Wondrous Strange

Newts and blindworms, do no wrong,

Come not near our Fairy Queen.”

The quaint Shakespearean lyrics wound through the air.

“Philomel with melody,

Sing in our sweet lullaby;

Lulla, lulla, lullaby, lulla, lulla, lullaby…”

The song was like an enchantment.

The stage lights seemed to flicker and dim.

And the girl in the bower began to glow.

IX

Kelley sighed a fairy queen sigh, and her head sank to rest on her forearm. She loved this part of the play. The chorus of fairy singers had wonderful voices, and the tune for the “Philomel” song was an authentic Elizabethan roundel. It was strange, though. Even though Kelley had found herself humming the melody almost constantly for the past few weeks, today it was as if she’d never really heard it before.

I guess that’s what happens when you’re onstage instead of backstage, she thought, smiling to herself. Kelley felt her eyelids begin to droop as the murmuring refrain flowed over her like a babbling brook.

“Never harm

Nor spell nor charm

Come our lovely lady nigh.

So good night, with lullaby.”

Dimly, as if from a great distance, she heard the actress playing the fairy named Cobweb say her line: “Hence, away! Now all is well. One aloof stand sentinel.”

That was Jack’s cue to enter as Oberon, sneaking near to anoint Titania’s eyes with a magic potion as part of his trickery. Kelley lay still, waiting to hear Jack’s mellifluous voice. Behind closed eyelids, she sensed the lights growing warmer. They must have turned a spotlight on her.

Part of her wanted to open her eyes to see how the lights looked, but she was just too comfortable. And anyway, they were running this scene straight through without the intervening “lovers” scenes, so she’d see soon enough-just as soon as Jack said his lines.

“What thou seest when thou dost wake, do it for thy true love take.”

Jack’s voice sounded way different from normal-the words hissing like a snake, sibilant and sinuous in her ears. The sound guy was definitely playing around. It was a cool effect. Creepy.

“Love and languish for his sake.”

The rest of the line fell away into silence, and Kelley opened her eyes to find herself on a mossy bank. On all sides, the forest loomed, a soaring black battlement of gnarled and knotted branches, but in the tiny, moon-strewn jewel of her grove, all was pristine and beautiful.

She turned and saw someone standing in the shadows. Long hair hung in a loose sable wave to his shoulders, framing the sharp angle of cheek and jaw. A face she knew. Kelley felt the blood rush from her head as her heart thumped wildly. Moonlight glowed in his eyes, turning his gaze to silver fire, and the stark white branches of birch trees arched above his head as though he wore the antlers of a king stag. He was clothed only in leggings made of supple, dark-brown leather and belted with silver; his feet and torso were bare. Around his neck was a thin braided cord from which hung an iron-gray medallion. A dark line of glossy blood seeped from beneath the charm to trickle halfway down his chest.

What thou seest when thou dost wake…

He smiled. It was the saddest expression she had ever seen, full of unspeakable longing and heartache. Kelley felt her own heart tear in two.

Far off in the distance, she heard the harsh, keening cry of a hunting hawk.

Kelley’s eyes snapped open and she sat up with a start, glancing wildly around.

She was in the theater, on the bower set. Frantically, she twisted to look over her left shoulder. For an instant, she saw him. He stood in the shadowed corridor of the stage-left wings. Instead of heartsick longing, however, his expression was one of shocked surprise. Her green eyes met his gray ones for the briefest instant, and then he was gone.

“Much as I do not advocate the use of artificial stimulants, could somebody please provide our fairy queen with some bloody No-Doz before the next rehearsal?” Quentin shouted from the audience.

Dreaming. She’d been asleep and dreaming…

Kelley felt the heat creeping up her neck into her face as she realized that, aside from her director’s basilisk stare, there were about a dozen other pairs of eyes on her, all expressing various degrees of annoyance or amusement.

“Right. That’s it for today, then, children.” Quentin got up and strode toward the direction of his office. “Either get some sleep, Miss Winslow, or dial down the Method acting, hmm?”

Kelley glanced around apologetically at the rest of the cast, her cheeks burning with embarrassment. Her gaze fell on Alec Oakland, the actor playing Bottom, sitting off to the side of the bower platform with his fake ass’s head tucked under one arm. Fortunately, he was smiling.

“Jeez, Winslow,” he said. “Did I bore you?”

“Oh, God, Alec-I’m sorry! I didn’t get much sleep last night and…”

“Don’t worry about it.” Alec waved a hand in dismissal. “I don’t think the Q was really going to do much with our scene today anyway-it’s almost quittin’ time.”

He stood and hefted the prop mule head. Kelley stared at it, chagrined, abruptly reminded of the horse in her bathtub. Alec held out a hand to help her to her feet.

“You know,” he said as she stood, “I’ve been meaning to ask…do you want to grab a coffee together sometime?”

Pain flashed in Kelley’s head, accompanied by the dream image of the shadowy figure in the forest.

“Kelley? Are you okay?”

“Yeah…”

Alec was looking at her, concerned.

“Yes, thanks. Just the sleep deprivation, I think. Um-coffee. Coffee would be nice. Sometime.”

“You look like you could use some,” he joked, a hopeful expression on his handsome, freckled face. “Wanna go find a Starbucks?”

Kelley laughed and held up a hand. “Maybe not so much today. I think I’m just going to head home and try and get some rest…you know?”

“Sure. Right.” Alec nodded and backed off a step.

Kelley felt vaguely guilty and more than a little confused by her own reaction. A week earlier, she would have jumped at the chance to go out with Alec. Now? Now she couldn’t see past the twisting branches of her dream forest-and the dark-haired young man who stood beneath them, his eyes full of anguish. A moment of awkward silence ensued. Kelley reached out a hand to scratch the mule-head prop behind one fake, fuzzy ear.

“Rain check?” she said, and tried to inject some enthusiasm into her voice.

“Absolutely!” Alec nodded, and his smile halfway returned. “See you tomorrow,” he said before loping off toward the dressing rooms.

After a minute she followed in his wake, walking a deliberate path through the darkened wings where she’d seen-where she’d thought she’d seen-someone. But, of course, there was no one there.