Borrowed Time (The Witches of Mingus Mountain #2)

10. A Night at the Theater

10

A NIGHT AT THE THEATER

Hidden among the dresses and underthings in the trunk my mother had left behind had been a gorgeous teal silk brocade gown. I’d hung it up along with everything else I found in the trunk, but I hadn’t believed I’d ever get to wear the dress during my tenure in the 1884 Flagstaff. It was the sort of thing you’d wear to a fancy dinner or the theater, not merely while walking around town.

But it seemed we were going to the theater tonight.

The dress wasn’t a ballgown, though, no matter how fancy it looked. My mother had told me some of the things she’d learned about fashion of the 1880s when she was preparing for her trip back in time to save my father, and one of them was that ballgowns either had no sleeves or small puffed sleeves, not these pretty elbow-length ones with their edging of hand-tatted silk lace.

But that was fine. I certainly didn’t know how to waltz or how to perform any of the other dances popular in the period, so I was more than happy to go to the theater tonight instead.

At least it wasn’t opera. I would have gone regardless, just for the chance to get out and about, but I’d never warmed up to that particular musical form.

Dinner first, of course, right here in the restaurant at the Hotel San Francisco, since it was a little fancier than the place where we’d had lunch. A pause to put on our outerwear — the weather had continued to be dry, but the nights were cold no matter how you looked at it — and then we would walk over to Leroux Street and have our evening at the theater.

I smoothed the silk overskirt of my gown and then examined my reflection in the mirror, looking over my ensemble with a critical eye. The teal hues of the gown brought out hints of green in my eyes that weren’t normally there, and I’d used the time after we’d come back to the hotel to rearrange my hair over and over again, finally landing on a complicated updo with multiple coils piled at the back of my head, with one long curl falling over my shoulder.

Luckily, that same wardrobe trunk had yielded a finely carved tortoiseshell comb that I had placed among those coils of hair, and I’d even found a little pouch that contained garnet earrings and a matching necklace and ring, all set in real gold. Because the fateful day when my father was shot at the Wilcox cabin had fallen on a regular weekday, my mother probably hadn’t seen the need to wear any of the jewelry — or the fancy hair comb — to work, and all those items had remained safely hidden in her trunk.

Seth knocked at the door to my hotel room, and I went to open it.

Even lost in time as we were, I had to admit there was something immensely satisfying about being able to make a man’s jaw drop like that.

“You — you look beautiful,” he blurted, then sent a worried glance down the hallway.

We were alone, though, with no witnesses to overhear that very unbrotherly compliment.

“Thank you,” I said serenely. “Just my luck that my mother had this awesome dress with the other things she left behind. But I suppose we should go down to dinner so we’re not late for the show.”

He seemed to come back to himself, and offered me his arm. “So you don’t have trouble with the stairs,” he explained.

It was in my mind to point out that I’d been managing those stairs in my bustled dresses for the past couple of days with no problem, but I decided that wouldn’t be very polite.

And, to be honest, the train on this dress was a little longer than the others, befitting its special-occasion status.

Dinner was excellent as always, and afterward, we headed out into the frosty night air — one of my wool cloaks hiding the glory of my gown, and Seth wearing his new overcoat — so we could walk over to the theater. Judging by the foot traffic on the streets around us, it seemed as though we weren’t the only ones with a similar diversion in mind, as most people appeared to be heading in the same direction.

I was glad we’d bought our tickets early, since we’d snagged the last few balcony seats rather than having to sit in the floor section with people crowding on either side. Instead, an usher showed us to the cutest little balcony with three chairs placed in it, although it seemed the third one would remain unoccupied.

Seth helped me with my cloak, which I laid on the empty seat, and he removed his overcoat and placed it on the chair as well.

“This is so fun,” I said, scanning the room. It wasn’t a very large theater, with seating for maybe a hundred people at most, but other little alcoves like the one where we were currently sitting adorned the opposite wall, all of them decorated with lots of gilt-brushed carvings. The ceiling of the theater itself had been painted to look like the night sky, with stars and the moon and billowy clouds making it feel as if we were sitting outside. “I’ve never been in a theater like this before.”

