No, no. This is bad, I thought. But I couldn’t think of a way to turn Drew down that wouldn’t make things worse.
Finally, Edmund asked, “What help can ye be more than you have already been, Drew?”
“What help do you need?”
“So much,” Edmund said.
“Edmund, don’t,” I said. “Drew’s a good guy, but if he knows, then Bobby’s going to know. And if Bobby knows, sooner or later everybody will.”
“Not true,” Drew said, with a hint of annoyance. “I’ve been running interference for Edmund since he got here, and Bobby doesn’t even realize it. And I’ll go right on do.ing it, whether you tell me what’s happening or not. I’m just saying, if I know what I’m helping to hide I can do a better job.”
“I can trust Drew,” Edmund said. “He’s already proven that I can.”
And that was true, I realized. Drew had been covering for Edmund tonight. And before, when Vivian was so interested in why Edmund didn’t know how to drive. Maybe being a little weird himself made Drew able to pick up on weird.ness in general. In any case, he’d figured out from the start that there was something strange about Edmund and that it needed to be protected. But still. But still.
“I will tell ye, Drew,” Edmund said at last.
“You’d better come into the house, then.” I sighed. “But ’tis an idea I like not.”
Chapter Fourteen
It turned out that Drew had actually heard of Doctor Dee. Of course he had.
“He was the greatest polymath of the Elizabethan era,” he said. “I think so, anyway. Better than Francis Bacon any day for my money. I mean, Dee would try anything.”
“Aye, that he would,” Edmund agreed. “Bacon’s learning was but a flitch to Dee’s.”
Which made him and Drew snort, and made Mom and me look at each other.
“Flitch. It’s a cut of bacon,” Drew explained.
“Hilarious,” I said.
“But how do you start out with necromancy and end up with time travel?” Drew said. “Wait. Maybe I sort of get it. Necromancy, raising the dead, may in fact be the suspension of linear time and its replacement by nonlinear time over a limited area defined by the pentagram. But no, because then—”
“Nonlinear time?” Edmund said. “Drew, ye make no sense.”
“He means something like synchronicity,” Mom said.
She had gotten up when we came in. She was sitting in Dad’s armchair looking sleepy and beautiful in her gray ki.mono with the cranes on it.
And now it was Drew’s and Edmund’s turn to look blank along with me.
“Synchronicity is an important concept in Jungian psy.chology,” Mom said. “What we call coincidence isn’t at all. Things happen together but not because of cause and effect. We don’t know why, but we know that they do.”
“Mom, how did you—?” I began.
“I’m married to your father,” she said and shrugged.
“And that sounds a lot like what we seem to see when we look at subatomic reality,” Drew said. “I wonder if what Doctor Dee isn’t—wasn’t—isn’t—whatever—transposing sub-atomic time and super-atomic time? In any case, my guess is that Edmund got caught in that channel. Doctor Dee opened it, Edmund fell into it and Miri, you pulled him out. Your spell formed the other end of the channel.”
“But how?” I said.
“Maybe you touched synchronicity,” Drew said.
“Drew, this is all very interesting, but it’s not very help.ful,” Mom said. “Whatever happened, we have to deal with the results. Edmund’s here. And we have to proceed on the assumption that he’s here forever.”
“Right. You’ll need a birth certificate,” Drew said. “One that says you’re at least eighteen. Yeah, eighteen’s perfect. You’re old enough to be an adult, and too young for anyone to wonder why you haven’t shown up on the radar screen be.fore. Then there’s voter registration, draft registration. Pretty soon we’ll have you so nailed down in the twenty-first cen.tury you couldn’t leave if you wanted to.”
“But how can we get him a birth certificate?” I said.
“I’ll work on it. And, Ms. Hoberman, do you still have an old cassette recorder?”
“Yes. Why?”
“We have some accent reduction tapes at the library,” Drew said. “I’ll check them out for you, Edmund.”
“Farewell, Warwickshire. Edmund must sound a new note….” Edmund said. “And mayhap I can paint myself like a red Indian, too. What d’ye think?”
