by Tess Lake
He obviously couldn’t say more. I guessed he was still at work and had to be talking in code. What he’d really been saying was venomous snakes are involved and I know you’re investigating so be careful. I had to end the call because soon we were back into rehearsals again.
We were halfway through rehearsal in a complicated costume change, me and Henry G and Peta pulling costumes off teenagers and grabbing other ones when there was an enormous splat right next to us, and I was splashed with water.
The three of us had the barest moment of realization before water bombs cascaded down on us from the rafters above, exploding on the stage and drenching all three of us. From high above came the laughter of teenagers thinking their prank was the funniest thing in the history of time. I didn’t laugh and neither did Peta, but I think that was maybe just shock. There had been quite a few pranks in the early days of rehearsals, but they had faded away as well as we’d all become more serious. Henry G definitely didn’t laugh. He shrieked out loud, which became a yell, and then he cursed and ran off stage swearing, holding his face as though he’d been doused with acid rather than water. Everyone in the theater had laughed initially at us getting drenched, but seeing Henry G, who was normally witty and laughing swear out loud and run off had caused a pall of silence to fall across the theater.
“Okay everyone, let’s clean up the water and no more pranks, not at least until we’re finished,” Emilion said. The three teenagers involved with it came down from the gantry and I gave a double blink at what they were carrying: it was an empty black garbage bag. It appeared the same as the one Marcus had been carrying yesterday. Was this what he’d been doing? Somehow sneaking in a bag full of water balloons, maybe from next door? As with a lot of the old buildings in Harlot Bay there were plenty of secret tunnels and secret doors. Maybe Marcus had found a way into the theater to bypass the guards. But why would he bother, just for a practical joke like this?
The rehearsal paused while they dried up the stage and took the costumes off that would need to be dried as well. The teenagers got a bit of a dressing down from the director, although it wasn’t that bad, certainly not as bad as what Hans would’ve done. It was mainly around the fact that the costumes were now wet and as they were unique items created specifically for the play, we didn’t have backups if they became damaged.
I went down to the dressing room to find a towel, Peta following close behind me, water dripping off her clothing. I dried myself and then went and knocked on Henry G’s door. When there was no answer I opened it, only to find his dressing room was empty. There was a wet patch on the floor on the carpet where he’d obviously come in but Henry G was nowhere to be found. I closed his dressing room door and went back out to the rehearsal space, looking around to see if I could find him but he simply wasn’t there. Eventually we continued rehearsals, absent Henry G, who only returned an hour and a half later in a set of new clothes, smiling at everyone, and waggling his fingers at the teenagers who had doused us.
“Oh, you got me, you naughty little urchins,” he said to them. I couldn’t help but feel it was a pretense. The look on his face when he’d been doused with the water balloons was one of pure rage, of anger, and perhaps fear as well.
I didn’t have time to think about these things, of course. Our third rehearsal soon flowed into the fourth and it was just a blur of Shakespeare and the Taming of the Shrew over and over again.
Chapter 14
There was a layer of dust at least an inch thick over my poor neglected office. The early morning rays of the sun were shining in the window showing me just exactly how poor and neglected my office was. I put down my laptop, raising a cloud of dust which I waved away with my hand. I had a rare morning off. A large part of the set was being built today so rehearsals were only starting after lunch. I decided on a whim and also after waking up ridiculously early for no good reason at all to come into my office in the hope that I would see John Smith and possibly to do some research. I’d lingered outside on the footpath looking around hoping I would see John. When I hadn’t, I’d unlocked the office and come upstairs. Usually when I was in my office, he would turn up, I think sometimes being drawn here, because he definitely had no memory for when appointments were meant to take place.
It had been odd walking up the stairs. They creaked in that familiar way but it felt like returning to your high school a year after you’ve graduated. Everything looks smaller, both familiar yet strange at the same time.
I opened the small fridge, held my nose, and threw out the milk that was on the verge of becoming sentient and starting a small chain of restaurants. I washed out my dusty mug and settled for a black coffee as I sat down at my old desk and turned my laptop on. As I waited I had a look through the papers that Ollie had given me. It was all the research he’d done on acapella groups. If John appeared I was going to go through them with him in the hope that something would trigger a memory and perhaps I could find out who he was. Given how I’d failed to discover anything about John so consistently over the years I didn’t have high hopes for this venture but I had to try.
Yes okay, some of it was guilt. When I’d taken the job with the theater, it’s not like I’d exactly had a going away party where I’d told John I was leaving. I was committed to helping him. I found it sad that he was dead and couldn’t move on, couldn’t accept that he was gone. But that’s the thing with ghosts. They’re not alive. They’re not here. Their problems are all over. Compared to snakes being let loose in a theater, directors been poisoned, and magical salamanders roaming the town causing love and hatred everywhere they went, it was easy to put the problems of a ghost aside.
My laptop started up and I headed out to the internet. I shuffled aside all the papers and found the program for the Taming of the Shrew. They’d recently been printed and I’d snagged myself a copy because it listed every cast member and person who was working on the production, both first and last names. I was going to look through every one to see if there was any possible distant connection or clue I could find.
