by Ken Altabef
“Sour Grettlefish, bitter Grettlefish. Why do you put your friends and family at risk? We wouldn’t want anything to happen to them.”
“No!” said Grettlefish. “I’ve done nothing.”
“Don’t lie to me,” shouted Dresdemona, getting angry now. She raised one balled fist in the air. “Lust for power has made you too bold. You want to challenge me even now, right here in front of all these people.”
Grettlefish turned half away. He either would not reply or could not. His entire body shuddered with fear.
Dresdemona unclenched her raised hand, revealing a writhing ball of white faery light.
“No.” Grettlefish forced the word from a clenched, trembling jaw. “Please. I don’t––”
The light in Dresdemona’s hand crackled like lightning, growing more intense. “I accept your challenge,” she said with a gleeful note in her voice.
Grettlefish spun round, his arms extended, hurling a stream of faery light toward the Queen. Her own light surged forth, meeting his close to its source. Bathed in severe white light, he was unable to move. Such was the Queen’s power. Weasel wondered why he had even tried. Perhaps he’d decided to make a show of it in order to save his family. There could be no doubt of the outcome. Weasel wondered what he would have done in that situation? He shuddered to think.
The white light enveloped poor Grettlefish, dulling the sound of his tortured screams.
“Challenge me?” Dresdemona said angrily, spittle flying from her lips. “Challenge me?”
As one, the Queen’s handmaids screamed, billowing out the black veils that covered their mouths. Weasel wet his pants at the blood curdling sound. When the banshee handmaidens screamed, someone always died.
Grettlefish wilted before them, his skin burning away. He tumbled to his knees, sizzling horribly as he fell apart.
“Ahhhhhh,” said the Queen, in a long wail. It was impossible to tell if she were luxuriating in the destruction or lamenting it.
The other members of Grettlfish’s clan, six in all, suddenly burst into flame as well. They popped off in succession, like a string of holiday popcorn or Chinese fireworks.
Faeries beside them darted out of the way, singed where castoff sparks touched their skin.
Dresdemona stared down at the steaming remains. Her perfect lips flew into an intense frown. Tears glittered in the dark pools of her eyes. Weasel hated to see her so upset.
The tears did not fall. Instead a tortured anger colored her face, its copper hue intensifying.
“Why do they make me do that?” she screamed at the crowd. “Do you think this is some kind of a joke? Why do you make me do that?”
Nobody cared to venture an answer.
“Do you question me? Why should I lead?”
Nobody cared to acknowledge the question, but she offered her answer just the same. “Because I am the strongest. And because I have a plan.”
Chapter 7
The King and Queen of Faeries made their final appearance, followed by all their train.
Oberon was a sad sight, his face too pale with powder, his lips too green with paint. His headdress of wilted greens had seen better days years ago. One of his wings had a broken tip, revealing worm-eaten plasterboard. All in all, the actor made a poor Oberon indeed. He spoke with a sickly wheeze that made itself known on any lengthy soliloquy and an explosive cough that punctuated every pentameter.
“By the dead and drowsy fire;
Every elf and faerie sprite
Hop as light as bird from brier...”
The wheeze caught up with him at this point, and the cough as well. The rest of the players dutifully held their poses until he was done sputtering and stomping his foot. He straightened himself and mumbled away the next few lines.
Titania stepped to the front of the stage. The sight of the faery queen was a marvel that never failed to bring the crowd to the edge of their seats. Not a streak of paint showed on her green-skinned face. She clearly wore no mask, and yet the elegantly pointed tips of her ears blended perfectly into her look, regardless of whatever appliances were used. Her hair held all the luster and color of summer wheat and, though it must surely be a wig of some sort, it flowed gracefully about her neck and shoulders as if it were alive.
“First rehearse your song by rote,
To each word a warbling note.
Hand in hand, with faery grace,
Will we sing and bless this place.”
