The Rebirth of Wonder

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  Chapter Thirteen

  It was odd to see the stage lit only by the worklights from here – usually, he would only use the peephole much farther along, after the lights were up. Everything was dim and bare.

  “Places, everyone!” Innisfree called. Voices did not carry very well through the peephole, but Art could hear that clearly enough.

  Except for Innisfree himself, the Bringers dispersed, to the wings and far upstage – Art wondered whether there would be sets of some kind hiding the three who now stood along the back of the theater, right against the plank wall.

  Innisfree stood center stage, facing away from his audience – the audience he presumably didn't know was there. Art shifted his feet slightly; he expected to be watching for some time yet, and he didn't want to get stiff.

  The tall man on the stage raised his hands and spoke a word, a word Art had never heard before and could not begin to spell; abruptly, Innisfree's white shirt and light gray slacks vanished, replaced by a floor-length white robe.

  Art blinked.

  That was a very good stunt; he had no idea where the robe had been hidden, or how Innisfree had gotten it on so quickly without a single snag or jerk.

  Then Innisfree began chanting. This time the words weren't quite as strange, but they still weren't English; Art thought the language might be Latin.

  Other voices joined his, and four of the Bringers stepped forward – Faye Morgan and Al Tanner to stage left, Wang Yuan and Kier Kaye to stage right. They moved inward in slow steps, stopping at the inner chalk circle, forming a ring around Innisfree.

  They were wearing robes, gold and red and green and blue. Each of them was holding something. Morgan raised what she held, and Art saw that it was a sword – and at least from where he stood, it didn't look like a prop. It seemed to catch the light amazingly well.

  She waved it slightly, and the tip of the sword drew a flaming red line in the air, a line that hung there, burning. She twisted it back on itself and formed it into a symbol, something resembling an infinity sign, but not exactly that, something a little more complex.

  Art blinked, and took a moment to rub his eyes.

  How did she do that?

  Wang held up a bone, and etched a symbol in the air; this one blazed white.

  Kaye used a gnarled black staff, and her sign glowed green.

  Tanner's shape, drawn with something that Art couldn't make out, something that glittered like glass, burned gold.

  The lights dimmed.

  Art started; how did they do that? None of the work lights were on dimmers! The backstage lights never had been, and he'd patched the onstage work lights back out onto the regular toggle switch so they'd be handier for the Bringers.

  Were they running some kind of heavy equipment that was draining current? Maybe they'd blown a fuse before, maybe that was the emergency they'd wanted him for.

  The other seven Bringers stepped forward now, forming an outer circle; they were still in their street clothes, and they didn't join in the chanting. Some held things, some did not. Maggie stumbled over something, and Art thought he could hear Yeager's penetrating voice muttering.

  The lights returned to normal, and the four symbols in the air vanished in wisps of smoke. Innisfree, still standing at center stage with his arms spread, called out, “Behold, our arts are mighty!”

  “Nay, Lord,” replied Morgan. “They fade, they die!”

  “See, Master,” Tanner said, “where once we brought forth dragons!”

  A pigeon appeared in the air before him, flapping wildly. Art was mildly impressed; he couldn't imagine where the bird had come from. It wasn't anywhere near so fine a trick as the writing-in-air stuff, though.

  “See, Magister,” Kaye announced, “where once we devastated kingdoms!” A flash of fire sprang from her fingers and vanished in the air.

  Art had seen Tanner do that, or something very similar, once before. Maybe Tanner and Kaye had switched roles?

  “Sire,” Wang said, “our powers dim!”

  “That's more like it,” Yeager said – not in a theatrical proclamation like the others, but just speaking normally. Her harsh voice cut through the mysticism and shattered the illusion the play had created; Art shook his head in annoyance at being yanked out of the dream.

  Onstage, Innisfree dropped his pose and nodded. “It's working again,” he said. “We don't need to run through all of it right now.”

  “You're sure it's that young man who's responsible?” Karagöz asked.

  Innisfree shrugged. “What else could it be?”

  “But he's not...” Maggie began.

  “Oh, he's not doing it on purpose,” Innisfree interrupted.

  Art blinked. Not doing what on purpose?

  This was all very interesting. There apparently really was a play being put on, and he had just watched a scene from it – the opening, perhaps? And they had costumes and props, at least some of them, even if they didn't have lights or sets.

  They had special effects, too – amazingly good ones. That writing-in-the-air stuff was really something.

  They weren't drug dealers or white slavers or anything else reprehensible, after all; Marilyn's theorizing had been wrong. They were a bunch of magicians putting on a show, just as they'd said all along.

  But what was he supposed to be responsible for? Why did they want him in the building, but not watching? What was he doing, not on purpose?

  “All right, people,” Innisfree said, clapping his hands together in a gesture Art thought every director who had ever lived must have used, back at least as far as Aristophanes. “Let's see what we can do.” Innisfree looked around, then pointed at Kaye.

  She smiled, and vanished in a flurry of green silken robe. A large black cat appeared in her place.

  Innisfree's gaze fell on Wang, who raised a hand. Wang held it over his head for a moment; something seemed to shimmer.

  Then he lowered it again and shook his head.

