Guardian of the Dead (5 page)

We had come to the end of the corridor, and entered the wide lobby. Kevin pushed on the wide, pale-blue doors, emblazoned with ‘Ng
io Marsh Theatre' in flowing script, and ushered us in.

‘Are any other—' I began, but I had spoken into one of those sudden silences that occasionally punctuate group conversations. All the strangers gathered on the stage looked up at us.

Empty, the theatre was immense and intimidating. The black side curtains were tied up in enormous knots, and the undressed stage stretched all the way back to the brick wall. The group of shivering bodies clustered on the stage's scarred wooden floor barely covered a tenth of it.

I skirted the sunken orchestra pit and joined them, making abortive attempts to smooth down my hair.

Iris beamed at me. ‘Okay, guys, this is Ellie Spencer, from Mansfield, like Kevin! She's our fight choreographer!' She clapped. Everyone joined in.

‘Hi,' I said, through my teeth, hoping it looked like a smile. There
were
cute boys, but none of them looked enthused by my introduction as a mere high-school kid. Probably not even my nice boots would have helped.

‘It's good to see everyone here on time!' Iris said encouragingly.

‘Sarah's not,' Carrie pointed out.

‘Sarah left,' Iris told her, but before the groan from the other cast members could swell into real protest, she held out her hands. ‘It's okay! We have a new Titania lined up already. Reka Gordon.'

‘Why did Sarah quit?' one of the boys asked, looking disgruntled. I'd noticed him right away – he wasn't really tall enough for me, but I liked his brown curls and wide mouth.

Iris paused, a look of momentary confusion flickering over her face. ‘You'd have to ask her yourself,' she said, then rallied. ‘But I'm sure it was a good reason.'

‘What's this Reka done?' he persisted.

Iris blinked again. ‘Oh, lots of things,' she said. ‘She's just moved here, I think, so nothing recent . . . she
has
done
Dream
before, though, so that's a real bonus. Just one thing, though, before she joins us! She's allergic to the smell of cooked food. So we can't bring anything that smells to rehearsal.' She picked up her notebook and smiled hopefully at the group.

Kevin raised his hand. ‘She's allergic to the
smell
of cooked food?'

Iris nodded.

‘That's – uh . . . I've never heard of that.'

‘Like, is she allergic to peanuts?' Carrie asked, pretty nose wrinkling. ‘Because that's airborne allergies. My cousin can't be around satay.'

‘Cooked food,' Iris said swiftly. ‘All cooked food. Okay?' Her voice was composed, but I could see her hands tensing and relaxing in her lap. ‘She's joining us a little later. Let's get warmed up.'

I squished myself into one of the seats in the row nearest the stage and watched as she marshalled everyone into a circle like a hyper-efficient sheepdog and took the cast through a series of increasingly bizarre physical, vocal, and mental warm-ups. I couldn't really see the point of making people howl, or asking them to visualise themselves dropping into a pool of black ink, or having them all clap in unison, but they did look more focused and intent when they were finished, so what did I know? And brown-curls boy looked even more interesting with his face screwed up in concentration.

‘Okay, Ellie! How do you want to start?'

Panic swamped me. I'd been so intent on complaining about Kevin making me do this that I hadn't come up with any practicalities. ‘How about if I see the scenes like you've got them, and then come up with some ideas?'

Iris nodded as if that made perfect sense. ‘Okay! Act three, scene two. From Helena's entrance.'

Carrie and Carla eagerly disappeared into the wings, and two boys whose names I had already forgotten began mock-punching each other, while another two sat at the back of the stage. Everyone else trooped into the auditorium, setting up camp in the front rows. Iris sat down beside me, so I took out a notebook and tried to look serious.

Carrie ran from the wings, pursued by one of the boys protesting his enchanted love for her. I'd studied
A Midsummer
Night's Dream
in Year Eleven, but it was hard to follow Shakespeare's lines at speed. I thought that they were probably pretty good, though. Carrie's Helena was maybe a little too stagy, but Carla's Hermia was really distraught. Brown-curls boy was playing Puck, and he caught my eye more than once, smirking gnomishly to himself, or lifting his fingers in gestures that mocked the girls' earnest arguments.

Carla floated around in front of her Lysander in a pretty useless attempt to stop him duelling, then turned on Carrie, launching into the speech about their comparative heights. It came off oddly, since they were almost the same size, but I grimaced when she scorned Carrie's ‘tall personage'.

‘I am not yet so low but that my nails can reach unto thine eyes!' she declared in a rising shriek, and then stopped, looking expectantly at me. ‘And then we fight.'

I nodded. ‘Just speak the lines you say during.'

She looked disappointed, but they continued until the boys stormed off to duel and the girls followed in bemusement. Iris twisted to smile at me. ‘Any ideas?'

To my surprise, I did have a few. It wouldn't be real training, but I could make them look a little less like actors and a little more like girls who genuinely wanted to hurt each other. ‘I think so. Is there someplace I can take them to try it?'

‘The greenroom is back there,' she said, pointing to the right wing.

Kevin tagged along, either to offer support or out of boredom. Backstage was dimly lit, and we walked cautiously around untidy piles of wood cut-offs and rolls of canvas. The chill air smelled of paint and sawdust, simultaneously sharp and musty. I shivered and tucked my numbing fingers into my coat pockets.

‘How old are you, Ellie?' Carrie asked.

