"No, I'm the queen. You merely have aspirations for him." Gertrude pointed at Macbeth, who was holding up a cruller and muttering, "Is this a doughnut I see before me?" Then he noticed the raspberry jam on everything and started to shriek. With a glare at the fairies, the Stage Manager bundled him off into the wings.

"If I'm not to be involved in this production, why was I roused at this unearthly hour and forced to put in an appearance?" Lady Macbeth demanded. Others-the lovers from Midsummer, all the Henrys, and, of course, the Shrew-echoed the complaint.

"Hamlet doesn't even need a director," Katerina said. As others shouted in agreement, Bertie feared she was losing her grip on the situation.

Unexpected aid came when Ophelia appeared at Bertie's elbow. "You mustn't let them drown you out. Lead on, though it seems n.o.body marks you."

"I'll do that, thanks." Bertie focused her attention back on the milling throng, her gaze skimming over the Company. Nearly everyone was there, including a shadow that mingled with the Chorus members at the back: an apparition in smoke-gray just behind the cutthroats.

Ariel.

But Bertie could only address one problem at a time. "I know Hamlet isn't new, but we're going to restage it."

Even more confusion. "Restage?"

"What does that mean?"

"We're going to have to make a few adjustments," Bertie said, raising her voice.

"Adjustments?"

"What kind of adjustments?!"

Bertie almost had to shout to be heard now. "The production will be transposed in both time period and setting. I was thinking about Ancient Egypt-"

The clamor! Bertie lost her tenuous grasp on the situation.

"Impossible!" the Players cried.

"She must have gone quite mad!" someone p.r.o.nounced in a voice that was silk-wrapped daggers.

Bertie was certain that undermining whisper came from Ariel. "I have not gone mad. The changes are possible."

The air elemental stepped free of the crowd. "Perhaps a demonstration?"

Bertie would have cursed him, except it was a valid point. She'd convinced Management that it was possible. . . .

But is it? Really?

"Of course." Bertie beckoned to the fairies and lowered her voice to the barest of whispers. "I need you guys to do a scene for me."

"Which one?"

"Any one. But you have to change it. Significantly."

Moth scratched his head. "Well, it's not as if we've never mucked around on stage before."

Mustardseed peered into the flies. "I hope we don't get smited by some theater G.o.d."

"How's this for smited?" Peaseblossom kicked him in the shins. "Which play do you want us to do, Bertie?"

"And what's my motivation?" Cobweb asked.

"Your motivation is to avoid death by strangulation," Bertie said. "Just do a scene from Hamlet and really shake things up. Dance the tango if you have to."

But before anyone could ask for a rose to put between their teeth, Ophelia drifted past the refreshment table and strode to Center Stage.

"There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray, love, remember: and there is pansies. That's for thoughts." The words were not altered, but she spoke them simply, without any trace of the madness the speech suggested. What's more, she addressed the entire thing to an oven-mitt puppet she'd fitted over her hand.

The puppet answered her in a falsetto that mimicked her brother, Laertes. "A doc.u.ment in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted."

Ophelia nodded to the pot holder. "There's fennel for you, and columbines." Only, instead of flowers, she scattered doughnut sprinkles over the stage. "There's rue for you; and here's some for me. Rue, rue, rue. Oh, yes! I rue the way things ended."

Bertie stared at her, torn between fascination and horror. "That's not the line. We're not changing the lines. . . ."

Ophelia faltered and looked uncertain for the first time. She wiped the improvised puppet's mouth with a napkin. "There's a daisy: I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my lover departed."

That time, everyone noticed the misquote. "It's supposed to be her father-"

"After he died."

"I seem to have forgotten what comes next." Ophelia held the puppet overhead to squawk, "Line!"

"How can she forget her own part?" Moth wanted to know.

"I don't know," Peaseblossom said. "Maybe talking to a pot holder muddled things up."

"If that throws her off, what's going to happen when she's standing in front of the pyramids wearing gold silk gauze?" Bertie thought of all the alterations she wanted to make to the costumes and the sets. "What if they all forget their lines?"

Ariel's voice, smooth and silky with conviction, cut through the crowd. "Perhaps they need rehearsing to accustom themselves to the changes."

"She expects us to rehea.r.s.e?" someone cried.

"I know my part. I'll not be bullied in such a fashion!"

"Please, if you'll only listen," Bertie started to say, but the Merry Wives of Windsor were already arguing with the Two Gentlemen of Verona.

Ariel flickered through the Players like a silver needle through cloth; one second he was next to the Ladies' Chorus, the next he'd moved on to mingle with the Tricksters.

A troublesome spirit, indeed.

Onstage, Julius Caesar and Marc Antony now jabbed at each other with their daggers while a gang war broke out in the orchestra pit between the Capulets and Montagues.

"Nate?" Bertie called.

The pirate moved forward. "What would ye have me do, la.s.s? Cut their throats?"

She shook her head, much as she would have liked to see punishments liberally administered. "There's too many of them, besides which I need them intact."