  “All right, all right,” Innisfree said. “It's still early, still three weeks to go.”

  Art stared at the cat, which was behaving very calmly for a beast that had presumably just been flung onto an open stage by some hidden device. The animal was sitting there, watching Innisfree and the others; it wasn't even washing itself or curling up, it was just sitting there.

  Where had Kaye gone, anyway? He hadn't seen any of the Bringers checking the traps or anything. If she was down in the basement...

  Something orange and white strolled out onto the stage; at first Art thought it was another cat, but then he got a better look at it.

  It was a fox. A red fox.

  He stared; how on earth had that got there? He'd never heard of anyone taming or training a fox.

  The word reminded him of something, and he looked at the Bringers.

  Ms. Kaye was still missing, and now so was Ms. Fox.

  These people were good, he decided. If he didn't know better, he would have sworn that Kier Kaye had actually transformed herself into a black cat, and Ms. Fox into a red fox.

  The fox and the cat watched each other, but neither made any hostile move – and that, in itself, was pretty amazing. The fox settled down on its haunches a yard or so from the cat and looked about with interest.

  Flowers were raining onto the stage, and Art had been so intent on the animals that he had no idea who was responsible. Pink blossoms were falling and drifting from nowhere.

  A sudden wind stirred them up, disrupting the slow, gentle swirls and sending petals and stems skittering across the stage. Even from the far end of the house, on the other side of the little peephole, Art could feel the sudden change in the theater's air; it had turned cold and dry, and the wind was increasing.

  Art pulled away. What kind of wind machine could do that?

  He hadn't seen any wind machine, anyway. The theater didn't come with one; previous productions had borrowed household fans when they needed wind. He hadn't seen one backstage anywhere.

  He felt a
chill that wasn't just from the cool breeze now spraying out through the peephole.

  People onstage were applauding.

  This was crazy.

  Art marched to the double doors connecting the lobby to the house and swung them wide.

  For an instant, he felt that cold, impossible wind; then it died away, and the warm, dead air of the theater was just as still as ever. A hush fell as everyone onstage turned to look at him.

  The fox ran for the wings; the cat watched him with interest, but did not immediately flee.

  “Arthur!” Innisfree called. “Was there something you wanted?”

  There were flowers and loose petals strewn all over the stage; he had not imagined that. The cat was still there, staring at him; he had not imagined that, either.

  But what could he say?

  Could he say, “I think your magic is too real,” or, “You're frightening me,” or, “What are you doing?”

  “I'm done up here,” he said. “Thought I'd check the fuses; it seemed like the lights dimmed a minute ago.”

  The cat got up and ambled off, stage right.

  “Suit yourself,” Innisfree said. “Can't say as I noticed anything.”

  Art strolled down the aisle, hands in his pockets, determinedly casual, as the Bringers stood about, watching him or doing nothing. They looked just as sincerely casual as he did, he realized; all ten of them looked as if they were nervous and trying to hide it.

  Eleven of them, that is; Ms. Fox reappeared as he reached the front row. And twelve; when he mounted the stage-right steps, Ms. Kaye emerged from the wings.

  He scuffed at the flowers as he crossed the stage; they were real and solid. He glanced around.

  The five who had formed the inner circle – Innisfree, Wang, Kaye, Morgan, and Tanner – were still in their robes, but the props had vanished. He could see no sword, no staff, no bone, no bottle.

  And there wasn't any wind machine anywhere. He even glanced up at the catwalk, but no, that was empty.

  The main fuse box looked just fine, but that was reasonable enough; it was designed for about 15,000 watts of stage lighting, could handle 20,000 in a pinch, and the work lights and a few special effects wouldn't bother it.

  Not unless the special effects were drawing a lot of current, in which case they'd be a serious fire hazard. Art frowned at the thought, then shook his head.

  There weren't any cords or cables; nobody was drawing extra current from this box. The work lights had their own two circuits, each with a thirty-amp screw-in fuse, and those weren't smoked or hot, let alone blown.

  If there'd been enough draw to dim the lights the fuses should have at least been warm to the touch, and they weren't.

  One of these days, Art thought, he'd have to talk his father into putting in circuit breakers; it was getting hard to find the old-fashioned fuses.

  On the other hand, a circuit breaker didn't get warm or smoked, did it? It was either tripped or it wasn't, where fuses could show warning signs.

  And he was thinking about this to keep from thinking about anything else. He knew he was doing it. The rest of it was too hard to deal with. Where had the wind come from? The flowers? The fox? Why did they want him in the building?

  They weren't drug dealers or white slavers, but they might still be cultists, and right now he wouldn't put it past them to be using real magic and wanting him for their ritual sacrifice.

  Except there's no such thing as magic, he reminded himself. There couldn't be.

  It was just a lot of things adding up, all getting to him at once, that made him even consider the possibility of real magic, he told himself. He knew better than that. If he weren't by himself in the theater, surrounded by weirdos, at night...

  “Looks okay here,” he said.

  “Isn't there another fuse box in the cellars?” Maggie asked.

  Startled, he turned to look at her, and found all twelve of the Bringers watching him.

