Stages of Grey

by Clea Simon

  ‘Scary good, I gather.’

  ‘Scary.’ Dulcie wanted to leave it at that, but honesty compelled her to continue. ‘I’ve had a lot on my mind, I know, and that made me, well, it may have predisposed me to see things in the worst light, but still …’

  ‘You don’t have to explain,’ Nancy interrupted, giving Trista a hard look. ‘You thought someone had been hurt, and you ran to help. That speaks well of you.’

  ‘Thanks, Nancy.’ Dulcie felt herself warmed by the praise, as well as the sweet, hot drink.

  ‘But …’ Trista started to protest, as Nancy walked back to her desk.

  ‘But nothing,’ Lloyd cut her off. ‘Seeing something on the street is very different from seeing it in a theater.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Trista nodded. ‘That’s true.’

  ‘I’m thinking I don’t even want to go.’ Now that she was feeling better, Dulcie was getting angrier. ‘Free or not, it’s not like I don’t have better ways to use my time.’

  ‘Wait, what?’ Trista voiced the question, but Lloyd was staring at her, too. ‘You don’t want to go in with us on tickets?’

  ‘Sorry, no.’ Dulcie drained her mug. ‘They said they’d give me a pair. I think the police maybe pressured them into it. But, I don’t know … a disco version of Metamorphosis?’

  ‘Dulcie …’ Trista started to object, but Lloyd cut her off again.

  ‘I know what you mean,’ he said. ‘From what I’ve read, it is bringing in the crowds, but nobody …’ He paused and glanced at Trista. ‘Very few people are saying it’s great art.’

  ‘That’s the knee-jerk reaction against what is perceived as popular culture …’ Trista was off on a rant, but Dulcie jumped in.

  ‘Would you want them?’ Dulcie asked.

  Trista looked so shocked that Dulcie wondered if her friend hadn’t understood. ‘I really can’t take an evening off. Besides, I can’t see Chris wanting to go after he hears the full story of what happened last night.’

  ‘I …’ Trista was not usually at a loss for words. Lloyd looked about to step in, but the pierced blonde recovered herself. ‘No, thank you, Dulcie.’ She swallowed. ‘You were the one who was discomfited. You deserve those tickets.’

  Dulcie couldn’t help but smile, just a little, at Trista’s choice of words. Her friend was trying. ‘Well, do you want to come with me?’

  Trista looked at her, about to ask.

  ‘I’ve been told that Mr Barstow wants to meet me. He’s going to apologize personally.’

  At that, Trista was struck totally speechless.

  ‘Come on.’ Dulcie grabbed her friend’s hand. ‘You can come, too.’ She looked at Lloyd.

  ‘No, thanks!’ He backed away. ‘If I met Heath Barstow without taking Raleigh, I’d never hear the end of it.’

  ‘Dulcie, are you sure?’ Trista was almost whispering as the two left the building. ‘I mean, he wants to meet you.’

  ‘Tris, I don’t care about this guy. You do.’ To Dulcie it seemed obvious. What she didn’t say out loud was that this would make it easier to palm the tickets off on her friend once she actually had them in her hand. ‘But let’s hurry. I’ve got a section in twenty minutes.’

  Trista didn’t need any more urging, and soon Dulcie found herself panting to keep up.

  ‘Tris, wait!’ she called, as they passed the corner of Bow Street. ‘Let me just …’ She stopped and turned, her eyes drawn to the opening of the alley.

  Trista turned back. ‘Is this where you saw them?’

  Dulcie nodded, expecting her friend to object to the delay.

  ‘Huh.’ Instead, her friend looked around. ‘Mind if I check it out?’

  Dulcie felt a strange reluctance but followed along as her friend walked down the now well-lit sidewalk.

  ‘Is that it?’ Trista pointed down the alley, and Dulcie nodded. ‘Cool.’ Trista’s voice had fallen to a reverential whisper, and Dulcie was just about to suggest they move on when Trista grabbed her hand. ‘I think I see it.’

  ‘What?’ Dulcie heard her own voice growing sharp. ‘There’s nothing here, Tris. And I’ve got a section.’

  ‘No, wait.’ Taking Dulcie’s hand, Trista led her into the alley. ‘See?’

  Dulcie didn’t, not at first. She was staring at the pavement, looking for the blood that couldn’t be there. For the tufts of hair or fur that she expected.

  Then Trista pointed. ‘Up here.’

