“Not so bad,” Filippa said. “You can just play Hamlet.”
We drank six more ciders between the three of us, waiting in vain for one of the others to make an appearance. Never before had there been so little interest in a new cast list. Even as we drank and talked and laughed halfheartedly, it was impossible to ignore the fact that everyone’s priorities had changed. Wren was too fragile to make the usual walk from the FAB to the bar. James too distracted. Alexander, otherwise occupied. The whims governing the Dellecher staff were similarly unfathomable. Why had they suddenly lifted their half-century boycott of Lear and wedged Frederick and Camilo in with the rest of us? I told myself as I gathered my coat and gloves at the end of the night that they were simply trying to fill the hole Richard had left behind. But another nagging voice at the back of my mind kept asking whether there might be an ulterior motive. Was it possible that they, like Colborne, didn’t trust us? Perhaps Frederick and Camilo were more than cast mates and teachers. Perhaps they’d at last begun to realize what danger we were in.
SCENE 3
As we made our first foray into the tragic morass of King Lear, little was clarified. What became painfully clear to me, however, was that we had greatly underestimated the enormousness of Richard’s absence. He was more than a vacant bedroom, an unoccupied seat in the library, a chair at our refectory table where he sat like Banquo’s ghost, invisible to everyone but us. Often I thought I saw him out of the corner of my eye, a passing shadow, slipping out of sight around the corner. By night he was a recurring character in my dreams—as my midterm scene partner, or my silent companion at the bar—twisting the most mundane scenarios into something dark and sinister. I was not the only victim of these nocturnal torments; James had taken to muttering and fidgeting in his sleep, and on the nights I shared a bed with Meredith, sometimes I woke to find her trembling beside me. Twice we were all woken by sounds of screaming and sobbing from Wren’s room. He was as much a bully in death as he was in life, a giant who left behind not an empty space so much as a black hole, a huge crushing void that swallowed up all of our comforts, sooner or later.
But as we were moving cautiously into the shortest calendrical month, our comfort was mostly my responsibility.
Cleaning the Castle had become my primary occupation outside of classes, rehearsals, and homework. My custodial schedule was irregular, determined largely by when I had a free hour and nobody else was in the building. These coincidental opportunities were few and far between, and I was forced to seize them whenever they arrived, regardless of how tired I was. The second day of February found me on my hands and knees in the library, finally doing what I had put off for weeks and thoroughly cleaning out the fireplace.
The remains of a few logs rested in the grate like a pile of blackened bones. I lifted them delicately for fear they would crumble and leave streaks of soot on the carpet, and deposited them one by one in the paper sack I had appropriated for the purpose. Despite the persistent winter chill I was sweating, fat salty beads falling from my forehead onto the hearth. When the logs were all safely stowed in their bag, I reached for a dustpan and brush and started on the pile of ash, which had built up like a mountain against the back of the chimney. As I swept, I muttered Edgar’s lines under my breath:
“Who alone suffers suffers most i’ the mind,
Leaving free things and happy shows behind:
But then the mind much sufferance doth o’er skip,
When grief hath mates, and bearing fellowship.”
Unable to remember the following line, I stopped and sat back on my heels. What next? I had no idea, and so crawled farther into the fireplace, beginning the speech again as I resumed my sweeping. The densest mound of ash collapsed under my brush, but as I pulled it forward, something dragged beneath the bristles. A long twisted line, like a snakeskin, had appeared on the floor of the fireplace. Fabric.
It was nothing more than a scrap, five inches long and two inches wide, curling in at the edges. One end was heavier, double-stitched—a shirt collar, maybe, or the seam of a sleeve. I bent my head low over it and blew gently, so a few little puffs of ash whirled up. It had been white once, but it was badly singed and badly stained with something dark deep red, like wine. I stared at it for a moment in consternation, then froze where I was kneeling on the hearth—so horror-struck I didn’t hear the door downstairs. But the footsteps in the stairwell grew louder as they ascended, and I came back to life with a jolt, seized the insidious thing off the floor and stuffed it into my pocket. I grabbed the dustpan and brush and jumped to my feet with one held at each side, like sword and shield.
I was still standing in this rigid, ridiculous way when Colborne appeared in the doorway. His eyes barely widened, quickly adjusted from surprise at my presence to recognition. “Oliver.”
“Detective Colborne,” I said, clumsy and cotton-mouthed.
He pointed into the room. “May I come in?”
“If you want to.”
He slid his hands into the pockets of his jeans. His badge glinted on one hip, and the butt of a handgun bulged under the hem of his coat on the other. I deposited the brush and pan in the closest chair, waiting for him to speak.
“Aren’t you usually in rehearsal this time of day?” he asked, tugging the curtains apart in order to peer out the window, toward the lake.
“I’m not called for combat until five.” I rummaged through my mental archives for one of Gwendolyn’s breath control routines, hoping to clear my head.
He nodded and gave me a quizzical smile. “And what exactly are you doing? If you don’t mind my asking.”
“Cleaning.” I counted four beats to breathe in.