“They should move in an inhuman way,” he said, inspecting his theatre as he spoke. Yanking on a rope to see that it stayed secure, he continued while the other man followed. “Perhaps like spiders at times, or slithering snakes. Their heads might jerk as birds of prey do, eyes never blinking. I want the audience to be disturbed.”
“If you truly desire to upset your patrons, double your prices,” said his companion, as good-looking and well-dressed as they come, even for a star actor. Dark curling hair and moustache set off his square jaw and pale skin. His eyes matched his voice. Both struck me as deep and restless, with half-contained fire. After chuckling at his own joke he went on in a different tone, one that made my skin crawl. “Or you can re-cast them with the prettiest blonde children in town, all with black eyes and long fingers.”
What did he say? I tilted my head and crouched close to the floor where I could see and hear them without being noticed.
Mr. Ford froze and glanced around. He seemed scared to be overheard, even alone in his own theatre. “Not funny, Booth.”
John Wilkes Booth gave him the same smile boys made when stepping on bugs. I’d have bet his Thane of Glamis would give you more chills than any witch he shared the stage with. “Jumpy, aren’t we? Next you’ll be intoning, ‘The very walls have ears!’”
“It’s not the walls that I’m worried about. It’s the cat by the fire, or the rat that raids the pantry, or my housekeeper’s canary.” Are they talkin’ in some kind of code?
“Relax. As long as you don’t rock the Merchantry’s boat they won’t try to sink yours.”
Merchantry? What’s that? He’d pronounced it like a Gaullic word…mer-SHAN-tree.
Mr. Ford frowned and stared at the precise spot that I’d just patched, even though he stood twenty feet upstage of it. “My boat is not my chief concern. I’d just prefer not to wake up one day as a dung beetle.”
“Well, let’s just work to put on a good show and the rest will take care of itself.” Booth glanced at an expensive-looking watch plucked from his brocade vest. “I’m off to the Willard for a brandy, and perhaps some socializing with a couple of the Army bigwigs. See if I can find out what’s going on in the Peninsula. No one seems to have a clue about this Lee, the Rebels’ new commander. Coming?”
“Lee doesn’t matter. As long as he’s fighting McClellan, that bragging idiot---”
“Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing!” Booth boomed into the empty house. I had to admit, he sounded darn good.
Ford laughed and slapped his star on the back. Booth stiffened for a second, but Mr. Ford didn’t notice. “If you deliver all of your lines like that one, it’ll signify fat profits for us both!”
“Stay awhile, I will be faithful.” Booth shook Ford’s hand. “Adieu.”
The actor bounded off through the wings, humming. Mr. Ford moved downstage. Now he could see me in the paint cupboard, the picture of innocence. “So,” he purred, “was it your sword or Eddie’s?”
I blushed. Nothing ever got past him. Of course, the pile of weapons near the prompt box sort of gave it away. “Eddie gets too enthusiastic sometimes.”
“Which is why we all love him.” He stood right above my floor patch. “Good work. If I hadn’t seen it from the upstage side, angled in the light, I never would have noticed. I presume that this is your work and not Eddie’s?”
“Yes, sir. He’s out back scrubbin’ costumes for Ma. She’s in the Greenroom gettin’ things ready for tonight’s rehearsal. I’m gonna beat the lobby rugs for you.”
“Good girl.” He squinted. “Where’s your necklace? I thought you never took it off.”
I gasped and dug a hand into the back of my overalls. “Forgot! Didn’t want to have a sword catch it.” A smooth red stone glowed in the afternoon light. The gift Pa had put around my neck the day of my birth. I had nothing else of him. No pictures, no letters, nothing but a flat speckled rock on a black silk cord. Shaped like a long blunt-nosed arrowhead with a vertical oblong slit in its center. Ma called it my Legacy Stone, a piece of jasper Pa’d claimed that he’d had since he’d been a boy. I slipped it over my head and tucked it inside my shirt.
“Still doing well in school? I’ve been bragging to everyone about how sharp you are.” As proud of me and Eddie’s school work as if he’d been our own daddy, Mr. Ford kept close watch on our learning. Since he paid for us both to go out of his own pocket, he had the right, I guess. Sometimes I wished he had been my real pa. I had no memory of my father at all. Ma said she’d lost him two days after my birth. Never would tell me more. Must’ve been real hard on her.
