by Finn, K. C.
But his eyes held that same, piercing glow when they suddenly snapped in Lily’s direction down the table.
“Hey Lemarick,” Poppa said as Lily quickly looked away. “What do you think? My boy’s made these lovely friends already, and he’s only one month in at the school!”
“How fortunate for him,” Novel replied without smiling. “A pleasure to meet you, ladies.”
When Lily looked back, the illusionist’s eyes were firmly fixed on Eva and her oven again.
“It’s nice to have more girls at the table,” Dharma added. “We get a bit outnumbered with all these big strapping boys around.”
The Slovak Twins gave her simultaneous grins of approval, but Dharma’s eyes were still on Novel as she took a place opposite him. Lady Eva gave her a plate of the delicious pork dinner, but when she returned with Novel’s meal, it was not the same. She placed before him a full English breakfast and a large pile of buttered toast.
“Thank you Eva,” he said, his eyes flashing down the table once more at Lily before he began to eat.
“So where’s your MC, Poppa Seward?” Lily asked, putting all her focus on him suddenly. “Monsieur Baptiste isn’t it?”
“He’s asleep.”
The answer had not come from Poppa. Lemarick Novel hadn’t looked up from his breakfast, but he had definitely answered the question. Lily looked at him again, at a relative loss for words.
“It’s a funny time to sleep,” she said as it came into her head, feeling everyone’s eyes on her at once.
“It is, isn’t it?” Novel replied, a piece of bacon hovering at his lips.
“I would have thought you students slept at all kinds of hours?” Zita interjected. Lily mentally thanked her for breaking up the atmosphere. “Is that not so?”
“Not if you actually want to attend classes on time, Zi,” Lawrence replied.
“And my boy does!” Poppa exclaimed. He gave him another slap, this time on the back. “Ho! He’s going to do good up at that school.”
“Well, I hope so,” Lawrence added with another bashful look at Jazzy. She was beaming at him, quite oblivious to the splodge of gravy on her lip.
“So long as it doesn’t interfere with rehearsals!” Dharma chided with a long-nailed fingertip in his direction. “I need to reschedule you all. Lemarick and I must have extra time to perfect the march, given the new circumstances.”
“I am not spending any more hours than necessary in rehearsal just because you’ve changed your costume,” Novel said with a groan. Lily found herself transfixed on his irate face once more.
“You have changed my costume, not me!” Dharma said enraged, “Do you know he ripped all the feathers off it and threw them out of my window!”
“Peacock feathers bring bad luck to theatres,” Novel replied simply, as if that were enough to excuse him.
As he said it, his eyes came shooting down the table once again.
The Row Below
Lily had excused herself from the tour of the Theatre Imaginique, traipsing home through the park as the October wind bit at her ankles. When Jazzy returned, more than an hour later, she seemed to have had a fantastic time, but since she and Lawrence were both so painfully shy, neither one of them had made any plans to meet up again soon. They hadn’t even exchanged numbers. When Jazzy tried to quiz her on why she’d left early, Lily kept turning the conversation back to contriving a new meet-up with Lawrence for her, until Jazzy was forced to drop the subject all together.
In truth, Lily didn’t really know why she’d felt the need to leave, because from the moment she’d set foot outside the old theatre, all she’d wanted to do was go back in. Without his make-up Lemarick Novel should have been much less creeptastic, but there was something even stranger about seeing him without the powder mask. Everyone else who performed on the stage had quite lost their mystery once they sat down to a big roast dinner and started chatting like normal people, but Novel brought the room to a standstill with every innocuous thing he said.
And he kept giving me that look.
It wasn’t a look that Lily understood very well. There were obvious looks that guys gave you, the kind that said they wanted to get to know you better or just get you into their beds. There were also looks that told you someone didn’t like you, or was just putting up with you for the sake of politeness. Novel’s eyes said nothing like any of that. He reminded her of those moments when you catch a cat staring at something that you can’t see, and you wonder what they’re really looking at. That creepy feeling that they know something you don’t. She wondered what Novel knew, both hoping and not-hoping that the next show would help her to find out.
