The Juliet Spell

“Thank ye, Miranda,” he said.

A few minutes later, he came into the living room. He was a shade lighter, and his hair was damp. He’d managed the clothes. The shirt was on all right, and the pants were okay, except that the zipper was down.

“Edmund, that little metal thing down in the front? Pull it up.”

It took him three tries. Then he worked the zipper up and down another ten.

“Marvelous strange,” he said.

“Are you hungry?” I asked.

“Not a whit. But I would like another cola.”

“Help yourself.”

On his way to the kitchen, he paused by our flat-screen TV.

“What device is this?” he asked.

“Television,” I said. “Get your cola and I’ll show you how it works.”

I wasn’t going to throw Edmund in at the deep end of TV. I had the perfect introduction to the whole concept ready to go. It was a DVD of Romeo and Juliet. I’d watched about six productions as part of my preparation for my audition, and this one was ideal for him. The whole thing was staged in Elizabethan costumes and was done on a copy of an Elizabethan stage. And Mr. Gillinger had told us that R&J was one of Shakespeare’s two most popular plays. Maybe it would turn out Edmund had seen it.

When he came back, I got all teachery. “Now. Edmund, this is television.” I turned on the screen. It flared up huge and blue.

Edmund pushed himself into the back of the sofa. His eyes got big.

“What are ye conjurin’?” he said. “Be this some hole like the one I just fell through? Are ye openin’ a portal to another world?”

“It’s okay. It’s just television, and it’s just turning on. There are a lot of different things you can do with TV. Right now, we’re going to show you a movie. It’s also called a DVD. See this little disk? The whole movie is on it. All we do is turn on the television with this thing called a remote, put the DVD in the player like so, turn on the player and then we get this screen that asks us what we want to do. Play movie, select scenes, special features, languages. Anybody can do this. You can do it, too. Ready?”

I put Romeo and Juliet into the player.

There were a couple of ads for British movies. They whipped by so fast that Edmund didn’t understand anything about them I’m sure. But that wasn’t what really confused him. It was the pictures themselves.

“Are these people or spirits?” he asked. “Why be they flat and small? Why do they jerk so, like mad poppets?”

“They’re just clips from movies,” I said. “To get you to want to watch the whole thing. Don’t worry. The thing we’re going to see will make sense to you. In fact, you may even have seen it in London.”

“I feel like me head’s being whirled about by a huracano,” he said. He grabbed one of the sofa cushions and held it across his chest. “I do not like this television.”

“You’ll get used to it,” I said. “Everyone does. Now watch.”

The screen changed and I hit the play movie button. There was a fanfare of old-fashioned music and the title came on the screen: Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare.

“Nay,” Edmund said. “’Tis never.” His jaw dropped; he held his breath.

“’Tis,” I said.

The movie started. An actor called Chorus was standing in the middle of the set that was supposed to be a street in Verona. “Two households both alike in dignity, in fair Verona where we lay our scene—” he began.

“’Tis never,” Edmund repeated.

“From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean—”

Edmund made a sound between a scream and a shout. He turned to me, and his face, which had been almost relaxed when he came out of the shower, was full of horror.

“Witch, by what enchantment have ye conjured up me brother William’s play?”

Chapter Four

“William Shakespeare is your brother?”

“Aye, if my parents are my parents and the world is the world,” he said.

“You said your last name was Shakeshaft.”

“Shakeshaft, Shakespeare, ’tis the same thing—the family goes by either. I use Shakeshaft to difference me from Will.”

I hit the pause button. The Chorus stopped with his mouth open.

“What devilishness is this?” Edmund asked. “What trickery? I thought ye honest, Miranda Hoberman, and kind, too. But now I take ye for a sly witch after all. Did ye pluck yon from my memory? What else have ye taken from me?”

“Edmund,” I said. “Get a grip. There’s a simple explanation. We’re still doing the play. Now. People today.”

“Four hundred years and more after we opened it?” Edmund said. “Go to. It isn’t that good!”

“We think it is,” I said.

“Who thinks so?” Edmund demanded.

“The whole world, pretty much. Romeo and Juliet gets done everywhere. Not just England. Here, too. Russia. Japan. Canada. Everywhere.”

“Never.”

“Edmund, you know how you think Doctor Dee is the greatest man of the age? Well, that’s what most of us think about William Shakespeare. Probably not one person in a hundred now knows anything about John Dee. But everybody knows Shakespeare’s name.”

