Eyes Like Stars

by Lisa Mantchev

  “I am, in this moment. Just for now. Just long enough.”

  Nate-as-Ariel lowered Bertie onto the chaise, but the lips that met hers were only Nate’s, light at first and then more demanding. Bertie twisted his shirt up in her hands and tried to shove him off, but either he didn’t realize or didn’t care.

  “No,” she said into his mouth. Some other time, some other way. But not like this.

  He pulled back to contemplate her, expression unfathomable, then held up the crumpled piece of paper. “It says here that ye pass out. Would ye like some help wi’ that?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Then close yer eyes an’ pretend. Pretend it very hard.”

  Bertie squeezed her eyes shut. She heard Nate crumple the script and drop it, felt him slide to the floor to reach a hand under the chaise.

  “Is it there?” she whispered.

  “That,” he said, “was not in th’ script.”

  Neither was the finger that touched her lips as the lights dimmed to a blackout. When the house lights faded up, Nate was gone. The fairies sat in the audience, stunned.

  “She kissed Nate!”

  “Yeah, we were all sitting right here when she did it.”

  “But that means she kissed Ariel, too.”

  “Yuck! That’s disgusting!”

  “Just how many boys have you played tonsil hockey with in the last two days, Bertie?”

  “Never mind that,” she said. “What about The Book? Did Ariel take it?”

  Nate reentered holding a large, leather-bound tome. “Aye, he did.”

  He held it out, and Bertie’s heart gave a tremendous thump. “You found it!”

  “No, lass. ’Tis but a prop.” He handed it to her. Only then could she see that it lacked the proper weight, that the gilt edges were worn and the leather false.

  Bertie tossed the false Book aside and turned over the chaise for the second time that day, but this time, not even dust decorated the floor. Rage ignited in her chest, and before she thought twice about it, Bertie pulled her foot back and kicked a hole through the bottom of the chaise.

  “Oh, Bertie!” Peaseblossom said. “That’s hardly the right way to get back into Mr. Hastings’ good graces.”

  “I don’t care.” After the next swift kick, her shoe got stuck. Nate reached out to steady her, but Bertie abandoned her Mary Jane and her dignity to leap away from him. “You keep your hands to yourself!”

  “Perhaps,” he said, pausing for effect, “ye should have said that t’ Ariel.”

  “You shut up.” Bertie took her other shoe off and threw it at his head.

  Nate ducked, and it bounced harmlessly in the wings. “I will not.” He picked up the “Drink Me” bottle from the stage. “That little scene was an eye-openin’ lesson in how ye spend yer free time.” A muscle in his jaw clenched as he turned. With a fluid movement of his arm and a grunt, he hurled the bottle into the wings after her shoe.

  Crystal smashed into an unseen bit of scenery and Bertie flinched, at both the noise and his angry display. She thought she could smell whatever was left of the magical elixir, and the scent made her stomach clench. “Feel better now?”

  Nate turned around with an expression that said he wasn’t done breaking things. “Not yet.”

  “Look, I know you’re mad at me—”

  “That goes wi’out sayin’.”

  “But I really need your help right now!”

  “Ye need somethin’. A good dose o’ reality, mayhap.”

  Bertie wished she had more ammunition, but she was out of shoes. “And you need to get over yourself!”

  Nate threw words instead of punches. “Ye were thoughtless. Reckless. Ye’ve put everyone in danger wi’ yer stupidity.”

  “I don’t need you telling me what I did was wrong.” Bertie couldn’t rid herself of the lump of anger lodged in her throat, though she swallowed again and again.

  “I’ll go get th’ Theater Manager.” He headed for the wings.

  “No, Nate, please!” Bertie gave chase, nearly falling over him in the half-light backstage when he paused to pick up his personal effects. “Give me a while longer to look!”

  “He needs t’ be told!” Nate jerked on his coat. “Perhaps he can set things t’ rights.”

  “But he’ll cancel the performance!”

  “Are ye addled in th’ head?” The look he gave her said he clearly thought it was so. “There’s not goin’ t’ be a performance wi’out The Book in th’ theater. Ye’ll be lucky t’ see out th’ day here, much less th’ week.”