The royal couple danced across the stage. The exquisite grace of Titania was evident in every motion, especially set against the bumbling footwork of this poor Oberon. Her slender feet caressed the floorboards as a lover. The sway of her hips was mesmerizing, her sexuality unrestrained. She whirled and spun in a carefree combination of grace and wild energy that brought the audience roaring to their feet.
And then the magnificent Titania, trailed by her husband Oberon (if anyone remembered at all that he was still on stage and not some wet rag left draped across a wooden manikin), left the stage to Puck to deliver the final lines.
As soon as Nora cleared the curtains she hurried down the corridor of the Menagerie, shuffling past all the rest of the company and the extras. She entered a small closet off the main dressing room. It had been fitted out with a tall looking glass for use by the play’s lead performer.
She did not pause to catch her breath, but immediately slipped the flimsy taffeta costume from her shoulders and let it fall to the floor. A moment later she stood before the mirror, completely naked. She could affect this transformation in rough strokes without aid of the mirror, but there was something to be said for the vanity of actors, especially a lead performer. She must get this look just right, down to the smallest detail, and in short order too.
She changed her skin tone to that of a Caucasian male with just the hint of stubble on the chin. Her hair went short and brown, her eyes hazel. She placed upon the cheeks just the slightest suggestion of pock-marks as one might acquire from a childhood case of smallpox. The features remained identifiable as that of the person who had played the role of Titania so beautifully just a moment ago, and yet held the distinctive male brow and strong jawline of London’s premier actor, Horace Wilde.
She paid less attention to the body. A rough outline was all she needed. Her trousers and coat would hide that part of it. She dressed quickly and rushed back down the hall. By the sound of things, the company was already on center stage, the applause mechanical and lackluster. The audience was waiting for their star.
When she took the stage, the crowd reacted with unrestrained enthusiasm. She linked arms with her Oberon and Puck and bowed deeply at the waist. Then she stepped forward and let the patrons shout their praise. Horace Wilde was a sensation. He played Titania as no other man ever could. The audience, still buzzing from the sexuality of that final dance, were effusive in their applause.
Nora slipped back into memory, recalling her first meeting with Fazzino Spagnelli, the chance encounter that had hatched this entire scheme.
Her audition had not gone well. For starters, she’d chosen the wrong material. A competent rendition of Fielding’s Harriot Moneywood was well beyond her abilities. Her sense of comedic timing had still not yet properly developed for farce and she had a hard time counterfeiting the diction of the working middle-class seamstress. And she’d been terribly nervous as well, her first time in the big city, a young ingénue chasing her dream. Spagnelli saw it all in her face, even before she’d mangled the dialogue.
“I can do better,” she protested.
“I’m sure you can. With a lot of work. But really my dear, your thespianic skills are not quite up to par. I could instruct you perhaps, but…”
He smiled a bit sadly. “Ah no, too much work. Too much work. And the competition is steep. There are many female actresses now, and too few roles. I still remember when men played all those parts. Now we have a surfeit of starlets, prima donnas and divas all. No, it just won’t work.”
Nora flushed. A
nother door slammed in her face. There were other dramatic companies in London, but she knew in that moment she would endure the same result at any of them.
“Wait a minute.” Spagnelli leaned forward in his chair. His eyes had never left her face. “You’re part fae aren’t you?”
“No. What? Faery? Certainly not.”
“Ahh, that’s a denial you’ve made many times to yourself, I’m thinking.”
Nora could not help but smile. This man, who passed all of his days among actors and false-faces, could read her like a book. There seemed no point in insulting him with more shallow lies. “My mother was—is a faery. How did you know?”
“I see through people. That’s what I do. I see what they are, what they want others to see, and what they can pretend to be. The theatre is a world of illusion, a vast mechanism whose sole purpose is to deliver altered perceptions and fallacy. I’ve stood at the heart of it for a long, long time. What mysteries does a machine have, for its tired old repairman?”
Well then, since he already knew her secret, she had no reason to hold back. “Perhaps you are not as jaded as you seem to think, Mr. Spagnelli. I’ll show you something you haven’t ever seen before.”