“Oh, yes, sir. Perfect marks in History and Literature last term. My grammar and cipherin’ still need work, though. You won’t want me countin’ your receipts, that’s for sure. Can’t wait fer summer to be over so we can go back.” I didn’t lie. Believe it or not, I loved school, except for having to wear shoes. You can call it girlie, I don’t care. Guess I had a knack for it, especially for Shakespeare and other storytellers. I reckoned I knew just about any book you could name then, backwards and forwards. Me and Eddie would have competitions in history, too, trying to stump one another. It amazed our teacher, Miz Finch, that we could be that sharp. Me in particular, because I didn’t appear the studious type. ‘Tweren’t natural, she’d say. High praise from someone who looked unnatural herself. Never saw such a backside on a woman. Broader than a hay wagon.
Reaching into his coat pocket, Mr. Ford drew out a peppermint stick and handed it to me with manicured fingers. “Here. Make sure you give him half.” When I reached for it he withdrew the candy. “After you put the swords back in the property closet.”
I smiled and stared at my big booted feet. Just like at school, I wasn’t allowed to be barefoot in the theatre. “Yes, sir.” I collected my treat and scampered off with the rapiers, their daggers stowed inside the caged hilts. Mr. Ford in a good mood, sweets in my hand, and Eddie doing my chores…all was right with the world.
As right as that twisted war-torn world of 1862 could be, on the last happy day of my childhood. Before I became the most magick-hunted person on Earth.
2/ Romulus
I punched his boy-bits with all of my might.
My ma folded shirts in the Greenroom, on account of it being cooler than in the costume shop. Sweat soaked her calico dress. Some crazy person built Washington City in a swamp, so summers always sweltered. Until last year’s attack on Fort Sumter had filled the city with troops and government workers, most people had always left town come June. It felt that miserable. Most years Mr. Ford booked little or nothing into the Athenaeum for June, July, and August, there being no audience to speak of. But now he had a chance to pack the house full of free-spending Army officers and War Department workers. That’s why the popular Booth had brought his company, to perform for folk starved for entertainment as well as thirsting for good news of the war.
Giving me that look she always used when I’d disappointed her, Ma said, “You switched chores with Eddie? What did I tell you about---?”
“I didn’t take advantage of him,” I protested. Well, maybe a little. “He asked me to help him out of a fix.”
She smoothed her damp dark hair out of her gray eyes. Short and round, she wore spectacles on the end of her sharp nose. They made her look like Ben Franklin’s sister. The glasses usually sat atop her head, except for when she sewed or when she wanted to glare at me about something I’d done. I don’t look much like her. Guess I got Pa’s face. At least that’s what she tells me. I don’t recall him. Sure wish I could, though. “You could have said no.”
“And then he’d be onstage right now, in a world of trouble with Mr. Ford. I did him a favor.”
“And since you’re so considerate for your best friend, you’ll do him another. Go help with the wash…now. Then you’ll both beat those rugs.”
I started to argue, but knew it would be useless. Jamming the peppermint stick in my mouth, I clumped out.
“Don’t forget
to give him half of that candy,” she called after me.
Oh, a big one for honesty and fairness, my ma. She based everything she did or said on those ideas. Whether portions at dinner, kids’ games, or national affairs, she considered right more important than convenient. Even though Eddie didn’t really count as my real brother—Mr. Ford had found him on the street and let him live at the theatre—he got treated as such by us. And Ma had hired Romulus to help with odd jobs, paying him the same as a white man. Him being somewhat simple didn’t matter to her. As soon as Mr. Lincoln had freed all of Washington City’s slaves in April she’d made it a point to give a job to the first colored person who’d asked her. Didn’t care who knew it or who objected, neither. Of course, she expected the same from me, too.
Me and Eddie spent a miserable hour wrestling with two dozen pair of pants. Boiling water, boiling lye, and boiling sun, combined with stirring what seemed like eleven tons of waterlogged trousers, made us woozy and weak. The sultry air could have almost drowned you trying to breathe it. Romulus helped out a bit, truth be told, or we’d likely have fainted. He had the kind of ‘strong’ you read about in fairy tales.
