In Fair Verona

Chapter 6

Behind the door, large shadows greeted Kenna. They took on the shapes of dressing tables as her eyes adjusted to the midday light falling through the windows.

Cosmetic items Kenna didn't recognise lay scattered across the tables. This must be the tiring house, or dressing room, as it was called in modern times.

For a moment, Kenna felt like a doll in a large wooden toy box. The sense diminished as she drifted across the room, eyes wide with curiosity. She had only ever seen this sketched in books and set up in museums. Seeing it in reality breathed life into history.

Kenna's eyes roamed the cramped space, sweeping over the dusty floors and low ceiling. It smelt stale, as if it had been kept closed for too long.

Glimpsing a movement at the corner of her eye, Kenna turned sharply, slipping on a sheaf of papers. Catching herself on the edge of a dressing table, she swore under her breath and knelt to gather the stack of parchment. A rat scurried over her hand. She squealed.

There was no greater killer in the time of the Black Death.

When the rodent had disappeared into the shadows, and Kenna's heart rate had returned to normal, she looked down at the script in her hands.

She read the title in a murmur. "The Merchant of Venice."

This must be the play that the Lord Chamberlain's Men were performing this afternoon.

Kenna flipped through it, then rubbed at the front page. In the poor light, she couldn't see whether she had made a footprint. She hoped she hadn't. She'd have to do a better job of keeping a low profile if she didn't want to be exposed as a charlatan.

Gingerly, Kenna set the script down on the nearest dressing table as if the gentleness of the action could undo any other evidence that she had been here, rendering her as invisible as she had intended to be.

Kenna looked into the oval mirror in front of her, hoping that Melpomene had hidden a portal back to her time within it.

All that stared back at her was her pale face, freckled nose, wide green eyes and gently arching eyebrows. Her hair was braided back, already frizzing at the crown.

Kenna had spent her whole life wishing it would darken to a more flattering colour. It had stayed as it was, more orange than auburn, more fire than autumn leaves.

Too soon, Kenna passed the mirror, and there was nothing to face but the facts.

Melpomene meant what she said. Kenna couldn't go back to her time until she had learnt the Muse's lesson. If she only knew what it was, she could be done with this century, with the language that ran circles around her mind and the job she had committed to with no idea of what it meant.

Being a maid was self-explanatory, just not in a theatre in a different era with no one to show Kenna the ropes. There was no sign of the three other maids, and Shakespeare and Aelric clearly had more important work to do than babysit Kenna.

Kenna treaded softly up the wooden stairs. She passed through a door on the left side of the landing and found herself in a small room.

Clothes hung from lines spanning between the walls, all different sizes, colours and fabrics. This must be wardrobe.

Kenna ran her hand over a dark velvet dress as she wandered past, then marvelled at the stiffness of a starched ruff. She never understood how people could wear those things around their necks. They looked rather suffocating, and every Elizabethan portrait Kenna had ever seen seemed to agree.

She brushed her fingers over a handheld fan constructed out of exotic shimmering blue feathers, then picked it up to examine the wooden handle engraved with fake jewels that sparkled like they were real when she heard footsteps.