He glanced around at our surroundings, keen blue eyes taking in all the various details. “What are theaters like in your time?”

“A lot plainer,” I replied. “That is, I’m sure some antique theaters like this survive in various places, but I’ve never been to one. And our movie theaters are more about having the biggest screens and the best sound systems possible.”

“‘Sound systems’?” he repeated, looking puzzled.

Oh, right. I didn’t think they had talking movies in 1926 yet, which would explain his confusion.

“Not too long after your time, movies started having sound,” I said. “You can hear the people talking and hear the soundtrack…the musical score,” I added hastily, since his brows had begun to pull together in puzzlement once again.

Now he looked wistful. “That must be something to see.”

“Oh, it is,” I said. Probably better not to try explaining modern special effects and all the other improvements the movie industry had implemented over the past hundred-plus years. As far as I could tell, no one was trying to listen to us — and it wouldn’t have been all that easy, not with the walls that separated the little balconies from one another and the general murmur of the audience drifting up from the main seating area on the floor — but at the same time, I didn’t think it was a good idea to go into too many details. “But I think this is a lot of fun, too.”

His mouth quirked. “Well, maybe we should reserve judgment until we see the actual entertainment.”

He had a point there. Would someone like me, jaded a bit by all the various streaming shows and movies I’d seen, even find that much interesting in a variety act put on by a group of itinerant performers with probably varying levels of skill?

You’ll have fun if you let yourself have fun, I told myself, which were probably words to live by in a variety of situations and not just our current one.

Although my heavy bustle skirts and tight-laced corset wouldn’t exactly allow me to settle against the back of the chair, I still scooched myself backward a bit, getting settled in a more comfortable position. Seth, meanwhile, opened the little program the usher had given us.

“It looks as though they’re starting with some monologues and then a few selected scenes from various plays, and ending with a magic act.”

“You mean a sleight-of-hand act,” I replied with a grin. “We both know it’s not real magic.”

Seth’s eyes twinkled. “Well, true,” he said, then added, “Unless the magician is really a warlock.”

“I can’t imagine any clan putting up with that.” I knew my tone sounded flat, emphatic, but it was the truth. We all had to work so hard to conceal our magic from outsiders that I found it extremely difficult to believe any self-respecting witch family would allow one of its members to blatantly practice their gift in public.

“Probably not,” he allowed, although he still looked amused. “I suppose we’ll see for certain once that part of the show rolls around.”

In the meantime, we’d have to sit through scenes from Shakespeare and whatever other playwrights the people organizing the show deemed acceptable. I had to admit I was a little hazy when it came to the theater side of literature. Was 1884 late enough that they might be presenting something from George Bernard Shaw or maybe Oscar Wilde?

Maybe I should have paid more attention in my English lit classes.

The gaslamps flickering in the sconces dimmed, which I guessed was a signal to let everyone know it was time to get in their seats and quiet down. To be fair, the audience seemed sedate enough, a far cry from the rowdy gun-toting and heckling bunch in Tombstone, one of my grandfather’s favorite movies, which seemed to be on in the background at least half the time when I went over to visit my grandparents.

Someone stepped out on stage to touch a flame to the gaslights that illuminated the stage, and a lot of people in the audience started clapping. Seth and I joined in, even as we sent each other puzzled glances. Was this a tradition in theaters of the time, or something peculiar to the audience in Flagstaff?

Since I doubted we’d be able to travel the globe and sample theaters in various countries, I guessed that particular detail would forever remain a mystery.

The first two monologues were, as I’d guessed, from Shakespeare. In the first, an actress in a pale, filmy gown, with golden hair that I guessed wasn’t real cascading down her back, performed Ophelia’s “mad” scene from Hamlet. She was better than I’d expected, and I joined in the enthusiastic clapping that followed her scene. The next was a speech I didn’t recognize at all — and neither did Seth, since he only looked at me and shrugged when I sent him a questioning look.

A quick peek at the program told me the speech was from Coriolanus, which didn’t clarify much except to confirm that I knew absolutely nothing about the play.

The audience, however, seemed rapt enough and applauded with equal enthusiasm once the actor reciting those lines was done.