Edmund looked totally shocked. “Ye’re lying! Ye must be. But why? Why do ye tell me this?”

“I can prove it,” I said. “Wait right there.”

I went into the little room that Dad had used as his office when he was working out of our home. There were two walls of books in there. One was all his psychology stuff. The other was my mom’s. It held her nursing books and a whole lot of stuff on theater. On the bottom shelf on that side was a big red book called The Riverside Shakespeare. It had all the plays. I flipped it open to Romeo and Juliet.

“Look,” I said, and I dumped the book in Edmund’s lap. “If you’re Edmund Shakeshaft or Shakespeare, and William was your brother, then this is his book. And Romeo and Juliet’s on page ten fifty-eight.”

Edmund touched the title like he couldn’t help himself. “The Prologue…” he said. “Enter Chorus…”

Carefully, he turned one page after another. His lips moved. “Sampson. Gregory. Benvolio. Romeo. Mercutio.” He went through the play until he came to the last scene. “Aye, ’tis all here, seemingly,” he said. “Ye spell passing strangely, howbeit. Every word alike every time.”

“We think you spelled strangely,” I pointed out.

“But ’twas our language. Ye’re only using it,” Edmund said. Then he turned back to the beginning of the book. “’Tis a thick volume indeed. What more be in it?”

He studied the pages. Some of these were copied from the First Folio, the original collection of all Shakespeare’s plays, back in 1623. “A catalog of the several comedies, histories and tragedies contained in this volume,” he read. “Comedies. The Tempest. No, he’s written no such play.”

“Not yet,” I said. “We think that was his last one.”

“Two Gentlemen of Verona, aye,” he went on. “The Merry Wives of Windsor. That’s the new one. Measure For Measure, no. The Comedy of Errors, yes.”

He went through the whole list, going “aye” and “nay.” Then he looked at the other pages from the First Folio.

One of these was his brother’s portrait, and when he saw it, he hooted.

“Will, ha, ha, ’tis Will. Oh, I wish the fellow could see this picture of himself. Ah, Willy, Willy, ye’re four hundred years gone and the whole world thinks this is what ye looked like.” He clapped his hands like a little kid.

“What’s the matter?” I said.

“Nothing at all—nothing whatever. ’Tis the best of time’s revenges. Ah, Willy, Willy, ye pompous fool, I could almost feel sorry for ye.”

“Not a good picture, I’m guessing?”

“If ye take away his hair and add a calf’s-worth of weight, and a life of years spent in hard drinking, ’tis like enough to him,” Edmund said. “But when I saw him Tuesday he was a handsome fellow still, with a full head of hair, and a beard that curled over his jaw, and a jewel hanging from his ear. And very vain he is of his appearance.”

“So anyway, now you believe I’m not a witch, or a spirit, or anything but what I said I was, right?” I asked.

“I know nothing for sure any more. Save that in a world where my brother is accounted great and Doctor Dee is forgotten, anything is possible, fair or foul. The seacoast of Bohemia could be no stranger. And Bohemia has never a yard of seacoast.”

He put the book on the coffee table. “What more magics will ye show me, Miranda Hoberman?”

“Would you like to see the rest of the play?” I said.

“I would not,” he said. “’Tis too unnatural watching the poppets do it.”

“You probably saw it done in London, huh?”

“I have been in it. Will is not the only actor in the family.”

“You’re kidding,” I said. “Who did you play?”

“’Twas three years ago, so there was only one part I could play, of course,” Edmund said. “Juliet.”

“You are kidding me,” I said.

“I am what?”

“You actually played Juliet?”

“The first time anyone ever did. Since my voice changed, I’ve done some of the servants, and the Count Paris. Last time I did the Chorus, as well.”

“Ever play Romeo?” I asked.

“Ha! As if Dick Burbage would let anyone else play him,” he snorted. “Will did it once when Burbage was sick, and Burbage still hasn’t forgiven him. Not that Will gives a fart. But little a chance has any hired actor of playing such a role as that. Not unless the play be done a good long way from London where the Lord Chamberlain’s Men will never hear of it until ’tis too late.”

I knew some of what he was talking about. Gillinger had made us study some background material on Shakespeare’s times. Richard Burbage was the leading actor in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, which was also the acting company Shakespeare belonged to. The plays he wrote were their property, but other acting companies would steal a popular play if they could get away with it. And Romeo and Juliet had been very popular.

