Followers

by Anna Davies

But at the end of breakfast, as she was clearing her tray, she’d asked if I would help her with a Hamlet project. And because it was early and I hadn’t had any caffeine, I’d said yes. And now, it seemed, today was the day. Even Hamlet’s Ghost was excited.

  I smiled as I realized that could make a good Tweet — and might inspire the Hamlet’s Ghost account to actually interact a bit more with me and the “official” Hamlet news I Tweeted from my account. It was weird the way Tristan never owned up to the account, even though it had to be him. But as long as he’d taken my warning to heart and kept the Tweets focused on anyone else but me, I didn’t really care. I quickly typed:

  Briana Beland @alleyesonbre

  Even @hamletsghost is excited to see how Ophelia prepares for her part. Can’t-miss drama at #machalehamlet.

  “Hey, can we order from Salad Shakers tonight? We’ve done pizza for the past three nights and I’m feeling a little bloated.” I glanced up from my phone to see Kennedy was patting her flat stomach in mock concern.

  “You know I don’t do dinner orders. Ask someone on stage crew,” I said, glancing back down at my phone. What’s the point? We were one week into rehearsals, nothing had happened worth Tweeting about, and watching Kennedy flirt with Eric — and Eric flirt back — was unmitigated torture.

  “I don’t know anyone on stage crew. Besides, I need to block my scene now,” Kennedy whined. “Please, can you just pass the order on to whoever’s doing it? It would be a really big help to me. Unless you’re busy?” The inflection of her voice told me that she definitely didn’t think I was.

  From the theater entrance, I saw Eric making his way toward us. Great. Now I could have a front-row seat to their back-and-forth flirtation, which had only gotten more obvious and more annoying since our weird movie night. I pasted a flat smile on my face, trying to prepare myself for what I was about to see.

  “Hey!” Eric sounded like he was in a great mood. And why wouldn’t he be? Unlike me, whose entire job was just to sit in the auditorium for every eight-hour rehearsal day, bored to tears while Mr. O’Dell spent hours blocking a single scene, Eric was actually doing something the whole time. And when we finally did get off for breaks, he was too busy running lines with Kennedy or going over additional notes with Mr. O’Dell to hang out. I’d talked to him less in the past week than I had in the two days surrounding auditions. “My two favorites. How’s it going?” Eric asked, draping his arms over both of our shoulders.

  I resisted the urge to roll my eyes and wiggle out of his grasp. In the past week, his confidence had become almost annoyingly over-the-top. But that didn’t negate the electric surge up my spine when his arm touched my shoulder.

  “I’m just trying to order dinner,” Kennedy whined.

  “Oh. Can we do Kickin’ Chicken?”

  “But I want salad tonight,” Kennedy said with a pout.

  “No, it’s still vacation. Kickin’ Chicken. Please, Bree?” Eric pushed out his lower lip and gave his best puppy-dog expression.

  “You’re begging? That’s so lame!” Kennedy placed her hands on her tiny hips. “Bree, Instagram this. Actors in an argument. It’s character work; people would love to see it. And Eric’s puppy face is so cute!”

  “I have to go order dinner.” Better that than watch Kennedy’s nauseating display of affection. It wasn’t that she was a bad actress…. It was that she acted all the time. She was even worse than Skye. Her voice was always decibels louder than necessary, she always tossed her curls over her shoulder whenever she laughed, and she automatically turned to her right whenever she even sensed a camera in her vicinity. It made me wonder what Mr. O’Dell had been talking about when he’d said I’d been inauthentic onstage.

  “You okay, Bree?” Eric cocked his head and looked over at me, catching me off guard. I knew my tone sounded less than perky, but I didn’t really expect him to actually listen to me.

  “ ‘When sorrows come, they come not in single spies, but in batallions,’ right?”

  “What?” Kennedy asked flatly.

  “Act four, Claudius.” I scanned the auditorium until my eye fell on Christian Kent, a Forsyth local who always wore a plaid shirt and a blue-knit beanie cap. Claudius was supposed to be the smooth, dangerous uncle who murders Hamlet’s father, then sweeps in and marries his mother. The way Christian played him made Claudius seem like the bumbling, black sheep uncle whose only smooth trick is sneaking away from restaurants without paying the bill. I squinted into the darkness, barely able to differentiate his bulky form from the chairs.