  Anguish stabbed at Bertie’s vitals. To hear it so pronounced was harsher than any blow, and hot tears poured out of her eyes.

  “Bertie, no!” Nate dropped his sword belt to snatch at her, at the medallion, but too late.

  Saltwater hit the scrimshaw. Underfoot, the stage trembled. The scenic flats and curtains swayed.

  “Earthquake!” Moth cried, but it wasn’t.

  Every door crashed inward, and tidal waves of seawater spilled down the aisles. The fairies launched themselves at the ceiling, evading the tsunami by mere inches. Nate wrapped his arms around Bertie only seconds before the violence smashed into them.

  This wasn’t the gentle ocean set, with lighting specials and sparkling sand and swimming in a harness. Waves buffeted Bertie from all sides, filling her nose and flooding into a mouth opened to scream. She thrashed against the water that closed over her head, against Nate, who tried to hold her still. When the sea calmed an infinitesimal amount, he began to swim, no doubt hampered by her weight but refusing to let go of her wrist.

  Through stinging eyes, Bertie saw a shadow loom behind him: a creature of purple ink, glittering scales, and creamy yellow bone.

  Sedna’s voice was whale song and shifting tides and the vicious sorrow of a harpooned soul. “You have something that belongs to me.”

  Dark tentacles reached around Nate to snake over Bertie’s shoulders and around her waist. She clung to Nate, but the Sea Goddess would not be denied. With hands that had starfish where fingers should be, Sedna pried Bertie from Nate’s grasp before tossing him aside like a bit of rotting fish.

  Her own lungs burning, Bertie knew all too well that he needed to breathe, but still Nate hesitated.

  “Go!” she told him, but the words were only bubbles.

  He turned and swam for the surface, and though she’d given the order, Bertie wanted to scream in protest.

  “I will have the girl as payment for the tricks played upon me.” The Sea Goddess eyed the scrimshaw. “Bone of my bone, magical bone. You’ve used its power more than once.”

  A few seconds longer and Bertie would have no choice but to suck the water into her lungs. She could see Nate already fighting his way back toward them, held at bay by the currents under Sedna’s command.

  He won’t get to me in time.

  The Sea Goddess peered at the medallion in fascinated horror. “It’s been defaced! Mutilated and vandalized—” But when her starfish fingers touched the scrimshaw, churning foam and bubbles erupted all around them, shoving Sedna away with all the force of wind under water. The Sea Goddess screamed, “His magic! The blood, the bones. You are his child!”

  Bertie twisted and kicked, praying she was headed the right direction. Moments later, she surfaced, spitting and coughing, dragging air into her aching lungs as she treaded water. Completely disoriented, she blinked, only to realize the brilliant nimbus of light wavering just before her was the chandelier. With shaking arms, Bertie pulled herself free of the waves, clinging to the beaded chains and prisms as she shoved her hair out of her face. “Nate!”

  Below her, the water formed a whirlpool, sloshing against the balconies and casting salt-spray across the painted seraphim on the ceiling. Bits of the Théâtre’s walls trembled and slid into the maelstrom with a series of shudders and splashes.

  “Bertie!” Nate cried.

  She turned to see him fighting the current only a few feet away. Without
pausing to consider the madness of what she was doing, Bertie flipped herself backward. Dangling from one of the chandelier’s brass arms, she reached for him. “Grab my hand!”

  “I’m comin’!” Nate rasped, though Bertie could see the exhaustion in every line of his face, in every straining muscle.

  “You’re almost there!” She thought her legs trembled with the effort of holding on, but then the entire chandelier began to shake.

  “I cannot take the girl,” the Sea Goddess roared as she surfaced, “but I will have something for my troubles.” A riptide dragged Nate under. “Come, my brave pirate lad.”

  “No!” Bertie dove in, desperate to catch hold of him. Her fingertips brushed over his outstretched hand as a glowing fish rippled past them through the shifting vortex of air and water.

  No. Not a fish. His page from The Book!

  One last wave seized Bertie and slammed her to the seafloor as the Sea Goddess caught hold of both man and page. Laughing, Sedna retreated with her prize, taking the ocean with her on an outgoing tide.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Ill Met by

  Moonlight

  Bertie lay on the carpeted aisle, empty as a shell washed onto the shore. Warm blood containing the memory of salt trickled from her nose, and the weight of her sodden clothes dragged at her.

