If We Were Villains

by M. L. Rio

  “Gentlemen.” I’d nearly forgotten Frederick was there. He spoke softly, faintly, and for a moment I wondered if the shock of it might knock him out. “Enough.”

  Richard, who had been leaning forward like he might leap off the couch and throw himself at James, eased back against the cushions again. One of Meredith’s hands alighted on his knee.

  James averted his eyes. “Richard, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  Richard’s face was blank at first, but then the anger vanished and left him looking dejected. “I suppose I deserve it,” he said. “Never properly apologized for my little outburst on off-book day. Truce, James?”

  “Yes, of course.” James looked up again, shoulders sinking an inch in relief. “Truce.”

  After a slightly awkward pause in which I exchanged quick baffled glances with Filippa and Alexander, Meredith said, “Did that just happen? For God’s sake, it’s just a play.”

  “Well.” Frederick sighed, removed his glasses, and began to polish them on the hem of his shirt. “Duels have been fought over less.”

  Richard raised an eyebrow at James. “Swords behind the refectory at dawn?”

  James: “Only if Oliver will be my second.”

  Me: “I’ve hope to live, and am prepared to die.”

  Richard: “Very well, Meredith can be mine.”

  Alexander: “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Rick.”

  Richard laughed, all apparently forgiven. We returned to our debate and proceeded civilly, but I watched James out of the corner of my eye. There had always been small rivalries between us, but never before such an open display of hostility. With a sip of tea I persuaded myself that we were all simply overreacting. Actors are by nature volatile—alchemic creatures composed of incendiary elements, emotion and ego and envy. Heat them up, stir them together, and sometimes you get gold. Sometimes disaster.

  SCENE 12

  Halloween approached like a tiger in the night, with a soft rumble of warning. All through the second half of October, the skies were bruised and stormy, and Gwendolyn greeted us every morning by saying, “What dreadfully Scottish weather we’re having!”

  As the ill-omened day crept closer, it was impossible to suppress a buzz of mounting excitement among the students. The morning of the thirty-first, whispers chased us around the refectory as we poured our coffee. What, everyone wanted to know, would happen on the windswept beach that evening? We were too restless to focus on our lessons, and Camilo dismissed us early, with the instruction that we “go and prepare our enchantments.” Back in the Castle, we avoided one another, slunk into corners, and muttered our lines to ourselves, like the inmates of a lunatic asylum. When witching hour arrived, we set off through the woods, one by one.

  The night was eerily warm, and I struggled to follow the crooked forest path in darkness plush as velvet. Unseen roots reached up to snatch at my ankles, and once I lost my footing and fell to the ground, the damp smell of the coming storm swelling in my nose. I brushed myself off and proceeded more carefully, my heartbeat quick and shallow, like the pulse of a nervous rabbit.

  When I reached the trailhead, I was afraid for a moment that I was late. My costume (pants, boots, shirt, and coat in culturally ambiguous military style) did not include a watch. I hovered at the edge of the trees, looking back up the hill toward the Hall. Dim lights burned in three or four windows, and I imagined the few students too cautious to brave the beach peeping timidly out. A twig snapped in the shadows and I turned.

  “Someone there?”

  “Oliver?” James’s voice.

  “Yeah, it’s me,” I said. “Where are you?”

  He emerged from between two black pines, his face a pale oval in the gloom. He was dressed much the same as I was, but silver epaulettes glinted on his shoulders. “I had hoped you might be my Banquo,” he said.

  “I suppose congratulations are in order, Thane of Everything.”

  With my suspicions confirmed, I felt a little pinch of pride. But at the same time something prescient stirred, an indistinct disquiet. No wonder Richard wasn’t happy on the day of scene assignments.

  Midnight: the low boom of the chapel clock rippled through the still night air and James gripped my arm hard. “The bell invites me,” he said, words light and breathless with excitement. “Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell / That summons thee to heaven, or to hell!” He let go and vanished into the shadows of the underbrush. I followed, but not too close, afraid of tripping again and dragging both of us to the ground.

