"Does this place ever feel strange to you?" I asked, and Juliet frowned at me.
"I don't know what you could possibly mean," she said. "Why would I possibly think a two-hundred year-old theater built in a basement could...feel weird? I mean, it's not like it's surrounded by millions upon millions of people, alive and dead. And it's not like we come down here nearly every day, get dressed up in ancient clothes and prance around a stage, pretending to be people we aren't to evoke specific emotional reactions in the people who sit and watch us without saying anything."
I rolled my eyes. "I guess when you say it like that. I mean...do you ever feel something?"
"What, Em? Like 'do I ever feel people watching me'? Yes. I do. Because I'm an actress."
"No-"
"Or do I get a chill down my spine? Also yes, because we're in the basement, and it's freezing down here. Here, feel my arm. Goosebumps."
I scowled, planting my hands on my hips. "Thou art a boil, a plague sore! Methink'st thou art a general offense and every man should beat thee!" Juliet gasped, placing her hand against her collar to keep her bodice in place. "What I mean is I feel...dizzy. Something like that. Rooms are spinning. Stairs are the wrong height, sounds are muffled. Something's just out of sight." I rubbed my neck.
"You need glasses, I think," Juliet said. She walked through the practice room ahead of me, past the circle of chairs where we'd spent the last few weeks rehearsing and re-rehearsing our lines, before moving to the stage for blocking. She stepped over the little lip in the open doorway, moving backstage. Voices called out to her in greeting, and then she disappeared from view. After I crossed the uneven threshold, I found her talking with some of the other cast members. I slid into their group, and we exchanged the usual gossip until the director, Wendell, got our attention.
"Has anyone seen Jacob?" he said, letting his voice carry over us with a trill on the J. "That boy needs to work on his punctuality!"
"I saw him a little bit ago," George said. "He was in one of the storage rooms shouting."
"Great!" Wendell clapped his hands. "In that case, let's finalize blocking for the fight scene. Em, could you fetch George since we don't need you just yet?"
"Yeah, sure, fine," I said, as people wandered toward their places. "I'm just the nurse, so I don't get to do any of the fun scenes."
"You were Ophelia last time!" Juliet shouted from somewhere downstage.
I had already passed back into the practice room, with its empty ring of chairs. Somebody must have done some rearranging since the day before; fewer chairs huddled together, trading secrets. Did you hear that Petunia has been seeing a nightstand?
I wandered through the cold room, crossing to the hallway. Past the bathrooms, the big women's changing room, and the little men's changing room. Jacob should have been in one of the storage rooms, pleading with the heavens for success or whatever his character wanted, but no righteous words emanated just then.
The first storage room lacked any evidence of Jacob's existence. I switched the light on and found, just like always, stacks of chairs, long racks of costumes in every color, size, and material, boxes of headgear, and old props: trees, cardboard villages, baskets, tools, fake bushes, and plastic streetlamps with weights in the bases. I went to the next room.
The door protested with a heavy creak. A chair looked back at me under the blaring fluorescent lights, sitting in the middle of the open space in the center of the room. The light flickered. This room had much of the same: old props, costume items, decorations. It also didn't have Jacob. I entered.
A script lay on the ground; only the paper clip in the upper-left corner saved the individual pages from spreading everywhere. I picked it up and smoothed it, rubbing my neck, taking it with me as I left the room.
I searched the rest of the hallways before returning to the backstage area. To my surprise the other actors wandered around, calling for George.
"What happened?"
"He said he was going offstage for a second," Juliet said, "and then he just disappeared! We can't practice the idiotic fight scene without him; he's the one who does all the fighting!"
"Juliet, it isn't the scene's fault your character doesn't do anything. Blame the Bard," Wendell said. He looked at me, raising a single eyebrow into his messy gray hair and leaning toward me. "Find Jacob?"
"No." I waved the script. "I found his practice space, but I haven't seen hide nor hair of him. I didn't even hear him practicing."
"Hmm...Cassie?" Cassie, who had been in blocking discussion with one of the other actresses, looked over. "You and Jacob drove together. Did he say he had anything else to do before dressing?"