She turned away a moment, centered herself and did the best she could. When she turned back she was completely transformed. Her hair was long and straight, a perfect midnight black. Her face had become angular and severe, her eyebrows arched and thick, her nose slender and slightly hooked, her sneering lips the exact color of dried blood. “I can be the best Lady Macbeth you’ve ever had.”
“Now, now, that is something.”
He waved her to silence with one thick finger, his gaze distant and intense. The finger swayed along a long arc, ticking like some kind of mental metronome as he considered the possibilities. Nora was reminded of the theatre manager’s colorful past. He had begun his career with a roadside carnival presenting freaks of nature (and manufacture) all across Sussex. He had managed jugglers and clowns, opera singers and acrobats and once presented a troop of trained monkeys with great success until one of them flung its scat with remarkable aim at the Earl of Westchester. After that it had been a ballet, a rope-dancing troupe, harlequin twins performing magic, and a lopsided unicorn. He was well-versed in every type of stagecraft.
Spagnelli snapped his fingers. “I think I can use you, but just not the way you think.” His smile was beatific despite the gap in his front teeth. “I want you to be Horace Wilde.”
“Horace Wilde? I don’t understand. Who is that?”
“The most brilliant stage actor no one’s ever heard of. In fact, he does not yet exist. But let me describe him. A young man, with chestnut hair, fair of face, slight of build—let’s say two or three inches taller than your present height. Can you do that?”
“I suppose.”
“Let’s give it a go, then.” He twirled his finger as if she were a trained pup.
Nora turned away again and hesitated for a moment. She had never thought to impersonate a man before. But there was no reason she couldn’t do it. Spagnelli had described exactly what he wanted. She could give him that. When she turned around again, Horace Wilde was born.
Spagnelli was suitably impressed. “How long can you keep up the masquerade?”
“It’s a bit difficult. I’m only half fae.”
“I see. Long enough for a dinner party and a few drinks? Say an hour or so?”
“I can do that. But why?”
“Long enough to convince the public that you are actually a man. The success of the entire scheme depends upon that.”
“What scheme? Really, I don’t see the point.”
“Of course you don’t. That’s my job, dear lady. The thing of it is to give people what they don’t have. In the old days men played all the women’s parts in theatre, and people grew bored with it. So what did we need to have? Women actors, of course. All the rage fifty years ago. I remember Anne Oldfield. Susanna Centlivre and Annie Bracegirdle—now there was a Lady MacBeth! They were not quite spectacular, let me tell you. But they were something new.
“But nowadays women actors, as I’ve said, are all too common. You can’t walk down the street without tripping over one or another of them. So what do we need right now at this moment? A man, my dear. A man who can act as the best lady, better than any lady. Now that would be just the thing. A sensation. We’ll write your name in the sky. If you can do that, you’ve found a place here at the Menagerie.”
And so it went…
Nora, as Horace Wilde, took her final bow. The pit boxes were full of dignitaries, flush-faced from wine and pickled sandwiches served during the performance. Working men and women were squeezed into crowded galleries, so close and dry several women seemed to have passed out from the heat, but remained propped up by the press of their neighbors. Wine glasses and peanuts were tossed in the air. All of them, rich and poor, were desperately in love with Horace Wilde.
After the curtain call, Fazzino Spagnelli intercepted Nora backstage. He steered her into her changing closet.
As always, the showman was effusive. “That last dance! Hahah, the news sheets will run riot with that one. They’ll buzz like bees. No one has ever seen a man could dance like that. I felt a little stir myself in places long forgotten. Or it may just have been that pickled herring I ate before the show. Terrible stuff. Bravo, my dear. Bravo!”
Nora gave a polite bow. “Just doing my job. The usual tonight? Drinks and dinner with Horace Wilde?”
“Oh no,” said Spagnelli. “Not tonight. There is quite a different matter for you to attend to. A friend of the house. Mr. Richard Templeton. Ohh, a wealthy man indeed. A great patron of the arts. He wants to meet you. We’ll have a late supper after, just you and I.”