He smiled when he said it, but he looked so sad I wanted to hug him.
“Intriguing. But unnecessary,” Drew said. “If you have any more great ideas like that, do share them, though.”
“I will,” Edmund said. “And Drew, if ye have any more thoughts about subatomic synchronicity or whatever it may be—”
“I’ll let you know,” Drew said. And he went out the door muttering, “Time travel...necromancy…metaphors for…?” or something like that.
“There goes a mighty mind,” Edmund said.
“Nice kid,” Mom said.
I was glad now that we’d let him in on Edmund’s secret. Drew might have been a little weird, but so was the secret. And maybe a weird guy was just what Edmund needed now to help keep him safe.
The next afternoon, Drew was back.
“The accent tapes,” he said. “Keep them as long as you need. I set them to ‘Missing’ in the computer. We’ll search for them for six months, then they’ll either magically reap.pear or be discarded.”
“Whoa, Drew,” I said. “Bandit, dude.”
“No harm, no foul. They’re tapes,” Drew said. “They haven’t been checked out in three years. Who has a cassette player anymore?”
“Just this ancient, withered crone, apparently,” Mom said as she walked into the room.
“I just meant it’s—it’s really okay—just this time—to do this,” Drew stuttered.
“Thank ye, Drew,” Edmund said. “I promise ye your gen.erosity will not be wasted.” He took one of the tapes out and turned it in his hand, trying to figure it out.
“There’s one more thing. I hung around the library after my shift and did a little research in the newspaper back files. I found a guy named Kenny Kramer who died in a swim.ming accident about ten years ago. Local kid. Born at Ban.nerman, in fact. You apply for a birth certificate in his name, and you’ll get it in a few weeks. I downloaded a hard copy. I thought you might feel more comfortable with that than doing it online.”
He handed Edmund the application and a copy of an ar.ticle that said Local Swimmer Dies Tragically.
“Drew, you’re wonderful,” Mom said. “Criminally in.clined, perhaps, but wonderful.”
Drew blushed. “Thanks.”
Edmund rubbed his chin as he read the article. “’Tis just as we talked about,” he said. “Yet I like it not. I cannot say why.”
“Just do it,” Drew said. “Once you’re Kenny Kramer you can apply to change your name to anything you want.”
“Right. Like Edmund Shakeshaft,” I said. “Only the three of us ever have to know you were someone else for a little while.”
“I don’t see that you really have any choice, Edmund,” Mom said. “And Kenny Kramer won’t mind.”
“I must be ruled by ye,” Edmund said. “I know it. But for some reason my heart revolts.”
“’Twill all be well,” I told him. “Fill out the form.”
And he did, in his jagged, loopy Elizabethan handwriting. All three of us volunteered to do it for him, but Edmund in.sisted on doing it himself.
“If ’twere done when ’twere done, then ’twere best done quickly,” he said. “And by meself and no other.”
When he was done, none too quickly it turned out, we put it in the mail to go out on Monday.
Edmund looked shaky. I put my hand on his arm.
Then he whipped around and clutched me to him.
“Oh, cuz, I know what ’tis. ’Tis goodbye to England. To all
my old life and everyone in it.”
Dad always said that when someone went through a big change they went through it over and over. That’s because different parts of us learn at different rates. So, where Ed.mund had accepted the fact of his being stuck in the twenty-first century almost as soon as he’d understood it, applying to be one of us had reached a whole new level, and that level had to grieve.
Mom tried to put her arms around us both.
All three of us shook with his sobs.
After a while, Edmund let me go.
“Thank ye both,” he said. “Excuse me now. I must be alone to pray, I think.”
He went into his room.
We heard him start to cry again.
“Isn’t there anything we can do?” I asked Mom.
“We’re doing it, hon. They also serve who only stand and wait.”
“Is that Shakespeare, too?”
“Milton. But it’s true.”
“I guess I’ll go in my room, too,” I said.
“All right,” Mom said. “Damn it, I wish your father were here.”
