The Rebirth of Wonder

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  “Oh, I don't know – spend some time at the beach, read a few books, or see a lot of movies. Just relax, that's what I intend to do.”

  She stared at him for a moment, then lowered her eyes. “I guess it's different for you. You're not going anywhere. I'm going off to grad school in September, though, and I hate to waste my last month in Bampton.”

  “You'll be back sometimes, won't you?”

  “Yes, but... oh, hell.” She turned away from him and shuffled off.

  He watched her go, then shrugged and looked for more champagne.

  Chapter Two

  Nobody had showed up to help him strike.

  Art was not surprised at all. George was somewhere over the Atlantic by now, well on his way to his parents' dream vacation in Europe, the whole clan reunited in London and Paris. The others had all forgotten, or were still sleeping off the party, which had lasted deep into the morning, roaring on long after George had gone off to bed (alone).

  Art considered phoning a few people and demanding that they come and help, but decided against it. He didn't think he wanted to see a bunch of bright and cheerful young faces – or even dirty, sullen ones, so long as they were that young. Bampton Summer Theatre's rental contract said the group was required to leave the premises clean, and at least as tidy as it was when they arrived in June, but nobody, not even Art's father, who owned the place, ever seemed to take that clause seriously. Cleaning up was Art's job – and unpaid, except in the form of continued free lodging in his father's house.

  That meant he had to do the job alone, and the larger pieces of the sets would have to just sit in the wings for now; they were too big and awkward for one person to haul down to the basement for storage.

  The first priority, though, before striking the set or any of the other equipment, was to clean up the party debris.

  Art had come prepared, with half a dozen green plastic trash bags and a pocket full of twist-ties. He gathered up the cups and napkins and empty bottles and tossed everything in the bag – he was not going to worry about sorting anything for recycling. If someone wanted to sort through the bag later, that was fine with him, but he wasn't about to do it himself.

  When the trash was collected from the stage and wings he tackled the tiny dressing rooms and lavatory, and finally the house.

  He was scraping up a pink wad of relatively fresh chewing gum from the aisle floor, two rows from the back, when he heard the theater's big front door rattle. Startled, he froze where he was kneeling, then looked up at the lobby doors.

  He heard voices. He put down the putty knife and dustpan and stood, brushing the dust from the knees of his jeans.

  “I think you'll see that it's bigger inside than it looks,” Art heard through the door. He relaxed; the voice was his father's.

  “Oh, I saw that last night,” an unfamiliar voice boomed, a voice with a slight British accent. “I was here for the play, for A Midsummer Night's Dream. A fine show they put on, a fine show!”

  Art grimaced slightly. The show had been okay, but nothing special, even for a bunch of amateurs.

  The lobby doors were locked; Art stepped up and threw back the bolt just as his father turned the knob from the other side. Together they swung the double doors wide.

  “Art!” his father greeted him. “Glad you're here. This is Mr. Innisfree – he says he might be interested in renting the theater for the rest of August. Mr. Innisfree, this is my son Arthur.”

  Mr. Innisfree was a tall thin man with curly brown hair, his face darkened by sun and creased by lines left by smiles. He was wearing a broad-brimmed straw hat, white shorts, and a long, loose white shirt that looked vaguely North African – appropriate garb for the weather, which was hot, even for August, by New England standards. His age was hard to guess, but Art judged it to be at least twice his own twenty-six years.

  The hair, Art thought, was probably dyed.

  Mr. Innisfree shook Art's hand vigorously and said, “Arthur – that's a fine name, for a fine young man!”

  “Thank you, sir,” Art replied. “Call me Art.”

  “I will, my lad, I will. So this is your theater?” He surveyed the hall.

  “It's a fine building,” Art said loyally.

  Mr. Innisfree grinned broadly. “I'm sure it is, Arthur,” he said, spreading his hands. “I'm sure it is!”

  It seemed his accent had changed slightly; where before Art would have thought he was English, now he sounded Irish. The lilt wasn't strong enough to be certain either way.

