“Oh. Oh, shit.”
He bullied me into the shed, the door squealing treacherously behind us. Inside, the floor was cluttered with oars and lifejackets, leaving barely enough space for the two of us to stand face-to-face. A gallon bucket waited on one low shelf.
“Jesus,” I said, hastily unbuttoning my jacket. “How much blood did they think we needed?”
“Loads, apparently,” James told me, bending down to wedge the lid off. “And it reeks.” A sweet, rotten odor filled the room as I wriggled out of my boots. “I suppose we have to give them points for authenticity.”
My arm was tangled in a shirtsleeve. “Shit shit shit, I’m stuck, ouch, fuck—James, help—!”
“Hush! Here.” He stood, took my shirt by the hem, and yanked it up over my head. My head got caught in the collar and I crashed against him. “Can you get blood on those pants?” he asked, catching at my waistband to steady me.
“Well, I’m not going naked.”
He reached for the bucket. “Fair enough. Close your mouth.”
I clamped my mouth and eyes shut and he poured the blood over my head, like some kind of perverse pagan baptism. I spluttered and coughed as it ran down my face. “What is this shit?”
“I don’t know. And I don’t know how much time you have.” He grabbed my head. “Hold still.” He smeared the blood around my face and chest and shoulders, raked his fingers through my hair to make it stand on end. “There.” For a split second he just stared at me, somehow looking impressed and completely revolted at the very same time.
“How do I look?”
“Fucking incredible,” he said, then nudged me toward the door. “Now go.”
I stumbled out of the shed and sprinted into the trees, swearing as sharp stones and pine needles jabbed at my bare feet. It was certainly spooky, showing up at midnight with no idea who we’d meet in the dark, but it was troublesome, too. I only knew my scenes, so I could hardly guess how much time I had before I was due to enter as Banquo’s ghost. A branch whipped across my face but I ignored it and clambered up the hill, over roots and rocks and creeping vines. Another scratch on my cheek wouldn’t matter; I was already covered in blood. My skin felt sticky as it cooled in the raw night air, and my heart was pounding again—half from the effort of climbing to the trailhead, half from petty fear that I would miss my second entrance.
As it turned out, I made it back to the tree line in plenty of time. I arrived slowly and clumsily, twigs cracking under my feet, but the audience was watching James’s second conference with the witches with anxious attention and paid me no mind. I lurked under a low-hanging branch, the keen scent of pine cutting through the ripe stench of stage blood on my skin.
Wren: “By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes!”
James: “How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags!
What is’t you do?”
The girls danced in a ring around the fire, hair loose and tangled, green lakeweed clinging to their skirts. Every now and then one of them tossed a handful of sparkling dust in the fire and a cloud of colored smoke burst above the flames. I shifted in my hiding place, waiting. I was the last in a series of visions, but how would they appear? I searched the crowd of spectators for familiar faces, but it was too dark to make out many distinguishing features. I spotted Colin’s blond head on the house left side, and the firelight glinted on a coppery curl that I thought might belong to Gwendolyn. I couldn’t help but wonder—where in the world was Richard?
An unearthly shriek of laughter from Wren pulled my attention back down to the beach.
Meredith: “Speak!”
Wren: “Demand!”
Filippa: “We’ll answer.”
Meredith: “Say, if thou’dst rather hear it from our mouths,
Or from our masters?”
James: “Call ’em; let me see ’em.”
The girls’ voices rose in a high, discordant chant. James stood looking on, brooding and uncertain.
Meredith: “Pour in sow’s blood, that hath eaten
Her nine farrow; grease that’s sweaten
From the murderer’s gibbet throw
Into the flame—”
ALL: “Come, high or low;
Thyself and office deftly show!”
Filippa threw something on the fire and the flames roared up above their heads. A voice bellowed across the beach, tremendous and terrifying as some primordial god. Unmistakably, Richard.
“MACBETH. MACBETH. MACBETH. BEWARE MACDUFF.”
He was nowhere to be seen, but his voice pressed in on us from all sides, so loud it rattled in my bones. James was no less alarmed than I or anyone else and stumbled over his words when he spoke. “What’er thou art, for thy good caution, thanks; / Thou hast harp’d my fear aright: but one word more—”
Richard interrupted, deafeningly.
Richard: “BE BLOODY, BOLD, AND RESOLUTE; LAUGH TO SCORN
THE POWER OF MAN, FOR NONE OF WOMAN BORN
SHALL HARM MACBETH.”
James: “Then live, Macduff: what need I fear of thee?”
Richard: “BE LION-METTLED, PROUD; AND TAKE NO CARE
WHO CHAFES, WHO FRETS, OR WHERE CONSPIRERS ARE:
MACBETH SHALL NEVER VANQUISH’D BE UNTIL
GREAT BIRNAM WOOD TO HIGH DUNSINANE HILL
SHALL COME AGAINST HIM.”
James: “That will never be—
Who can impress the forest, bid the tree
Unfix his earth-bound root? Sweet bodements! good!
Rebellion’s head, rise never till the wood
Of Birnam rise, and our high-placed Macbeth
Shall live the lease of nature, pay his breath
To time and mortal custom. Yet my heart
Throbs to know one thing: tell me, if your art
Can tell so much: shall Banquo’s issue ever
Reign in this kingdom?”
The witches all cried out at once, “Seek to know no more!”
James: “I will be satisfied: deny me this,
And an eternal curse fall on you! Let me know.”
ALL: “Show his eyes, and grieve his heart;