Page 46

Within the hour, a theater troupe, two farmers, and a fugitive lord were bathing under the crescent moon.

And Georgie, of course, floating on their back, looking up at the stars.

Elf was wading in the shallows. When they rolled over and paddled for shore, they could just distinguish her moving shape from the solid blackness behind.

She couldn’t hope to find her amulet, not now, in the pitch dark, but she was haunting the pond’s edge all the same, as though tethered to its possibility. Their feet touched the muddy bottom, and they stumbled to her through air that felt warm against their dripping skin.

“Are you naked?” she gasped, as they threw their arms around her.

“No one can see.”

“Is everyone naked?”

“Dunno.” They turned their head, wet cheek against her hair, and squinted at the pond, which didn’t so much as glimmer back at them.

A full moon would have flooded the clearing with light, silvering the rippled water, outlining the crowns of the surrounding trees against the midnight-blue sky.

The crescent moon conspired with the dark.

From around the pond’s invisible circumference came shrieks and splashes, laughter.

Phipps was calling to Charles Peach to get in the water, and Charles Peach was calling to Robert Peach to get out of the water.

Georgie pressed Elf closer, until she began to wiggle and push them away, with an accusatory huff.

“You’re using me as a towel!”

“Towel?” someone called. “Who has towels?”

Georgie recognized Mr. Arbuthnot’s voice, rising above the rest. “Roscoe,” he shouted. “Get the Roman habits!”

A short while later, everyone was sitting on the grass in a ragged circle, huddled under togas in various states of semidress, passing around Mr. Arbuthnot’s bottle.

Mr. Arbuthnot sat in the middle, by a lantern, smoking a pipe.

Georgie sat so near to the pond they could dip their fingers in the water and drag them through the silt.

Every time they encountered a stone, they dislodged it and checked covertly for signs of ancient craftsmanship before tossing it into the depths.

Eventually, Robert Peach, smiling shyly, obliged repeated requests for a tune, and the woman who’d played Banquo danced a hornpipe, and then more people danced, to warm up, or because they couldn’t resist once the music began.

Georgie grabbed Elf’s hands and hauled her to standing, each of them leaning back to swing around and around, until Georgie’s grip slipped, and Elf flew into Sally, and Georgie careened into the pond, just managing to keep their feet.

They splashed back to the bank, balling up their shift to wring out the soaking hem.

Elf was dancing with Sally now, and Charles Peach was dancing with Phipps, and Macbeth and Lady Macbeth were whirling together, and the old man who’d played the old man in the pantomime was leaping balletically between side shuffles left and side shuffles right.

Mr. Arbuthnot chuckled and clapped his hands.

Georgie danced a hopping dance all their own, toes in the moss and arms in the air, the stars spinning overhead.

Robert Peach fiddled louder and louder, and faster and faster.

The whole world tilted and blurred. The dancers dropped one by one and two by two, until even Charlotte and Louisa were flopped on the ground, gasping for breath, at which point the woman who’d played Macduff caught hers enough to sing.

The fiddling quieted and slowed, supporting her sweet voice with harmonies that filled out the sprightly sound.

Georgie didn’t recognize the song. The melody wandered, light and merry, and seemed to shine, sparkling in the dark night.

They felt sparkles in their blood. They pushed up to sitting, and looked for Elf, to see if she felt it too.

Yes , they thought, the moment their gaze landed upon her, forgetting the question, even as the answer beat through them, propelled by their heart. Yes, yes. Yes.

The bottle came their way, and they gulped.

They turned to pass it off and froze when Charles Peach’s massive hand enveloped the glass.

The farmer’s eyes locked Georgie’s, his muzzy, happy look hardening into something guarded and watchful.

Georgie gave him a slight nod, and a very large smile.

Charles Peach’s expression didn’t change, which Georgie had to admit was fair.

They’d yet to make good on any of their nonbeastly intentions.

Charles Peach looked away and passed the bottle without drinking, as though suddenly suspicious he’d stumbled into fairyland, where all offerings were magical traps. The moment the song ended he stood.

“Come, Bob, lad,” he said. “That’s enough.”

Robert grumbled, but his brother was unmoved, and a giant, and so he lowered his fiddle and followed him down the path, his slumped shoulders straightening when he heard the applause that attended his departure.

He glanced back, saw Charlotte and Louisa blowing kisses, and almost walked into a tree.

After that, there was relative quiet in the clearing. Mr. Arbuthnot turned the talk to business.

“Another lady has granted us the favor of a bespeak,” he informed his company, to mixed cheers and groans.

“Not again in that heinous hot inn,” sighed Sally.

“It was a mean little room,” agreed Banquo.