  The elder Dunham gestured sweepingly. “Seats three hundred,” he said.

  Art quirked a corner of his mouth, and did not point out that the place could only seat three hundred by using every single seat, including the ends of the front row where most of the stage could not be seen, and the dusty old balcony that was now largely taken up with sound equipment and an empty projection booth.

  Mr. Innisfree nodded, smiling.

  “Would you like to see backstage?” Art asked.

  “Yes, lad, I would,” Mr. Innisfree said, his accent now almost a Scottish burr.

  The three men marched down the center aisle. “I'm afraid I haven't finished cleaning up,” Art apologized.

  “Of course not,” Innisfree replied. “Who'd have expected it? I shan't be troubled by a little dust.”

  “Well, it's not dust so much,” Art explained. “I mean, the lights are still set up, and the flats are still hung, and the sets aren't put away...”

  “Don't worry about it, young Arthur!” Innisfree told him, as he vaulted onto the stage. “We'll take care of everything!”

  Art smiled briefly at the sight of a man Innisfree's age hopping up like that; there were high school kids he knew who didn't have that much energy.

  “Oh, you don't have to do that,” Art's father hastened to say, as he made his way around to the stage right steps. “We'll take care of cleaning the place out for you and getting it ready for your show.”

  “Uh...” Art hesitated, still standing in the “orchestra pit,” then asked, “What sort of a show are you planning, Mr. Innisfree?”

  Innisfree turned and gestured broadly, waving both arms. “A grand and glorious spectacle, Arthur!” he proclaimed. “My companions and I, we call ourselves the Bringers of Wonder, and we have wonders indeed to show your sleepy little town!” Innisfree's accent had changed yet again, to something Art couldn't place that was still vaguely British. He wondered whether these shifts meant the man was completely phony.

  Probably born in Brooklyn, Art thought.

  “Oh?” he said politely.

  “Yes, indeed!” Innisfree said. “We intend to stage our first production of that mystical classic of the stage, The Return of Magic, here, before we take the show on the road. One show and one show only, on the thirtieth of August.”

  Art blinked. “The Return of Magic?” he asked.

  “That's right, Arthur – right here in Bampton, Massachusetts, we will put on such a production as the world hasn't seen in centuries!”

  Arthur climbed up onstage before replying, “I'm not sure this theater has the facilities for a big production, Mr. Innisfree. I mean, this isn't exactly Broadway.”

  “No fear, lad,” Innisfree answered, looking about with interest, his gaze taking in the inadequate flies, the ancient and rusty lightboard and patch cords, the slightly frayed ropes and somewhat musty curtains, the peeling, oft-painted dressing room doors. “I'm not seeking Broadway, nor off-Broadway, nor off-off Broadway, to as many offs as you might choose; there's nothing broad about the way we follow. Ours is a narrow path of experiment, a route full of curious twists and unknown byways, not the flamboyant and gaudy displays that tourists attend.”

  “Well, then, I'm sure that this theater will do just fine,” Art's father said, forcing a smile.

  “And I am, too,” Innisfree replied.

  “Then all we need to do is settle the terms of the lease,” Dunham père said, his smile a little more genuine now. “One month, c
orrect?”

  Innisfree nodded, then stared up at the catwalk high overhead.

  “Rent is five hundred dollars, plus you'll be responsible for the electric bill – I don't think we need to worry about heat in August. Water is included – they only bill quarterly anyway, so it's not worth breaking it out.”

  “Indeed it's not,” Innisfree agreed, tugging gently at the curtain.

  “Art, here, can handle lights and cleanup – he usually gets six dollars an hour, but that's between you. And he knows all the locals – he can get you whatever other help you need.”

  “Oh, we shan't need him,” Innisfree said, turning back to the Dunhams. “Or anyone else local. We'll take care of our own lights.”

  The elder Dunham, taken aback, paused for a moment before asking, “Well, what about sets? Costumes?”

  Innisfree smiled at them. “Sets, costumes, cast, director, dancers, stagehands, roustabouts, janitors, music, lights, darks, sound and silence, we'll take care of it all, Mr. Dunham!” he announced.