Cassie grew a little scowl, and shook her head. "He only talked about needing to run through his second act monologue a few times. That's all."
"Great. Two divos to look for." The director exhaled. "Everyone spread out! No one leaves the building! Not even for coffee upstairs until we find those two fools!"
"What if they went upstairs, though?" Juliet said.
"I will check the coffee shop!" he said, pointing his finger into the air with a flourish. "And I will not stop to get us all coffee, even though we could all use it. Find those cads!"
"Ask for him tomorrow, and you shall find him a grave man," I said, trailing Juliet backstage. "You'd think that...Juliet?"
"Here."
I turning my head to the right as I passed over the uneven threshold into the practice room and found her standing against the wall, pressed against it. "What..."
"I saw something! A shadow?"
"Was it George's shadow? Or Jacob's?"
"I don't know! It just...It was there. And then it wasn't!" She whipped her head in my direction. "I could barely keep my legs!"
"Okay, well, let's see if we can find someone to help you stand," I said, and took her by the hand, dragging her to the storage rooms to look for Jacob. She checked one, and I checked the other, the one Jacob had used originally.
I entered, and the door swung shut behind me. I jumped and yelped, floor suddenly uneven under my feet.
"Don't...."
I spun and slammed myself against the closed door. A small child stood at the back of the room, looking up at me. She wore a simple dress, devoid of detail or ornament. "Don't be alone."
I tore the door open and raced out. "Juliet!" I dashed into the hallway and stumbled, barking my knees, sliding across the old, polished wooden floor. I spun around, pushing backward with my hands, and Juliet came out of the other storage room.
"What? What happened?" She put her fists on her hips and smiled. "Did you take a tumble?"
"There, there...." She followed my finger to the storage room. "No!"
She looked around the corner, into the room. "What about it? There isn't anything inside."
"There was a girl! A little girl!"
"Yeah? Did she have a bloody knife, too?" The light from the storage room flickered, and Juliet jumped, then looked up and settled. "You're just seeing things."
"She...she told me not to be alone!"
"God, you really got spooked, didn't you?"
I rose, brushing bits of street off my blouse. "I saw something in there!"
"Well whatever you saw, it's gone now." Juliet twitched her head around the corner. "Maybe Wendell found them upstairs." We went back to the stage.
Cassie and Phillipa jumped when we appeared. "Now Lacy's gone off too!" Phillipa said. "And Wendell still isn't back."
I pulled out my phone. "Let me call him."
"Don't bother." Lacy pointed at a chair at the side of the stage, which had the director's jacket and his phone. "No one else is answering either. The shitty reception down here gets shittier."
"Lacy," Juliet said, "why don't you go upstairs to see what's keeping him."
"I'm going to check outside," Phillipa said. "Maybe they just stepped out for a smoke or something."
"Did any of them take up smoking?"
"No, but you never know with George."
"Yeah, I suppose," I said. I glanced over my shoulder, at the doorway to the practice room. "None of them are down here, unless they're in the controller's box or something like that." I tried to squint past the bright lights. Something clattered out of view and I spun, heart hammering.
Juliet put Wendell's phone down. "Em, you need to calm down. Why don't you and I run through our scene from act one. We'd be going over that anyway." The other two left the stage. "Let's see...I stand here." She high-stepped to her spot. "You're over there, Nurse!"
"I know where I stand! Never was seen so black a day as this!"
Juliet grumbled. "Already getting into character."
The back door, and the door leading to the staircase, slammed shut.
We paraded about the stage, I acting as Juliet's comedic and devoted nurse, Juliet as...Juliet, but not exactly the same. My heart slowed as I lost myself in the character.
Our scene concluded, and silence surrounded us.
Wendell should have been barking about lines and scenes and lights and costumes, and filled seats and makeup and getting enough air in us and on and on. The other actresses and actors should have been getting their bodies and faces on, filled with nervous energy. Stagehands and producers and technical help should have been running pell-mell around the entire basement of the building, changing bulbs, or readying curtains.
We stood on the stage and listened to nothing. No footsteps, or voices. No shadows crossed doorways. No doors opened, no chairs scooted on hard wooden floors.
