expected from the outset that he would. The great man’s arrival was not long away.
His image was already part of our daily background as Jayr had placed several of Lord’s rather ostentatious publicity photographs in the display cases by the theatre doors. I knew I had to buckle down to the task of obtaining the sheet of glass he had demanded.
My first problem was to locate somewhere that would supply plate glass of the high quality specified by him. There was nowhere at all in Omhuuv, and the businesses in the town I asked about this all told me that glass had to be specially ordered from a firm of glaziers in the neighbouring town of Orsknes. Because I did not want to risk getting any detail wrong, I borrowed Jayr’s car and drove over to Orsknes myself and contacted the glaziers. They were bemused by the exactitude of my requirements, but they obviously assumed it was for a shop front or window. Payment and delivery were soon arranged.
The fall of snow ceased during the night after I returned from Orsknes.
When I was up and dressed in the morning I discovered that the long-awaited thaw had followed almost at once. The cold northeasterly wind at last dropped away, and had changed overnight into a balmy breeze from the south. For a day it seemed nothing in Omhuuv was going to change: the air trapped in the fjord had been chilled into what seemed to be a permanent freeze, and the snow in the streets and on the mountainsides was so deep, hard and solid that it felt that even a summer heatwave would never shift it. I walked the precarious streets with many of the other inhabitants of Omhuuv, still wrapped in protective clothes, sliding and skidding on the familiar frozen ruts, while a weak sun shone. But the hated north-easterly wind from the mainland was uncannily absent.
On the second day the thaw unmistakably began, with meltwater running through the streets, while the great frozen layers of impacted snow began to slide dangerously from the roofs. Seigniory workmen hurried from one building to the next, trying to control or manage the crashing of ice on to the pavements. Now at night I fell asleep to the burbling sounds of water running. There was water everywhere in the town, but most of it ran off into planned conduits leading down to the fjord.
All around the town streams and falls were appearing, and every day there were public warnings of likely avalanches in the hills above us. However winter was of course part of the normal life here, and long established avalanche barriers kept much of the danger out of the town. I was content to watch the steep mountainside I could see from my window, as it was transformed into a lacy pattern of white waterfalls.
On the third day the warm wind gave a daily rain shower, but it fell only in the late afternoons and helped speed the thaw. Every day was now a mild or even warm one, and the breeze from the south carried with it a smell that brought back to me memories of my childhood: somewhere in the warmer islands to the south of us the spring was already well established, and the wind bore scents of distant cedarwood, campion and herbs.
Jayr was more cheerful, because as the weather changed it seemed a signal of encouragement had gone out on some subconscious level. More bookings arrived with each delivery of mail or visit to the messaging service. Every morning he spent more than an hour on the theatre computer, selling and confirming seats for the long summer season ahead.
The sheet of plate glass I had ordered from the firm in Orsknes was delivered as promised. It took the driver and his two mates, plus myself, to carry the bulky pane through the crowded backstage space and place it in the stage area. The driver gave me some padded mounts to rest it on, but it was obvious that it could not be left where it was.
After the delivery men had departed I turned on some of the stage lights and inspected the glass.
In the Lord’s specification he had noted the minimum distortion that he would accept, and I checked this with a special gauge — the glass was well within that spec. It was also exactly the right size, and the four bevelled slots where the glass was going to be attached were again absolutely correct. I checked and re-checked all the measurements, pleased at having made sure this was right. However, the bright lights revealed that the haulage of the glass, and our manhandling of it, had left several hand and finger prints, so I thoroughly cleaned and polished the sheet on both sides.
Jayr helped me move it on to the fly lines, and we slowly raised it into the rigging loft. I knew it would be secure up there, but it was discomfiting to know that the sheet of plate-glass was being held directly above the stage. It looked like a huge transparent guillotine blade, sharp, heavy and deadly.
In the town the thaw was continuing and I realized that in these early weeks of the spring the fjord became a place of great beauty and tranquillity. The mountains, which looked so barren when covered by snow, now brought forth grasses, flowers and bushes. Whitewater falls continued to course down the steep mountainsides, splashing into the dark blue waters of the fjord. The houses and shops, which looked so grim in the cold, broke out their seasonal colours: the people removed the wooden and metal shutters from windows, let their curtains blow in the breezes, hung flower baskets on the walls in the street, left their doors ajar. They painted and cleaned their houses, and tidied their gardens.
Visitors arrived, some in cars, many in buses. Shops and restaurants opened. During the days the streets of Omhuuv were crowded with pedestrians wandering around the newly re-opened boutiques and galleries, while the wharves continued their noisy work and the pungent odour of curing smoke drifted across the quays. More boats appeared on the fjord, but now they were pleasure boats, some bringing in more visitors, others simply sailing around. Two herons nested on the roof of the house I was staying in.
Inside the theatre also the seasons were changing. Our work was increasing daily, partly because bookings were now pouring in every day, and many members of the public called at the theatre with enquiries, but also because the tech crew still had not arrived. The ice cleared from the sea almost as soon as the thaw arrived, but there was some kind of visa anomaly that prevented so many people exiting the mainland at once. Because I had always lived in the calm neutrality of the islands it was too easy to forget that Faiand, the mainland country in the north closest to our part of the Archipelago, was a nation embroiled in war.
One day, shortly before our season opened I had to go to the trap room, the substage area, where one of the traps had proved to jam when I tested it. Jayr said I should try to find out what had happened — he was thinking of Lord, who was due to appear in the second week. Illusionists often needed to use a stage trapdoor, Jayr said.
The trap room in a theatre is sometimes used to store unwanted items, so out of season it can become cluttered. One of my first tasks at the
My arm was down inside the housing, checking the clasps of the drive cover were tight, when I suddenly became aware of a silent presence. Somewhere near to me. It was as if something or someone had moved, dislodging air but making no sound.
I froze in position, my arm inside the machine, my shoulder and head pressing against the outer housing. I was surrounded by darkness, because I had placed the torch on the floor, the beam pointing through an access hatch close to the floor. I listened, not daring to turn my head.
The silence was complete, but the sensation of a presence was overwhelming. It was close to me, very close indeed.
Slowly, I began to slide my hand out from inside the machine, so that I could straighten and turn, look around, shine the torch about, make certain no one was there. The silence endured, but as I turned my head I became aware, on the periphery of my vision, of something white and circular, seeming to hover.
I sucked in a breath in surprise, turned fully towards it. The shape was a mask, a face, but it was horribly stylized, almost a child’s cartoon of a face. It was frozen, immobile, but in some way I cannot describe I knew it was alive.
As soon as I was looking towards it the face backed away smoothly, disappearing into the darkness almost at once. It made no sound, left no trace.
My heart was racing. I grabbed the torch, swung it around in the general direction of the apparition, but of course there was nothing to see. I stood up fully, clouting my head against the low ceiling, the under-surface of the stage. The shock of it further frightened me, so I backed quickly away, hurried to the steps, rushed up to the wings of the stage. I was trembling.
A little later, Jayr saw me.
‘I heard you making a lot of noise,’ he said. ‘Did you see something down there?’
‘Shut up, Jayr,’ I said, embarrassed at my reaction to something I had only half seen. ‘Was that you messing
