Spellcrossed

by Barbara Ashford

  The atmosphere encouraged Bernie to serenade me with “Some Enchanted Evening.” The staff soon joined in. When they got to the ending with its reminder to “never let her go,” everyone seemed to be looking at Rowan.

  Maybe that’s why he cleared his throat and said, “Well. It’s getting late.”

  I nodded. “But before we go, Jack, there’s one more role we wanted to discuss with you.”

  He grinned, showing blueberry-stained teeth. “I’d make a cute bunny.”

  “This is a role in Into the Woods.”

  He stared at me blankly.

  “You know the show, right?”

  You had the cast album. You listened to it a million times. You can probably sing every song in the score.

  Daddy’s fork clattered onto his plate. “You want me to be in a real show?”

  “If you want to. One of our actors dropped out. Bernie volunteered to fill in, but…”

  “It’s just too much for me.” Bernie took a trembling breath and morphed into the sad-eyed Puss in Boots. “I’m only good for two matinees a week. So I was hoping you’d play the Narrator at the evening performances.”

  Daddy frowned. “The Narrator?”

  “The one who opens the show,” I said. “And…narrates the action. Until they throw him to the giant.”

  I glanced at Rowan who was frowning, too. Uncertain what was happening, I laughed uneasily and added, “I’m afraid you won’t get to die spectacularly. It all happens off—”

  “That’s a dual role,” Daddy said.

  “On Broadway, it was. But we’re going to—”

  “You want me to play the crazy man.”

  “No! Just the—”

  “I get it! Let’s cast Jack. It’s the perfect role for him. He won’t even have to act!”

  I babbled out a denial, too horrified by his reaction to put a coherent sentence together.

  “I won’t do it! You can’t make me!”

  “Jack!”

  Daddy turned on Rowan, his lips curled in a snarl. In that instant, he did look crazy.

  “No one’s asking you to play the Mysterious Man,” Rowan said. “Maggie is offering you the role of the Narrator. That’s it.”

  The fury in Daddy’s face leached away and his uncertain gaze shifted to me.

  “I didn’t want to spring it on you as soon as you arrived. But I kept thinking: why should I scrounge up some inexperienced actor when I’ve got the man who played Billy Bigelow?”

  For once, those words failed to work their magic. Daddy just shook his head. “That was a long time ago.”

  “But you’re still an actor.”

  “I’m not sure what I am any more.”

  Suddenly, he looked far older than his sixty-three years. Old and small and unbearably fragile.

  “Maybe this role will help you figure it out,” Bernie said. “That happens a lot at the Crossroads.”

  CHAPTER 24

  WHAT DID I EVER SEE IN HIM?

  ON MONDAY MORNING, DADDY ACCEPTED the role of the Narrator.

  On Monday evening, he had a panic attack and shut himself in Rowan’s apartment.

  On Tuesday morning, he laughed off the incident and announced that he was fine.

  On Wednesday morning, he declared that he was never going to act again.

  On Wednesday afternoon, he began giving helpful little suggestions to the actors. Then stormed back to the apartment when I told him he was overstepping his bounds.

  On Thursday morning, he was all smiles and penitence, but the cast was eyeing him with misgiving, the staff was shooting me murderous glances, and Reinhard’s hair was standing on end. Only the fact that mine was longer prevented it from rising heavenward, too.

  Although Rowan appeared as preternaturally calm as ever, he was clearly struggling to control his temper—and his power. His frustration infected everyone. The actors sniped at each other; the younger staff grew moody or snappish. Even Reinhard and Alex couldn’t always shield themselves and became increasingly short-tempered. Janet remained immune because she refused to set foot in the theatre.

  Something had to change or none of us would live to see opening night. So on Friday, I suggested to Rowan that we have a little chat with Daddy over lunch.

  Rowan scowled. “I am sick of chatting with Jack. I spend every waking hour with Jack. The prospect of eating lunch with Jack is about as appealing as eating cast-iron filings out of a cast-iron skillet with cast-iron utensils.”