  The belt of trees between the Hall and the north shore was dense but narrow, and soon a dusky orange light began to filter between the branches. James—I could see him clearly by then, or the outline of him at least—stopped, and I tiptoed up behind him. Hundreds of people were crowded on the beach, some sitting in long cramped rows on the benches, others in tight little clumps on the ground, their silhouettes black against the fulgent glow of the bonfire. A murmur of thunder smothered the lap of the waves against the shore and the crackling flames. Excited whispers rose from the spectators as the sky overhead, oil-painted in furled foreboding violet, flushed white with lightning. Then the beach was quiet again, until a high, shrill voice said, “Look!”

  A solid black shape was approaching on the water, a long rounded dome, like a hump of the Loch Ness Monster.

  “What is that?” I breathed.

  “It’s the witches,” James said slowly, the firelight reflected like red sparks in both his eyes.

  As the bestial shape crept closer, it came slowly into focus, enough that I could tell it was an overturned canoe. Judging by the height of the hull on the water, there would be just enough room for a pocket of air underneath. The boat drifted into the shallows, and for a moment the surface of the lake was smooth as glass. Then there was a ripple, a shudder, and three figures emerged. A collective gasp rushed out from the audience. The girls looked less like witches at first than phantoms, their hair hanging sleek and wet over their faces, filmy white dresses melting from their limbs, swirling in spirals behind them. As they rose from the water their fingertips dripped and the fabric clung so closely to their bodies that I could tell who was who, though their faces remained downcast. On the left, Filippa, her long legs and slim hips unmistakable. On the right, Wren, smaller and slighter than the other two. In the middle, Meredith, her curves bold and dangerous under the thin white shift. Blood pounded in my ears. James and I, for the time being, forgot each other.

  Meredith lifted her chin just high enough that her hair slid back from her face. “When shall we three meet again?” she asked, her voice low and lush in the balmy air. “In thunder, lightning, or in rain?”

  “When the hurlyburly’s done,” Wren answered, slyly. “When the battle’s lost and won.”

  Filippa’s voice, throaty and bold: “That will be ere the set of sun.”

  A drum echoed from somewhere deep in the trees and the audience shivered with delight. Filippa looked toward the sound, straight up the path to where James and I stood hidden in the shadows. “A drum, a drum! Macbeth doth come.”

  Meredith raised her hands from her sides and the other two came forward to grasp them.

  ALL: “The weird sisters, hand in hand,

  Posters of the sea and land,

  Thus do go, about, about,

  Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine,

  And thrice again to make up nine.”

  They came together in a triangle and pushed their open palms up toward the sky.

  “Peace!” Meredith said. “The charm’s wound up.”

  James inhaled suddenly, like he’d forgotten to breathe before, and stepped out into the light. “So foul and fair a day I have not seen,” he said, and every head turned toward us. I walked close behind him, not afraid of stumbling now.

  “How far is’t call’d to Forres?” I said, and then stopped dead. The three girls stood side by side, staring up at us. “What are these / So wither’d and so wild in their attire, / That
look not like the inhabitants o’ the earth, / And yet are on’t?” We descended more slowly. A thousand eyes followed us, five hundred pairs of lungs holding their breath.

  Me: “Live you? or are you aught

  That man may question? You seem to understand me—”

  James: “Speak if you can.”

  Meredith sank down in a crouch in front of us. “All hail Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!”

  Wren came to kneel beside her. “All hail Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!”

  Filippa didn’t move, but said, in a clear ringing voice, “All hail Macbeth, that shalt be King hereafter!”

  James twitched backward. I caught his shoulders and said, “Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear / Things that do sound so fair?”

  He looked sideways at me and I let him go, reluctantly. After a moment’s hesitation I slid past him, stepped down from the last sandy stair to stand among the witches.