  Art's father glanced at Art, who shrugged.

  “I don't know,” Dunham began.

  “Mister Dunham,” Innisfree said, “our little group is a selective one, and our preparations are private – you might even say secret, hidden, occult, cryptic. While I'm certain Arthur here is a fine young man and the very soul of discretion, we'd really prefer to take care of ourselves and clean up our own messes. A closed set, as it were.”

  Dunham's mouth tightened.

  “No,” he said. “I'm sorry, Mr. Innisfree, but this is an old building, and it's got its delicate features, its little quirks. There's a lot of valuable property in here, too, and these old wooden buildings – no. I'm not just offering Art as a favor to anybody; he's my agent here, and I won't rent to you unless he's in here every day that your people are. He knows this place better than anyone else, better than I do. I don't want anyone else setting lights in here, I want someone who will keep an eye on things like smoking, and any fire effects you use in your show – it's too easy to start a fire in a theater, especially an old wooden one like this. And that catwalk up there, the locks and storerooms – no. I want Art in here regularly, and I want him inspecting anything you do with the wiring, and nobody uses the lighting equipment without his okay.”

  Innisfree stared at him for a moment, but Dunham's expression remained firmly set. Finally, Innisfree sighed.

  “Very well,” he said. “Your son will be free to come and go, and we'll pay him for his time – but we won't be making much use of his skills.”

  Dunham looked at Art.

  “That's fine,” Art said. “I don't mind a rest.”

  “Good enough, then!” Innisfree grinned and thrust out a hand. “Shake on it, and the pact is made, the bargain set!”

  They shook, while Art watched.

  Ten minutes later they were back at the office of Dunham Realty; the paperwork was settled in short order, and Innisfree put down the required deposit in the form of a cashier's check drawn on a Boston bank. The two older men shook hands again, and Innisfree turned to go.

  “Wait a minute,” Art called. “When should I meet you there?”

  Innisfree turned back. “Tomorrow morning at eight? Would that be too early?”

  Art shrugged. “That would be fine,” he said.

  “Then at eight it shall be. We'll meet in the lobby, shall we?”

  “If you get there first, we'll meet out back,” Art said. “I still have the keys – I need to get in there to finish cleaning.” He held up the ring and rattled it. “Try the back door – if I get there first I'll leave it open. The stage door, I mean.”

  “As you say, then,” Innisfree agreed. “In the lobby at eight.”

  Art frowned, but didn't bother to correct him again. Instead he just watched him go.

  When he stepped out onto the sidewalk himself and headed back down Thoreau Street toward the theater, Innisfree was nowhere in sight.

  Chapter Three

  It was almost midnight by the time Art was finally satisfied with the theater's readiness for its new tenants. He had everything as clean as he could reasonably get it, working single-handed. The ropes were all coiled away, in two neat rows; the lighting instruments were ungelled and stored away on the stage left shelves, licos on top, Fresnels below. The gels, frames, cords, and plugs were sorted and put away as well, the on-stage work lights stripped back down to ordinary hundred-watt bulbs, their power routed back through the regular wall switches.

  The sets were disassembled, the pieces either back in basement storage or, if they were too big for him to manhandle downstairs alone, arranged along the back wall of either wing.

  The dressing rooms were swept and emptied, the costumes back down in the basement, in wardrobe storage; the ashtrays were dumped and wiped, the toilet scrubbed.

  In the house the seats were all brushed, litter removed, the floor swept. Posters had been removed from the lobby walls, the red runner was hung over the fence out back to be beaten, and the two burnt-out bulbs in the lobby chandelier had been replaced.

  No one from the cast of A Midsummer Night's Dream had shown up except Marilyn. Of course, she was technically crew, rather than cast, Art corrected himself; none of the cast ever came.

  Art hadn't really expected Marilyn, either, but she had arrived late in the afternoon and apologized for not being there sooner – family business had kept her away.

