Ghost looked out into the audience and paled. A bead of sweat appeared on his hairline, and he gulped. “I… uh….”
Ghost had forgotten his one line. Up in the catwalks, Professor Wykoff adjusted the lighting so that the spotlight shone on Ghost, but it got in his eyes. He tripped and dropped the rest of the plates, spilling them onto the stage. “Oops!”
“No,” Marcus moaned. “Now the allegory won’t make sense!”
It didn’t make sense anyway, but Danny darted forward and started smashing the plates further, crushing them into dust underneath his shoes. “I shatter expectations! I pull apart dreams!”
“Phew. Smart move. Danny gets it.” Marcus nodded, mumbling to himself. “This is good, we can work with this.”
“Can we?” I wondered aloud.
“I wish we’d been able to turn this into a musical like I wanted. You and Charlie could’ve come up with the songs,” Marcus whispered back.
“There was no time for us to make up an entire musical for the cast to learn on the last day, along with dance sequences. You’re being unrealistic.”
“Nothing’s unrealistic when you have a dream!”
The play went on. The curtains were pulled for a quick scene change, and the forest became a palace as my Uncle Jonah and Auntie Imogen danced onstage. They wore matching leotards in sparkling rainbow colors, complete with glitter eyeshadow and long, false lashes. Imogen was holding a glittering baton that had pastel streamers rippling from the end of it, while my uncle wore multicolored chaps and a diamond encrusted cowboy hat.
They’d refused to do the play unless Marcus let them wear what they wanted. Their outfits did not fit the theme.
Jonah picked up Imogen, spinning her around his head as she spread her arms wide before he caught her, propping her up against his strong torso. She backflipped off his arm and landed in a crouch. Jonah flung his arms out, doing jazz hands. “Tah-dah!”
They’d practiced this dance forever and were looking to show off, clearly.
“We are the entities of truth and lies!” Imogen said, twirling her baton.
“To pass further, one must guess which one is which,” Jonah said, giving a playful wink.
“Boo! Get off the stage!” I heard Daddy’s voice as he jeered at Uncle Jonah from the audience. My uncle flipped him off, and the crowd laughed.
“Your dad is really playing the role of the spectator well,” Marcus said in approval.
“No, that’s just how he is. He’d boo anyway.”
Alana tapped her chin thoughtfully. “How may we tell which is truth, and which is lies?”
“The answer, simple, albeit, complex,” Erica replied, making a fist and casting her gaze away. “The truth is that which you don’t wish to see, but must.”
“I don’t wish to see any of this, so I’m glad I don’t have to.” Charlie’s deep voice resonated behind me, and it made my body shiver. He came close to me, lightly touching my shoulder. “Our part’s coming up. You ready?”
The tightness in my spine loosened slightly, making it so I could breathe again. “Yeah. Ready.”
“You’ve guessed our secret!” Jonah tossed glitter into the air that would take the Elves in this theater a thousand years to clean up or more. “Pass on into the realm of shadow, where you may meet your next foe!”
The lighting darkened until the entire auditorium was nearly pitch-black, besides a singular spotlight on the stage. Ez and Opal darted onstage, dressed in matching costumes that had long strands of grey, ripped fabric trailing to the floor. They were supposed to be ghosts, I think, but Marcus kept changing his mind on what he wanted them to be, insisting specters might suit the play better. In my opinion, a ghost and a specter were the same damn thing, but he’d argued with me for a half hour they weren’t.
Whatever. It was his play. I noticed on Opal’s ring finger the beautiful turquoise engagement ring that Ez had shown me months ago. I was glad he’d finally asked her— and if we opened the Elven Gate today, they could get married once the Warden was done.
Within the twirling ghosts, a haunting figure appeared. A tall woman with raven hair, pale skin and red lips swathed in a hooded black cloak swept between the ghosts, extending a thin arm with sharp red nails.
“Beware, for ye have stumbled upon the entity of darkness,” Takahashi warned. “Her shadowed heart lay a curse upon all travelers in her path!”
Kallie’s aunt, Delmare, was playing the entity of darkness. She was one of Emma’s best friends. She withdrew from her cloak an aged piece of parchment, and began to recite.
What is it to devote your life to the page
A series of disappointments