  “I’ll take that as a no.”

  “Maggie Graham. Perceptive Professional.”

  He stomped up the stairs to his apartment in a very unfaery-like manner. I muttered a few unflattering names under my breath, then whisked Daddy into town for lunch.

  He marveled at how little Dale had changed, just as Mom had when she visited me for the first time. But where she had been suspicious of the town’s timeless quality, Daddy was delighted by it.

  “It’s exactly the same,” he exclaimed as we walked into the Chatterbox.

  From the waitresses in their powder blue uniforms to the soda fountain stools at the counter to the jukeboxes in the cramped booths, the Chatterbox evoked a candy-coated past where kids were never more than naughty and parents never less than loving.

  We slid into a booth, the wooden seats worn smooth by generations of Dale butts. My father studied the menu. I studied him.

  He had talked about me that first night. Recalled the tent we had built, the games we had played. Since then, he had never brought up his family. Did he have to be on the brink of a mental breakdown before he could think about us? Was he avoiding the pain or didn’t he feel any?

  Look at me. I have the same auburn hair you had as a young man, the same smattering of freckles across my nose. You gave me your pointed chin and your blue-green eyes and your love of theatre. Can’t you see any of that?

  Obviously not. He just wolfed down his burger and fries, moaned ecstatically over his chocolate milkshake, and flirted outrageously with Dot, our waitress. I picked at my tuna salad and kept the conversation light, unwilling to risk a public meltdown by broaching the subject of his recent mood swings.

  Afterward, he insisted on stopping by the Bough. I warned him that it had changed, but I was still shocked when he took one look at the lobby and demanded, “Why can’t people leave things alone? The Bough was great. It had character! Now it looks ordinary.”

  My mother had deemed it perfect. I’d thought so, too. But now I recalled the quirky old furnishings and the moth-eaten draperies and the Victorian gloom and wondered if I’d stolen everything that had made the Bough unique.

  “Do you like the changes?” Daddy demanded.

  “I should. I made them. I own the Bough, remember? I told you and Rowan that your first morning back.”

  Daddy mumbled, “Oh, shit.” Then he shrugged and flashed that charming gap-toothed smile. “Oops.”

  I turned around and walked out.

  His dismissive words had stung. That little “oops” totally pissed me off. Why was I surprised? He’d thrown the theatre into chaos this week and hadn’t apologized for that, either.

  “Charming, yes. But completely self-absorbed.”

  “Maggie!”

  “And arrogant and superior.”

  “Wait!”

  “Always standing apart, judging.”

  I flung open the car door.

  “Please!”

  I turned to find him standing on the curb, quivering with anxiety.

  “It looks nice. Really. It’s just…I loved the Bough the way it was.”

  “Always making excuses…”

  I slumped against the car, suddenly exhausted. “I loved it, too. But I worked really hard on redoing the lobby and it hurt my feelings when you called it ordinary.”

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  “If you’d said that earlier, I wouldn’t have gotten mad. An apology goes a lot farther than a shrug and a smile.”

  He stared at me as if I
were chanting Hindi.

  “Do you understand?”

  “Yes. I was just…yes.”

  “Come on. I need to get to rehearsal.”

  Neither of us spoke on the short drive back, although Daddy kept stealing glances at me. After I parked the car at the theatre, I asked, “Do you want to tell me why you’ve been so up and down this week?”

  His hands tightened on his thighs. I found myself studying them: the loose flesh, the network of ropy blue veins, the tiny spots of dried blood where he’d gnawed his cuticles.

  “Are you worried about performing in Into the Woods?”

  “What if I’m awful?”

  “You won’t be.”

  “But what if I am?”

  “In all the years you acted, were you ever awful?”

  His forehead creased in a thoughtful frown. “Well, I wasn’t great in Natalie Needs A Nightie. But the material was so bad that—”

  “You were actually in a play called Natalie Needs a Nightie?”

  “In Scranton. Or Wilkes-Barre. Some place like that. I did a lot of dinner theatre. There’s a Girl in My Soup. Right Bed, Wrong Husband. Run for Your Wife.”