"What's going on?" Juliet asked. She raised her eyebrows in my direction; she had shrank. Her arms hung at her sides when normally they would be akimbo, or gripping her hips, or maybe my hips. Her wide eyes darted around instead of focusing on one spot.
I kept expecting a little girl to peer out from around a curtain, or I would turn around and say a line and then turn back and Juliet would be gone. And I would be alone.
"For heaven's sake!" Juliet said. She stamped her foot. "I can't believe they're doing this; we only have an hour before curtain!" She stomped off the stage. I ran after her.
She stopped in the practice room. "I'm going upstairs to find out where they've gone to. Why don't you check outside or something, or start getting ready. You can do the prologue if you need to, you know it."
"I'm coming with you!"
She looked at me and opened her mouth, it trembled, and she shut it. She nodded, staring at the ground, and then made for the hallway.
We passed the storage rooms at a run, and wound our way through the narrow hallway until we got to a door which led to stairs. They would take us up, around a corner, and up farther still until we opened another door, entering the coffee shop upstairs. Juliet opened the first door, and began her trip. I started to follow her and a hand grabbed my wrist.
I fell onto the first few stairs as Juliet continued. The same little girl looked out from under her bangs, standing on the other side of the door. She shook her head back and forth, eyes wide and hand reaching out, not crossing the plane of the door, as Juliet got farther away.
My friend turned the corner in the stairs. "Come on, Em! They have to be-"
I looked up the stairs, waiting for her to continue. When she didn't, I took a step up.
"Don't."
My head twitched around. She had gone.
I heaved up and stumbled back from the stairs, into the practice room. I spun, trying to put my back to the wall, and lost my footing. I hit the ground, and pushed myself away from...from the stairs, from the chairs, from the wide dead space in the practice room. I got to my hands and knees, shaking, until I crossed the uneven threshold between the practice room and backstage.
I sat in the threshold. I turned my head from one side to the other, trying to look into both rooms at once, so it couldn't sneak up on me, so I could see it coming, so I could escape. I kept turning my head back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and then something turned it too far.
"I don't know what you could possibly mean," she said. "Why would I possibly think a two-hundred year-old theater built in a basement could...feel weird? I mean, it's not like it's surrounded by millions upon millions of people, alive and dead. And it's not like we come down here nearly every day, get dressed up in ancient clothes and prance around a stage, pretending to be people we aren't to evoke specific emotional reactions in the people who sit and watch us without saying anything."
I rolled my eyes. "I guess when you say it like that. I mean...do you ever feel something?"
"What, Em? Like 'do I ever feel people watching me'? Yes. I do. Because I'm an actress."
"No-"
"Or do I get a chill down my spine? Also yes, because we're in the basement, and it's freezing down here. Here, feel my arm. Goosebumps."
I scowled, planting my hands on my hips. "Thou art a boil, a plague sore! Methink'st thou art a general offense and every man should beat thee!" Juliet gasped, placing her hand against her collar to keep her bodice in place. "What I mean is I feel...dizzy. Something like that. Rooms are spinning. Stairs are the wrong height, sounds are muffled. Something's just out of sight." I rubbed my neck.
"You need glasses, I think," Juliet said. She walked through the practice room ahead of me, past the circle of chairs where we'd spent the last few weeks rehearsing and re-rehearsing our lines, before moving to the stage for blocking. She stepped over the little lip in the open doorway, moving backstage. Voices called out to her in greeting, and then she disappeared from view. After I crossed the uneven threshold, I found her talking with some of the other cast members. I slid into their group, and we exchanged the usual gossip until the director, Wendell, got our attention.
"Has anyone seen Jacob?" he said, letting his voice carry over us with a trill on the J. "That boy needs to work on his punctuality!"
"I saw him a little bit ago," George said. "He was in one of the storage rooms shouting."
"Great!" Wendell clapped his hands. "In that case, let's finalize blocking for the fight scene. Em, could you fetch George since we don't need you just yet?"
"Yeah, sure, fine," I said, as people wandered toward their places. "I'm just the nurse, so I don't get to do any of the fun scenes."