  Me: “I’ the name of truth,

  Are ye fantastical or that indeed

  Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner

  You greet with present grace and great prediction

  Of noble having and of royal hope,

  That he seems rapt withal. To me you speak not.

  If you can look into the seeds of time,

  And say which grain will grow and which will not,

  Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear

  Your favors nor your hate.”

  Meredith was on her feet in an instant. “Hail!” she said, and the other girls echoed her. She darted forward, came too close, her face only an inch from mine. “Lesser than Macbeth and greater.”

  Wren appeared behind me, fingers drumming on my waist, peeking up at me with an impish smile. “Not so happy, yet much happier.”

  Still, Filippa stood off. “Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none,” she said—indifferent, almost bored. “So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo.”

  Wren and Meredith continued to pet and paw me, plucking at my clothes, exploring the lines of my neck and shoulders, pushing back my hair. Meredith’s hand wandered all the way up to my mouth, fingertips tracing my lower lip, before James—who had indeed been looking on with a kind of rapt revulsion—started and spoke. The girls’ heads snapped toward him and I swayed on the spot, weak-kneed at the loss of their attention.

  James: “Stay, you imperfect speakers! Tell me more.

  By Sinel’s death I know I am Thane of Glamis;

  But how of Cawdor? The Thane of Cawdor lives,

  A prosperous gentleman; and to be King

  Stands not within the prospect of belief.”

  They only shook their heads, put their fingers to their lips, and slunk back into the water. When they had completely disappeared beneath the surface and we had recovered most of our wits, I turned to James, eyebrows raised expectantly.

  “Your children shall be kings,” he said.

  “You shall be king.”

  “And Thane of Cawdor too. Went it not so?”

  “To the selfsame tune and words.” Footsteps approached from the trees and I looked toward them. “Who’s here?”

  The rest of the scene was short, and when I wasn’t speaking, I kept a watchful eye on the water. It was still again, reflecting the tempestuous purple sky. When the time came, I and the two lucky third-years playing Ross and Angus exited right, out of the firelight.

  “We’re done,” one of them whispered. “Break legs.”

  “Thanks.” I ducked behind the shed on the edge of the beach. It was no bigger than an outhouse, and if I glanced around one corner I could see the fire, the canoe resting on the water, the stretch of sand where James now stood alone.

  “Is this a dagger which I see before me, / The handle toward my hand?” He groped into the empty air before him. “Come, let me clutch thee.”

  It was a speech I had never expected to hear him give. He was too spotless to talk of blood and murder like Macbeth, but in the red glare of the fire he no longer looked so angelic. Instead he was handsome the way you think of the devil as handsome—forbiddingly so.

  James: “Thou sure and firm-set earth,

  Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear

  The very stones prate of my whereabout,

  And take the present horror from the time,

  Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives:

  Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.

  I go, and it is done.”

  He condemned Duncan once more, then stole away to meet me on the edge of the firelight as the audience waited, whispering to one another, for the next scene to begin.

  “What now?” I said when he was close enough to hear.

  “I think—wait.” He shrank back, bumped against me.

  “What?”

  “Hecate,” he hissed.

  Before I could even catch the substance of the word, Alexander exploded out of the water. Little shrieks of surprise went up from the audience as waves crashed back down around him. He was soaking wet, naked to the waist, his curls loose and wild around his face. He threw his head back and howled up at the sky like a wolf.

  “Literally wicked,” I said.

  The girls emerged from the water again, and no sooner had Meredith said, “Why how now, Hecate, you look angerly!” than Alexander grabbed her by the back of the neck, flinging water everywhere.

  “Have I not reason, beldams as you are,” he snarled, “Saucy and overbold? How did you dare / To trade and traffic with Macbeth / In riddles and affairs of death?”

  James seized my arm. “Oliver,” he said. “Blood-bolter’d Banquo smiles upon me.”

  “Oh. Oh, shit.”

  He bullied me into the shed, the door squealing treacherously behind us. Inside, the floor was cluttered with oars and lifejackets, leaving barely enough space for the two of us to stand face-to-face. A gallon bucket waited on one low shelf.