“You know,” I said, “I just read for Juliet this afternoon.”

Edmund shook his head. “Ye did what for her?”

“I read for the part. We’re doing it here, in town.”

“But girls cannot appear on stage. ’Twould be filthy.”

“No it isn’t. I know you guys used guys to play girls all the time. But we think that’s weird. There’s nothing wrong with having girls play girls.”

“Women on the stage. ’Tis something too French,” Edmund said.

“Well, maybe the French are just smarter than you English,” I said. “Anyway, there’s a lot of great English actresses now.”

“Even in England they do this?” Edmund said.

“Yep. That version of Romeo and Juliet I tried to show you has women playing all the women’s parts. Juliet, the Nurse, Lady Capulet, Romeo’s mother. And I’ll tell you something else. In our production some of the servants will probably be played by girls playing guys. ’Cause guys don’t come out for drama much.”

Edmund shook his head again. “’Tis strange. ’Tis mickle strange. Me best role ever, played by—a woman.”

“You know,” I said, “we’ve been talking a long time. Would you like dinner?”

“I do not feel hungry,” he said. “But perhaps I should eat.”

“Let me introduce you to the great American hamburger.”

Edmund followed me out to the kitchen. He followed every move I made with the attention of a hawk. The whole cooking thing fascinated him.

“’Tis all familiar and yet not,” he said. “This, more than yon television makes it seem as though I am a stranger in a strange land.”

I made us each two hamburgers with buns and all the agricultural trimmings. I didn’t want to trust the broken table with food on it, so we went into the living room again and sat down at the coffee table with our plates and glasses of milk.

Edmund watched everything I did, and copied it.

“Meat’s fresh,” he said chewing his first bite of burger. “Who does your slaughtering?”

“The store. We buy all our food at the store. I’ve never killed an animal in my life. Except flies and stuff. Have you?”

Edmund laughed. “My family are glovers,” he began. “There’s not a calf in Stratford safe from us. My brother Gilbert’s the best of us, though. Fast and neat, that’s Gilbert’s way. Will, for his part, would often make a speech in high style to the poor beast before he did the deed. ’Tis said he was hoping to bore the little fellow to death and spare them the knife thereby.” He tried the milk and smacked his lips. “Fresh, though it lacks body. Ye say ye have no cow of your own?”

“No cow, no calves, no garden, either,” I said. “Most people today buy their food.”

“’Tis as if ye’re waited on by spirits…. Invisible spirits.”

“Not really,” I said.

When dinner was over, I checked on Edmund’s laundry. I put everything on air dry. I was pretty sure heat would shrink those tights of his.

And of course he was fascinated by the washing machine and the dryer.

“Have all of ye such things?” he asked.

“Pretty much. If people don’t, they go to a laundromat and get their stuff done there.”

“Next ye’ll be telling me ye can all fly!”

Right on cue, I heard the heavy thumping of a helicopter passing overhead.

“Come on outside,” I said. “Got something to show you.”

We went and stood in our front yard.

At first, Edmund didn’t seem to understand what he was seeing. He crossed his arms, cocked his head and watched as though his eyes couldn’t quite focus on it. Then the copter curved around heading back the way it had come, and Edmund ducked back under our tree.

“Is it perilous?” he asked. “D’ye think it saw us?”

“It’s just a TV station’s news helicopter. It’s not interested in us. It’s probably out doing traffic reports.”

“Do men ride such things?” Edmund asked, mouth in a perfect O.

“And women, too,” I said.

Then a car went by, too fast, like most of the cars that use our street. It was a sports car of some kind and made a hell of a racket.

Edmund yelped, and ducked behind the tree. “And what was that?”

“A car,” I said. “And yes, most people have them. Sometimes more than one.”

“A car. Damned bland name for a demon thing like that. Have ye such a device?”

“We do, but it’s at work. My mom drives it. I know how, but I’m too young yet. I mean, I’m old enough, sixteen. But the insurance is so high for a young driver that we can’t afford it.”

“What makes it go?” Edmund asked.

“Gasoline.”

“Another word I never heard…” He came out from behind the tree and looked up and down the street. There were cars in driveways, cars at the curb. He studied them for a few minutes, then bent down and touched the pavement. “Hard.”