  “I was in one called Don’t Start Without Me,” I confessed.

  He smiled. Then his gaze slid away. “The thing is…my memory isn’t so hot anymore.”

  I resisted the urge to pat his hand. I was his director now, not his daughter.

  “The lines will come. It just might take awhile to get back in the groove.” When my words elicited only a dispirited nod, I added, “I’ll do whatever I can to help. Coaching. Running lines with you. But I can’t have any more disruptions during rehearsals.”

  “It’s Rowan’s fault. He’s making everyone nervous.”

  “Giving notes to my actors? That was Rowan’s fault?”

  “I was just talking with them.”

  “You were giving notes, Jack. And I won’t have it.”

  “You’re just mad because of what I said about the Bough.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “And now you’re taking it out on me!”

  “That is not true!”

  He scowled and looked away. I scowled and stared out the windshield.

  Had he always been like this? Was I inventing a shared past as candy-coated as the world conjured by the Chatterbox?

  “I want you to play this role, Jack. But if we can’t work together…”

  “We can.”

  “No more disruptions.”

  “Okay.”

  “And no more notes.”

  “Okay! Jeez…”

  He slid out of the car. I slumped back in my seat and closed my eyes.

  I was tired of pretending I wasn’t his daughter, worn down by his apparent lack of interest in his family, and increasingly fearful that Rowan’s assessment of his character was accurate. My mother’s had been more charitable, but equally gloomy:

  “That lost boy quality…it drew a lot of people to him. Including me. I thought I could make him happy, give him what he needed, make everything right. Of course, I couldn’t. No one could.”

  But I had to try.

  CHAPTER 25

  FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELTS

  WITH DADDY ON A MORE-OR-LESS EVEN KEEL, I expected Rowan to even out as well. But when I walked into the theatre the next morning, the chill raised goose bumps on my arms.

  It grew colder as I made my way through the stage left wings. The green room was empty. So was the hallway outside my office. The air felt noticeably warmer there.

  I felt like a kid playing Blind Man’s Buff…warmer, colder, really cold…

  Which is how it felt in the Dungeon. Tension crackled like static electricity, raising the hairs atop the goose bumps.

  When I heard muffled voices coming from the end of corridor, I started to run. Fae-powered anger sent a storm of adrenaline pumping through my body. I paused outside the closed door of the men’s dressing room long enough to hear Rowan claim that Alex had begged for his help and then resented him when it was offered, and Alex retort that he had never begged Rowan for anything in his life and wasn’t about to start now.

  At which point I flung open the door and shouted, “Have you completely lost your minds? Stop it! Both of you!”

  It wasn’t exactly helping professional behavior, but I was too infected by their anger to care. The roiling tension subsided. The temperature rose a good ten degrees. Alex slumped onto a chair. Rowan stalked past the costume rack and leaned his hands upon a table. I studied his reflection in the mirror, but his long hair shielded his face.

  Still shaking from the cold and the shock, I demanded, “What started this?”

  Alex frowned. Rowan shrugged.

  “I swear to God, if one of you doesn’t start talking…”

  “It was my power.” Rowan straightened abruptly and turned to face me. “My control has been a bit…shaky lately.”

  “No kidding.” When he glared at me, I said, “Sorry. Aftereffects.”

  Rowan’s hand rose to knead the scar at his throat. He’d told me once that when he hurt someone, it throbbed. Judging from both men’s expressions, it must be throbbing like hell.

  “I apologize, Alex. I said a lot of stupid things I didn’t mean.”

  “That makes two of us. It’s so weird—understanding exactly what’s happening but feeling helpless to stop it. I’ve always been bad at shielding myself. When I succeed, I feel like I’m going through life swaddled in cotton. When I don’t, I act like a lunatic.”

  “So are we okay here?” I asked.

  After a cautious exchange of glances, Alex nodded. Rowan hesitated, then said, “Alex, you and I have known each other for decades. I’ve worked with you more closely than anyone on the staff. Our relationship has always been…cordial.”