So I sat in my room and listened to Edmund crying, and cried for him. Oh, Edmund, I’d do anything I could for you, I thought. You just have to ask.
My tears fell onto the damp patches he’d left on my shirt, and they flowed together.
Chapter Fifteen
After I felt a little better—a little calmer, anyway—I went back out into the living room. Mom was sitting in her chair reading.
“Do you want dinner?” she asked.
“I want to make dinner.”
“You do?” Mom said, and her eyebrows shot up. “Are you sure you’re up for it?”
“Yeah. I’m tired of only standing and waiting. I want to do something.”
“Then don’t let me stand in your way keeping you wait.ing. What are we having?”
“I haven’t got a clue,” I said. “Maybe something English.”
But I didn’t know what they ate for dinner in London in 1597, and whatever it was, we probably didn’t have it any.way. I ended up making a huge salad with chicken and toast croutons in it. Chopping all those vegetables gave me a good feeling.
We ate it, and then we did the dishes together and went back into the living room. Mom went back to her book, and I tried to do my English assignment, but I couldn’t pay atten.tion to it. I read all the way to the end of The Great Gatsby and didn’t even get that Gatsby died.
Then we went to bed, and I lay awake listening for Ed.mund. That was a long night. Milton had it right.
The next morning, Edmund came into the kitchen smil.ing.
“Give ye good morrow, fair ladies,” he said, hugging us both. “And a fair, rare morning it is.”
I was about as surprised as I’d have been if he’d come in wearing a suit of armor, a feather boa and a stuffed baby al.ligator on his head. More surprised, actually.
“You want some breakfast?” I said.
“I am near starved. A night on his knees can give a man an appetite!”
I got up and made him some bacon and eggs, feeling de.lighted that there was something I could do for him.
Edmund sat down beside Mom.
“So. You seem a lot better,” Mom said.
“My courage came back with the dawn,” he said. “Truly does the Bible tell us, ‘A night of weeping bringeth joy in the morning.’”
“Uh-huh,” my mom said. “You must be pretty tired, though.”
“I do not feel so. I should, but I do not. Miri, may we not do some work together on our parts today?”
“Sure,” I said. “Great.”
Edmund wolfed his food while Mom finished her coffee.
I started humming. A day being Romeo and Juliet with Edmund was exactly what I wanted.
But Mom, with a little nod, clued me to follow her out to the front door. There, she whispered to me, “He’s acting too cheerful. I think he may be having a huge mood swing. People do it under emotional pressure. Perfectly normal. Just don’t be surprised if he crashes again, or does something a little desperate.”
“Desperate like how?”
“You’ll know it if you see it, I think,” Mom said. “Call me if you need to. I’ll be home after three.”
She hugged me and left.
By the time I got back to the kitchen, Edmund already had our scripts out.
“Shall we start with the balcony?” he said.
That morning was intense. Edmund was on fire. He kept turning every word, reading both parts, reading the lines differently each time. Or sitting with his eyes closed while I read the lines, his and mine. It was like he was trying to make Juliet’s moonlit garden real there in our kitchen.
After three hours of that, I needed to calm down, but not Edmund. He was all psyched about something, and unfor.tunately it wasn’t love for Miranda Hoberman.
“I feel as if Romeo is truly opening up to me for the first time,” he said. “Until this morning Dick Burbage’s work has been in my mind, and my hope has been to equal him. But now I begin to see my way to make the part my own. I see things that Burbage could never see, because he never played Juliet, as I have. Oh, Miri, I feel power in me.”
Power. That was the word for it, all right. Some strange energy was coursing through him, making him fly. Maybe it was Mom’s mood swing going full blast. Or maybe he was a genius.
The phone rang.
“Hi, it’s Drew,” Drew’s voice said. “Bobby and I want to work on our parts today. And I thought maybe you and Edmund would, too.”
“That’s funny,” I said. “Edmund and I are working now. Why don’t you ask him what he’d like to do?” and I handed over the phone. But I gave it to him backwards, accidentally. I wonder what Dad would have said about that.