The street seemed to interest him more than the cars. He kept rubbing his hands across the asphalt, picking up bits of gravel and studying them. When he was done, he turned around and faced the house.

“A house I know,” he said. “And grass I know. And a tree, though ’tis a kind I’ve never seen before. Windows with glass, but such great panes of it. And flowers, though I know not their names. But all else is like an enchantment. I understand none of it.”

“Maybe you’d like to take a walk,” I said. “Get a little more oriented.”

“Oriented,” Edmund said slowly.

“Sorry. Is that another word you don’t know?”

“Doctor Dee do have some old maps,” Edmund said. “He turns them to the east, toward Jerusalem. He calls that orienting.”

“Well Malpaso Row is east of us. So I guess it’s the same thing,” I said.

“Aye,” Edmund said after a moment of silence. “Come then, Miranda Hoberman, and orient me.”

I locked the house and we headed down the street. Malpaso Row was on the other side of the freeway from our neighborhood. Only a few blocks away, but totally different from our quiet, boring avenue. It was the newest shopping center in town, very high-concept. It had buildings designed to look like a neighborhood in Italy, with pricey apartments above the stores, fountains and things like that.

We walked slowly, Edmund taking in every detail of the houses and yards we passed. Then we turned a few corners and were in the middle of a whole new world.

My first problem was getting Edmund to cross the freeway overpass. It wasn’t the height that bothered him. It was the sight of all the cars below us, hood to trunk with their lights on, and even more the roar that came up from the eight lanes of traffic under our feet.

“This howling, this howling, how d’ye stand it?” he shouted to me, clapping his hands over his ears.

“Edmund, it’s okay,” I said. “It’s just rush hour. Every one of those cars has somebody in it who’s just trying to get home. It’s not dangerous. It’s normal.”

“’Tis hellish.”

“Well, okay. We don’t have to do this now,” I said. “We can go back to the house if you want to.”

I could tell that was exactly what Edmund wanted to do. But he wouldn’t let himself. “I must bear it,” he said. “Lead on.”

So we crossed the overpass. Then I had to explain to him about stoplights and crosswalks and taking turns. This was after he stepped out in front of a line of cars turning into the main drag of Malpaso Row from a left-turn lane and he nearly got creamed.

A driver shouted, “Watch it, you stupid bastard!”

And Edmund shouted back, “Ye’re the whoreson heir of a mongrel bitch, an eater of broken meats and the very flower of the pox!”

“No, Edmund!” I yelled at him. “No, no, no, no, no! Never when the light is red. Only when the light is green. And stay between the nice straight white lines. That’s how it works.”

“Must I wait the pleasure of some lantern to do as I wish about so small a thing as cross?” he said. “’Tis like a prison to walk your streets.”

“You’ll live a lot longer if you do,” I said, calming down.

“What of the yellow light?” he said.

“That means, ‘caution’.”

“Aha. So a man has some choice at least.”

“Come on,” I said. “You’ve survived your first stoplight. Let’s see what other trouble you can get into.”

Chapter Five

We cruised slowly up and down past the clothing stores and the restaurants and the bars. Edmund paused at one that had a sign hanging out that said:

Falstaff’s

A Traditional

English Pub

“Can we not go in here, at least?” he begged.

“Edmund, we’re underage. They’d throw us out so fast you’d meet yourself coming in. They’d lose their license if they let us stay.”

“Monstrous. Unnatural. Wrong.”

“Come on,” I said. “Let me show you something you’ll like.”

Down at the end of the street was a Corners Books. I was pretty sure Edmund would be interested in it. And it turned out he was.

“Books,” he said, like he might have said “Jewels.”

It was a big two-story place with a coffee bar in the middle of the ground floor. We walked around every section, taking it just as slow as Edmund wanted.

“So many, so many,” he kept repeating.

He took some of them off the shelves, touching them as if he thought they might evaporate under his hands, studying the way they were made.

“Paper’s different,” he said. “Aye, and the bindings. But what riches ye have, Miranda. Even in London there’s no such place as this.”

Finally we ended up in the magazine section, which was right next to the coffee. The magazines absolutely transfixed Edmund. Or anyway, the covers did.

“Such images. How d’ye ever…” he breathed as he looked at all the bright-color pics of cars, pretty girls and famous heads.

But before I could display my vast erudition again, there was a voice behind us.