"You were Ophelia last time!" Juliet shouted from somewhere downstage.
I had already passed back into the practice room, with its empty ring of chairs. Somebody must have done some rearranging since the day before; fewer chairs huddled together, trading secrets. Did you hear that Petunia has been seeing a nightstand?
I wandered through the cold room, crossing to the hallway. Past the bathrooms, the big women's changing room, and the little men's changing room. Jacob should have been in one of the storage rooms, pleading with the heavens for success or whatever his character wanted, but no righteous words emanated just then.
The first storage room lacked any evidence of Jacob's existence. I switched the light on and found, just like always, stacks of chairs, long racks of costumes in every color, size, and material, boxes of headgear, and old props: trees, cardboard villages, baskets, tools, fake bushes, and plastic streetlamps with weights in the bases. I went to the next room.
The door protested with a heavy creak. A chair looked back at me under the blaring fluorescent lights, sitting in the middle of the open space in the center of the room. The light flickered. This room had much of the same: old props, costume items, decorations. It also didn't have Jacob. I entered.
A script lay on the ground; only the paper clip in the upper-left corner saved the individual pages from spreading everywhere. I picked it up and smoothed it, rubbing my neck, taking it with me as I left the room.
I searched the rest of the hallways before returning to the backstage area. To my surprise the other actors wandered around, calling for George.
"What happened?"
"He said he was going offstage for a second," Juliet said, "and then he just disappeared! We can't practice the idiotic fight scene without him; he's the one who does all the fighting!"
"Juliet, it isn't the scene's fault your character doesn't do anything. Blame the Bard," Wendell said. He looked at me, raising a single eyebrow into his messy gray hair and leaning toward me. "Find Jacob?"
"No." I waved the script. "I found his practice space, but I haven't seen hide nor hair of him. I didn't even hear him practicing."
"Hmm...Cassie?" Cassie, who had been in blocking discussion with one of the other actresses, looked over. "You and Jacob drove together. Did he say he had anything else to do before dressing?"
Cassie grew a little scowl, and shook her head. "He only talked about needing to run through his second act monologue a few times. That's all."
"Great. Two divos to look for." The director exhaled. "Everyone spread out! No one leaves the building! Not even for coffee upstairs until we find those two fools!"
"What if they went upstairs, though?" Juliet said.
"I will check the coffee shop!" he said, pointing his finger into the air with a flourish. "And I will not stop to get us all coffee, even though we could all use it. Find those cads!"
"Ask for him tomorrow, and you shall find him a grave man," I said, trailing Juliet backstage. "You'd think that...Juliet?"
"Here."
I turning my head to the right as I passed over the uneven threshold into the practice room and found her standing against the wall, pressed against it. "What..."
"I saw something! A shadow?"
"Was it George's shadow? Or Jacob's?"
"I don't know! It just...It was there. And then it wasn't!" She whipped her head in my direction. "I could barely keep my legs!"
"Okay, well, let's see if we can find someone to help you stand," I said, and took her by the hand, dragging her to the storage rooms to look for Jacob. She checked one, and I checked the other, the one Jacob had used originally.
I entered, and the door swung shut behind me. I jumped and yelped, floor suddenly uneven under my feet.
"Don't...."
I spun and slammed myself against the closed door. A small child stood at the back of the room, looking up at me. She wore a simple dress, devoid of detail or ornament. "Don't be alone."
I tore the door open and raced out. "Juliet!" I dashed into the hallway and stumbled, barking my knees, sliding across the old, polished wooden floor. I spun around, pushing backward with my hands, and Juliet came out of the other storage room.
"What? What happened?" She put her fists on her hips and smiled. "Did you take a tumble?"
"There, there...." She followed my finger to the storage room. "No!"
She looked around the corner, into the room. "What about it? There isn't anything inside."
"There was a girl! A little girl!"
"Yeah? Did she have a bloody knife, too?" The light from the storage room flickered, and Juliet jumped, then looked up and settled. "You're just seeing things."
"She...she told me not to be alone!"
"God, you really got spooked, didn't you?"