  “I gotta go.” I made my way toward backstage. Just before I headed into the tangle of black curtains, I felt a tap on my shoulder.

  “Briana. I have been looking for you everywhere! But I didn’t want to see that girl falling all over Eric. Doesn’t she realize how pathetic she looks?” Skye shook her head sadly. “And I bet she was asking you to order from Salad Shakers. Don’t do it. No one likes it. I hate it. And we MacHale ladies have to stick together, right?”

  “Sure.” I felt a tug of sympathy for Skye. She may have been unaware of how hard she was trying, but no one else was. In the dim light of the single bare bulb that lit up the theater, I could see that her eyes were lined with more dark eyeliner than usual, and the dark red lipstick she had on gave her an almost Goth appearance.

  I leaned in to give her a hug, but she pulled away right before I initiated the double-kiss she gave to everyone.

  “Sorry, my makeup,” she said apologetically. “Anyway, I don’t have a lot of scene work today, so I thought this would be the perfect day to really delve into my character. And I want you to Tweet about it. I think it’ll be great for people to see how an actress prepares, you know? A real actress, not a charity case,” she added darkly. “So, I was about to go through the costume cage and find something to wear during the rehearsal. I know it won’t be, like, the same as what I’ll wear onstage, but I feel like wearing some sort of costume will help me become closer to the character. Do you know what I mean?”

  “Yup,” I said, as though she hadn’t already told me.

  “Great!” Skye said happily. “Also, your roommate is Willow, right? Do you know what she’s planning for costumes? Because I have some ideas….”

  “Actors!” Mr. O’Dell strode onstage, his black leather pants swishing with every step. Immediately, everyone, including Skye and me, quieted down and gazed over at him.

  “Do I have everyone’s attention?” Mr. O’Dell asked unnecessarily. Of course he did. “Good. So, we’re done with our first week of rehearsal and finished with blocking all of our key scenes.” A smattering of applause broke out, and Mr. O’Dell raised his hand to stop it. “But we still have a long way to go. Now we’re going to break down the smaller, more intimate scenes, the ones with only two or three characters, where we really need to find the emotional heart of the action.”

  My own heart flip-flopped at the word intimate. I’d been able to handle watching the large ensemble scenes come together. But now, it would be just Kennedy and Eric, alone together onstage, forced to find their emotional chemistry. And I would be Tweeting their every move. I set my jaw. Better get used to it now.

  “We have one more week of all-day rehearsals before school is back in session. Soon, you’ll have your peers, your classes, and your other commitments vying for your attention. But this — the stage, your fellow actors, the world of Elsinore Castle — is always number one. Is that clear?”

  “Yes,” Skye whispered rapturously. I realized I was nodding my own head in agreement. I immediately stopped.

  I’m not in the play. It hurt each time I realized that no matter how many hours I spent in the theater, or how many Tweets I wrote, when the curtain went up, it would be them — not me — getting applause. Nothing I Tweeted mattered, not really.

  “Good. So today, the plan is to block the Hamlet and the ghost scene. It’s got some complicated details, so it’s imperative that everyone is on point, paying attention, and taking notes. I need
everyone to be playing their A-game. Every minute lost to carelessness etches away at the play’s integrity.”

  Every minute lost to carelessness etches away at the play’s integrity. That was good. Quickly, I typed it up, added the hashtag #machalehamlet, then obediently looked up at Mr. O’Dell. His face had a faraway expression, and his gaze was directed above the last row of the auditorium and toward the darkened lighting booth. Once again, it was hard for me to tear my eyes away from him. Presence, a look, whatever it was that he had — I wanted it.

  He clapped his hands again, the spell broken. “All right. Places, please.”

  Skye poked my arm. “Let’s go to the costume closet,” she hissed as cast members shuffled into their spots.

  “Really?” I was surprised that she’d actually disobey Mr. O’Dell.

  “Yeah. He won’t notice.”

  Together, the two of us crept through the tangle of black velvet curtains into the chaotic backstage area.

  “Come this way,” she whispered, as if I didn’t know the backstage as well as she did. She climbed up the ten steps to the large metal cage that held rows and rows of costumes, used in more than a century’s worth of MacHale theatrical endeavors. As I climbed the stairs, I heard a scream, followed by a flash of light.

  And then everything went dark.