I had to admit that I was doing this also because I was a touch embarrassed about what had occurred with Marcus. I’d spoken with Sheriff Hardy who had told me they’d questioned Marcus who had readily confessed that he’d smuggled in a black bag full of water balloons through a secret passage he had discovered. It had all been for a prank, a joke on Henry G. Marcus hadn’t been doing anything suspicious at all. After discovering that it had all been for a prank I’d felt incredibly guilty that I had doubted him in the first place. My instincts had told me that he couldn’t have been doing anything, but I’d ignored them and although I hadn’t done much except for tell Sheriff Hardy, who had then done the right thing to interview him to discover the truth, I still felt like I’d accused him directly.
I opened up the program and started looking down the list of names. I was going to check everyone who worked with Hans first and then move on to locals, given that I was fairly certain that although a local might hate Hans, they wouldn’t have the kind of hatred that would lead them to poison him and then releasing a snake in the theater as well as cutting sandbags.
Being that I had recently accused Marcus, he was on my mind so I decided to look him up first. The internet quickly returned parts of his history. I found a record of him being a jazz pianist in New York, working in different bars. He’d been a musical director for a small children’s play and then started appearing firstly as a piano player for Hans and then moving up to music director. I also found a grinning photo of him, his arm wrapped around some beautiful blonde girl who was wearing a bikini. They were on a beach somewhere. Although he was grinning in the picture, I felt like he was staring at me and saying “Me? Really? You thought it was me who would do those things?” I quickly closed it and moved on to the next name.
I settled on Olivia, the woman who we were fairly sure was in love with Henry G. Her full name was Olivia Knapp, born and raised in Fort Lauderdale in Florida. I found an old graduation photo, some
social media accounts, and then the next trace of her is when she started working for Hans years ago, simply listed as an assistant. There was nothing there to find. I continued going through the list but it was becoming increasingly clear that this was a futile task. Some people simply didn’t have anything on the Internet. It was as though they just appeared out of nowhere, or they had names that were so common that there were thousands of them.
Henry G was listed only as Henry G on the program so I couldn’t get his last name. Under Henry G, he first appeared working a year ago as a costume designer for Hans and then in his subsequent productions.
I was about to give up my searching when I felt a furry shape brush past my legs and Adams emerged from under the desk carrying a thick rolled up catalog in his mouth. He jumped up on the desk and dropped it with a thud.
“Page forty-one. I want you to buy it for me,” he said and then proceeded to have a bath, as though all he had to do was give me the instruction.
“Good morning Adams. How are you today?” I said sarcastically.
“I’m okay, I want you to buy me the collar on page forty-one though,” he said, the sarcasm whooshing right over his head.
I opened to the page to find a diamond-studded collar priced at eight thousand dollars.
“Whoa buddy, I can’t afford eight thousand dollars! Besides, you don’t wear collars anyway. What do you want it for?” I said.
“Page one-two-eight then,” Adams said through a mouthful of fur.
I turned to find a much cheaper collar. This one was $29.99 plus shipping and instead of diamonds was diamantes.
“Can I have that one? I feel like you owe me for that time I saved everyone’s lives,” Adams said with a crafty look on his face.
“It is true that we owe you but we’ve paid off that debt with a lot of tuna and a lot of milk and the fact that you get to sleep in our house where it’s warm. Again, why do you want a collar? You don’t wear them,” I asked.
I scratched him under the neck. He held still for a moment before nipping me on the hand and jumping off onto the floor, raising a small cloud of dust as he landed. He began walking around, examining the room as though he’d never seen it before.
“If you just gave me pocket money then I wouldn’t have to explain myself,” he said, quite sulkily.
I looked back at the page. The collar he was requesting was quite feminine, not something a male black cat would probably wear. A few other memories jolted together. Adams taking food and very carefully carrying it in his mouth rather than hogging it down like he normally did. Oh no, did my cat have a girlfriend? Oh no, was I going to have to have a conversation about dating with my cat? “
“So can I have it?” Adams demanded.
“Um, yeah sure I’ll order it for you,” I said, still working through my thoughts on what exactly I would say to Adams about the responsibilities of having a girlfriend and how that might work.
“That’s a nice collar,” John Smith said from beside me, appearing.
“Arrrh!” I yelped. Adams took this opportunity to vanish. By the time I calmed down John had sat on the sofa and was smiling at me.
“How are you today, Harlow?” he asked.
“I’m… well, I think I’m good. I think my cat has a girlfriend and there’s a lot of other stuff going on right now, but yeah, I think I’ll be okay,” I blabbered. My sudden suspicion that Adams might have a girlfriend had made the world twist. It was like finding out he was a secret racecar driver or something. It changed my whole conception of how the world was. I sipped the last remnants of my now cold black coffee and gathered my thoughts. At least on the good side of the morning John Smith remembered who I was. He’d just deposited a fresh twenty dollar note on the desk, I guess when he’d arrived, so I suppose he assumed that we were going to be having a therapy session now. Before I could launch into going through the list John spoke first.
“I’m looking forward to seeing the Taming of the Shrew. They’re building the set now. It looks amazing,” John said, quite enthusiastic.