  It was a brick wall, like any other. Except – yes, Trista was right – there was something funny about it. The pattern didn’t quite …

  ‘There’s a space here.’ Dulcie stepped up to the wall, which ran the length of the alley. Nondescript red brick, the stuff of which Cambridge was made. Except that the first part, near the street, wasn’t the solid barrier she had, at first, taken it to be. Instead, part of it angled out, the bricks growing smaller even as they extended into the alley, so that her sense of perspective didn’t see it coming closer. And behind it, the remainder of the wall – its bricks carefully sized – or, no, painted – to match. Between the two segments a small niche where a man could easily hide. And, Dulcie saw as she approached, a door, from which a pack of ‘wolves’ could emerge and just as quickly escape.

  ‘Well, I’ll be …’ Dulcie ran her hand along the carefully painted trompe l’oeil. ‘Did you know this was here?’

  Trista shook her head. ‘I’m guessing it’s a back door to URT. I know they did a ton of renovations when they took over the building.’

  ‘It’s pretty ingenious.’ Up close, Dulcie could see the level of detail involved. The ‘bricks’ were individually speckled; the ‘mortar’ painted darker as the front section extended, to more closely match the shadowed lines on the back wall. All together, it was almost enough to make her believe in the illusion. Except for one thing.

  ‘Trista, the officer who told me about this?’ She turned to make sure she had her friend’s attention. ‘He said other people saw something, too.’

  ‘Well, you weren’t the only one caught out. And they were good.’

  ‘No,’ Dulcie objected. ‘He didn’t say that someone else thought a man was attacked. He said that someone saw a person – a man – turning into a wolf.’

  ‘As I recall, in the Ovid … ’ Trista looked like she was readying a case. Just then, a church bell rang. It was ten o’clock. ‘Come on.’ Trista grabbed her hand. ‘Do you want to be late for your section or not?’

  Dulcie let herself be dragged out of the alley and around the corner to what indeed proved to be the front of the URT. Dulcie shook her head, momentarily unmoored by her memories. The University Repertory Theatre – URT – was as unlike the old revolutionary bookstore as a renovation could make it. In place of the familiar brick storefront, Dulcie saw chrome and glass, and where decades of flyers for sit-ins and lectures had left their scotch-tape smudges, now a large full-color poster advertised Changes: The Metamorphosis Musical. ‘A Triumph!’ ran one huzzah, above an illustration of a well-endowed nymph turning into a tree – or vice versa. ‘See it now!’ read another banner, over a set of glass doors that reflected the morning light in a way that made Dulcie’s head ache again.

  ‘So this is the Hurt,’ Dulcie muttered. Trista shot her a look, and Dulcie bit her lip. At least she hadn’t called the new theater by its other nickname: ‘the Urp’. But to keep the peace, she reached for the doors – and found them locked. Peering in showed nothing: the glass could have been painted black for all Dulcie could tell. But Trista found a small buzzer set into the frame and punched it, eagerly, twice.

  ‘They’re not here.’ Dulcie took her hand to stop her from pressing it again. ‘Come on, Tris.’

  ‘Third time’s the charm.’ Trista twisted away and, as she did, she gasped. Dulcie turned, too, and saw why. A golden head had appeared inside the door and appeared to be floating toward them. She stepped back, but the head grew closer.

  ‘It’s him!’ Trista sounded happy, rather than scared.

  The
door swung open, and Dulcie gasped – and started laughing. The floating ‘head’ was the stranger, his long hair shining like spun gold and his face lightened with a strange metallic powder of some sort. It was his black turtleneck and pants that had made his face appear to be suspended in the darkened interior. In the daylight, she could see a slim man, slight really, dressed for an illusion.

  ‘Ladies?’ He beckoned them in with one long white hand. The other, Dulcie was pleased to see, rested on a light switch, which the actor flicked on, revealing a small lobby, painted black. ‘Please allow me to introduce myself. I am Heath Barstow, principal of the University Repertory Theater.’ He paused – Dulcie suspected he usually got applause at this point. ‘I assume one of you is Ms Dulcinea?’

  ‘Dulcie,’ she corrected him automatically. ‘Dulcie Schwartz. And this is my friend Trista.’

  ‘Charmed.’ He took her hand and bent over it. Without thinking, she pulled it away, provoking a giggle from Trista.

