Chapter 23
Gabe arrives on my porch, sits down on the stoop with the script in front of him unopened, and doesn’t touch the coffee I put in his hand.
“How’re you feeling?” Hannah asks.
“Embalmed,” he says. Nobody laughs, because we all know he isn’t joking.
“You must channel your energy, Gabriel,” Englebert says. “Tonight. This is the apex of our efforts. This is what we’ve all been working for.”
“I’m fried,” Gabe says. “I had a noon service today. I’ve been on my feet all day. At this point I couldn’t even tell you the name of the play.”
“Perhaps that’s for the best—”
“Macb—” says Bandit, from the bushes.
“DON’T SAY IT,” says Englebert. “Circle the bush, you fool. Circle the bush thrice.”
“I didn’t even finish the name,” Bandit says. “And we’re not even in the theater.”
He makes some laps anyway.
“I thought Damien was going to get better,” Gabe says. “I didn’t think I’d actually have to do this. I can’t—”
Pru comes out from the house and before she says a word, Annabel takes a wrapped sandwich out of her satchel and sets it at the empty place on the patio table next to her.
“What did I miss?” Pru says.
“Not much,” Gabe says.
“Gabriel’s lack of enthusiasm is threatening to sink my production,” Englebert says.
“Why me?” Gabe sinks his head into his hands. “Isn’t there anyone else in this town you could have asked?”
“No,” says Pru. “Not really.”
“Well,” Englebert says, rising to his feet.
“There does exist, within this company, an individual who knows every word of the text. In order. Who requires no book. Who has performed the role, in full, opposite this very Lady Macbeth, to the satisfaction of the director. This individual is, moreover, available this evening.”
“No,” I say.
“We’ve been over this, Englebert,” Pru says. “Half that house tonight is from out of town. They don’t know magic exists. As much as we’d all love for you to put on a costume and play the part, there’s no way you are going on that stage.”
Englebert sits down, tail over his feet, and for a moment the only sounds are Pru chewing and Maude, who is sitting at my feet and, for some reason, purring.
“Then we are where we were,” Englebert says. “A Macbeth who cannot be comfortably watched, and a Macbeth who cannot be comfortably seen.”
“A shame Tiffany was assigned understudy for the wrong role. She’d thrive as Macbeth. She loves backstabbing,” Hannah says.
The mention of Tiffany snags on something in my brain.
“Wait a minute,” I say. “Do any of you know anything about illusion magic?”
“A bit,” Annabel says.
“Tiffany’s family magic is all about illusion. Could that help us somehow?”
“I don’t think you can glamour someone into being a good actor.”
“But can you glamour a good actor into being someone?”
Everyone turns to me, clearly unsure where I’m going with this thought.
“Tiffany told me all about how people come to the salon for more than just a haircut. She’s able to add a little… extra. How does it work?”
“Well, for things like that, it’s just simple spellwork,” Annabel says. “It’s easy to glamour away some wrinkles or make someone’s skin shimmer or whatever. They just need to come in every few weeks for touchups.”
“What about bigger things? Like, whole transformations? Remember when Tiffany’s mom made the mayor look like the Easter bunny at the egg hunt when we were kids?”
“That’s a little more complicated,” Annabel says.
“It requires more skill, first of all. Usually you’d have to maintain a sight line of whoever you’re glamouring, and it typically needs to be anchored in an object of some sort.
A piece of jewelry, a coin. An Easter egg, maybe.
Something the person being glamoured has on them the whole time. ”
“Hm. And does the person being glamoured…” I say, thinking. “Does the person being glamoured have to be a person?”
Englebert hops to his feet. Suddenly, it dawns on everyone what I’m getting at.
“You want Tiffany to glamour Englebert into a human,” Pru says.
Englebert’s ears come forward and stay there.
“Not just any human,” I say. “We should have Tiffany glamour Englebert into looking like Damien. He’s the one in the program. In the blog. In the tabloid. He’s why most of these people bought tickets.”
“I think it’s possible,” Annabel says. “But I’m not sure Tiffany has the skill. She’s great with adjusting minor things. Changing faces. But a whole person is different. That’s big magic, and she’d have to hold it for hours, live, on something that moves.”
“On something fourteen inches tall,” Hannah says.
“It’s worth a shot,” Gabe says, clearly eager for any way out. “We might as well ask.”
“We need to ask Damien, too,” Annabel says. “You can’t wear a man’s face without his permission.”
“Then we ask him,” I say.
“I’m sure he’d rather his face go on without him than not at all,” Hannah says.