  “Jesus,” I said, hastily unbuttoning my jacket. “How much blood did they think we needed?”

  “Loads, apparently,” James told me, bending down to wedge the lid off. “And it reeks.” A sweet, rotten odor filled the room as I wriggled out of my boots. “I suppose we have to give them points for authenticity.”

  My arm was tangled in a shirtsleeve. “Shit shit shit, I’m stuck, ouch, fuck—James, help—!”

  “Hush! Here.” He stood, took my shirt by the hem, and yanked it up over my head. My head got caught in the collar and I crashed against him. “Can you get blood on those pants?” he asked, catching at my waistband to steady me.

  “Well, I’m not going naked.”

  He reached for the bucket. “Fair enough. Close your mouth.”

  I clamped my mouth and eyes shut and he poured the blood over my head, like some kind of perverse pagan baptism. I spluttered and coughed as it ran down my face. “What is this shit?”

  “I don’t know. And I don’t know how much time you have.” He grabbed my head. “Hold still.” He smeared the blood around my face and chest and shoulders, raked his fingers through my hair to make it stand on end. “There.” For a split second he just stared at me, somehow looking impressed and completely revolted at the very same time.

  “How do I look?”

  “Fucking incredible,” he said, then nudged me toward the door. “Now go.”

  I stumbled out of the shed and sprinted into the trees, swearing as sharp stones and pine needles jabbed at my bare feet. It was certainly spooky, showing up at midnight with no idea who we’d meet in the dark, but it was troublesome, too. I only knew my scenes, so I could hardly guess how much time I had before I was due to enter as Banquo’s ghost. A branch whipped across my face but I ignored it and clambered up the hill, over roots and rocks and creeping vines. Another scratch on my cheek wouldn’t matter; I was already covered in blood. My skin felt sticky as it cooled in the raw night air, and my heart was pounding again—half from the effort of climbing to the trailhead, half from petty fear that
I would miss my second entrance.

  As it turned out, I made it back to the tree line in plenty of time. I arrived slowly and clumsily, twigs cracking under my feet, but the audience was watching James’s second conference with the witches with anxious attention and paid me no mind. I lurked under a low-hanging branch, the keen scent of pine cutting through the ripe stench of stage blood on my skin.

  Wren: “By the pricking of my thumbs,

  Something wicked this way comes!”

  James: “How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags!

  What is’t you do?”

  The girls danced in a ring around the fire, hair loose and tangled, green lakeweed clinging to their skirts. Every now and then one of them tossed a handful of sparkling dust in the fire and a cloud of colored smoke burst above the flames. I shifted in my hiding place, waiting. I was the last in a series of visions, but how would they appear? I searched the crowd of spectators for familiar faces, but it was too dark to make out many distinguishing features. I spotted Colin’s blond head on the house left side, and the firelight glinted on a coppery curl that I thought might belong to Gwendolyn. I couldn’t help but wonder—where in the world was Richard?

  An unearthly shriek of laughter from Wren pulled my attention back down to the beach.

  Meredith: “Speak!”

  Wren: “Demand!”

  Filippa: “We’ll answer.”

  Meredith: “Say, if thou’dst rather hear it from our mouths,

  Or from our masters?”

  James: “Call ’em; let me see ’em.”

  The girls’ voices rose in a high, discordant chant. James stood looking on, brooding and uncertain.

  Meredith: “Pour in sow’s blood, that hath eaten

  Her nine farrow; grease that’s sweaten

  From the murderer’s gibbet throw

  Into the flame—”

  ALL: “Come, high or low;

  Thyself and office deftly show!”

  Filippa threw something on the fire and the flames roared up above their heads. A voice bellowed across the beach, tremendous and terrifying as some primordial god. Unmistakably, Richard.

  “MACBETH. MACBETH. MACBETH. BEWARE MACDUFF.”