  “Skye?” I hissed. No answer. All I could hear was Mr. O’Dell’s voice projecting from the stage, giving notes on where he wanted Eric to stand.

  “Skye?” I asked, louder this time. “This isn’t funny.”

  I heard a weird hum, and then, suddenly, the backstage was illuminated in a dim light.

  This time, I screamed.

  Lying slumped over on the landing, surrounded by the scattered pages of her highlighted Hamlet script, was Skye Henderson. Her body was twisted at an awkward angle and her eyes and mouth were open.

  But the worst part of all was the inhuman noise surrounding us. The screaming wouldn’t stop. I heard it echoing in my head, above the commotion of people rushing backstage. I knew a crowd was gathering behind me, and the mingling scents of cologne and perfume and fear emanating from the bodies pressing toward me made my stomach lurch. But I couldn’t see the crowd. All I saw was blackness, and I wasn’t sure if my eyes were open or closed or what was happening around me. I didn’t care. I wanted was to get as far away as I could from the sound, which felt like it was coming from the very center of my brain. I held my hands over my ears, startled when I felt a sharp jolt on my shoulders.

  Mr. O’Dell held my shoulders in a death grip, almost rocking me back and forth as he glanced up the staircase to Skye’s motionless body.

  “Stay away,” he said roughly. He pushed me aside and sprinted up the stairs and knelt by Skye. But he didn’t call her name or try to perform CPR or do any of the things you were supposed to do with a body like that, one that was awkwardly slumped across several steps and that didn’t seem to be moving or breathing.

  I wanted to throw up. I leaned against the concrete wall, sure I would faint when another set of hands roughly pulled me aside.

  “What happened?” It was Eric’s voice. He was simultaneously pushing and rubbing my shoulder, and even though I knew it was wrong, I couldn’t help but notice how good it felt, and how reassured his grip made me feel.

  “I don’t know. She fell. Or she tripped. And then … there was the light and then the scream…. I don’t know.” My whole body started to tremble, even though I was hot all over, my skin feeling red and raw. He glanced toward Skye and bit his lip.

  “We need to call 9-1-1,” he announced unnecessarily, as he yanked me toward Mr. O’Dell’s office. I nodded mutely. How could he speak? It was as if language had stopped in my brain, my mind only filled with images, each one worse than the last.

  The flash of light. The scream. Skye’s lifeless body.

  “9-1-1, what’s your emergency?” I could hear the cool voice on the other end of the line, sounding like it was coming from underwater as it leaked through the receiver. “Hello?” The voice had taken a more urgent edge. I gulped, tasting the sharp, sour smell of bile in my throat. I was going to get sick. I clutched Eric’s arm tightly.

  “Hi,” Eric said. “I’m at the theater at MacHale, and there’s been an accident. I think. I mean, I don’t know what happened, but someone’s really hurt…. I don’t know if she’s alive.”

  My knees buckled.

  “What do you mean?” I croaked. Eric waved his hand toward me, as if to brush me away. I shut my eyes again.

  “We’re at 1101 Old Church Lane. MacHale. Yup. It seems that there was an electrical accident. I’m not sure if she’s breathing. No one touched her. All right. All right. Yes.” Eric hung up, but kept his hand on the receiver. We didn’t look at each other. I could hear his breathing, heavy and ragged, but I couldn’t see his expression, which made me feel even more alone.

  The commotion outside the office was deafening, especially the high-pitched shrieks of one girl that I could hear above everything else. I just wanted her to be quiet. If she was quiet, then everything would be okay. It didn’t make sense, but nothing else did.

  I opened my mouth to ask Eric to please try to get that girl, whoever it was, to shut up, when I realized I couldn’t.

  Because the endless, relentless screams weren’t coming from anyone else.

  They were coming from me.

  Eric cupped his hands over my shoulders and shook me hard. “Just breathe, all right? Can you do that? Breathe in for five seconds, out for five seconds…. Do you hear me? Do it for Skye.” Eric’s voice was low and hypnotic. Was he kidding? How could I breathe when Skye may or may not have been dead? And what did he mean when he’d said there was an electrical accident? But even as my brain protested, my body calmed down. Soon, the sound of our breathing was joined by the wail of police sirens and the lower-pitched blare of the fire truck. After my horrible screams, the sirens sounded almost musical. I tugged on Eric’s sleeve to tell him how pretty I thought it sounded, aware that I must be in shock to even think that, when the door swung open.

