“Yes.”
“And you. You should take your own advice and leave this place,” Daniel said grimly. “You’re rotting in here.”
“At least this body’s pain distracts me from the pain in my soul,” his past self said. “No. I wish you luck, but I won’t leave these walls now. Not until she’s settled in her next incarnation.”
Daniel’s wings bristled at his neck. He tried to sort out time and lives and memories in his head, but he kept circling around the same irksome thought. “She—she should be settled now. In conception. Can’t you feel it?”
“Oh,” his imprisoned past self said softly. He closed his eyes. “I don’t know that I can feel anything anymore.” The prisoner sighed heavily. “Life’s a nightmare.”
“No, it’s not. Not anymore. I’ll find her. I’ll redeem us both,” Daniel shouted, desperate to get out of there, desperately taking another leap of faith through time.
THIRTEEN
STAR-CROSSED
Something crunched under Luce’s feet.
She raised the hem of her black gown: A layer of discarded walnut shells on the ground was so thick the stringy brown bits rose up over the buckles of her emerald-green high-heeled slippers.
She was at the rear of a noisy crowd of people. Almost everyone around her was dressed in muted browns or grays, the women in long gowns with ruched bodices and wide cuffs at the ends of their bell sleeves. The men wore tapered pants, broad mantles draping their shoulders, and flat caps made of wool. She’d never stepped out of an Announcer into such a public place before, but here she was, in the middle of a packed amphitheater. It was startling—and riotously loud.
“Look out!” Bill grabbed the neck of her velvet capelet and yanked her backward, pinning her against the wooden rail of a staircase.
A heartbeat later, two grimy boys barreled past in a reckless game of tag that sent a trio of women in their path falling over one another. The women heaved themselves back up and shouted curses at the boys, who jeered back, barely slowing down.
“Next time,” Bill shouted in her ear, cupping his stone claws around his mouth, “could you try directing your little stepping-through exercises into a more—I don’t know—serene setting? How am I supposed to do your costuming in the middle of this mob?”
“Sure, Bill, I’ll work on that.” Luce edged back just as the boys playing tag zipped by again. “Where are we?”
“You’ve circled the globe to find yourself in the Globe, milady.” Bill sketched a little bow.
“The Globe Theatre?” Luce ducked as the woman in front of her discarded a gnawed-on turkey leg by tossing it over her shoulder. “You mean, like, Shakespeare?”
“Well, he claims to be retired. You know those artist types. So moody.” Bill swooped down near the ground, tugging at the hem of her dress and humming to himself.
“Othello happened here,” Luce said, taking a moment to let it all sink in. “The Tempest. Romeo and Juliet. We’re practically standing in the center of all the greatest love stories ever written.”
“Actually, you’re standing in walnut shells.”
“Why do you have to be so glib about everything? This is amazing!”
“Sorry, I didn’t realize we’d need a moment of bardolatry.” His words came out lisped because of the needle clipped between his jagged teeth. “Now stand still.”
“Ouch!” Luce yelped as he jabbed sharply into her kneecap. “What are you doing?”
“Un-Anachronizing you. These folks’ll pay good money for a freak show, but they’re expecting it to stay onstage.” Bill worked quickly, discreetly tucking the long, draped fabric of her black gown from Versailles into a series of folds and crimps so that it was gathered along the sides. He knocked away her black wig and pulled her hair into a frizzy pouf. Then he eyed the velvet capelet around her shoulders. He whipped off the soft fabric. At last, he hocked a giant loogie into one hand, rubbed his palms together, and welded the capelet into a high Jacobean collar.
“That is seriously disgusting, Bill.”
“Be quiet,” he snapped. “Next time give me more space to work. You think I like ‘making do’? I don’t.” He jerked his head at the jeering throngs. “Luckily most of them are too drunk to notice the girl stepping out of the shadows at the back of the room.”
Bill was right: No one was looking at them. Everyone was squabbling as they pressed closer to the stage. It was just a platform, raised about five feet off the ground, and, standing at the back of the rowdy crowd, Luce had trouble seeing it clearly.
“Come on, now!” a boy shouted from the back. “Don’t make us wait all day!”
Above the crowd were three tiers of box seats, and then nothing: the O-shaped amphitheater opened on a midday sky the pale blue of a robin’s egg. Luce looked around for her past self. For Daniel.
“We’re at the opening of the Globe.” She thought back to Daniel’s words under the peach trees at Sword & Cross. “Daniel told me we were here.”
“Sure, you were here,” Bill said. “About fourteen years ago. Perched on your older brother’s shoulder. You came with your family to see Julius Caesar.”
Bill hovered in the air a foot in front of her. It was unappetizing, but the high collar around her neck actually seemed to hold its shape. She almost resembled the sumptuously dressed women in the higher boxes.
“And Daniel?” she asked.
“Daniel was a player—”
“Hey!”
“That’s what they call the actors.” Bill rolled his eyes. “He was just starting out then. To everyone else in the audience, his debut was utterly forgettable. But to little three-year-old Lucinda”—Bill shrugged—“it put the fire in you. You’ve been quote-unquote dying to get onstage ever since. Tonight’s your night.”
“I’m an actor?”
No. Her friend Callie was the actor, not her. During Luce’s last semester at the Dover School, Callie had begged Luce to try out with her for Our Town. The two of them had rehearsed for weeks before the audition. Luce got one line, but Callie had brought the house down with her portrayal of Emily Webb. Luce had watched from the wings, proud of and awed by her friend. Callie would have sold off her life’s possessions to stand in the old Globe Theatre for one minute, let alone to get up on the stage.
But then Luce remembered Callie’s blood-drained face when she’d seen the angels battle the Outcasts. What had happened to Callie after Luce had left? Where were the Outcasts now? How would Luce ever explain to Callie, or her parents, what had happened—if, that is, Luce ever returned to her backyard and that life?
Because Luce knew now that she wouldn’t go back to that life until she’d figured out how to stop it from ending. Until she’d unraveled this curse that forced her and Daniel to live out the same star-crossed lovers’ tale again and again.
She must be here in this theater for a reason. Her soul had drawn her here; why?
She pushed through the crowd, moving along the side of the amphitheater until she could see the stage. The wooden planks had been covered with a thick, hemplike matting made to look like rough grass. Two full-sized cannons stood like guards near either wing, and a row of potted orange trees lined the back wall. Not far from Luce, a rickety wooden ladder led to a curtained space: the tiring-room—she remembered from the acting class she’d taken with Callie—where the actors got into their costumes and prepared for their scenes.
“Wait!” Bill called as she hurried up the ladder.