We got the phone turned around, and Edmund held it like it was something live and squirmy.
“Ah, halloo?” he said into it. Then, “Aye, aye. ’Tis well thought of, dude. Aye, we shall be ready at twelve-thirty. Aye.” He gave me back the phone and I smiled into it.
“Sounds like a date,” I said, a lot more happily than I felt. I could have stayed on that balcony with Edmund all day. But, I told myself, it would be good for Edmund to have more rehearsal time with the guys. And I’d still be with him.
So I made us lunch and washed the dishes and right at twelve-thirty there was a knock on the door.
And it wasn’t Drew.
It was Vivian. She was wearing a slinky black leotard and a wispy little rehearsal skirt and a big, phony smile.
“Hi, guys,” she said. “Did Drew call back?”
I checked my phone. I’d had a call, but I’d turned my phone off without meaning to. Or, as Dad would have said, without my consciousness admitting to it.
And it had been Drew, calling to let me know that Bobby, damn him, had called Vivian and asked if she wanted to be in on what we were doing. And here she was to pick us up and take us over to Drew’s place. Lovely. This day was get.ting better and better.
Plus, Edmund’s eyes lit up like a wolf’s when he saw her.
“It’s so nice you can do this for me,” Vivian said as they went out the door. “I want so much to be a good Juliet, even though I’ll never get the chance to play her.”
“’Tis only what one actor owes another,” Edmund said.
Yeah, right, Edmund. You’re only thinking about her perfor.mance, I thought, and ground my teeth.
The five of us sat around in Drew’s living room, which was big and dark and furnished with tall green bookshelves and not much else except an old-fashioned sofa, and a line of wooden chairs that Drew had brought in from the kitchen table. The lowest row of bookshelves was wider than the oth.ers. They made a sort of bench that ran almost all the way around the room. There were a few big pillows stacked on the floor and in the corners of the shelves.
“Neat room,” I said, taking in all the books.
“We call it the Book Forest,” Drew said.
“’Tis like the Forest o
f Arden in As You Like It,” Edmund said.
“Like how?” I said.
“The Forest of Arden is no real forest,” Edmund said. “’Tis a magical place where anything might happen. So is this for.est, filled with the spirits of the trees from which the books were made and with the voices on the pages that whisper to the reader.”
“So cute!” Vivian said.
“Well, let’s see if we can do a little magic of our own,” Drew said.
But it wasn’t magic that happened in Drew’s living room. It was drama. Only not the one Shakespeare wrote.
It was supposed to be the kind of rehearsal where you make suggestions to each other. Then the polite thing to do is try them and see how they work. We started with Bobby and Drew, and Edmund reading in the extra characters in their scenes.
The first time Edmund tried to give Bobby a pointer about his reading, Bobby said, “Thanks,” and went on do.ing what he was doing.
The second time, Bobby shrugged and ignored the sug.gestion.
The third time, he said, “Look, Ed. I know you’ve done the play. But when I want your help, I’ll ask for it. Okay?”
“Your pardon,” Edmund said, and stopped making sug.gestions.
After about half an hour, Edmund and Vivian took over. That was when things went from tense to gamey. Vivian wasn’t even pretending not to come on to Edmund. And he wasn’t even pretending not to notice.
She rolled her eyes at him. He strutted, if you can strut sitting down, and tossed his hair like some supermodel in a shampoo commercial. I mean, they were ridiculous. Dis.gusting.
I was furious. I was hurt. And I wasn’t the only one. Bobby was looking at Edmund like he wanted to break his neck. And Vivian knew it and was playing up to Edmund even more.
Drew had said Bobby had a thing for Vivian. Apparently it was a big thing.
After a half hour of that, Drew said we ought to switch off, and suggested that he and Edmund do their scene where Drew makes fun of Romeo for being in love. But Bobby said, “I’d really like to work on the place in act one where Tybalt meets Romeo at the party. Drew, you can read Juliet’s old man.”
Drew agreed, and we went into that ill-fated in-your-face encounter.
The Juliet Spell Page 10