“Hey, Miri. What’s up?”

I turned around and saw Bobby Ruspoli smiling at me.

“Hey, dude,” I said.

Edmund also turned.

“Bobby, this is my cousin Ed,” I said quickly, and feeling rather proud of myself for being such an adroit thinker. “He’s from England.”

“Hey, Ed,” Bobby said.

“Give ye good even.”

“Ed, this is Bobby Ruspoli from school,” I said.

“You guys busy?” Bobby asked.

“Not exactly,” I said.

“Then come on over and help me work on Drew. I’m trying to talk him into reading tomorrow. Stubborn geek says he doesn’t want to be on stage.”

I would have agreed in a ten-thousandth of a second, if I’d been alone. But I had Mr. Shakeshaft to consider. “What do you think, is it okay, Ed?”

“Yes. It is okay,” Edmund said.

So Bobby led us over to his table and we sat down with Drew.

“Hey, Drew,” I said.

“Hi, Miranda.”

He had an empty espresso cup in front of him, and a paperback copy of the play.

“Drew, this is my cousin Ed, Edmund, from England,” I said. “Edmund, this is Drew Jenkins. He’s in school with me, too.”

“Give ye good e’en,” Edmund said.

And Drew smiled and said, “Give ye good e’en, as well, fair sir.”

“Ye speak English,” Edmund said.

“Fairly well for an American,” Drew said, and the three Americans laughed.

“Bobby says he wants you to read for the play,” I said.

“No way in hell.”

“Please,” I said. “We need guys.”

“You need actors,” Drew said. “That lets me out.”

“Drew, there were guys on that stage today you could act the asses off of,” Bobby said.

“I agree there were some dreadful impersonations of acting,” Drew said. “But the fact that they were god-awful doesn’t make me good.”

“Dude, you have got to get over seventh grade,” Bobby said.

“Shut up—”

“This guy,” Bobby said, “used to do shows with me all the time in grade school. He was the beautiful white pony. I was the blue car smooth and shiny as satin. That was second grade—”

“Third. Second grade I was the woodcutter and you were the prince.”

“Oh, yeah,” Bobby said. “But the point is, he was good. Then in seventh grade—”

“Shut up, Bobby. Nobody cares what happened in seventh grade.”

“Apparently you do,” Bobby said.

“Okay, I do. So shut up about it,” Drew said.

“We were both cast in the Children’s Musical Theater Holiday Spectacular,” Bobby went on. “You didn’t know Drew could sing, right? Well, he can. Better than me. And he got a solo. ‘Christmas Is a Time of Giving,’ right at the end of act one. I mean, it’s the big act finisher, right? And he dries up. Can’t remember his song. Just stands there and—”

“Shut. Up. Now,” Drew said.

“All I’m saying is, it’s time to get back on the horse, Drew. The beautiful white pony. It’s been four years.”

“And all I’m saying is, you’re wrong. It’s not that I’m scared. Scarred for life, definitely. But not scared. I’m just not interested.”

“Miri,” Bobby said. “Explain to him why he’s interested.”

“I can’t,” I said. “But, Drew. Cast parties.”

“I come to those anyway,” Drew said.

Which was true. Whenever there was a cast party and Bobby showed up, Drew was with him. This was whether Bobby had a girl on his arm or not.

“They’re more fun when you’ve just finished a show,” I said hopefully.

“I have all the fun I can stand at them now,” Drew said. “Any more fun, I’d die from sheer pleasure.”

“Please,” I said. “We need people.”

“No.”

Edmund picked up Drew’s script. “I see ye have marked Mercutio’s speeches,” he said. “Friar Lawrence’s, too. Why have ye done so if ye are not interested?”

“I’ve been helping him,” Drew said. “We’ve been running lines for weeks.”

“I could see ye as Mercutio,” Edmund said. “Friar Lawrence, too, though ye be something too young. ’Twould depend on who else was in the company.”

“Ed’s an actor,” I said. “A real one.”

“Hey,” Bobby said. “You ever play in this thing?”

“Yes. Okay. I have,” Edmund said.

“What part?” Bobby asked.

“Different ones. I’ve played in it more than once. But tell me, what part do ye fancy for yourself?”

“Romeo,” Bobby said like there was no question about it.

“Romeo,” Edmund mused. “It would not be my first thought for ye.”