The October programme at the theatre was just as daring an endeavour as the previous month’s had been. The Slovak Twins forced the audience to cover their eyes in gut-wrenching horror as they swallowed thin, sharp blades, and played tricks on one another in the process. Then, just when the patrons thought it was safe to look up again, Zita Bosko treated them to a full display of her contortionism act, twisting herself into stomach-churning shapes that should not have been humanly possible. Lady Eva took eager volunteers onto the stage with her to perform a séance in, which she appeared to become possessed by various members of their ancestry. Then, the Seward father and son duo posed as a Voodoo Doctor and his victim, whilst Lawrence performed more incredible acrobatics with his eyes shut.
Novel was billed with Dharma in ‘The March of Feathers and Flame’ which turned out to be a dance act. Lily watched in fascination from the fourth row as Novel bowed in an elegant vintage dress suit, taking Dharma into his arms where they moved in an impossibly perfect syncopation. It seemed that everywhere he led she was able to follow, keeping time perfectly against the twists of the ever-increasing speed in the dance.
She was coated in red and orange feathers that broke off every now and then when she took a sharp turn, and as they did, the crowd oohed and ahhed when the feathers transformed into curling flames that floated to the ground. Step after step saw more flames grow, until Dharma’s costume was reduced to a silky creation no bigger than a negligée. The rowdier members of the audience enjoyed this immensely, but Novel remained a picture of serious focus, as though his partner was merely a puppet to be controlled. By the end of the dance routine the whole stage was ablaze and the couple took their bows amid the fire. Novel’s pale eyes reflected the roaring flames until they faded to mere embers, but his stoic expression never faltered all the while.
By the time Lily was walking back through the park with the other IMLS members, she had decided quite firmly that Novel was just a very weird guy. He hadn’t looked at her once all night during the show, not even when he was directly in front of her on stage, so she put his previous glances down to curiosity, a little disdain and a big heap of her own paranoia. It wasn’t until she realised she’d left her handbag at the theatre that the creepy feeling settled in her stomach again.
“I never do things like this,” she said as she and Jazzy retraced their steps back to Old Mill Lane. “I’m really sorry.”
“Don’t worry,” Jazzy replied with a smile. “It’s nice not to be the one apologising for a change.”
When they returned to the theatre its front door was already locked. Exchanging a grim look with Jazzy, Lily knocked in imitation of how Lawrence had done it. Belnerg’s hideous face greeted them as the door creaked open. The little cretin appraised Lily with a vile sort of amusement on his face. His cheek and lip were smudged with something black that he hadn’t bothered to wash off, and Lily wondered with revulsion how long the stuff had been there.
“Hi, I’m really, really sorry, but I think I’ve left my handbag in the theatre. Can I come in and get it?”
She tried to give the grisly caretaker a winning smile, but when he smiled back she wished that she hadn’t. Belnerg gave a little grunt and stepped out of the way of the door. Lily went back into the foyer first, but as Jazzy tried to follow, the grimy little man put his arm out and shook his h
orrid head.
“It’s your bag, you get it.”
When he spoke, his voice sounded like he’d chained a thousand cigarettes. Lily swore she could smell smoke in the words themselves despite keeping her distance from him. She gave Jazzy a helpless glance, then looked over to the red double doors.
“I’ll only be a minute,” she said, a tight knot in her throat.
When Lily entered the empty theatre hall, she found that all the house lights were down. The only illumination that remained was coming from the single spotlight that Baptiste used, and it was trained on the centre of the stage. Sitting in the middle of the spotlight was Lily’s little blue handbag. Feeling the hairs begin to stand on her arms, she tried to back away.
“All lost property is brought to the centre of the stage,” Belnerg hissed from right behind her.