“Marigold,” Englebert says, joining the conversation, exhibiting an impressive amount of restraint in that he’s suppressing his obvious glee. “Get your keys. I’ll ask Mr. Carter for permission myself. And telephone the salon on the way. Tell Tiffany Reagan she has an audition.”
* * *
“No,” Tiffany says, mid-blowout on a woman I don’t recognize, as soon as we step through the door. She points a round brush at me across the salon.
“Whatever it is, Mari Wardwell, I can see it on your face. You’ve got your notepad out.
You only bring the notepad when somebody’s in trouble.
I’ve confessed to my crime. I’ve turned my thrice.
I’ve paid Annabel’s consulting fee, which was fair but not nothing.
I have been a model citizen. Ask anyone. ”
“Tiffany—”
“I didn’t touch the props table. I haven’t even been near the props table.
Dana has made sure of that. I’ve been carrying my witch costume back and forth every single day so nobody can say anything was ever left unattended.
Do you know what it does to chiffon, living in a garment bag? It can’t breathe.”
“Tiffany.”
“And if this is about Damien, I already told you, I gave the man a perm in 2019 when he came to visit for the holidays and we have not exchanged more than pleasantries since, and, for what it’s worth, the perm was excellent—”
“Tiffany,” Annabel says, coming in behind me with Englebert at her heel, “we’re here to hire you.”
“Sandra, honey, we’re done, you look wonderful, it’s on the house,” Tiffany says to the woman in the chair. She walks Sandra to the door, flips the sign to CLOSED behind her, and turns around with her arms folded. “Hire me for what?”
“A role,” Englebert says.
He’s taken the sink behind the shampoo chair as a throne.
“Did something happen to Pru?”
“No,” Englebert says. “Prudence is fine. We’ve come to offer you a new role.”
“But I’m Third Witch. I don’t know any other parts. I already have a part.”
“You have a part,” Englebert says. “I am offering you a role. I am asking you to perform the largest working of your family’s craft attempted in recent memory, live, before a sold-out house, for two and a half hours without intermission, and not one member of the audience may ever know it occurred. ”
Tiffany looks at me. “What is he talking about?”
“Gabe can’t do the part,” I say. “I mean, he physically can. But he can’t. You’ve seen it.”
“There’s no need to be polite about it,” Englebert says.
“Gabe is awful, that’s true,” she says. “But I don’t know his part. I can’t—”
“You can’t,” I say. “But Englebert can.”
“What do you mean? Englebert is— I don’t see—” She gets there mid-sentence. Her arms come unfolded. “You want a glamour.”
“We want Damien Carter,” I say, “walking out of that castle tonight.”
“Damien Carter. Except he’s a cat.”
“Exactly.”
She sits down in her own styling chair. “Does Damien know?”
“He said yes earlier,” I say. “In writing, because Pru insisted. He had two conditions. One was that the cape goes on from the first scene.”
“Why?”
“Because he got a discount from the dealer by telling him it’d be in every photo and that it’d be great press for the shop.”
“And?”
“And also the glamour has to be him at forty.”
“That tracks,” Tiffany spins a full revolution in the chair, thinking. “You understand what you’re asking, though, right? When my grandmother did the Easter bunny thing on Mayor Perkins she was in bed for two days after.”
“Line of sight and an anchor,” Annabel says. “I can help imbue the anchor. The glamour will mostly live in an object he carries. You just have to keep him in view and feed it when you can.”
“The cape has a clasp,” Englebert says. “I have examined it, and it will do.”
“I’d need to see him. All night. Every scene.”
“You’re onstage or in the wings for most of the night already,” I say.
“Third Witch would be the type to stare,” Tiffany says.
“It’s in character. She’s invested in Macbeth professionally.
” She fiddles with some pins in her hair while she thinks.
“But what happens if I drop it?” Tiffany says.
“Live. Middle of Act Three. My arms are tired or Ms. Pelham sneezes on me and the whole picture goes and two hundred and forty people watch Damien Carter turn into a cat.”
“Then Cody kills the lights,” I say. “We have a small interruption due to technical difficulties, and then Gabe walks on and finishes the play as a very bad Macbeth.”
Tiffany laughs, once, and then looks at Annabel. “Do you think I can hold it?”
“I think nobody knows,” Annabel says. “It’s never been tried.
Or maybe it has, and it was successful, so no one would know.
I can’t cast the spell, illusion’s not my craft, but I can help share the weight.
I can help imbue the clasp with magic so it lasts longer between touch-ups and I can brew you a sustainer potion for your focus and I can sit in the front row and watch the seams and do whatever I can to help if things start to fray. ”
“I’ll try it,” Tiffany says, standing up. “If it drops, it drops, but at this point my dignity has nowhere left to fall.”