I rose, brushing bits of street off my blouse. "I saw something in there!"
"Well whatever you saw, it's gone now." Juliet twitched her head around the corner. "Maybe Wendell found them upstairs." We went back to the stage.
Cassie and Phillipa jumped when we appeared. "Now Lacy's gone off too!" Phillipa said. "And Wendell still isn't back."
I pulled out my phone. "Let me call him."
"Don't bother." Lacy pointed at a chair at the side of the stage, which had the director's jacket and his phone. "No one else is answering either. The shitty reception down here gets shittier."
"Lacy," Juliet said, "why don't you go upstairs to see what's keeping him."
"I'm going to check outside," Phillipa said. "Maybe they just stepped out for a smoke or something."
"Did any of them take up smoking?"
"No, but you never know with George."
"Yeah, I suppose," I said. I glanced over my shoulder, at the doorway to the practice room. "None of them are down here, unless they're in the controller's box or something like that." I tried to squint past the bright lights. Something clattered out of view and I spun, heart hammering.
Juliet put Wendell's phone down. "Em, you need to calm down. Why don't you and I run through our scene from act one. We'd be going over that anyway." The other two left the stage. "Let's see...I stand here." She high-stepped to her spot. "You're over there, Nurse!"
"I know where I stand! Never was seen so black a day as this!"
Juliet grumbled. "Already getting into character."
The back door, and the door leading to the staircase, slammed shut.
We paraded about the stage, I acting as Juliet's comedic and devoted nurse, Juliet as...Juliet, but not exactly the same. My heart slowed as I lost myself in the character.
Our scene concluded, and silence surrounded us.
Wendell should have been barking about lines and scenes and lights and costumes, and filled seats and makeup and getting enough air in us and on and on. The other actresses and actors should have been getting their bodies and faces on, filled with nervous energy. Stagehands and producers and technical help should have been running pell-mell around the entire basement of the building, changing bulbs, or readying curtains.
We stood on the stage and listened to nothing. No footsteps, or voices. No shadows crossed doorways. No doors opened, no chairs scooted on hard wooden floors.
"What's going on?" Juliet asked. She raised her eyebrows in my direction; she had shrank. Her arms hung at her sides when normally they would be akimbo, or gripping her hips, or maybe my hips. Her wide eyes darted around instead of focusing on one spot.
I kept expecting a little girl to peer out from around a curtain, or I would turn around and say a line and then turn back and Juliet would be gone. And I would be alone.
"For heaven's sake!" Juliet said. She stamped her foot. "I can't believe they're doing this; we only have an hour before curtain!" She stomped off the stage. I ran after her.
She stopped in the practice room. "I'm going upstairs to find out where they've gone to. Why don't you check outside or something, or start getting ready. You can do the prologue if you need to, you know it."
"I'm coming with you!"
She looked at me and opened her mouth, it trembled, and she shut it. She nodded, staring at the ground, and then made for the hallway.
We passed the storage rooms at a run, and wound our way through the narrow hallway until we got to a door which led to stairs. They would take us up, around a corner, and up farther still until we opened another door, entering the coffee shop upstairs. Juliet opened the first door, and began her trip. I started to follow her and a hand grabbed my wrist.
I fell onto the first few stairs as Juliet continued. The same little girl looked out from under her bangs, standing on the other side of the door. She shook her head back and forth, eyes wide and hand reaching out, not crossing the plane of the door, as Juliet got farther away.
My friend turned the corner in the stairs. "Come on, Em! They have to be-"
I looked up the stairs, waiting for her to continue. When she didn't, I took a step up.
"Don't."
My head twitched around. She had gone.
I heaved up and stumbled back from the stairs, into the practice room. I spun, trying to put my back to the wall, and lost my footing. I hit the ground, and pushed myself away from...from the stairs, from the chairs, from the wide dead space in the practice room. I got to my hands and knees, shaking, until I crossed the uneven threshold between the practice room and backstage.
I sat in the threshold. I turned my head from one side to the other, trying to look into both rooms at once, so it couldn't sneak up on me, so I could see it coming, so I could escape. I kept turning my head back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and then something turned it too far.