic voice with a tone deep as the ocean caught her attention. She clutched her ticket tightly, awaiting the sight of its owner.
“Welcome back, Miss Molly, we missed you in August,” oozed the voice.
Lily could see Molly’s blonde head entering a set of red double doors, about five heads away from her. The voice continued in a tirade of cordial welcomes until the heads in front had dissipated at last, and Jazzy was next in line.
“A new patron! And who are you, my sweet?”
The man who greeted her wore a beautiful crimson waistcoat with golden buttons. His skin was a caramel hue, his face adorned with a finely groomed goatee and a moustache that ought to have looked ridiculous. But somehow, with this man’s pearly smile and foreign beauty, it just didn’t. The fellow had stepped straight from the pages of some nineteenth century Vogue equivalent: tall, dark and exotic, and now he was concentrating all his charms on Jazzy, who blushed and fumbled with her ticket as she stuttered at him.
“Jazmine Dama,” she eventually replied.
“I am Baptiste Du Nord, your Master of Ceremonies for the evening,” he crooned, taking the ticket from her clumsy grip. “Welcome Jazmine.”
She went on slowly ahead of Lily, looking back like she didn’t want to head in alone. It was either that, or she was looking for an excuse to stay in the presence of Baptiste for a moment longer. Lily stepped up to the handsome MC and presented her ticket with a truckload of false confidence.
“Lily Coltrane,” she said, pre-empting his question.
Baptiste curled his lips into a smile, and his moustache twitched a little. He slipped Lily’s ticket into the pile and, as she followed the motion of his hand, she noticed a bracelet made of thin, spindly bones hanging around his bronzed wrist. They were definitely real bones, though from what creature, she couldn’t say. He used the hand with the bracelet to direct her to where Jazzy was waiting.
“Go right in, Mademoiselle,” he said with another smile. Up close, his pearly teeth were long and rather too sharp for Lily’s liking.
The interior of the theatre was truly splendid, decked out in red-painted wood and gold trim. It was spotlessly clean, but old and rusted in places and Lily’s seat gave an ominous creak when she sat down where Molly had saved them a place. Michael was directly in front of her, pulling all sorts of sweets and chocolates out of his pockets to munch on during the show. He leaned back in his chair and turned to give Lily another smile, offering his bag of Haribo round to them all. Molly and Jazzy dived in to get a handful of sweets each, but Lily was busy watching the heavy red curtains wafting on the stage. Like the chandelier, there was no breeze to make them shift the way they did.
“You’re gonna love this,” Michael promised.
Even as he said it, the lights began to dim.
Curtain Up
Baptiste Du Nord mounted the stage after an out-of-sight orchestra had played him an introduction. The theatre was about half full in the ground floor stalls, but the applause the MC received echoed like it had come from thousands of adoring fans. The elegant Frenchman gave a bow and waited for the clapping to ebb. He had no microphone and only one simple spotlight illuminated him against the still-wavering curtains behind his tall frame, but when he spoke his voice reverberated loud and clear into the space above his patrons’ heads.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome and welcome back to the Theatre Imaginique. We kindly remind you that what you will see tonight is not recommended for the faint hearted… or the weak bladdered.” There was a grim chuckle amongst those who had clearly visited the place before. Baptiste gave a Cheshire cat grin. “If you are at all disturbed by the proceedings this evening, you are quite free to exit via the door to your left. We only ask that you do not disrupt the performers during their displays. They can be… somewhat temperamental.”
Lily let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding in. The music from nowhere struck up again and the curtains finally parted to bring on the first act of the night. Baptiste introduced ‘Secrets of the Somnambulist’, a performer who back-flipped repeatedly onto the stage in a burst of music and energy. When he suddenly stopped, the wild cacophony of notes swiftly settled into a tentative lullaby. It was only when the acrobat revolved, slowly on one foot, to face the crowd that Lily realised he was asleep. She gasped at the sight of his drowsy puppy-dog eyes, taking in his jungle-style shorts and the tattooed words all over his dark-skinned body, before letting her eyes race back to his shadowed face.
