Page 20 of Potion Sickness

“Englebert,” Pru says. “He’s a person. He’s somebody’s son. The play can wait until we know whether the man is all right.”

“Yes, yes,” Englebert says, at half his usual volume. He looks at the spot on the floor where Damien sat down, and his tail comes around his feet. “He had finally begun to project,” he says, dejectedly.

CHAPTER 6

The first blog post is due at noon, and so far it consists of a title.

I’m on the porch with coffee and my laptop and the cursor has been blinking on the blank document for the better part of an hour. The editor emailed this morning with the subject line ‘heard your lead collapsed???’ and the body was a single exclamation point. Who knows how word got from a Duskboro gymnasium to a magazine office in Manchester overnight.

Englebert is on the porch railing, pacing its length, four steps one way and four steps back. He’s been awake since five. I know this because at approximately five-fifteen he sat on my chest and announced that we had preparations to make.

“Read them back to me,” he says.

I pick up my notepad. Page one is my notes from the run-through. Page two is my notes from after the run-through. Page three is a numbered list that I took down under dictation at the crack of dawn, titled, in Englebert’s exact words, ‘PROPOSALS FOR THE PRESERVATION OF THE PRODUCTION, TO BE PRESENTED TO V. OLEANDER AT NINE O’CLOCK.’

“Item one,” I read. “The show must go on.”

“That is the primary thesis. Continue.”

“Item two. In the event Mr. Carter recovers by Wednesday, resume the full schedule with an added Thursday run-through to restore momentum.”

“Reasonable. Continue.”

“Item three. In the event Mr. Carter does not recover by Wednesday, the role of Macbeth shall be assumed by a member of the production staff possessing complete knowledge of the text, decades of theatrical experience, and availability.”

“Yes.”

“Englebert, this is a description of you.”

“It is a description of the ideal candidate. That the description also fits me is a happy coincidence I am prepared to accept with humility.”

I put the pad down. “Walk me through it. You’re on stage. A packed audience. Pru says, ‘My hands are of your colour,’ and turns to her husband, who is a cat.”

“Lady Macbeth has heard worse news than that in this play.”

“Half the waiting list is from out of town, Englebert. Burlington. Montpelier. Those people didn’t grow up here. They don’t know what this town is. You’d be performing the Scottish Play and simultaneously outing the entire magical population of New England for eight dollars a ticket.”

He stops pacing.

“There are precedents,” he says. “Puppetry has an ancient and dignified history. We bill it as an artistic choice. Avant-garde. The Japanese have an entire tradition⁠—”

“The Japanese puppeteers are visible humans operating a puppet. You would be a cat, alone, doing a soliloquy.”

“And doing it correctly, which is more than can be said for—” He catches himself, sits down on the railing, and wraps his tail over his feet.

“He’d gotten better,” I say.

“He had gotten better,” Englebert says, somberly. “Three weeks I spent on that man’s vowels. Tuesday he found the back wall of the gymnasium on the first try and I thought, there it is. There is the actor who survived two deaths on daytime television.” He looks out at the yard.

Below him, on the porch boards, Maude has arranged himself in the exact spot where the morning sun will arrive in roughly twenty minutes. Englebert notices, and for once doesn’t seem to have the energy to protest.

Just then, Annabel’s truck comes up the driveway.

She parks in front of the carriage house and comes across the lawn instead of going inside. She’s still in the raincoat over the pajamas. Her garden clogs have acquired a coat of gravel dust from the Carter driveway. She looks like she’s been awake all night, presumably because she has.

I go in and pour her a coffee without asking. When I come back out she’s sitting on the top step, and Englebert has relocated to the railing directly above her.

“He’s alive,” she says. “Same as last night. Breathing deep, heart slow and steady, but he still won’t wake up. His mother’s with him. Skye’s with him.” She takes the coffee in both hands. “I sat with him until morning and then I needed to not be in that house anymore. Ms. Carter kept offering me banana bread. I couldn’t take any more banana bread.”