  ‘Don’t mind her,’ she said. ‘She’s still creeped out by your street theater from last night. Now she’s talking werewolves.’

  ‘Ah, the ultimate transformation,’ said the stranger. ‘Fascinating.’ He looked up at that, and up close Dulcie saw that his eyes were oddly golden, too. ‘We shall have to talk.’

  ‘Um, I was told you had tickets for me?’ Trista might be taken in by this theatrical stranger, but Dulcie wanted nothing more than to get to her section.

  ‘Direct.’ He smiled, his mouth shut. ‘Please, follow me.’

  ‘In for a penny, in for a pound,’ Dulcie muttered, more to herself than to Trista, who had already begun to set off after the actor, who led them past a dark ticket window and down a hall through opened double doors into what had to be the main theater space. Dulcie saw a raised stage and what looked like low balconies. But instead of seats, cocktail tables and chairs littered the open floor.

  ‘I was hoping to show you around, perhaps demystify our illusions for you.’ He welcomed them into the open space with a gesture that seemed to encompass the bar, immediately to their left, as well as the leftover glitter that sparkled up from every surface. That smile again, over his shoulder, with his teeth and his own shimmer – it had to be powder – accompanying the gesture. It was, Dulcie decided, creepy. But not as strange as the faint impression she was getting. Someone else was here. Watching.

  ‘Don’t you think you should maintain some illusion?’ Trista asked. ‘Don’t we all need a little?’

  ‘Tris!’ Dulcie whispered. She really didn’t need her friend to begin flirting.

  ‘Ah, a wise woman.’ The actor turned. ‘But, alas, your friend has more mundane concerns.’ He had led them over to one of the cocktail tables, apparently empty of everything but a black cloth. ‘And so – voila!’ He fanned out his fingers and flicked his wrist, throwing a shadow that seemed to disappear into the corner of the room. Distracted by the movement, Dulcie turned. There was something familiar about that shadow. The way it moved …

  ‘Voila,’ Barstow repeated, more loudly. ‘Miss Schwartz?’

  ‘Sorry.’ She turned back and caught him quickly tuck his glower back up into that smile. Once again, that stagey gesture, and this time Dulcie resisted the urge to look for a shadow. And before she could figure out how, he had an envelope in his hand. ‘Dulcinea Schwartz’ was inscribed on the front in an ornate script.

  ‘For you, mademoiselle.’ He bowed as he offered the envelope, and Dulcie reached forward to take it, noticing a line in the table cloth as she did so. Instead of taking the tickets, she reached over and touched what proved to be a fold in the cloth. The secret behind Barstow’s little sleight of hand.

  ‘I see you’ve already applied your scholar’s eye to our simple magic.’

  She looked up. Barstow didn’t seem annoyed, not now that he had her attention, and so she ventured a question.

  ‘Not all of it.’ How to phrase it? ‘When you waggled your fingers just now,’ she decided. ‘You threw a shadow. I thought … I was sure it moved on its own.’

  ‘Oh, that.’ He shook his head. ‘That’s not magic. That’s Gus, the theater cat.’

  ‘I thought it looked like a cat.’ Dulcie fell silent, but after a moment realized that both Trista and their host were watching her. ‘So, Gus,’ she asked. ‘For Asparagus, I assume?’

  Barstow shook his head, uncomprehending. ‘Our resident mouser. Management renovated, but these old buildings, you know …’ He left the rest of his sentence unfinished, but seemed gratified as Trista wrinkled her nose in response.

  Dulcie wasn’t finished though. ‘No, he’s something else. I was sure, watching him move …’ She let her own words trail off. Barstow was a stranger, and even Trista wasn’t acting like her old friend these days.

  ‘Our office manager, Roni, says he’s a Russian blue.’ Barstow’s voice let his skepticism show. ‘All I know is he showed up one day. But he does have his talents.’

  ‘Oh?’ Dulcie couldn’t say why, but something about that shadow – the way it had moved, the way it had paused and seemed to catch her eye – made her think that vermin control was the least of them.

  ‘You’ll just have to come to our show and find out.’ Barstow again extended his hand. ‘I hope you can make this evening’s performance?’

  ‘I …’ Dulcie paused. Her plan had been to hand them off to Trista. She had no interest in the play. ‘Gus is in the play?’

  Barstow only smiled.

  ‘Okay, thanks.’ She reached for the envelope only to find that it had disappeared again.