“You’ve been down at the theater?” I asked.
“Oh yes, I’ve roamed around there many times, through all the dressing rooms, backstage, underneath, it’s a wonderful place full of history,” John said.
“Underneath? Do you mean immediately underneath the stage where they store props and things?” I asked.
“Props for what?” John Smith said.
I sighed. He was already forgetting. But I continued anyway.
“You said you’d been underneath the theater. Into the floors underneath?” I asked.
“Which theater?” John asked confused.
I made myself another coffee and let go of that line of questioning.
“I want to go through this list of names and articles. Can you see if you recognize anything?” I told John.
I laid out the papers on my very dusty desk, putting my laptop to the side. Although John had at times some very limited interaction with the world, usually just enough to change the channel on the television that he would sometimes watch, today it seemed he had almost no influence at all. I had to turn the pages for him as he slowly read through names and the articles. It didn’t take long at all and, sadly, as I expected, yielded zero information.
“Are we going to see a singing group?” John said, reading the last article that was about a singing competition which had taken place in 1954.
“No, not right now,” I said.
“Well we can’t go right now, I mean that’s not until next year,” John said, touching the article with a ghostly finger.
I felt a small spark of hope. So did that mean that John thought it was currently 1953? Before I could ask him another question though he simply vanished. There was no pop, no rush of cold air, nothing. He didn’t say anything. He was just gone, leaving me alone with the papers.
I opened my laptop and the file I’d been keeping on John Smith and quickly wrote down what he’d said about the competition being next year and that perhaps he thought he was in 1953. Again it was the longest of long shots but is one of the first times I’d managed to tie him to any year at all. I gathered up all the papers and stuffed them in my bag and then took a quick look at the time. It was only just past nine in the morning, although it felt like I’d been at the office for hours. I quickly ordered the collar online for Adams, to get that job out of the way.
I looked at my dust covered office and realized there was another place that I’d abandoned and hadn’t been back to in quite a while: my so-called lair up behind the mansion. It was still a few hours until I had to go into rehearsals so I packed my stuff, locked the office, and drove home. The mansion was empty when I got there. Aunt Cass was probably at the Chili Challenge, the moms were at the bakery, and even the protesters had departed in their orange bus, probably parking it outside the theater. Molly and Luce weren’t home either, having left for work. The day was warming up nicely and there were a few butterflies fluttering madly about the place as I walked up around behind the mansion and into the forest. I soon came to the cottage that I was using, unlocked it and went inside to find it much like my office. There was a layer of dust over everything. It wasn’t quite an inch thick but it was there nonetheless. I put my things down and then stood back to have a look at the wall of crazy. Yep, it was still crazy.
I sat down at the small desk, pulled out my laptop and various bits of paper, but then ended up sitting there, blankly staring at the wall. It wasn’t for long though because I quickly realized I was staring, and honestly, if I were going to do that, I’d simply go back to the mansion and watch television. I decided I would pin the play program on another wall, and perhaps start writing down some ideas about what exactly was going on with the snake being released and the sandbags and the poison. I opened the drawer of the desk and rummaged around to see if I could find some pins. I found Juliet Stern’s journal instead.
I pulled it out and sat back in my chair and started idly flicking through it again.
It was a curious thing. I had read every page, or so I’d thought, and most of the time they were mundane - lists of eggs and flour and ingredients for brewing beer. It was essentially the journal of The Merchant Arms, the establishment that Juliet was running. But occasionally I would turn a page and there would be an entry that I’d never seen before. This is what had happened months ago when not only had I been reading an entry about Juliet and some unnamed ancestor of mine hunting the Shadow Witch, but I’d been pulled into a memory, riding along with it, seeing in the memory my daughter Rosetta almost die, and Juliet’s daughter actually die at the hands of the Shadow Witch who pushed her spirit out of her body and stole it for herself.
I flicked through the pages, seeing only lists of eggs and hops and other ingredients, a shipment of barrels that had arrived, notes about some of them being sent off to the caves for fermentation before I turned a page and felt a tingle of magic in my fingertips. It was another magical entry, the only one on the entire page.
Torrent continues the hunt without me. Baby will arrive soon. Benjamin is collecting water snails for the pain.
That was all it said and I stared at it, burning the message into my mind. Torrent was obviously my ancestor out on the hunt alone, but the baby arriving soon? Was this an early entry from years past with Juliet talking about her daughter who I’d witnessed being killed by the Shadow Witch? Or was it later on? Had Juliet had another child?
And who was Benjamin? A husband, a relative?
I grabbed a piece of paper and wrote down the entry on it so I wouldn’t forget and then pinned it up on the wall.
At least now that I had the name Benjamin I could give that to Ollie and see if he could dig up anything. I flicked back through the journal again hoping another page would open up but none did, and not only that, the entry I had just read vanished, the pages seemingly disappearing from the journal.
I looked up at the wall. There amongst the tangle of strings and newspaper clippings and other things I’d pinned up was a small card that I’d nearly overlapped. I could only see the last few letters of the word Stern, but I knew what the card said. It told me to visit Hattie Stern, something I’d promised to do but then had avoided.