  This is what Ophelia does to herself, each and every night.

  As horrifying as the thought was, Bertie couldn’t stop to sympathize. She crawled to the auditorium door with pain lancing through her lungs.

  “Nate!” His name was a water-rasped whisper rather than a scream, but either way, there was no one to hear it. The lobby stood empty, its carpet dotted with briny puddles. Water ran in rivulets down the glass set into the revolving doors, and the occasional droplet fell from the painted Muses on the ceiling who wept for her loss.

  The Sea Goddess was gone, and Nate with her.

  Bertie shoved the auditorium door closed and welcomed the return of the gloom. Twisting about to sit, she rested her head in her hands. There was no sound except her ragged breath and the steady drip! drip! drip! of water from every side.

  The fairies rushed to join her in the back of the theater. Mustardseed touched the door as though it might vomit the sea again. When it didn’t, he kicked it soundly with his boot. “And stay out!”

  Bertie closed her hand around the scrimshaw and twisted her fingers through the sodden leather thong. For ages it seemed she only sat and rocked, back and forth, her shoulders shaking with shock. “It’s all my fault.”

  “Oh, Bertie,” Peaseblossom said as she pushed the wet strands of hair out of Bertie’s face. “Stop. Stop it right now. How could you know that would happen?”

  “Nate warned me.”

  “He’s the one who made you wear it.”

  “To keep me safe,” Bertie amended.

  “From stupid Ariel,” Cobweb said.

  “And all that disgusting kissing,” Mustardseed said.

  Peaseblossom patted Bertie on the shoulder. “Boys can be so dumb.” That evoked a protest in three-part harmony, but Peaseblossom spoke over them. “It’s true! You’re dumb as rocks.”

  Bertie put her forehead against her knees. “This is all so screwed up,” she said into her jeans. “Nate’s been kidnapped, Ariel’s vanished. The Book is missing. Management is going to kill me—”

  In the middle of her quiet tirade, the lights died. Bertie looked up, startled, and the fairies froze. A low red glow came up onstage, accompanied by a violin’s haunting protest. A gibbous moon rose slowly against the back wall as mist poured in from the wings.

  Someone had called for a scene change.

  Bertie put a finger to her lips, waiting to see who—or what—would enter. A trapdoor opened, and a figure rose to Center Stage.

  “Through the house, give glimmering light by the dead and drowsy fire. A puff of wind is what we need to rouse the flames from slumber.”

  The newcomer snapped his fingers. A thousand fire-streamers leapt into the air to scorch the overhanging limbs of a gnarled tree. Smoke billowed from behind its trunk in chemical clouds, while a sudden wind tore through the room with grasping claws. In seconds, the blistering combination of heat and air dried everything from the dripping seats to the blue-smudged tangle of Bertie’s hair.

  “It’s Ariel,” she whispered. “He finally answered the call.” Bertie saw then that he held The Book in his slim, white hands. Already it looked thinner, its leather cover set at a sad angle, and she wondered if the lighting onstage was indeed red, or if that was just murderous rage spilling over into her vision.

  “What’s the plan?” Mustardseed wanted to know.

  “Now would be a good time to jump him,” said Cobweb. “We still have the element of surprise.”

  “For once, you’re making sense.” Bertie exhaled hard through her nose. “You distract him, and I’ll smash his head in with one of those rocks.”

  Peaseblossom shushed her. “He’s going to say something.”

  “This Book has powerful magic, stronger than I ever could have imagined.” Ariel hovered next to the stones containing the blaze, reflections of flames dancing in the liquid black of his eyes. The smoke rose and twisted about him, tugging at his hair and his clothes, shifting, then settling about his shoulders like a cloak.

  Bertie clutched the medallion and focused all her hatred and concentration upon him.

  Show me what you really are, Ariel.

  His form wavered; one second he was a great winged creature with glowing eyes and claws bared, the next no more than a breeze stirring the leaves. Then he was as he’d always been: terrifying and beautiful all at once.

