Bertie turned to see who would make such a noise and spotted Lady Macbeth. "This is a closed rehearsal! Get out!"

"Interloper!" Gertrude bellowed as she charged down the stairs after her rival.

Lady Macbeth shrieked and leapt for the aisle. Bertie managed to grab Gertrude by her sash, thwarting the attack.

"Unhand me this instant!" Gertrude turned to kick at Bertie through a swirl of satin petticoats and bad temper.

Retreating from the a.s.sault, Bertie stumbled, fell, and cracked her head on a wooden armrest. Two Gertrudes stuck their fans in Bertie's face.

"I hold you personally responsible for this anarchy," they screeched.

"Me? You hold me responsible, you stupid old sow?" Bertie clutched at her head and tried to clear her vision. "Get out, or I'll kick your sorry a.s.s myself!"

"How dare you?" Gertrude puffed up to twice her already considerable size and thrust out her chin. "I will speak to the Management about your inept.i.tude this very second."

"You do that!"

The fairies converged on Bertie as she struggled to her feet. There were eight of them, then twelve.

That is, she thought, twelve too many.

Bertie put a hand to the back of her head. Pain lanced in one eye and out the other. Her hand came away smeared with red. "I probably have a concussion."

"Let me have a look, la.s.s." Nate reached for her.

Bertie peered up at him through a haze of pain and tears. "Just stay away from me, all of you. I've had enough help for one day." She stumbled to her seat and pulled The Book out of its hiding place. "Clear the stage!"

No one tried to stop her as she fled into the corridor. The door hissed shut behind her, and hot tears p.r.i.c.ked her eyes.

How long do I have before the Theater Manager kicks me out?

Bertie swallowed a sob, tightened her arms around The Book, and limped in the direction of the Properties Department.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

Legato and

Staccato

The Properties Department was unoccupied when Bertie arrived. Dropping to her knees, she shoved The Book under Marie Antoinette's chaise and m.u.f.fled its golden glow with one of the pillows. Resting her forehead against the sofa cushions, she wanted to cry until there was nothing left, but tears were salt.w.a.ter.

And an impromptu appearance by a p.i.s.sed-off deity is the last thing I need right now!

The door behind her opened, and Mr. Hastings entered, squinting at a piece of his ever-present paperwork.

Bertie stood up so that he wouldn't catch her kneeling on the floor and ask what she was doing. "Hey, Mr. Hastings."

He adjusted his spectacles. "How did the rehearsal go?"

Bertie stared very, very hard at his stapler and refused to blink, refused to let the tears fall.

Except it wasn't working.

She reached up, closed her hand around the medallion, broke the chain with one swift jerk, and slid the necklace in her pocket as the first tear slid down her cheek. "Not well. I expect the Theater Manager will be here any second to throw me out."

Her nose was running now. Bertie went to swipe at it with her sleeve, but Mr. Hastings stopped her with a look and held out his voluminous white handkerchief.

"What happened?" he demanded.

Before Bertie finished explaining, the Properties Manager's shoulders shook with laughter that was silent at first, then a bit rusty, like he'd stored his sense of humor between the oxidized metal birdbaths and boxes of discarded iron finials.

"My dear, I am so sorry about the mix-up with the snakes! But do you honestly think you're the first member of Management to have difficulty with the Company?" He turned to put the kettle on the electric burner and reached for a tin of biscuits. "Every one of them, at one point or another, has ended up right where you're sitting."

Bertie picked through the biscuit tin until she found one dipped in chocolate. "Probably not the Stage Manager."

"Oh, yes." Mr. Hastings spooned tea into the chipped ceramic pot. "Even him."

"What about the Theater Manager?"

"Didn't start off as the Theater Manager. He wanted to write a grand opera."

That surprised a small laugh out of Bertie. "Really?" She paused to think about him as a playwright, and the quill-tickle returned.

"Wrangling this lot took all his time and effort, so he gave it up," Mr. Hastings said. "You'll try again, and you'll do better each time, I promise you."

"Uh-huh." Bertie shoved the entire biscuit into her mouth and poked between its plain b.u.t.ter brethren for another. "I had my audition, and I'm not getting a callback."

"What do you mean by that, my dear?" He reached for the cups.

Bertie chewed and swallowed first, because Mr. Hastings didn't appreciate it when she spewed crumbs on his desk. "It means I blew my chance at staying."

"You're a bit young to be so very cynical," Mr. Hastings observed.

"Mrs. Edith said the same thing to me yesterday," Bertie said with a lopsided shrug. "But I'm older than Juliet, and she was plenty cynical by the end of that mess."

Mr. Hastings winced. "Touche." He pushed a teacup at her. "Drink up. It won't restore your soul, but it might settle your thoughts."

"Can you put some pirate rum in it?"

"I find myself fresh out," he said. "But would you care for a bit of unsolicited advice instead?"

She sighed and wrinkled her nose. "That depends. Is it the kind of advice that has me pulling myself up by the bootstraps and slogging my way to school barefoot in the snow, uphill, both ways?"

"Not quite." Mr. Hastings added a bit of lemon to his tea. He carefully stirred three times counterclockwise and ran the edge of his spoon along the thin porcelain rim of the cup. "It's more along the lines of badinage and persiflage."

"Persi-what?"

"Banter, my dear. You're exceptionally skilled at wheedling people into doing things they wouldn't normally do." He held up a hand to silence her when she began to protest. "Please don't argue. We both know it to be true."

"And if it is?" Bertie shoved another biscuit into her mouth and chewed viciously.

"Play to your strengths. Become the person you need to be. Put your Players at ease and persuade them to dance down the path of your choosing. The trick is to let the sheep think they are herding themselves."

"Sheep, eh?" Bertie said. "Has Gertrude heard you compare her to a farm animal?"

"Goodness, no," Mr. Hastings chortled. "Otherwise I wouldn't be alive to tell the tale."

"Badinage," said Bertie.

"And persiflage," Mr. Hastings finished for her.

"That's if anyone bothers to show up to the next rehearsal," she said.

"They'll be there. They're too curious to miss it." He reached over to the vintage stereo cabinet and dropped the needle on a thick, vinyl record. Instantly, the room filled with the guitar-song and castanets of a tango.

"Why, Mr. Hastings," Bertie teased. "I never would have figured you for an aficionado of the Latin dances. Shall I put a rose between my teeth?"

"I think you have more important matters to attend to at the moment."

Bertie sighed into her tea, not at all convinced that she could direct the next rehearsal or that there would even be another rehearsal once Management heard Gertrude's thoughts on the matter.

"I hate to ask," Mr. Hastings said, "but about the asps?"

"We got them all back in the basket."

"I should fetch them and examine the container. It must have been mislabeled. If you'll excuse me for a moment?"

Bertie nodded, finishing her tea and three more chocolate-covered biscuits as she mulled over his advice.

Become the person you need to be.

Mr. Hastings could well dispense such wisdom, but transformation wasn't as simple as sipping from Alice's "Drink Me" bottle.

Unless it is just that simple.

Before she could second-guess the idea, Bertie was out of her chair and running full tilt for Shelf 49B. There were the hookahs, in all their jewel-toned glory; one shelf up and over sat a faceted crystal bottle, etched with the infamous command.

Bertie wrapped her fingers about it and pulled the stopper out. The gently sloshing contents smelled of fruit and candy, coffee and mint, and something else, under all that, something sweet and dark and flower-filled.

Alice needed to be short to get through the tiny door.

Bertie caught her distorted reflection in the green gla.s.s surface of the Caterpillar's hookah.

And I need to become the sort of person who can command my cast. A person the Theater Manager thinks of as invaluable.

"Bottoms up." Sparing a second to pray she wouldn't shrink to the size of a dormouse, Bertie took the tiniest of sips.

And waited. In the distance, she could hear the record player lift its arm and lower the needle back at the beginning of the song. She didn't feel different, and judging by the metal shelving, she hadn't lost any height, either.

Maybe one more sip.

"I thought I might find you here," said a voice behind her.

Bertie choked. Tears streamed from her eyes as she twisted about, hiding the bottle behind her back. "What do you want, Ariel? Come to gloat?"

"Do you mind if I join you?"

"Actually, I do. I'd like three seconds to myself without noise, chaos, or crisis." And you're all three.

"That's hardly welcoming." Ariel treated her to one of his beautiful smiles.

"That's because it wasn't an invitation." Bertie put her nose in the air and tried to look down at him at the same time. "Besides which, Mr. Hastings will be back any second. He doesn't like you to be in here, you'll remember."

"Ah, there I am in luck. Mr. Tibbs has absconded with the asps, and it will take Mr. Hastings at least half an hour to get them back." Ariel's gaze drifted along Bertie's collarbones, over her shoulder, down her arm.

"On what planet would a basket of asps be considered a set piece and not a prop?" Bertie wondered if Ariel could, as his expression intimated, see right through flesh and blood to the forbidden bottle in her hand.

"I think he plans to hold them hostage until Mr. Hastings relinquishes that large armoire in the corner." Ariel reached behind Bertie, his fingers closing over hers. For a moment, he simply looked down at her. "What do we have here?"

"Nothing." She twitched, but he didn't let go.

"Let me have a look."

Fairly certain she wasn't shrinking, Bertie nonetheless felt a bit odd as Ariel removed the bottle from her grasp and lifted it to his nose.

I'm probably concussed from bashing my head on that auditorium seat.

"Did you already partake of some of this?" he asked.

"I did," Bertie said, refusing to sound either guilty for the transgression or scared by the coinciding flare of heat in her stomach. Her sudden, violent hiccup startled them both, and as the echo ricocheted off the farthest reaches of the room, Bertie laughed. "It's sweeter than I thought it would be."

Ariel tasted it and handed the bottle back. "It will change you."