But that, of course, meant it was right for Harper too.
I found out in the secondhand bookshop near campus. I spent a few minutes rifling through plays on the shelves, and there Harper was, with a copy in hand.
“Oh,” I said, catching sight of it.
Harper realized the same thing I had—though where I felt my spirits falter, she beamed.
“Nadine, you’re doingBlood Weddingtoo?”
I considered lying—no, not lying. I considered changing my mind entirely. Normally I’d relish the challenge. But this was too important.
And for once, despite all the challenges and the heights she’d pushed me to, I considered finding an easier option—or, at the very least, weighting the odds for that award in my favor by not going up against the one girl who stood a chance of snatching it from me.
“I am,” I said.
“Wonderful,” she said without an ounce of sarcasm. “Awhole weekend exploring the play together. Well here, you’d better take this. You need it more than me.”
She added the book to the small pile I held, even as I tried to pull away. I didn’t need her charity. I certainly didn’t need herfeeling sorry for me.
“I don’t—”
“Oh, don’t worry. I’ll just grab a new copy. This is going to be so fun!”
———
The school had taken over a run-down adventure camp an hour west of London in the forest of Barlam Thicket.
“Choose your plays wisely,” Clive intoned, one of only two professors who had joined for this weekend. Martin Baxter was the other, tutor of rhythm and movement and so jovial I occasionally thought he needed reminding he was not a student too.
Clive held his own copies of the plays aloft. “You will connect with them in this landscape as you have never connected with theater before.”
Seven students choseBlood Wedding, and there were only six prominent parts. Which meant despite the school’s assurances they’d try to honor our choices, one of us would end up shunted across into a play we hadn’t studied.
Maybe I’d get lucky and Harper would be kicked out—oh, and please let that be true of second year too—but I doubted it. In both instances.
Historically, luck tended to be onherside, not mine.
She curled around Lewis as if with enough public displays of affection, the casting directors might decide they couldn’t possibly split them apart.
Zoe Holland was there too, giving the distinct impression this gathering was three against one.
Eric Mwangi stepped up to be the unofficial leader of our group. This was a part of the test; we were to be left to our own devices to practice all that we had learned, with the professors there as a last resort for guidance.
Blood Weddingwas a play about honor and longing and risk and duty. It was a play permeated in its own tragedy, infused with the dark stain of itself from the very first cut grape in the opening scene.
I didn’t imagine delving into it with Harper, Zoe, and Lewis would be particularly enjoyable.
Making up the rest of the circle was Ruben Porter, who was an intense actor, always leaning in a bit too far, so the rhythm of the stage was thrown off-kilter, and Flora McCarthy, who was entirely forgettable.
We threw everything into our study—every technique, every concept we’d learned applied. Every movement and mode to connection.
“I think we should dive into the rawness of the play,” Eric said at the end of the day, when the sun was vanishing behind the trees and I was starting to feel like I had no more to give. “It’s a play about the temptation of violence. The desire for revenge. Let’s talk about that.”
“I think it ties into loss,” Lewis said, leaning forward. “When all else has been stripped from you, you give up or you keep going. Revenge is what kindles in that empty space, a fire when you have nothing else to keep you warm.”
“I disagree,” I said. “The Mother sees the futility of the conflict. But she’s still pulled repeatedly toward it. Because it’s human nature to be drawn into darkness. We are violent by instinct. To be human is to crave retribution.”
A few startled faces stared at me, but Harper smirked a wry, almost embarrassed smile. “No.”