“Oh my God,” she whispered to Jazzy. “I know that guy. He’s in my history class.”
There were white circles painted around his closed eyes and matching lines along his cheekbones and jaw, but it was definitely Lawrence Seward beneath the paint. The impossibly tall frame was now performing superb acts of balance on the stage. He pivoted on one strong hand with his legs in the air, all with his eyes gently shut, whilst the audience applauded every trick and spin. Lily wondered how he could possibly know where the edge of the stage was with his eyes closed, indeed the audience gasped several times when they thought he was about to flip right off the brink and land in the pit with the unseen orchestra. But every time he approached danger, Lawrence managed to stop perhaps only an inch or two from the precipice.
“He’s so buff,” Jazzy whispered back, her eyes gleaming at the sight of his graffiti-coated six-pack. Lawrence began to juggle a variety of deadly-looking knives, despite having no way to see them rising and falling. “Is he a nice guy?”
“Yeah, actually,” Lily answered. She realised now why he had left in a hurry when Professor Havers had begun to criticise the integrity of the show, but even then he’d been polite enough to say goodbye. “Want me to introduce you sometime?”
Jazzy grinned, never taking her eyes from his muscular torso. “Please.”
After the shock of seeing her new study partner nearly knife himself in the eye with one final daring juggling trick, the sultry dance act that followed was a welcome relief from suspense. Two women in green leotards performed an elegant display, and Lily felt her heart-rate slowing as they wound their way across the stage. One of the women was a tall, impossibly thin creature with wispy blonde hair and a pale, bony face, whilst the other was a fuller-figured exotic beauty, who made eyes at every man in the audience as she contorted her body into various shapes. Michael wolf-whistled when this dark damsel took her last bow.
The Bladeplay act he had described was as exciting as he’d promised. A set of burly, hairy twins, introduced as Rasmus and Erasmus, executed perfectly symmetrical motions with razor sharp swords, cutting through fruit in mid-air to display the force they used before turning their blades on one another. They fought with vicious energy that kept the audience gasping; many people turned away after one of the pair drew a little blood from the forearm of the other. Lily couldn’t tear her eyes from the twins, fascinated by their speed and skill, until they were moving so swiftly that she could hardly concentrate on either one. They blurred into a moving mass of flesh and steel, with a crescendo of music guiding them to a final deadly double-stabbing, before the lights went out.
After that came the turn of the gypsy Michael had also spoken of, but there were no holograms of dead people
tonight. The old Madame went by the name of Lady Eva and she took to the stage, working herself into a trance that she claimed would reveal the messages from the dead relatives of people in the audience that night. She was a round Hispanic woman with dark eyebrows that almost met in the middle, who wailed like fury into the echoing theatre, calling on the ‘gitanos of the past’ to aid her, whatever they were. Lilt thought it was rather laughable, but nobody else was laughing. In fact, a lot of the older people in the audience were paying terribly close attention, waiting on her words in a silence that would have made a pin think twice about dropping.
Lady Eva passed messages that shocked some of the audience members into sudden tears, one older woman even rushed out of the exit door after the gypsy had given her a man’s name and a few simple words. The Madame stayed only ten minutes or so on the stage before her messages for the night were complete, but the whole atmosphere of the space had swiftly changed by the time Baptiste returned to the boards. It was time to announce the final act of the night, the headliner. After all that she had seen, Lily could hardly remember what the act was from the playbill.
“Ladies and gentlemen, your raucous applause, if you please, for the sensational Monsieur Novel!”
The audience obeyed the MC’s command, but when Baptiste had vacated the spotlight, nobody came to the stage. It wasn’t until the last clap died, some moments later, that Lily heard footsteps clicking along the old theatre boards. The illusionist stepped from total blackness into the shadow at the edge of the stage, and even craning her head only afforded Lily the frame of a man in a long Victorian coat. The tense air in the dated theatre was thick enough to be sliceable, and every spectator breathed in their portion of that heavy air, in anticipation of the moment when the odd Monsieur would step into the spotlight.