"They came prepared fer a fight," Nate observed. "Goin' so far as t' bring blood packs an' false limbs."

"This is ridiculous," Bertie said, wishing she could hit someone. "How are we going to restage a play if we can't even get through the announcement without bloodshed?"

"Better to give up the idea. They'll never agree to it." The Stage Manager pushed his mop through the melee, moving from one sticky pool of red corn syrup to another and looking smug.

Bertie wondered if he was right as the Chorus Girls alternated between screams of dismay over the red flecks on their skirts and calls of encouragement to the brawlers.

"They need a good coolin' off," said Nate.

It took a moment to process the suggestion, but then Bertie smiled and signaled to the fairies. They stopped tormenting Oberon and t.i.tania long enough to hear her whispered request. Hooting with laughter, they departed in the direction of the Properties Department.

Bertie turned back to Nate. "If you'll excuse me a moment?"

"Aye." His mouth twitched with the promise of a hearty laugh.

Bertie shoved her way through a set of dueling Dukes to reach the Stage Manager. "I need a scene change," she said without preamble.

Startled, he jumped almost a foot. "I beg your pardon?"

"Did I stutter? I said I need a scene change. Let's try an evening in London." When he didn't answer right away, Bertie tapped her foot once, twice. "Shall I get the headset and do it myself?"

The Stage Manager winced at the suggestion. "No need. I can make things as you like them."

"Oh, I like them. Cue up a nice drizzle, too."

The Stage Manager stomped off into the wings, muttering and waving his arms over his head. Bertie returned to the front of the stage in time to meet the fairies with their brightly colored burden. She accepted the cherry-red umbrella and popped it open mere seconds before cobblestones appeared and the stage clouded with a lovely pea-soup fog.

Nate joined Bertie under her shelter, his broad shoulders protecting her from stray splashes as rain, ice-cold and miserable, began to fall. It dampened the battle-spark of those brawling onstage, and soon the Players fighting in the auditorium turned to gawk.

"Lamplight, please," Bertie called. "And cleanup!"

The gas lamps flickered to life as the rain-doused shivered. The main trapdoor Center Stage opened and water, fake blood, and one of the minor Players sluiced through.

"Disorderly conduct will not be tolerated," Bertie said in a bright, conversational tone. "The Players in Hamlet will re-convene at one P.M. for our first rehearsal."

There was coughing and the shuffling of feet, but no one offered any further words of challenge or resistance.

"Nicely done," Nate murmured. "Ye shot right across their bows. Now let's see if they'll heave to."

Bertie nodded to the Stage Manager. "I think we can turn off the rain now."

"Send them on their way, la.s.s," Nate whispered, taking the umbrella, "afore they have a chance t' question ye again."

"You're dismissed," Bertie said with a majestic wave of her hand.

The working lights clicked on as the London scenery flew out. The Players scattered, some pausing by the refreshment table to take a soggy pastry or a cup of watered-down coffee with them. The Stage Manager shooed them away so that he could shove everything into the wings, pausing to give Bertie and her a.s.sistants an over-the-shoulder dirty look.

Ophelia followed him, wringing the water out of her clothes while still talking to puppet-Laertes. "I spend far too much time toweling off, dear brother." But the oven mitt didn't answer, as its mouth was full of her skirt.

Which left Bertie onstage with Nate. The fairies.

And Ariel.

CHAPTER TEN.

Still

Waters

Haven't ye caused enough misery fer one day?" Nate unsheathed his cutla.s.s and pointed it at Ariel. "I've half a mind t' save us some trouble an' slit yer throat afore ye can do more harm."

"Bring your lapdog to heel, Bertie." The clouds in Ariel's eyes manifested in a wind that tugged at his hair and white silk sleeves. "Perhaps then we can have a civil conversation."

"I don't recall askin' ye fer yer thoughts, ye scurvy bilge-suckin' spirit." Anger vibrated in Nate's chest and emanated outward until even Bertie's timbers were shivered. "Shut yer gob."

"What?" Even Moth, who was fluent in pirate-speak, had trouble with that one.

"Shut your mouth," said Peaseblossom.

"Geez, I was just asking!" Moth said, thoroughly offended.

"Put the sword away, Nate," Bertie said. "Please. We just got the stage cleaned up."

He only lowered the weapon. "Sc.u.m-ridden weevil s.h.a.gger."

"Ooh!" Mustardseed grinned. "I'll have to remember that one!"

"The company you keep, Bertie!" Ariel's wind chased away the last of the London fog. "To think Mrs. Edith considered me the bad influence."

Blue tendrils of hair whipped Bertie's face. "What is it you want, Ariel?"

When his only answer was a smile, she reached for the rea.s.suring weight of the scrimshaw. Without calling for a scene change, she stood on a precipice, above an ocean that covered everything in ever-shifting blue currents. Held aloft by all the winds of the world, Ariel reached out his hand to her, enticing her with promises, tempting her with freedom . . .