  “Yeah, there is,” he admitted. “I'll go take a look.”

  They watched him cross the stage, watched him fumble with the keys and get the basement door open; it was with a great rush of relief that he took the first step down, out of their sight.

  He emerged into the passage at the bottom and was unable to resist the temptation; he turned right and slid the big door open and turned on the light in the big room under the stage.

  Nothing had been disturbed; the traps in the ceiling were all closed, and showed no signs of recent use.

  He shrugged and turned around.

  The prop room looked just as he had left it.

  The wardrobe room was just as he remembered; the black door was still there, still closed and mysterious.

  He ambled down the corridor to the end, and turned left, into the narrow passageway where the water meter and the lobby fuse box resided. This space was in deep shadow; the only light came from the ceiling lights in the central passageway, and the last of those was about ten feet back from the corner. Art's own body blocked out much of the light.

  He could make out the pull-chain of the passage's own light, though; he reached up and gave it a tug. The bare bulb that hung down a few inches above his head came on.

  On the left was cracking plaster, painted white long ago, now faded to a dull gray; the lath beneath had patterned the gray with darker two-inch stripes.

  On the right the wall was rough stone, the last remnants of ancient whitewash still visible in streaks here and there; black pipes emerged from the stone near the ceiling, turned a right angle, and descended the wall to eye level, where they connected to the rusted green metal box of the water meter. Farther in, near the corner, was the black steel of the fuse box, two thick metal-wrapped cables leading out the top and into the ceiling. The ceiling, far above, was bare planking, dark with age; the floor was gray granite.

  And the far end of the passageway was another rough stone wall – but in this one was a door. A black six-panel door, full-sized, its ancient finish crazed and pebbled, speckled with the orange of old shellac.

  “Oh, my God,” Art said, staring.

  There had never been a door there before. He knew that. There were never any costumes stored here that might have hidden it.

  He fished out his key ring, just in case, and stepped forward into the passage. With the ring in his left hand, he reached out with his right and gripped the blackened brass knob.

  It turned. The latch clicked, and the door swung open.

  And warm sunlight spilled into the corridor around him.

  At 10 p.m., in a New England cellar, sunlight lit the passage, colored his sneakers with gold.

  He blinked, and stepped through the door.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Maggie saw the light the moment she stepped into the central corridor.

  “Art?” she called, as she made her way step by step down the passage. “Art, are you there?”

  She hesitated at the corner, then turned, and found the open door.

  And Art.

  He was sitting in a meadow, surrounded by golden flowers and dancing butterflies. The sun hung huge and orange in the west; he was facing it, watching it.

  Maggie approached cautiously, but he heard her somehow, and looked up, startled. He said something, but she couldn't hear it – which came as no surprise, really. She had never seen such a door before, but she had heard of them and knew something about how they worked. The moment she had seen the meadow she had known what she faced, and that knowledge was itself something of a shock, but once that was past mere details were nothing.

  She hesitated again on the threshold, then stepped through.

  In an instant, the silence of the theater basement was replaced with the whirring of insects and the singing of the birds that pursued them. A gentle breeze rippled through the grass and flowers.

  She turned quickly, and made certain that the door was still there, still open.

  It was; its frame was part of a small, colorful little shed built against the side o
f a steep hill. The shed was enamel and gilt and painted porcelain, but through it she could see the rough stone and plaster of the basement corridor, the fuse box, the water meter, all of it sane and normal.

  “Maggie,” Art said. “Sit down.”

  “I don't know if...”

  “Sit down!” Art bellowed.

  Maggie sat down quickly.

  For a moment, the two of them sat there in the grass, staring at each other. Art's expression was blank, and Maggie's wary.

  Then Art spoke, saying wearily, “Maggie, whoever you are, will you tell me something?”

  “What?” she asked.

  “What the hell is going on?” He waved an arm at the landscape, taking in the meadow, the sinking sun, the grove of trees nearby, the towers that glittered above the trees in the distance. “What is this place?”

  Maggie sighed.

  “I suppose,” she said, “that I'll have to tell you everything.”

  “Please,” Art said.

  “I told you I'm a witch...” she began.

  “No,” he corrected her, “you told me that your grandmother had been called a witch.”

  “All right, you're right, I did,” she agreed. “Well, whatever I told you, I am a witch. A real one, and the last real Scottish witch in the world.”

  “Wiccan, you mean? There aren't any in Scotland?”

  “No, not Wiccan. They're just pagans. I mean, some of them think they're witches, but...” Her voice trailed off. She paused, then said, “Let me start over.”

  “By all means,” Art agreed.

  “This is magic,” she said, waving an arm to take in the entire landscape that surrounded them. “It's real magic, the stuff that's in all the old stories.”

  “It's not a fake, like the holodeck on Star Trek?” Art asked. “Or some kind of amusement park, or teleportation, or something?”

  “No,” Maggie said. “It's magic. This is Faerie.”

  “I didn't really think it was fake,” Art said. “It's too real.” He plucked a blade of grass and crumpled it between his fingers.

  A thought struck Maggie as she watched, and she asked him, “You haven't eaten anything, have you? Chewed on a bit of grass or anything?”