After that came scenes from plays I also didn’t recognize, but I told myself I should just relax and enjoy myself rather than trying to figure out the provenance of every single offering.

And then there was an intermission, although Seth and I decided to stay in our seats rather than wander downstairs and go in search of any refreshments. Even though I’d had good luck so far with maneuvering in my hand-me-down bustle dresses, I didn’t think it was a very good idea to head into such a crush and risk having the silken train of my gown tromped on by some rancher who’d decided to come into Flagstaff for the evening and get some culture.

With everyone coming and going, though, Seth and I kept our conversation studiously neutral, talking only about the weather and if we should stroll in the park again the next day, or whether we should go over to the train station and see if the schedules might allow us to jump on and travel to Kingman or Winslow for the day before returning to town in the evening.

I had a feeling that probably wouldn’t work, but it still didn’t seem like a bad idea to at least check and see what was feasible. Being in Flagstaff in 1884 was a confirmation of everything my mother had told me about the place, and yet I thought it would be fun to see what those other settlements were like, even if they might not offer as much in the way of amusement.

But then the lights dimmed again, and once more, everyone hurried to their seats if they weren’t already sitting down. The program told me there would be a few more scenes from plays before the magic act, and I resigned myself to sit through those, although it was the magician I was really interested in. When I was little, my family had watched some specials featuring magicians on TV, and even as a child, I’d known it was all smoke and mirrors, not real magic like we witches and warlocks practiced. Honestly — well, unless your gift involved throwing fireballs or lightning bolts — our kind of magic wasn’t all that showy. Anyone coming to watch us give a performance would most likely be pretty disappointed.

The post-intermission scenes actually went faster than I’d thought, however, probably because they included multiple actors and had more interactions, so they were snappier and held my interest more. All the same, I found myself sitting up straighter and focusing much more on the stage after the performers had exited and the magician walked out from behind the heavy red velvet curtains.

He was tall and had near-black hair slicked back from a lean, hawkish face, and he wore white tie and tails. For a moment, he only stood there in the center of the stage, surveying the audience with gleaming dark eyes that seemed to pick out every detail of each individual sitting there.

Without speaking, he spread his arms wide — and a pair of doves fluttered out of nowhere and settled on his shoulders.

I blinked, and the audience oohed and aahed . Next to me, Seth shifted in his chair and whispered, “I’m sure he had those birds hidden in his sleeves.”

Probably. It was a pretty old trick. But to a bunch of people who might never have seen a magician perform before?

It definitely would look like magic…the real kind.

Then the man pulled out a pair of silver rings, and it was all I could do to keep myself from rolling my eyes. Seth leaned close to me and murmured, “Let me guess…you’ve seen this one before, too.”

“Once or twice,” I drawled, and he grinned.

“I suppose it’s still better than sitting in our hotel rooms and staring at the wall.”

A chuckle escaped my throat, but luckily, no one except Seth was sitting close enough to hear me. And I doubted the magician could even see the way we were leaning into each other and exchanging commentary on the performance, not with the gaslights that ringed the stage throwing the audience into darkness.

After playing with the rings for a few moments, making them join and then “miraculously” separate, the magician — billed as “Lorenzo the Magnificent” — moved on to producing a birdcage with a live canary inside, presumably from thin air. I had to admit that trick seemed a bit more impressive than the others, although I knew it had to be no more than sleight of hand.

“And now,” he announced, moving closer to the edge of the stage, “I will perform the most challenging, the most dangerous, trick of all — the Ethereal Passage!”

From offstage came a low rumbling sound, and a large coffin-shaped box was rolled onstage by a pretty woman in a red silk bustle gown who I guessed was Lorenzo’s assistant, although this was her first appearance in the act. With a flourish, she opened the lid of the box and pulled out a set of heavy chains, and the magician climbed inside and allowed her to wrap the chains around him and padlock them in place before she closed the lid and draped a heavy black cloth over the box.

“This seems a little more complicated than the birdcage,” Seth observed, and I was forced to admit that he had a point.

“I guess it depends on what happens next,” I said.