Big old loyal Romulus. He’d come to Ford’s asking for a job, any job, the day he’d got his freedom papers in April. Ma hadn’t needed any help, but she told me that something about him made her feel safe, somehow. Faithful and brawny, he looked after us like a kindly uncle. Though sometimes he watched over me so careful that he resembled a sheepdog guarding his flock from wolves.
After some time in the shade back of the theatre—and about a gallon of Ma’s lemonade—we beat the lobby rugs till we almost choked to death. The beaters made good pretend-swords, so we performed Macduff vs. Macbeth for Romulus, poor old Mad Molly, and a few scruffy alley cats. Eddie got to win that time—his last victory, come to think of it. Shaved head shining in the sun like a big buckeye, Romulus clapped his giant paws as he watched. Sitting in that odd way of his, upright on his toes with his hands between his knees, he looked like a happy old mutt, tongue lolling.
Ma let us loose after chores, so long as we got back at five for supper. Dress rehearsal started at six and we had to help. I’d shift scenery and Eddie’d work with Ma and the costumes. That gave us over an hour. We ran west to the Potomac, my horrid boots left at home. Woo! My tootsies can breathe! We waved at the guards around the President’s House on the way. They were used to seeing us. Once Mr. Lincoln had even said hello while watching Willie ride his pony on the South Lawn. Willie had been the same age as us. The typhoid got him just four months before. Now the poor President didn’t come out much anymore.
President Washington’s monument-to-be rose a ways to our left, a whitish mess that didn’t look like something dedicated to a great man. Seemed more like a gravestone. In fact, some kids we knew said it was haunted. Weird things happened there, they said. People would come out of it wearing clothes from long ago: Napoleon’s Gaulle, or the Middle Ages, or the Thirty Years War. We laughed, of course. ‘About as believable as the Headless Horseman’. But with the smell of the nearby sewage Canal smacking you in the face, you could believe it a half-built castle from Ivanhoe’s time.
Hoping to see the Monitor, we peered at the river from a high point near one of the Heavy Artillery batteries that pointed downstream and toward the Virginia side. Harper’s Weekly had run pictures of the new iron gunboat, wonder of the Navy, and we itched to catch sight of it. No such luck. It probably cruised down by Richmond, making sure that the Confederates’ ironclad couldn’t do any mischief against McClellan’s army. Seemed like he needed all the help he could get. The papers said his siege had turned into a retreat, thanks to the new Rebel general, that Lee. Big battles brewed that could decide the war.
We gave up looking for the wonder weapon and sprinted along the shore. Funny how the heat is intolerable when there’s work to be done, but you can play in the same sun forever and never feel it. Pretending we were the giant guns of the battery, Eddie gave me orders like he’d heard their officers doing. I’d go through the loading drill for a 100-pound Parrot rifle, then cock my arm. When he’d shout, “Fire!” my rock would blast out to sink the enemy. Many a driftwood gunboat suffered our righteous wrath. Once I misfired and the shot landed amidst a bunch of bathing soldiers. They seemed to think that Southern sharpshooters had found their range, for they dove under the water like frantic ducks. Laughing at the sight of so many naked fish-belly-white bums, we tore off back through town.
Our laughter faded quick when we saw that we’d made a dumb decision. To save time after being held up by a slow-marching regiment, we turned off our normal route. Trying to cut across the grounds of St. Bartholomew’s, a posh school for Senators’ sons and the like, we hoped we wouldn’t be spotted. Our previous dealings with those kids had taught us not to truck with them. “Mean” must’ve been a required class there. Once they’d stripped Eddie’s trousers and sent him home with a whipped bottom. What is it about money and power that makes some people so cruel?
We figured we were pretty safe, it being summer and no school, so we didn’t take it as careful as we should have. Three-quarters of the way through we started to relax. No one had jumped us or even yelled, “Boo!” The big sandstone building that the boys lived and studied in sat there like a forgotten mausoleum, all shadowy and dead. Weaving between the spooky old oaks on the lawn, Eddie and me started giggling from released nerves.