  “Perhaps,” he crooned to the open pages, “the power of the stage can overcome your hold over me.” Moonlight painted him with a silver brush as he held The Book aloft. “I call upon the winds of the world to stir the oceans and cover the sky with clouds. Uproot the trees, unseat the mountains, and cause the earth to groan. We shall, like mighty magicians, release the dead from this grave.” Thunder and lightning, but Ariel’s voice rang clear over the din. “I am one of the dead; let nothing bind me.”

  He opened The Book to a random page, gripped it in his fist, and tore it out.

  “No!” Bertie’s scream of protest was lost as everything shuddered: the carved moldings, the proscenium arch, the massive chandelier. She ran down the red-carpeted aisle and tried to make her voice heard over the noise. “Take your entrance page and go!”

  Ariel looked both surprised and ashamed for all of a millisecond before a familiar half-smile slid into place. He shook his head. “Don’t you think I’ve tried that? Mine is the only one that won’t come out.”

  “I don’t understand. . . .”

  “No,” he said softly, “you don’t. Not about any of it.”

  “Ariel—”

  “Hush,” he interrupted, “I will show you.” He turned the pages of The Book until he arrived at one that seemed brighter than all the others. His fingers curled under the edges, gripped it until his knuckles shuddered in protest. He wrenched at it with visible effort, but it wouldn’t budge. When he released the paper, not a single wrinkle marred its surface. “Do you see?”

  Bertie was afraid to ask, but the question voiced itself. “What will you do?”

  Ariel didn’t answer. Instead, he flipped through The Book, grasped another page. When he tore it out, the heavy curtains on either side of the stage fell in velvet puddles.

  Bertie reeled as though he’d stabbed her. “Ariel, stop! The theater’s magic is bound to The Book!”

  “Precisely why I am going to tear the pages out, one by one, until its magic is broken, until it can no longer hold me.”

  Bertie threw out her hand as though she could summon The Book to her by will alone. “Give it to me, Ariel, before I break every bone in your body!”

  “Every bone!” echoed the fairies as they rushed forward.

  “Tell them to stay back, Bertie,” Ariel said. �
�Or I’ll summon a wind merely for the pleasure of pulping your friends against the nearest wall.”

  “Do as he says.” Bertie never took her eyes off Ariel.

  The fairies ducked behind a chair with great reluctance, but Bertie took deliberate steps toward him. Ariel held up his hand, gathering the winds behind him. She fought against the rising vortex of noise and chaos, but the power rushed over his shoulders to shove at her as though every wind fan and storm machine had been turned on.

  “I said stay back!” he warned her.

  “So help me,” she screamed into the tempest, “I’ll see you in chains before I let you destroy this place!”

  Ariel shouted something in response as he disappeared behind the massive, wooden waves that rolled in from Stage Right. Bertie tried to crawl over them, then around, but the water rose higher as wheels and gears spun and clanked.

  “Come back here!” she shouted.

  “Pull for shore, sailor!” cried an offstage voice. A boat filled with oar-wielding Mariners entered Stage Right.

  Prospero, wizard hat askew and beard streaming in the wind, pointed a bony finger at Bertie. “Have you seen Ariel, girl-child?”

  “Yes!” She punctuated the word with wild gesticulating. “He went behind that wave! Someone grab him!”

  Prospero peered over the scenery. “There’s no one there. Don’t play games with me! Do you know who I am?” He puffed out his chest with self-importance.

  The fairies landed on Bertie’s shoulders, no longer obliged to stay back.

  “You’re supposed to be Ariel’s master,” Moth said.

  “If this was a class, you’d be flunking,” said Cobweb.

  “What are these creatures babbling about?” the wizard sputtered.

  “Ariel stole The Book,” Bertie said. She heaved herself over the side of the boat and landed in a tangle of hemp rope tied in intricate knots. “I need to get it back.”

  The Mariners shrank away from her. “Wummin aboard’s bad luck!” As one, they jumped out, shouting, “Splash!”

  Without anyone to row, the boat shuddered to a halt. After a series of ominous creaks, it fell thoroughly apart, disgorging its two remaining passengers onto the stage. Bertie landed hard on her backside, but Prospero somehow managed to leap clear of the wreckage with a dexterous swirl of pale blue robes.