  “You two alone in here?” A fireman glanced around.

  “Yes. We’re the ones who called, sir,” Eric said.

  “You two need to get out. Now. We’re evacuating the theater. Electrical problem. We don’t know what’s safe,” one said gruffly, pushing Eric aside.

  Electrical.

  Like the Tweet. Hamlet’s Ghost. Tristan.

  “Eric,” I gulped, my mouth dry. But before I could finish the sentence, he grabbed my wrist and pulled me outside, where I was greeted by a shock of cold air. I’d left my coat in the auditorium.

  “Listen to me. What did you see?” Eric’s eyes were wide and he kept licking his lips. He was terrified.

  “Hamlet’s Ghost …” I began, trying to form my thoughts in a way that made sense.

  “Bree!” Eric snapped. He clamped his hands on my shoulders. But his touch wasn’t the rough, sensitive one I’d spent the last weeks craving. “Don’t be insane. Skye is really hurt. Just tell me what happened.”

  His voice broke. Just then, Kennedy bounded over to us, threw her arms around Eric, and began sobbing against his shoulder. Eric let go of me, and I stumbled backwards a few steps.

  I couldn’t stay here. Not with Eric glancing at me with suspicion. Not with the image of Skye’s lifeless body embedded in my brain.

  The doors opened and four paramedics rushed past us. Skye was on a stretcher, her face covered with an oxygen mask. The dark red lipstick she’d been wearing looked like blood, especially against her pale face.

  “She’s alive!” a voice called from the crowd. I whirled around. It was Christian, aka Claudius.

  “How do you know?” I heard a Forsyth girl ask.

  Christian’s eyes widened, as if he’d only just realized he’d spoken out loud and that everyone was now staring at him. “I don’t, really,” he confessed. “It’s just that she had an oxygen mask on. They wouldn’t give that to someone who w
as dead. I mean, right?”

  Another fireman walked out of the building, trailed by Mr. O’Dell. Mr. O’Dell looked pale and shaky, following the fireman like a lost puppy.

  “Students?” the fireman said gruffly, as Mr. O’Dell mutely stood by his side. “Go back to your dorms. You’ll be apprised of the situation on a need-to-know basis. The premises is not safe until we’ve inspected it thoroughly.”

  “Will she be all right?” Leah Banks asked in a small voice.

  The fireman’s eyes flicked up toward the sky, the same automatic gesture I did whenever I made a wish. “Let’s hope so.” He turned on his heel. As he did, I elbowed my way past people, dimly hearing “Stop” and “Is she okay?” called as I ran past, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t stand there a second longer. I ran as if my brain were separated from my body, past Scholar’s Walk and into the woods. It was only there, far away from the theater, that I felt it was safe to stop. I rested my hands on my knees and breathed heavily. I could taste blood rising in my throat. A crow cawed in the distance. Above me, the pale, full moon gleamed down on me.

  I thought of those two phantom eyes I’d thought I’d seen in the forest, that night before auditions. If I squinted, I could still see them. I thought I’d been terrified that night, but I’d had no idea what real terror was. Terror was seeing someone lying face up, their gaze unfocused and blank. Terror was knowing danger surrounded you, but there was nothing you could do to stop it. And terror was knowing that even if I didn’t know where, or who, he was, that Hamlet’s Ghost would certainly be on my Twitter feed when I got back to my dorm.

  Briana Beland @alleyesonbree

  The entire #machalehamlet cast hopes that Skye gets better as soon as possible. Love and thoughts are with her.

  Tristan Schuler

  Let’s play a game! Any guesses on who @hamletsghost will kill next? My guess is it won’t be @alleyesonbree….

  I slammed my laptop shut with a bang as I struggled to catch my breath. Was Tristan insinuating that I’d killed Skye? I knew that he liked to joke, but this wasn’t funny. As soon as I’d gotten back to the dorm, I’d deleted everything of @hamletsghost’s that I’d ever Retweeted. But not before it had been Retweeted five times, mostly by people I didn’t know. Even more disconcerting was the amount of followers I had gained — eighty-seven since the accident. But deleting the Tweets didn’t make me feel any better. It wasn’t like I was deleting @hamletsghost.