The assistant stepped forward, while the black box, still draped in black fabric, remained a foot or so behind her. “Now Lorenzo will defy the rules of time and space!” she called out. Her voice was a sweet soprano, not nearly as well suited for carrying to the back of an auditorium as Lorenzo’s rich baritone.

“Indeed I have!” he called back, and the entire audience gasped.

The magician was standing at the very rear of the theater in the center of the aisle, the chains that had bound him gone. Seth and I stared at each other in confusion, but no one else there seemed confused at all.

No, they erupted into applause, more and more people rising to their feet to give him the standing ovation they thought he deserved.

Maybe there was a logical explanation for what had just happened. I knew in my own time, illusionists pulled off similar tricks all the time — in theaters that were specially prepared with trapdoors and whatever other mechanisms were needed to accomplish such a feat.

But here in 1884 Flagstaff, in a venue that was new to this traveling troupe?

That sure as hell didn’t seem very likely to me.

Which meant…what? That the man was really a warlock?

Only one way to find out for sure. Once we got close enough to him, our witchy senses would be enough to tell Seth and me whether Lorenzo the Magnificent was one of our kind.

“I think we need to talk to him,” I told Seth as I rose from my seat.

He got up as well, but I could tell by the way he was frowning that he wasn’t sure whether it was such a good idea, not when we were trying to do our best to blend in.

“How do you know they’ll even let us backstage?”

“I don’t,” I said calmly as I left our private balcony and headed for the stairs. “But from what I can tell, it sounds as if they’re going to be applauding him for a while longer, so we might as well sneak back there while we can.”

His dubious gaze moved to my gleaming teal silk gown. “You’re not exactly inconspicuous.”

Smiling, I settled my black cloak — which I’d grabbed as we left the balcony — around my shoulders. “There. Now I’m practically a ninja.”

“A what?” he responded, then shook his head. “All right, never mind.”

Still wearing a grin, I hurried down the stairs, which emptied into a narrow corridor. One side led back to the front entrance, but I had a feeling that if we went in the opposite direction, we might be able to make our way backstage.

I turned right, and Seth followed closely. He carried his overcoat rather than put it on, but because his frock coat and pants were black wool, he didn’t stand out nearly as much as I would have if I hadn’t covered my dress with that cloak.

Sure enough, the corridor dead-ended in a door. I put my hand on the knob, halfway expecting it to be locked — not that it would have been a problem if it were, since all witches could open locked doors — but it opened easily. Just beyond was a set of short stairs that I guessed led into the backstage area.

No one seemed to be anywhere close by, which surprised me a little. Then again, celebrity stalkers probably weren’t as big a thing in the 1880s as they were in the twenty-first century.

“I’ll go first,” Seth said quietly, and I waited for him to start up the steps. Maybe I should have argued, but it probably made sense for him to be the one to run interference. He was a lot more intimidating than I, especially in that frock coat.

However, no one stopped us. The backstage area was a clutter of boxes and trunks and the flimsy scrims they’d used as backdrops, and although I could hear voices, they seemed to be concentrated on the other side of the space and nowhere near Seth and me.

But then I saw Lorenzo the Magnificent. His assistant was nowhere in sight, but he was hurrying toward a trunk not too far from the spot where the two of us stood, although I doubted he could see us because of the way the shadows fell.

Not that he appeared to be paying too much attention to his surroundings. No, he reached for the lid of the trunk and lifted it, paused to give a quick, darting look all around, and then reached into the pocket of his tailcoat and pulled out what looked like some kind of brass amulet, which he quickly stowed inside the trunk. Just as quickly as he’d come, he moved away from the trunk and headed toward the voices I’d heard earlier, which I assumed must belong to the other members of the troupe.

What the hell?

Despite how dim it was back there, Seth’s frown was clear enough.

“Did you see that?” he whispered.

“I sure did,” I replied. “An amulet or some kind of pendant, right?”

“Yes.” He hesitated, then said, “Do you think that’s what he used to escape the trunk and get to the back of the theater? Some kind of magical trinket?”

My first instinct was to say no, our magic didn’t work that way. It was a part of us, intrinsic to our very natures, and not something that worked because we chanted spells or drank potions…or employed magical amulets.