As she leapt away from him in abject horror, he slammed the double doors on her, leaving her alone in the dark, cavernous space. She walked slowly past the nearby rows of empty seats, trying desperately not to look up into the dress circle or the upper rows, in case there was someone, or something, lurking there. Slow steps took her up the left hand stairs that led to the old boards of the stage. Lily could see the scorch marks where the flames from Dharma’s dress had burned the floor, but there was no sign of the outlets where the flamethrowers that made them should have been. Her mouth was suddenly dry as she stepped into the too-bright spotlight, snatching her bag from the stage and slinging it over her shoulder.
“Ah.”
She might well have expected that to be the moment for the voice to speak, but when it did it still made her shout out loud as her hand raced to calm her heart. Lily’s almond eyes widened as she looked down into what should have been the orchestra pit. Aside from a few instruments in cases, there was just a long bench made of a wood so ancient it had turned black. Above it, in the alcove designed to hide the musicians, were the words THE ROW BELOW carved in a calligraphic script. Beneath those words, at the centre of the bench, sat Lemarick Novel.
“I was hoping I’d got the right bag.”
Lily stumbled back on the stage as the illusionist got to his feet. He was still made up in his horrific black and white face powder, but his long coat was gone, revealing a waistcoat and a ruffled shirt on which he had rolled up the sleeves. Novel jumped the gap between the pit and the stage with a lift that looked as though he’d set foot on a trampoline. He landed with the inhuman grace of a flighty bird, on the very edge of the stage. It looked as though he had evaded gravity to do it so expertly.
“Do calm yourself,” he said in a low tone. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
She watched his eerie black lips as he said the words, her breath growing heavier with every second that passed.
“Yeah?” she said, hardly breathing, “well, you’re not exactly giving me a fluffy puppy kind of vibe, mate.”
“Ha.”
His lips didn’t bend at all as the laugh escaped him. As Novel stepped into the spotlight, Lily caught sight of his arms, drawn instantly to the marks running down them. Garish red Lichtenbergs, the lightning flowers, lined every space available. His veins were spread out, fried below the skin just as Lawrence had described to the professor, sprawling in a fern-like pattern from various points of impact. He had been struck by lightning, real natural lightning. Recently. Repeatedly. And all over.
Novel saw her looking. “I just need to talk to you,” he pressed, holding out one scarred arm.
Lily leapt away, clutching her bag. “My friend’s just outside,” she stammered. “If anything happens to me, she’ll, she’ll-”
“Didn’t you hear me?” he said in a louder, fiercer tone. “Talk. Just talk to me.”
“Why?” Lily demanded, her throat clogged with dry air. “What do you need from me? I… I don’t know anything.”
“I need to know what you are,” he replied.
“What?” Lily cried, backing away again.
Novel came after her sharply and blocked off her path down into the aisle. She froze with an open mouth, watching as his stern face contorted into a look of mild confusion.
“You don’t know, do you?”
“Let me go,” she pleaded, now convinced that he was completely insane. “I’ve got my phone you know. I could call the police!”
“I’m surprised it works for you,” he observed, ignoring the threat. “Most machines don’t operate for me.”
Lily was at a terrifying loss, all her avenues of thought meshing into one blinding fit of panic. If she tried any of the exits from the stage, she was certain that Novel would reach them first. If she plunged into the deep orchestra pit, she was sure to break a leg. Her whole body shook as her feet stayed rooted in place. She looked into Novel’s painted face, deep into the pale cobalt eyes shining out of the blackened sockets, unable to read that same look he was casting upon her.
“What do you want me to do?” she asked weakly, terrified of the answer.
“Defend yourself.”
He lunged forward so fast that all Lily could do was throw her hands out in front of her to stop him. As Novel’s chest connected with her hands, she got one glimpse of his face up close. His expression was still one of curiosity, and there was no malice despite the force of his attack. In the second it took her to notice this placid look, he was gone. A gust of wind came from nowhere at all and whipped up around Lily, then it threw Novel down into the empty aisle. Overhead the glass in all the lanterns shattered, with a sickening sound like a million nails on blackboards, showering them both in sharp little shards. Every bone in Lily’s body willed her to race away whilst she had the chance, but something kept her watching as Novel got back to his feet.