“Well, all right,” Nora said, straightening her blue velour jacket. “It’s all the same to me.”
“No, no, no. This investor wants to meet the costume girl, Anne Meadows.”
“What? Who is he?”
“As I said, a patron. Very wealthy, but without lands or title. He made his fortune in textiles I think, or was it fine wine? Bless my heart, I don’t quite recall. But never matter. He’s simply oozing money.”
“But what can he want with me, as Anne Meadows no less?”
“Nothing nefarious, Nora. Just a walk about town. Look,” he said, smiling broadly. “It’s an opportunity. Go with it.”
“A walk on the esplanade? Alone. As Meadows.”
“You’ve nothing to fear, Nora. I vouch for his character.”
“Well, I hope he has better manners than your tumbling monkeys.”
“I assure you,” Spagnelli said, his hand over his heart, and then broke down laughing.
Nora giggled along with him. If nothing else, she knew she could trust Spagnelli’s instincts wherever people were concerned. It was nearly impossible to fool the old circus manager. She hoped Templeton would be an easier mark.
She turned toward the looking glass and let her glamour slip away. The masculine lines of her face and the wry smile of Wilde softened, to be replaced by her actual appearance. Brown hair, pleasant features, eyes still spaced a little too widely apart to be called truly beautiful. This was Anne Meadows. A false name, her real face. Another secret, an identity adopted at Spagnelli’s insistence. He said that Nora Grayson would be noticed even as a costumer’s apprentice. And there were too many rumors involving the Grayson family and faeries. Someone might make the connection, and ruin the whole thing. Spagnelli was a careful man.
The theatre manager turned his back as she changed clothes. Wilde’s velour jacket and trousers were replaced by a well-worn paisley cotton dress, silk leggings, leather shoes. When she had finished, Spagnelli nodded approvingly.
Nora met Mr. Templeton at the rear door of the Menagerie, far away from the sea of patrons flooding into Covent Garden. If the crowd hoped to catch a glimpse of Horace Wilde exiting the theatre, they would be disappointed this night. Of course none of them was particularly interes
ted in Anne Meadows, the frumpy seamstress with eyes spaced a little too far apart. She was puzzled. Why should Templeton be?
Richard Templeton was a tall, thin man in his mid-thirties. His kept his hair short and neat and wore no wig. To Nora’s way of thinking he had the face of a bookkeeper—small, round spectacles covering sympathetic eyes, a clean-shaven face, a pleasant mouth and a worried brow. He wore a dark blue jacket, matching breeches with gold-thread piping down the sides and a flowered cotton waistcoat with fine silver buttons. His outfit included no extravagant accessories with the exception of a gold-handled walking stick that was apparently just for show. His manner was at once practiced and inoffensive. He introduced himself, giving the back of her hand a gentle peck. All in all he seemed a very respectable and well-cultured man. But she could not shake the uncertain feeling—a kind of nattering buzz—that told her something wasn’t quite right about him.
“Shall we walk?” he asked.
“Thank you. It’s my pleasure.”
Nora decided to maintain the role of small-town girl not yet used to the big city life, adding in a few shy glances and a general uncomfortableness at strolling beside such a wealthy and no-doubt influential man. She thought she pulled it off quite well.
They walked down Southampton Street then turned down the Strand, heading toward Fleet Street and St. Paul’s beyond. Nora regarded the taverns, eating houses and milk cellars as if they were all so new and interesting to her.
“I simply love the Strand,” she said, perhaps over-doing the wide-eyed country bumpkin bit. “This must be my favorite street in town.”
“I agree. The sight of the river always impresses me. All the ships, all the people. Even at this hour. Something about a port that screams at me, that shouts we’ve come a long way from the hordes of tribal lunatics that first settled this land.”
“I suppose...”
Templeton paused at the Savoy stairs to watch the ships bobbing gently at port.
“It is a pleasant night,” she said.