The first one dropped out of a tree behind us like a well-dressed monkey. His three friends popped up from behind a woodpile and a trash heap, cutting us off in all directions and closing in. Two carried sticks. Another had a length of chain. Eddie already started to shake beside me. As the noose constricted I recognized their leader, the one who’d been up in the tree. Time to apply some butter.
“H’lo, Horace,” I said with as big and goofy a grin as I could manage. Our best chance would be to act stupid and harmless, maybe disarm them enough to make them drop their guard and then we could run for it. “How ya doin’? Nice suit.”
Horace returned my smile with one of his own. Since it looked like a hyena licking its chops, it didn’t reassure me much. “Verity…Eddie.” He looked down at his blue velvet jacket. “This old thing? Just the rags I like to wear on days like this so I don’t get the blood of interlopers on my really nice clothes.”
Interlopers? Somebody’s been payin’ attention in Britannic class. “We’re just tryin’ to get home fer supper. No need to make a fuss.”
His greased dark hair looked like a shiny skullcap. He lacked a front tooth, but otherwise looked the rich kid, a banker’s boy from New York. “Fuss? No fuss needed to teach you two your place. And because it’s so hot, I think Eddie might appreciate being stripped buck naked this time.”
The trio lurking between us and home snickered along with him. Wilbur and Woodrow, the pair with sticks who dressed like Horace except more sloppy, took a couple of steps toward us. Eddie started to whimper. I nudged him with my hip to be quiet and to start sidling toward home. When he began to move I followed right behind him, but backing up to keep my eye on Horace.
“Y’all ought to be home. School’s out. Why ya hangin’ ‘round here?” I said, as cool as I could manage. To be honest, I felt like making Eddie-noises myself.
“My father has a position with the War Department now,” Horace announced in a grand tone. Means he’s sellin’ rations to the Commissary, emphasis on the r-a-t.
“Yeah? That’s swell.” The boy with the chain slid sideways. Our move hadn’t been as slick as we’d thought. Looked like we wouldn’t be able to dash after all. Oh, well. I had a back-up plan, but it depended on some luck. And on Eddie not fainting before we started.
“Swell…that’s what your heads are going to do when we break them,” whispered Wilbur, thumping his stick into his empty palm. Some folks said Wilbur had been thrown out of public school for setting fires, so his wealthy family had got him out of Pennsylvania and dumped him at St. Bart’s. They never visited,
I heard.
Horace played the leader, the cool customer. Woodrow and the kid with the chain seemed to be followers, trying to be popular. Wilbur looked like the one I could get to make a mistake. Anyhow, he stood closest and I wanted his stick. Oh, please, let this work. Oh, please…
I turned toward him. “You’re clever. You must be the boss here.”
Horace cackled. Thanks for being predictable. Wilbur puffed himself up and looked at the three kids beside him. “Well, ya know how it is…”
“No”, said Horace in a dark voice. “Suppose you tell us how it is, Little Willie.”
Oho! A snotty nickname. Better than I’d hoped. I could feel the heat rise from Wilbur’s wounded pride. “Shut yer trap, Horace!” he spat. “I do what I want, when I want.”
“That so? And what do you want, Little Willie? Huh?”
“I want to whale on these two fer a bit, then I’ll tan your hide!”
“Well, get to it, then. I’m waiting.”
Wilbur eyed me, almost with an unspoken apology. He preferred going after Horace, but he’d been boxed in. Boys! I could see him wavering. But I needed him to go after me first. Otherwise his two buddies might just charge at us while he attacked Horace. So I helped him make up his tiny mind.
“Afraid ya might lose to a girl?” I smiled. Then I blew him a kiss.
Of course he swung at my face as hard as he could, like a batter playing rounders. I counted on it. Blood thumping in my ears, I dropped into the same split I’d done with Eddie earlier that day. My coveralls just let me do it. The stick whooshed over my dipping head in such a big circle that it forced Woodrow to hop back. So far, so good. Before Wilbur could recover from his stroke I took him out of the fight as only a ruthless girl can: I punched his boy-bits with all of my might.
Just so you know, it hurts a girl to be hit there, too, but it seems to mean more to a boy, somehow.
Brimstone and Lily (Legacy Stone Adventures) Page 2