Slowly, impossibly, his body flickered with the glow of a flame. Faint orange lights surrounded his frame like the ones he had used with Dharma on the stage, only these licked at his skin and his clothes as he raised a pale finger slowly to his black lips. He was bleeding a little onto his chin.
“I thought so,” he said, calm as ever.
“What did you do?” Lily demanded, denying her eyes the chance to believe that the man she was interrogating was actually on fire as they spoke.
“That explosion wasn’t me,” Novel answered, “that was you.”
Now was the moment Lily’s legs decided they could move again. She bolted down the stage stairs and out of the double doors, knocking Belnerg clean over in the foyer where Jazzy was waiting with a terribly worried look. The girls fled the scene, Lily crying with the shock of it all, as they raced back up into the dark park where they were at least in sight of home. When Lily finally stopped rushing, the tears dried on her face in a gentle breeze, but one look at the pine trees told her that the rest of the night was perfectly still.
NOVEMBER
Shadepeople
Lily made excuses that she had gotten freaked out in the theatre all alone, deciding not to face the prospect of telling Jazzy about the impossible things she had seen and felt. The nightmares came and went – flashes of fire, gusts of air, those haunting blue eyes enveloped by blackness – until Lily was no more able to push the thoughts from her waking hours than she was the ones in which she slept. The end of October brought with it a so-called ‘reading week’ in which classes were put on hold for students to catch up on their book lists. Jazzy took full advantage of this time for its proper purpose, until she was invited to a party on Halloween by her English degree friends, which Lily promptly declined to go with her to. She’d had quite enough ghouls as it was.
After pretending that Halloween didn’t exist, Lily threw herself into the noble pursuit of watching Disney movies on her fuzzy laptop and catching up on her sleep. It was amazing what a few rounds of Bambi and The Lion King could do, especially if she remembered to skip through the grisly parts. She began to wonder slowly if she hadn’t imagined a lot of the things she thought she’d seen that night after the show, or if perhaps they had just been some really good special effects, designed to freak out
any unsuspecting dummy who went back to the theatre when they shouldn’t have been there. It was possible that the whole thing was some sick set-up for Novel to get his kicks out of frightening girls, and that Lily could put it down to one humiliating life experience that she would eventually forget.
Until there came a knock at the door.
It was early November and Lily was in her pyjamas, engaging in the careful process of painting her toenails when the first loud rap hit the door. It wasn’t the kind of knock that belonged to anyone in Wellesley Dorm; it sounded more like that of a security guard. Jazzy gave her a weird look as Lily rose and padded carefully over to the door, so as not to get her hot pink polish on the carpet. She swung the door open, frozen to the spot as it revealed him. She took in the deep navy blue suit first, her eyes trailing up from his pinstriped trousers to his waistcoat and pocketwatch-chain, before they finally settled on his face. It was mercifully make-up free and had that softer, more human look. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for the vicious, irritated expression that was slowly fading from his face.
“I must speak to you,” Novel said in a flat, low tone.
When Lily said nothing, Jazzy made a shift somewhere behind her.
“Who is it?” she pressed.
“I, um,” Lily began, her eyes fixed on the illusionist and his patient face. “I’m just going down to the common room. Be right back.”
“Okay.”
Going to a public place was far more sensible than letting him into their room, but Lily soon remembered that it was past ten at night when she arrived at the empty common room with Novel in tow. The others were either in bed or out drinking at this hour, but she settled as confidently as she could into an armchair, hugging her arms around her chest as the wintery chill made her wish she’d worn thicker pyjamas. She kept her eyes on her own half-painted nails as Novel’s polished shoes came into view. She could see her own terrified face in them as he sat down opposite her, trying desperately to calm her expression enough to meet his eyes again.