  Cordial? Jesus. My relationship with the maids at the Golden Bough was cordial.

  Rowan’s head swung toward me. “I never had the kind of relationship with the staff that you have. I didn’t attend birthday parties or holiday dinners—or barbecues. A necessary precaution, I believed. To avoid…emotional entanglements. Even with Helen, I never really let down the walls.”

  “You did for Maggie,” Alex said.

  “More accurately, Maggie bulldozed the walls and I stood there in the rubble, blinking in shock.” Rowan’s tentative smile faded. “The point I’m trying to make is that I’ve never had a truly close friendship with anyone. I’m not even sure that I can. But I’ve watched all of you these last few weeks—laughing and talking and arguing with each other. Somehow, you manage to maintain that precarious balance between your personal lives and your professional ones. And I…envy that.”

  I wondered if Alex was as shaken as I was by that unexpected confession.

  “Friendship’s like any other relationship,” I said. “It takes two to tango. If you never get out on the dance floor…” I grimaced. “Okay, stupid metaphor.”

  “Actually, it’s a very good one,” Alex said.

  Rowan scrutinized him. “Did you resent my aloofness?”

  “When I was younger, I sometimes wished I had the key to unlock the door, but I appreciated the dangers. Even without Momma’s warnings—and Helen’s example.”

  “And my power?”

  “It always seemed as much a burden as a gift. But there were still times I was damn envious.”

  Rowan nodded, the blank mask on his face and the firm grip on his power hiding every hint of emotion.

  “I always wondered what I might have done with that kind of power. If I could have been a world-class musician or composer instead of a high school teacher.”

  “You are a world-class musician and composer,” Rowan said quietly.

  Alex bowed his head. “Thank you for that.”

  I was surprised to hear the tremor in his voice. And more surprised that I was party to this conversation. Maybe I was the safety net Rowan needed to crack open the door.

  “But I doubt you’ll be recognized as worl
d-class in Dale,” Rowan continued. “If you want that…if you need that…”

  “I think about it sometimes, but…no. I’m happy in my little corner of the world. And I love teaching. Maybe that’s something I inherited from you.”

  “From me?” Rowan echoed.

  “By blood or by example. You’re a teacher, too. You just have a different classroom.”

  Rowan nodded. Then he awkwardly stuck out his hand. Just as awkwardly, Alex rose and shook it.

  “For what it’s worth, Alex, I envied you, too. What you had with Annie.”

  Alex smiled, but the ache of his sadness throbbed through me.

  “Maybe someday, you’ll find—”

  “Another Annie?” Alex shook his head.

  “Another person to love.”

  Alex looked startled. Then he ducked his head and mumbled, “Sounds like one of Helen’s impossible possibilities.”

  “I found Maggie. What’s more impossible than that?”

  Both men gazed at me, Alex with fondness and Rowan with a smoldering intensity that stole my breath. Then he abruptly strode out of the room.

  Alex sank onto a dressing table. “In all the years I’ve known him, he’s opened up to me just twice. Once, when Annie died. And again, in the letter he left when he returned to Faerie.”

  “It won’t be easy for him,” I warned. “The whole friendship thing.”

  “You’re telling me? Still, he’s making great progress.”

  Helen had said that during the early days of my rocky relationship with Rowan.

  “But right now,” Alex continued, “we’ve got to address this…situation.”

  “I thought he’d improve. Once Daddy settled down.”

  “Jack may get under Rowan’s skin, but that’s not why he’s strung as tight as piano wire. You two haven’t had a moment alone since he returned.”

  That wasn’t entirely true. We’d had about forty-five minutes altogether, which had included a few passionate kisses and one interrupted feel.

  I could focus during rehearsal. It was afterward—during a break or a hurried lunch—that I found myself watching him like an obsessed schoolgirl. The way his tongue flicked out to retrieve a blot of mayonnaise from his lip. The way his jeans hugged his ass when he walked back to the Smokehouse. Those long fingers cradling a glass of milk.