  Marilyn's help had made the job considerably easier. Art had even considered taking advantage of her presence to haul the rest of the sets down to the basement – the mock stage for “Pyramus and Thisbe” was the big one, and then the two sections of Titania's bower were awkward – not all that heavy, but awkward.

  He had put it off, however, as being of secondary importance, and Marilyn had had to leave at eleven, so the sets still sat in the wings when he locked up and went home to bed.

  He was in bed by 12:30, with the alarm set for 7:00, and he was up again at 6:50; he had always hated alarm clocks, hated having any machine ordering him around and telling him he wasn't doing what he should, and he had long ago developed a defense mechanism against them – he always woke up before they went off.

  A warm shower, then breakfast, and then down the street to the theater, arriving at ten to eight – plenty of time. He fished the key ring out of his pocket and let himself in the front, with the intention of taking a quick look around, just in case he'd missed anything, before opening the stage door for Mr. Innisfree.

  The interior was dim; sunlight spilled in the door around him, and dust, stirred up by his cleaning the night before, danced in the golden air.

  “Ah, good morrow to you, lad!” Mr. Innisfree said.

  Astonished, Art jerked away from the door and turned to stare.

  Innisfree was standing on the left-hand balcony stair, wearing a light gray suit and smiling down at him.

  “How'd you get in here?” Art demanded.

  “Why, the door was open!”

  “It was?” Art turned and stared. “No, it wasn't; I just now unlocked it.”

  “Not that one, my boy, the stage door.”

  Art frowned. He had locked all the doors last night when he left, hadn't he? He had certainly thought so.

  He remembered checking the front doors before he walked home, and taking a look down at the big basement door where the chain and padlock had been securely in place. He had come out through the stage door – was it possible he hadn't locked it behind him?

  He thought he had locked it...

  “We found it open when we arrived, so we came inside to look around,” Innisfree added, helpfully.

  “We?”

  “Certainly, we; didn't I tell you? Did you think I was alone? I'm sure I mentioned the others; after all, what would one man do with a theater?”

  “I knew you had a group,” Art admitted. “The Harbingers of Wonder, or something like that? But I didn't know you were... I mean, I thought you'd be coming alone this morning, to
sort of plan things out before the others got here.”

  “By no means, Arthur!” Innisfree smiled broadly. “Ours is a cooperative effort, and we must all share in the planning, if our little production is to have the success we hope for!”

  Art nodded.

  “Oh, and it's the Bringers of Wonder, not harbingers,” Innisfree added.

  The door to the house opened just then, and a face appeared between the two valves of the big double door. It was no one Art had ever seen before, a rather tall, thin woman, obviously Oriental – in fact, without knowing exactly why he thought so, Art classified her specifically as Chinese. She was wearing a long, utterly simple white dress – the sort of simplicity that dress designers charged a fortune for. She wore her hair long – lush, straight black hair that spilled past her waist, so fine that it seemed to float about her in a cloud.

  She was staggeringly beautiful.

  “Ah, Ms. Fox!” Innisfree called. “Come on out here and meet young Arthur Dunham, our landlord's scion and representative!”

  The name Fox was hardly Chinese – but then, it wasn't Asian at all. “Hello,” Art said.

  Ms. Fox emerged two tentative little steps into the lobby and then bowed, without making a sound.

  Art blinked. He couldn't remember anyone bowing to him before, ever, and was unsure how to respond.

  Then Ms. Fox whirled and vanished back into the theater's depths; the sudden motion sent her hair up into a glorious black cloud, and perfume spilled from it into the surrounding air. Art took a step after her, then looked up at Innisfree.

  Innisfree smiled. “Go on in, lad, and meet the others!”

  Art was getting tired of being called “lad” or “my boy” – after all, he was twenty-six years old, he wasn't a kid.

  This wasn't the time to argue about it, though. He went on into the theater.

  The others were up on the stage, milling about and speaking quietly among themselves; most of them were smiling. As Art watched, Ms. Fox leaped up to rejoin them, jumping the thirty vertical inches as if it were nothing.