‘Seventeen.'

‘Really? I thought you might be older. You're so tall.'

‘I noticed that myself,' I said blandly, and watched her cover her fluster by reaching for the greenroom door.

The handle yanked out of her grip as the door swung abruptly back. Carrie stumbled forward, narrowly avoiding collision with the red-haired woman on the other side.

‘Careful,' she snapped, and strode through. She looked ready to move right through us, before she spotted Kevin and her whole demeanour changed. From the cool scorn of her lovely face she produced a beautiful smile, and aimed it directly at him.

Reflexively, Kevin smiled back.

The moment hung in the dusty air, and then the woman made a neat quarter-turn on the heel of her ankle boots and stepped surely onto the stage. The bare lighting edged her red hair with gold before she moved into the auditorium and out of sight.

Kevin stared after her.

‘Is
that
Reka?' Carla wondered.

I was staring myself, but with the shock of recognition. In the fog she'd looked no age at all, and now she looked in her early twenties, just a few years older than me. But all the mystery of that odd encounter was explained – clearly an involvement in student theatre was sufficient reason for strange clothes and weird contacts. Although she must have taken them out. The light from the green room had shown two perfectly normal pupils in her dark-green eyes.

‘She must be,' I said. ‘Let's get started.'

SITTING INSIDE MY HEAD

T
HE GREENROOM WASN'T
green. One of the sagging couches was, though, a sort of greenish-brown that I hoped was just faded upholstery, and not mold. The walls had once been off-white, now much more off than white, and the ragged curtains over the dressing-room windows were black hessian, clearly there to ward off prying eyes during costume changes, and not as decoration. The three small dressing rooms didn't have doors, though, so apparently it was only outside eyes they were worried about. Or maybe shy people changed in the bathrooms.

It smelled comfortingly similar to the backstage of my Napier school hall-and-theatre – closed air and old sweat, sweet baby powder and the sharp scent of cold cream. I took a deep whiff and tried to stop the irritation from showing on my face. We'd been practising for half an hour, and they still wouldn't stop arguing with me.

‘So I can't kick her in the face?' Carrie complained. I was beginning to think it was her default tone.

‘It would be hard to look realistic without actually kicking her in the face. Especially since – you'll be wearing shoes, right?'

‘Boots,' Carla supplied, looking apprehensive. ‘Like those ones Reka was wearing.'

I shook my head. ‘Bare feet can do more than enough damage.'

‘I'd be careful,' Carrie insisted.

Muscles bunched in my jaw. ‘If you made contact, you could break her nose, cheekbones, teeth, jaw, or the orbit of her eye, give her concussion or make her bite through her tongue. And if you missed very badly, you could crush her windpipe.'

‘And you probably wouldn't even see it from the fifth row back,' Kevin added.

Carrie dropped her gaze. ‘I just want it to look good,' she said, tugging her polar-fleece hem with short, sharp motions.

‘Let's practise the shoving again,' Carla said quickly, going to stand between the boys. ‘Um, right. Lysander, whereto tends all this?'

‘Away, you Ethiope!' Lysander scowled and gave her a hearty shove that sent her stumbling halfway across the room.

‘No!' I shouted. ‘Lysander—'

‘Patrick.'

‘Right, Patrick – you can't just push her like that. The movement comes from her. You okay, Carla? Then let's try it again,
slowly
.'

My brief temper tantrum had at least shut Carrie up for a while. We went through the rest of the scene until the bones of some decent work were there and I was sure they weren't going to hurt themselves or each other accidentally, then called a break.

On stage, Reka Gordon was cooing over the stocky, dark boy who played Bottom. She was really, really good, and I didn't want her to be. I knew it wasn't fair to dislike her without giving her a chance, but my skin crawled unpleasantly when I thought of that meeting on the hill and her creepy eyes. We waited in the wings until she yawned delicately and curled gracefully into sleep around the boy. She raised her head and shot us an irritated glare when we came in anyway.

Iris was taking notes in her neat handwriting, but she immediately turned to me when I sat beside her.

‘Did it go okay?' she whispered.

‘It needs more practice,' I whispered back. ‘It's pretty rough-looking up close.'

Iris waved behind us at the vast expanse of the auditorium. ‘The forty-foot rule can take care of a lot of it,' she said. ‘So, what do you think? Can you make it to the next three rehearsals?'

I nodded, and felt ashamed of myself for not liking her more when she looked so grateful. ‘You're the best, Ellie!' She jumped to her feet. ‘Guys, it's costume-fitting time! Come on back.'

Everyone perked up and bounced toward the greenroom – except Reka, who apparently did not bounce; me, who was largely uninterested; and Kevin, who lagged behind to speak to me.

‘Don't you want to play dress-up?' I asked.

‘Oh, I do,' he said, grinning. ‘I was holding out for Theseus in a feather cloak, but none of the local elders wanted to lend a
taonga
that precious to a bunch of ignorant students.'

‘Theseus is M
ori?' I wondered.

Kevin pointed at his chest. ‘Duh. It's a reimagining of Shakespeare's classic comedy for extra extreme relevance to modern New Zealand audiences. Come on, I told you this. Last night.'

‘Oh, last night,' I said pointedly. ‘I think I remember bits of it, before someone got me drunk and nearly expelled and dragged me into his play.'

‘Come on, don't lie. You love it.'

I sighed and surrendered. ‘Okay. I like teaching.'