On the other hand, there was a whole hell of a lot that I didn’t know about our magical world, and I supposed it was remotely possible that Lorenzo the Magnificent…whatever his real name was…had a talent that needed some sort of external focus to work. I hadn’t gotten the ringing in my ear that happened whenever I was around a strange witch or warlock, but he’d been more than three feet away from me when he hid the amulet in the trunk, and maybe that hadn’t been close enough.

“Why would he keep it in there rather than in his pocket, though?” Seth asked next. “That doesn’t seem very safe.”

“I’m sure he just put it there temporarily,” I replied. “It sounds like he’s mingling with the rest of the cast right now, and he probably thought it would be better not to have it on him. I’ll bet anything that he comes back to retrieve it before he leaves the theater.”

Although Seth still looked skeptical, it also seemed as if he didn’t feel like contradicting me because he said, “Possibly. So, what’s the plan?”

A very good question. No one seemed to have noticed us loitering back there in the shadows, but I had to believe that eventually the congratulatory session going on backstage would break up and everyone would head back to wherever they were staying. One of the local hotels, I assumed, since a boarding house didn’t seem like a very good fit for someone who would only be in town for a day or so.

“We go outside and wait,” I said. “Find some inconspicuous spot to hang out until everyone leaves and goes wherever they’re staying. There aren’t so many hotels in Flagstaff that it should be too difficult to figure out where Lorenzo has a room.”

“And then we what, ambush him?” Seth responded, sounding more dubious than ever.

I made a disgusted noise. “I’m not saying we jump him and pick his pockets. But we need to find out what’s going on with that amulet. For one thing, no one in the witch community should be showing off their talents in public like that. I kind of doubt Jeremiah Wilcox would be too thrilled to learn that a strange warlock has shown up in town and started pulling flashy tricks.”

And sure, I supposed I could have hung back and not done anything, and waited until I could talk to Jeremiah, but since we were right here, it seemed kind of silly not to learn what we could.

Especially because it was Saturday night, and the soonest we’d even be able to contact Jeremiah without raising eyebrows would be Monday morning, which right then felt about a million years off.

My comment about the Wilcox primus seemed to have some effect, because Seth nodded. “Fair enough. Because you’re right — it’s not very smart. Let’s go see if we can find a good place to hide.”

Now in agreement, we left the backstage area and retraced our steps so we could leave through the theater’s main entrance on Leroux Street. Most of the audience members had departed by then, although a few people still loitered in the area, chatting and clearly not ready to put an end to their evening.

To my relief, though, no one seemed to pay Seth and me any mind as we casually moved to our right and then cut down the alley next to the theater. It wasn’t a true alley, not really, just a space between the theater and the building next door, which seemed to belong to a wool wholesaler. I didn’t like how dark it was back there, but Seth’s hand slipped into mine, strong and reassuring and warm despite the chill of the night air, and that made me feel a little better.

The rear of the Sundown Theater was nothing to write home about, plain brick and without any of the adornments that decorated the facade that overlooked Leroux Street, but we weren’t here for the ambiance. Unfortunately, there weren’t any handy dumpsters to hide behind, although we spied some packing crates and headed right for them, slipping into their shadows just as the members of the theater troupe began to emerge from the building’s stage door.

None of those people were Lorenzo, though, and I found my spirits starting to sink. What if he’d gone out the front of the building for some reason?

“There,” Seth whispered in my ear.

Sure enough, there was the man himself, standing in the exit. It seemed he’d waited until almost everyone was gone, although he paused in the doorway to say something to someone I couldn’t see, maybe the troupe’s stage manager or someone who worked for the theater itself.

After that brief exchange, however, he came briskly down the back steps, his breath little white puffs in the icy air. Seth and I waited until he reached Leroux Street and turned left, then slipped out from behind the packing crates and followed, although enough of a distance back that we hoped he wouldn’t notice us.

As far as I could tell, the ploy worked. He walked briskly, an overcoat covering his white tie and tails, and seemed intent on his destination.

Which turned out to be the Bank Hotel, the same place where we’d eaten lunch earlier today. Again, Seth and I hung back, watching as he went through the double front doors of the hotel, since we knew that following him too closely would surely arouse suspicion.