“A hayloft would have smelled sweeter,” said Macduff.

“I’d also have preferred a barn,” agreed Charlotte, wonderingly. “And I hate playing barns, at least when they’re nasty.”

“Now, now.” Mr. Arbuthnot waved his pipe, the smoke curling up through the lantern light, vanishing as it rose. “My histrionic ones. You won’t have to peddle your poetry in cowsheds much longer. Manchester awaits.”

“I told Mrs. Roberts we would play for her,” said Mrs. Arbuthnot, and paused for dramatic effect. “But not in Twynham—in Thornton.”

“Where there is a playhouse?” Macbeth’s query was full of optimism.

“The nearest playhouse is in Derby.” Georgie inserted themself into the proceedings, compelled to defend Twynham, or at least make it clear that Thornton wasn’t so much the better option.

Would tonight mark the first and last theatrical evening in the village?

Because the inn was paltry, and the barns were nasty, and the neighborhood was small?

“You could play on the village green,” they suggested. “People would come here from Thornton, if you advertised.”

Mrs. Arbuthnot was staring at them. “In Thornton, there are assembly rooms.” She looked far less haggard and murderous now that she wasn’t channeling evil spirits as a would-be Scottish queen, but her gaze was steely. “We can raise the price of the tickets.”

Her husband concurred with a nod.

“Our benefactress agreed to Thornton,” he said. “It is settled. She requests Romeo and Juliet , in its entirety. So. Double parts. You.” He pointed his pipe at Georgie. “I saw you on the boards, at the Cabinet. You can sing. But can you speak?”

Georgie sat bolt upright. “ But soft! what light through yonder window breaks? ”

“ I am Romeo,” objected Banquo, whose name, Georgie had gleaned, was Letitia Blanchard.

“ I am Romeo,” objected the fellow called Roscoe. He’d played Harlequin, and the drunk porter at Macbeth’s castle, and both the Arbuthnots were already shaking their heads at him.

“You know you’re our Balthasar,” said Mrs. Arbuthnot. “And Sampson. And one of the friars. Let’s make it both of the friars.”

“Mr. Garnet will play Mercutio and Montague,” said Mr. Arbuthnot.

Macbeth—Mr. Garnet—inclined his head. Mr. Arbuthnot went on.

“Miss Blanchard will play Romeo and Capulet.” Miss Blanchard tossed her head in Georgie’s direction.

“Miss Campbell will play Benvolio and Paris.” Macduff—Miss Campbell—inclined her head.

Georgie stopped listening. They crawled to the dark, mossy spot where Elf sat cross-legged, watching them approach.

“I thought for a moment he wanted me for his troupe,” they whispered.

“You spoke well,” she whispered back.

“You think so? Tell me how I sigh. That’s the real test, with Romeo. He’s such a mope.” They sighed a lover’s sigh. Despite her distance from the lantern, and the thinness of the moon, Elf’s eyes illuminated her whole face as she laughed.

“It needs practice. You’re not used to sighing.”

“I’m not?”

“You’re used to getting what you want.”

“I am.” Their laugh felt bittersweet. “But then, I’m usually wrong about what I want.”

She studied them, with that sharp, intelligent, utterly concentrated look in her eyes, and they felt true longing, helpless longing. They sighed.

Her look turned wry, and then it turned into something else, something that made their heart thump hard in their chest.

“O Romeo, Romeo,” she said.

“Who?” Light wheeled as Mr. Arbuthnot lifted the lantern. “Who was that? You?” He walked forward on his knees and thrust his arm toward Elf, so the light lapped over her. “By Jove, a girl with the face of tragedienne. Go on. From O Romeo, Romeo . Speak.”

“ I am Juliet,” objected Donalbain. “I am always Juliet. And you just said I am Juliet.”

“Shh.” Mr. Arbuthnot waved his pipe at her. “We are in Capulet’s orchard.” He pointed the pipe at Elf. “You have appeared at a window. Now, speak.”

“She’s not an actress.” Georgie jumped in to preempt Elf’s misery as the players arranged themselves into an audience on the grass.

“ Wherefore art thou Romeo ,” prompted Arbuthnot.

The expectancy thickened. Elf was blinking unnaturally, eyes darting. And then her gaze settled back on Georgie.

Their throat vibrated. Because— oh no, oh no —they were humming. Again. Like a twit. By God, they were a twit for the ages. Aghast, they cut it off, hoping she hadn’t heard, that no one had heard.

A smile ghosted her lips.

She hummed, quietly at first, and then louder. It was tuneless humming, and the players shifted, exchanging looks. Mr. Arbuthnot frowned.

She shut her eyes, humming. And then: