Ritual Reality
17 Watchful Friend
Thursday, 12 June 1969
“What a pit,” Wayne moaned as he looked around at what would pass for a theatre for the next four nights. The cast had moved to Ambleside on Thursday after a second and third performance in Keswick played to nine people—total. They’d had a day off, during which Wayne slept, and then a day-trip to Gretna Green and Hadrian’s Wall. That had inspired an entire first scene re-enactment on the remnants of the great wall. While Judith was friendly with Wayne, something had changed. She seemed almost afraid around him—guarded. Wayne had spent Wednesday hiking around the west side of the Derwentwater alone and was a little down.
“Hey kids!” yelled Carol in mock Judy Garland tones. “Let’s do a play. My grandpa has a barn we can use.”
“They call us babes in arms,” sang out a half-dozen others, “but we’ll be babes in armor.”
“My god,” Jim whispered as he came through the door to see the theater. The stage was a platform raised a foot above the wooden barn floor. The seats were straight wooden benches, some with backs. The stage area itself was hung in royal blue cotton panels with no front curtain at all. When he walked backstage he discovered a tangle of ropes and pipes that was almost impenetrable. Everything was connected, but nothing seemed to support anything else. When he fought his way back on stage through the panels, most of the cast were linked arm-in-arm across the stage singing “Babes in Arms” in their best Busby Berkeley imitation.
“They call us babes in arms, but we’ll be like an army!”
Jim whistled for attention and gradually they collapsed on the floor to listen.
“It’s a good thing you all still have a sense of humor,” he began. “I hate to tell you this, but the dressing room is worse yet.”
“Another stairwell?” groaned Gail.
“I heard a definite singular when he said dressing room,” joined Carol.
“This time it’s the Trust Superintendent’s office,” Jim answered. “You’ll have to make do with the one room. Work out shifts or whatever. The temperature will be about fifty at curtain time and it’s the only heated room in the building.”
“Terrific,” Chuck muttered. “Judith, d-did you really perform on these s-stages before you came to America?”
“This was one of the best,” she laughed. “Just look at all the lights.” Wayne looked up at the hanging lamps and the rat’s nest of cables that connected them.
“Does this beast have a control panel?” he asked.
“Found it!” called Beth from backstage. “Real dimmers.” She cross-faded several lights.
“Well, if the audience can stand to sit through it on these benches, at least we’ll have a show with a little atmosphere. Wayne, it’s all yours,” Jim said.
Wayne organized the crews and they loaded in the limited scenery. When the thrones were on stage it looked much better than it had in Keswick. They carefully taped out positions on the stage. Hamlet and Laertes rehearsed their swordplay under Judith’s watchful eye. Wayne worked on improvising a grave scene in a theater that had no levels to work with. Backstage, they cleared as much space as possible and tied all the ropes off in one direction.
“Clothesline,” Wayne muttered. On stage, he called Hamlet. “Chuck! Look, I’m sorry about the throne last night.”
“Only a little embarrassment out of a long night,” said Chuck. “Who would ever expect an empty throne to throw the knife back at me?”
“They didn’t have beadboard,” Wayne explained. “I told you that knife wasn’t meant to be stuck in wood. Apparently, you can’t get standard polystyrene here. I took the softest wood I could find.”
“I’ll just cut the bit. Who’ll miss it?”
“Judith will, for one,” Wayne said. “I’ve got an alternative, but you’ve got to be really careful.”
“What’s the alternative?”
“I’ll sharpen the blade. I’ve got a file and a whetstone. If I can stay out of sight for an hour, I can put enough of an edge on just the end that it should stick. Just don’t miss.”
“Never fear, it’s s-safe with me.”
“If anyone comes looking for me, point them someplace else, would you? I saw a wooden table out back of the theater and I’m going out there to freeze my ass off and sharpen a knife.”
Wayne sank into his work on the bench behind the barn theater in the National Trust. He was happy for the few minutes of work on a prop. When he worked on the throne there were half a dozen other people around, all wanting instructions on what to paint and where things should go. He’d managed to attach a back to the throne, but it wasn’t functioning the way anyone wanted. He’d tried a dozen different materials in the absence of bead board. Fabric and newspaper were both too dense for the knife to penetrate. He’d tried cotton batting, but it didn’t have enough substance to hold the knife in place. The only thing he could think of to do was to sharpen the knife and hope Chuck could stick it into the wooden backing.
He clamped the blade to the table and began filing the edge. It would only need to be sharpened an inch or so from the point. The blades were already shaped, but they were dull. This edge he could hone each night and keep it razor sharp. He put aside the file and began with a whetstone.
“Hi baby,” Judith said slipping up beside him. Wayne jumped.
“Oh! Hi. How’d you find me?”
“What a thing to ask. I asked Chuck if he’d seen you and he told me you were out here.”
“Great friend. He was supposed to tell anyone who asked that I’d gone somewhere else.”
“He might have been a little distracted. He was helping Carol wrap her boobs in elastic bandage. God, that must hurt.” Judith shuddered. Wayne chuckled.
“I think she just does it so she can get Chuck to massage them after the show.”
“They are getting along well, aren’t they? What are you doing?”
“It’s a secret, but I’m sharpening the end of Hamlet’s knife so it will stick in the wood.”
“I thought we were going to cut that bit.”
“I know how much you want it in.”
“You’d do that for me?” Judith’s voice brought Wayne’s attention up to her face. Tears glistened in her eyes.
“Sweetheart, I’d do anything for you. Why have you been, well… sort of avoiding me? Did I do something to hurt you?” he asked.
“Fuck. You really don’t remember anything about Friday night, do you?”
“I remember going with you and getting high and waking up with all my clothes on at noon. Other than that, it’s all weird dreams. Did we make love?”
“Oh baby. I’m so sorry you missed it. It was so intense that it scared me a little. I’ve never felt anything like it,” she said.
“All right. You don’t have to tease me. I’m sorry I screwed up again. I’m caught up on sleep now, I think.”
“Wayne, honey. Look in my eyes. I’m serious. I’ve never been overwhelmed like that. You were…” Judith sobbed. “I’ve been frightened to be near you ever since. Every time I see you, I have to change my knickers. I don’t know what’s come over me.” Wayne pushed the blade out of the way and pulled Judith down on his lap at the wooden table. He kissed her soundly.
“Darling, I don’t want you to be frightened of me. I’m so sorry I scared you. It had to be the drugs. I’m not smoking again. The dreams were too weird.”
“Did you dream of making love to me?”
“Yes, but there was the other one, too.”
“Rebecca?”
“No. She looked familiar, but I would have recognized Rebecca, I’m sure. It was like I was in an old movie. Too ridiculous to believe. I don’t know. It was a dream.”
“Mari.”
“Wait! That was her name. How did you know? Did I call you Mari?”
“Maybe. It was okay. I felt like I was her, too. That’s what scared me. It was so powerful. You are so powerful.” They kissed again and Wayne slid a hand under Judith’s shirt to cup her breast as she ground herself on his lap.
“Thirty minutes!” Lena called from the back door of the theater.
“Thank you, thirty!” Wayne and Judith automatically responded. They broke down giggling.
“I love you, baby,” Wayne said. “I’d better get this blade in Hamlet’s sheath.”
“Later, I want you to get your blade in my sheath,” Judith whispered as they walked to the theatre.
The performance started well. As Bernardo, Wayne was spot on with the first line. There had been enough atmosphere to make the ghost scenes very spooky. After that scene, he changed costumes in the crowded dressing room where everyone huddled for warmth and prepared for his entrance as the player king. He met Rebecca in the wings and they made their entrance with the rest of the rag-tag bunch of players.
Wayne was wound up as he finished his monologue. There was even a good spattering of applause as “The instant burst of clamor that she made would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven and passion in the gods.” It was shaping up to be a great performance. The players were given their instructions by Hamlet and exited. Judith met them as they came off stage.
“Hey, you were really turned on out there tonight,” she whispered.
“I’ll show you turned on. I’ve got a woody in my tights.”
“So that’s what Dr. Allen was staring at all through the scene,” Judith giggled.
“Shh,” he whispered glancing back at Rebecca.
“If you want me quiet, you’ll have to shut me up.” With that, she wrapped her arms around him and pressed her lips into his. He felt her hips grind against his own. In a moment, the joked-about woody was present and accounted for between the two lovers.
“Bloody, bawdy villain,” Chuck expounded from the stage.
Rebecca smiled at the couple as they pushed each other farther off stage. That settled it. She was not going to lead Wayne on when her coven sister had such a firm hold on him. Not that she would get involved with Wayne anyway, but just watching them she had to admit she was getting a little mushy between the legs.
She was almost too late to act when she saw Hamlet’s blade come flashing through the cloth panel and lodge in the cluster of ropes behind the set. There was a split-second pause as the rope severed completely and the batten fell from above the stage with its weight of unused lights. She dove after Wayne and Judith and nailed them to the wall feeling, even as she did, the scrape of the pipe as it was deflected off her shoulders and bounced down her back. She crumpled to the floor. The last she heard was Hamlet’s insane laughter—“This is most brave!”—as he struggled on stage to remember his next line.
Wayne heaved the batten off Rebecca’s back and Judith pulled her from beneath. He swept her up and made it through the stage door a step behind Judith holding it open. Protect The Huntress! echoed in his head. Other than the crash of the pipe on the floor, none of the rest of the troupe realized anything was amiss. Behind him, Wayne caught a glimpse of Beth looking from the other side of the stage behind the drapery panels to see what had happened. The door swung shut behind them. Wayne carefully laid Rebecca down on the table where he’d worked on the culprit knife. They coaxed her back to consciousness. Rebecca’s eyes filled with tears as she opened them.
“Ahh,” she whimpered. “Are you all right?”
“We’re fine, thanks to you,” Wayne said. “God! Rebecca, you could have been killed. I…”
“Is anyone hurt back here?” a voice cut Wayne off. Rounding the corner of the theatre was a short stocky man. “I’m a physician,” he said approaching the three people.
“Dr. McBride!” Judith exclaimed.
“Judith Harmon, is it?” he answered. “Fancy meeting you here. I saw your name in the program. I’ll bet that knife work was your doing.” He bent over Rebecca and looked into her eyes. “Who have we here?”
“That’s Dr. Allen,” Wayne said. “How did you know she was hurt?”
“Instinct, boy,” the doctor shot back. He looked up at Wayne and there was a glint of hatred in his eye that made Wayne stumble. “I saw the knife and I heard the crash. Was she hit?”
“By a falling batten,” Wayne said. He was not about to relinquish his post at Rebecca’s head.
“There seems to be nothing broken, but I’ve no doubt you’re in pain. I’ve something in my bag that will help you,” he said. “I’ll be back directly. It’s in my auto.”
Rebecca looked up at Wayne and then at Judith. Then she closed her eyes.
“Wayne,” Judith said, “you have a cue coming up. Better get inside.” Her voice held such an aura of command that he was on his feet before his mind had mastered his body.
“I can’t do that. Not with Rebecca…”
“There’s nothing you can do here,” Judith said again. “We have a doctor.”
“Wayne,” Rebecca whispered hoarsely. “Go ahead. I’ll be fine. I know Dr. McBride.”
“But you’re in that scene, too,” Wayne said feebly.
“Use your understudy,” Judith said curtly. “That’s what he’s there for.”
“Brian? Okay, okay,” he moaned. No kiss tonight. He squeezed Rebecca’s hand and turned to go. He saw McBride returning with a bag. “I don’t trust him,” he whispered to Judith. She nodded. Wayne whispered a soft prayer for protection around Rebecca and went to the stage door. Judith saw a soft glow settle around the professor and sink into her, but had no time to question Wayne.
Wayne leaned back against the door trying to catch his breath. Glenn was backstage ready to enter for the court scene. He saw Wayne’s pale face in the backlight.
“You okay?” Glenn whispered. “You look like Hamlet’s ghost.”
“I need Brian, can you believe it?” Wayne whispered back. “Rebecca’s hurt and Judith is outside with her. He’s got to fake the dumbshow with me.”
“Shit. I’ll get him. You calm down.”
Wayne was much calmer now, in fact. The first thing he thought of was the dangerous knife. He slipped behind the panels of cloth and stepped over the fallen light bar. He dislodged the knife, careful not to cut any more of the fragile lines. The cast was gathering stage left, already buzzing with the news. Wayne ducked out the stage right door and downstairs with the knife. He grabbed a towel and wrapped the blade, then buried it beneath his clothes. That was the end of that bit of stage business. Chuck would just have to go back to the way he did it last fall.
He returned to the stage just in time to grab Brian and enter. On stage, he didn’t have to think of the chaos his own risk-taking had caused.
Once Wayne disappeared through the stage door, Judith whispered to Rebecca, “I don’t trust him either.” Rebecca nodded.
“Help me.”
McBride approached the table where Rebecca lay, but the items he pulled from his bag were not medical. Four ritual tools were positioned at the four cardinal points and in a few moments wards flared to life around them. Within that circle the three cildru of Cobhan Carles shifted to their coven names.
“Huntress, you are going to have a nasty bruise there. You should have it x-rayed tomorrow. I could call an ambulance, but by the time it got here, you could be back in your hotel and asleep. Are you staying at your cottage, Swordmaster?”
“No, Barber.” Judith’s reply was curt. She watched carefully as he probed Rebecca, not hesitating to put his palm on her breast as he checked her heartbeat.
“Barber!” Rebecca gasped out. “Tend to your work.” Judith cushioned her and pushed the high priest of Carles away.
“You’ve examined enough. Do you have anything for her pain or not? And why are you here?”
“I heard you were both in the district and made it my business to find you,” he said. He found the package of pills that he wanted. “Can you swallow this without water?”
“Yes,” Rebecca answered. He put the capsule on her tongue and she gulped it down.
“Now before that knocks you out completely, suppose one or both of you tell me what Creüs is doing being used as a stage prop,” he commanded.
“Not Creüs,” Rebecca answered. “Just a stage prop.”
“A good one,” Judith said. “He sharpened the point to compensate for the wooden throne back. Stupid Chuck missed it.”
“When I saw Hamlet draw it, I nearly fell off my chair. I was on my way out before he ever threw it.”
“The knife has already been promised to me if we need to re-forge,” Rebecca said through a yawn.
“Huntress, you mustn’t forge a new blade, do you hear me?” Judith demanded. Rebecca was falling quickly under the influence of the drug and into a painless sleep.
“Swordmaster, thank you for being so kind to me,” Rebecca said through lips that would barely open.
“I owe you one. You saved Wayne’s life.”
“Yours. Wayne’s too.” She slipped deeper into sleep.
“Christ! What did you give her?”
“Propoxyphene. I have some samples. Give her one for pain when she needs it, but not more than one every six hours. It’s a powerful pain reliever.”
“Did you have to knock her out?” Judith asked.
“It affects people differently, but now we can talk, Swordmaster. Look at me.”
Judith looked into the eyes of the high priest and was mesmerized. Why had she even bothered to look at him? She despised the man and was more concerned about Rebecca. But once she looked, her other questions seemed to fade away. The eyes seemed to glow and she couldn’t tear herself away from them.
“You have no pentacles!” laughed The Barber. “You are helpless to resist me.”
“What do you want?” There was a note of fear in Judith’s voice, but she was helpless to turn away.
“I want you to allow The Huntress and The Toolmaker to develop their close relationship. Don’t interfere. Encourage it. They will forge a new blade on Litha, but you and I will rule with it. You’d like to be high priestess, wouldn’t you? Together we will control all the power of the four combined circles. We will rule the Four Faces of Carles.”
“She might not even call the circle.”
“There are two ways the great circle can be called, by authority and by power. She has the authority, but we, my plaything, have the power. We will call the circle.”
“I don’t… want…” Judith struggled to get the words out.
“Don’t bother to resist, Swordmaster. Do as I command.”
Nightmares. Rebecca hadn’t had such nightmares in years.
She wasn’t out completely when The Barber had begun commanding The Swordmaster. How had he done that? She wanted to tell her friend—yes, Judith was a friend—not to pay attention to the high priest. There was something evil about him. He acted possessed.
Rebecca slipped under the influence of the drug and the nightmares rushed to accompany her. The knife came slicing through the curtains. Again and again she saw it flashing in the air; saw it slicing the rope; saw the pipe falling. In her dreams, it fell not on Wayne, but on her husband Wesley, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
Again, the flash of the blade in the air. Not just the pipe falling, but all the lights dropping and exploding around her. All the curtains falling, draping the cast in ghostly shapes as they struggled to free themselves. The ceiling was falling. The sky was falling. Rebecca was falling. Her whole world was crumbling around her and all she had to hold was one shivering, naked boy as the fires of the coven exploded around them.
Her Vagabond Poet. Just when she needed him most, he stumbled in on the workings of the circle. He seemed immune to the wards placed around them, simply seeking the warmth of the fire. He was ordained by the gods. He carried into the circle the thing they needed most—his staff. The innocent Vagabond was an instrument of the gods and he came directly to her, the High Priestess. Now he was caught up with her in consecrating the new tool to the magic workings of the coven—the fire-breathing staff, Iäpetus.
The staff rose proudly from the midst of the fire, immune to its destruction and the Vagabond’s staff—his sex—rose between her legs, raising power that flowed from their joining into the wand in the midst of the fire.
Some small part of her that was still Rebecca Hart Allen warned her that this was dangerous. She had raised power once. She had called fire. She had seen the flames reaching into the heart of the wood leaving their seed there where she could call upon it to germinate and bloom again into flame.
The power drawn into the staff of The Vagabond Poet made it glow and when they climaxed together, it burst into flame, shooting a shower of sparks into the night air. Then the staff was truly burning. As she watched, horrified, The Vagabond stepped into the flames to retrieve the staff, quenching the fire against his chest.
She screamed.
The knife cut through Rebecca’s dream again. It was no longer in a theatre or a coven circle. The knife cut through a blue Mediterranean sky, flashing through the air into the deep rushing waters below. And Wayne, a Vagabond centuries removed from the creation of Iäpetus—foolish boy—followed the blade into the depths and vanished.
“No!” Rebecca arched her back as she rose up off the bed and stiffened. Wayne jumped from the chair nearby where he had nodded off. He pulled her into his arms and softly crooned to her as she surfaced from the drugged depths of her sleep.
“It’s okay, Becc. It’s all right. Easy. It will all pass. Just a nightmare,” he said as he stroked her hair, careful not to let his supporting arm touch the bruises on her shoulders.
“Wes… Wayne,” she whispered. “No. Not you, too. Please don’t…”
“There was an accident on stage,” Wayne said. Maybe she was too disoriented to remember what had happened. “Everything is okay now. You are deeply bruised, but nothing more. You saved our lives, Becc.” She looked at him curiously and relaxed into him a little.
“When did you start calling me ‘Becc?’” she asked.
“Oh. Um. I’ll… If you…”
“Don’t be silly. I like it. No one has called me that in many years. It makes me feel safe. I had such awful nightmares. What am I on?”
“Dr. McBride gave you a pill and some samples to take. When we got back to the Inn, Joyce called another doctor and he examined you then prescribed something different. You were still in pain and the chemist wasn’t open yet, so he said it was okay for you to take another of these. You won’t need any more, though. Joyce picked up the prescription while you were asleep.” Wayne handed her the packet of Darvon samples. The second doctor didn’t know much about them but said he supposed it was okay.
“Don’t give me any more of these. I need my head back. What are you doing here?”
“I looked in after the show and fell asleep in the chair.” Rebecca looked at the chair and saw the pillow and blanket still crumpled up there. She grinned at Wayne. “I couldn’t leave you, Becc. I had to make sure you were all right. You saved my life and Judith’s, too. I couldn’t just leave you alone. I’m so glad you woke up before I have to leave to catch the bus for tonight’s performance. But Joyce said she’d sit with you while we’re gone. Protect you while I’m gone.”
“Knowing Joyce as well as I do, it’s a wonder she wasn’t sleeping in the chair on top of you,” Rebecca chuckled. “Take these and get rid of them. Do not give them to Glenn. They’re wicked. I’m going back to sleep now, dear. Thank you for being here.”
Rebecca settled back into her pillow and was soon out of it again. Wayne looked at the packet of pills she’d given him. “Darvon sample pack. Product of Eli Lilly and Company, Indianapolis, Indiana.”
What the hell?
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