“All right, we know where he’s staying,” Seth said. His breath also hung in the cold air, and I could tell he didn’t want to loiter out here on the street any longer than necessary.

Well, he wasn’t from Flagstaff and wasn’t used to the cold. Jerome could get pretty chilly, but it was still nothing like my hometown on a black November night.

“Now,” I said with a smile, “I employ some feminine wiles. You can come inside, but wait near the door until I get what I need.”

Somehow, he managed to look both confused and disapproving, but unlike a lot of guys I’d known over the years, he didn’t demand that I explain what I was up to.

“All right,” he replied. “But if anything starts to look strange, I’ll be there.”

A quick smile and a touch on his hand to let him know I understood, and then I moved toward the front desk, where a man who looked like he might be in his middle thirties was working, his thinning fair hair scraped back from his face with some pretty serious pomade.

As I approached, I made sure my cloak fell open enough to reveal the low neckline of the gown I wore. No, it wasn’t extreme compared to some of the things my friends in college had worn when we went clubbing, but it still showed off some decent cleavage, thanks to a little extra lift from my corset. And although I generally wasn’t the type who relied on feminine wiles to get her way, I wasn’t going to scruple at using those tactics now if they got Seth and me what we needed.

“Oh, good evening,” I said to the man at the front desk, doing my best to sound breathless and urgent at the same time. “I was hoping you could help me.”

“Of course, miss,” he replied politely, although he couldn’t quite keep his gaze from flickering toward my half-exposed bosom.

Perfect.

“I just attended the show at the Sundown Theater,” I explained. “I was so very impressed with Lorenzo the Magnificent’s performance, but unfortunately, I wasn’t able to catch him at the stage door to give him my congratulations. One of the members of his troupe told me he was staying here at the Bank Hotel, so I thought I would come over here to speak with him. Could you please let me know which room he’s staying in?”

The clerk hesitated, and while I didn’t quite hold my breath, my brain had already started working away at what other kinds of persuasion I might need to use to get him to give up the information I needed. Although Seth was carrying most of our cash, I had a few spare coins rattling around in my reticule.

But would they be enough to bribe the hotel clerk?

That form of additional persuasion didn’t appear to be necessary, though, because after another glance down at my chest, the clerk said with an oily smile, “He’s on the second floor, miss. Room 213.”

Not the most auspicious of numbers, but I’d take it.

“Oh, thank you so very much,” I breathed. “I certainly appreciate the assistance.”

After sending him what I hoped was a dazzling smile, I turned away from the front desk and hurried over to the stairs. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Seth stand up a little straighter, but he didn’t begin to move until I was halfway up the wide staircase with its runner of patterned burgundy wool and carved balustrade.

However, once I was out of eyeshot of the front desk, I slowed my steps so he could catch up with me.

“Room 213,” I told him, and he nodded, even as he fought to hold back a grin.

“I had no idea you were such a sweet-talker,” he remarked, and I gave him what I hoped was an effective stink-eye.

“We all have to do what we have to do, right?”

This time, he smiled for real, although he also kept moving steadily up the stairs until we reached the second floor. Here, the same patterned runner installed on the stairs widened to become wall-to-wall carpet, something I guessed was something of a luxury in 1884.

I was glad of its presence, though, because it muffled our footsteps as we made our way down the hall, eventually stopping in front of Room 213, the last door on the left.

In a murmur, Seth asked, “Do you want to do the honors, or should I?”

“You go ahead,” I replied, also in an undertone. Now that we were here, I couldn’t help wondering if we were doing the right thing. What if that amulet I’d glimpsed gave Lorenzo the Magnificent all sorts of powers, the kind of thing that Seth, with his gift of teleportation, and I, with my unreliable talent for time travel, couldn’t begin to defend ourselves against?

It probably would have been better if we’d brought Jeremiah along. As far as I could tell, he was pretty much a match for any warlock who crossed his path.

But he wasn’t here, and I consoled myself that having him with us would have only made our little group that much more conspicuous. No, this was probably better, despite the anxious butterflies in my stomach.

And as I watched, Seth lifted his hand and knocked calmly on the door.