  ‘I’m afraid I will have to ask you to sign for them first.’ Barstow sounded honestly disappointed as he reached under the table for a clipboard. It was an annoying trick, but Dulcie took the pen he had also pulled out from some invisible pocket, filled out the simple form, and signed it. The sooner she was out of here, the better.

  The actor took the clipboard and the pen, surrendering, finally, the envelope with – Dulcie checked – two tickets for Changes: The Metamorphosis Musical.

  ‘Will you be taking your enchanting friend?’ Now that the business transaction was done, Barstow was again plying the charm.

  ‘She’ll be taking her boyfriend.’ Trista’s smile almost matched Barstow’s. Great, she was flirting back.

  ‘Well, then …’ From another pocket, two more tickets emerged. Dulcie, handing back the form, couldn’t help but notice how the actor held on to them for a moment too long, just as Trista took them.

  Trista noticed too, for one pierced eyebrow arched up. ‘Thanks,’ she said.

  ‘When shall we three meet again?’ Barstow intoned as Trista signed for her tickets. ‘Tonight at eight, perhaps?’

  Trista might be tickled, but Dulcie had had enough. ‘Thanks, Mr Barstow.’

  ‘Please, call me Heath.’ He gave them a mischievous look. ‘And are you sure about the tour?’

  ‘Yes, thanks.’ Dulcie grabbed Trista’s sleeve. ‘We’re both late as it is.’

  ‘Well, then.’ Another wave of the hand, and he led them back into the lobby.

  ‘Good goddess, can you believe that?’ Dulcie hurried her friend out to the street. ‘So affected.’

  ‘Yes.’ Trista seemed lost in thought, even as they emerged into the daylight. ‘And yet effective. You may be right, Dulcie. I think that man is a wolf.’

  TEN

  To seem and yet not to seem. With brave heart, she faced the Night, holding still her quaking Hands lest they, too, betray her Heart. The very Dark held no Terrors, enveloping in its inky folds only absence – of light, of Friend, and Succor. ‘Twas that which could not be viewed by merest Mortal which had turned her very Breath cold in her chest. Within the Shadows such a Creature as would do her harm, a demonic Beast as would steal away her very Soul, all while Seeming friend and acting Foe.

  Dulcie made herself stop reading. All morning she’d been driving herself crazy looking for this passage, one paragraph buried deep in the surviving pages of a fragm
entary masterpiece. Months before, she’d written about it, deconstructing its references as Thorpe had requested.

  Some of that was easy. To seem rather than to be. The phrase was Machiavelli’s, an inversion of Cicero. And although Dulcie hadn’t read philosophy since her undergrad years, she found the source easily enough. In context, it made sense. The passage, from the misunderstood Gothic novel The Ravages of Umbria, referred to a supposed noble, one of the protagonist’s suitors. He was what Trista would have called ‘a handsome devil’, and though Dulcie would have placed a different emphasis than her friend would, she knew the reading would be accurate.

  In The Ravages, the work that formed the basis for Dulcie’s thesis, the noble – like several other suitors for the heroine’s hand – proves untrustworthy. Worse, in classic Gothic typing, he seems to have a demonic streak. Dulcie would never know for sure – less than two hundred pages of the book remained – but she believed he was true evil, an incubus sent to seduce and destroy the virtuous and independent Hermetria. He might, Dulcie suspected, have been based on a real character in the female author’s life. At the very least, he served to send up the overinflated reverence with which the gentry were held in England as the rest of the world, Old and New, exploded into revolution.

  Her reasons for looking up the passage now were far less worldly. That actor, Heath Barstow, had disconcerted her. It wasn’t just his practiced flirtatiousness, although Trista’s wholehearted response had been distressing. Nor even the sleight of hand that he used to make the simplest transactions showy. He was, after all, an actor, and at some level he was probably making a pitch for his show. No, there was something else about him – something Dulcie didn’t trust. She had hoped that this passage, once she found it, would give her some kind of a handle – advice, even – on how to understand the mercurial man. Instead, it had just made her more wary. If it hadn’t been for that cat, Dulcie would not even consider going back tonight. As it was, well, she wanted to be careful.

  ‘Ms Schwartz?’ Dulcie looked up. She’d gotten to her office early, to give herself time to dive into her notes before her posted hours began. But before she could warn off the wan-looking undergrad in her doorway, she caught sight of the clock. A half-hour had passed since then, and she was on duty.