“Company call is at three,” Englebert says, descending from the sink. “We’re calling an emergency rehearsal.”
“Mari. One condition of my own,” Tiffany says. “I know you can’t write about the actual magic in the column. But if the show is a success, I want you to write that Shear Magic had a hand in it. Tell them I did everyone’s hair or makeup or something.”
“Deal,” I say.
* * *
The emergency rehearsal ensemble includes around a third of the company.
Vivian is in the front row, and she seems cautiously optimistic about the plan.
It’s summer break, so Cody is at the light board with nothing better to do on a Friday afternoon.
Most of the lords are at work, so, other than Ms. Pelham, the lords are being played by folding chairs with name tags.
Banquo, despite Englebert’s objections, is being played by Bandit.
“I know the death,” Bandit says.
“You will not be doing the death,” Englebert says. “You will walk beside me and say nothing, which I acknowledge is against your nature.”
“Then why am I in the play?”
“You are not in the play. You are an unfortunately necessary stand-in who will exit this facility immediately after this rehearsal and will not return.”
Pru made it, surprisingly. Addie is perched on the edge of the stage, leafing through a script, ready to read in for any role that needs it.
Tiffany comes out of the dressing room in her witch costume holding the clasp from the cape, weighing it in her palm. Annabel worked on it for an hour at the shop before rehearsal.
“It’s heavier,” Tiffany says.
“It’s holding more energy,” Moonbeam says, nodding.
“Actually,” Annabel says, “she’s right.”
“Alright,” Tiffany says, looking at Englebert. “Once it’s on you, you stay where I can see you. No improvising blocking. In between acts you come to me in the wings for a touch-up whether you feel like you need one or not.”
“Understood,” Englebert says.
“Third Witch doesn’t appear in Act Three, but Third Witch is about to appear wherever I need her to appear. I need sight lines. I can hold it from the cauldron for my scenes, but for the rest I still need to be somewhere I can see the whole stage.”
“Stage left wing,” Vivian says. “You’ll have the full playing area.”
Tiffany kneels down to Englebert’s level with the cape. She fastens it across his shoulders, where it pools around him.
“Now, I don’t know what this is going to feel like, so… if it zaps you or something, don’t bolt. No sudden movements. I won’t be able to keep up.”
“I have never bolted in my life.”
“Fourth of July, 2007,” Hannah says. “You were startled by the Hendersons’ bottle rockets.”
Tiffany stands, backs off six paces, and closes her eyes. “Nobody talk for a second,” she says.
In the blink of an eye, where Englebert sat a moment ago, there’s a full human man. He’s tall. He’s handsome. He’s wearing the cape.
“Oh, that’s so much worse than I imagined,” Hannah says. “That’s a person. He has pores.”
“All I ever do is pores,” Tiffany says. Her voice has gone thin with the effort. She doesn’t take her eyes off Englebert. “Somebody make him move. I need to see what happens when he moves.”
“I can move on my own volition,” Englebert says, rising to his feet.
“Speak the speech, I pray you,” Englebert says, and Damien’s mouth moves, and out of the man comes Englebert’s voice.
“You look like Damien,” Addie says, furrowing her brow. “But you don’t sound like Damien.”
“The audience will be left to assume that Damien has undergone extensive classical training. That he’s adopted a heightened register for a heightened text.”
We run it. It’s as close to a dress rehearsal as we can get.
Moonbeam plays Ross, reading the lines off her phone.
The chair playing Lennox falls over during the banquet.
The illusion drops once, when Bandit-as-Banquo crosses too close and Englebert flinches sideways to keep from stepping on him, and for a full second there’s a cat in a puddle of cape where Scotland’s king ought to be.
“Only one misstep,” Tiffany says afterward, sitting on the stage stairs with her head against the rail, looking wrung out and lit up at the same time. “And it wasn’t my fault. It was a blocking error.”
“I was on my mark,” Bandit says.
“No, you were not,” Englebert says.
“I think I can hold it,” Tiffany says. “I’ve held a glamour through the last hour of a wedding reception with an open bar and didn’t drop it. Nothing in Shakespeare can be worse than that.”
Gabe, who has been watching the whole run from the audience, lets out an audible sigh.
“What?” Tiffany asks, alarmed. “Was it not good? Could you see through the glamour?”
“No!” Gabe says, emphatically. “God no. That was a sigh of relief. I’ll be off book and ready to go on if you need me, but past that, I’m happy to run the concessions stand.
Gladly. Forever. I will hand out lemonade at every performance this company ever mounts, at cost, in costume if Vivian wants, as long as nobody ever again asks me to want a crown in public. ”