Chatoyant College Book 9: Sundered

Chapter 96: The Theater

When they reached the theater building, it seemed dark and quiet at first, until Edie found the side door and slipped through. Then she realized the theater itself had just been muffled and darkened as though it were a real performance; there were people on the stage rehearsing, with light and sound in full force. "We are spirits of a different sort," Oberon was declaiming. It made Edie shiver.

"Come on," she whispered to Corrie and Naomi, not wanting to disturb the rehearsals—they'd come in behind the seats, so it was unlikely anyone would see them. "Let's go around back." Corrie nodded, in the darkness just a movement of her colorful hat, and they followed.

Edie knew that at least some of Leila's friends would be found in one of two places: either the lighting room, where they often hung out when they weren't doing anything else, or backstage doing whatever they did behind the scenes, where she and her friends couldn't go without disrupting the rehearsal. So she crept up to the lighting room and peeked in through the cracked-open door. Someone she didn't recognize looked at her quizzically. There was no one else here, so Edie shook her head. "Sorry, I was looking for someone else," she whispered. The girl at the lighting shrugged and returned her attention to the stage. She didn't offer to help, but Edie hadn't expected her to.

She led Corrie and Naomi back down to the main floor. "Okay, let's try to get as close as we can to the stage without bothering anybody," she said softly. "Then when the rehearsal is over, we can look for them."

Corrie nodded. "I think it is almost over," she whispered as they walked quietly around. "At least, this is the end of the play."

Edie listened and realized she was right; Puck (or so she assumed) was doing his strange apology for the play. She'd studied it in high school and liked this ending, though it never completely made sense to her. Now that she thought about it, she wondered if Shakespeare had known real faeries. And she recalled Leila's pique when she wasn't cast in the part of Titania. She couldn't have been the real faerie Titania was based on, could she? No, that didn't make sense. She was a dryad, not a queen. But then, Shakespeare might have changed things to go into the play...

She shook her head. It didn't make any difference right now. Maybe when she found Leila again, if they weren't in any kind of trouble, she could ask her that. She wondered why it had never occurred to her before.

Just as she thought that, the lights came up again, and there was a scattering of applause and a babble of voices. Then a man's voice cut through it, calling, "Good, good, we're almost there! Amanda, study those lines, we don't want you stumbling on opening night. Patrick..." He continued to give instructions, but people were emerging from backstage, and Edie finally recognized one of them—but of course it was Chris, the last one she wanted to see. She waited a moment longer, her stomach churning, until Genesis also appeared and caught up with Chris, putting her hand on her arm to say something to her.

"There they are," said Edie in her normal voice. She took a deep breath and strode up to Chris and Genesis, trying to act confident and normal. "Hi, guys."

"Edie!" said Chris, turning with a wide smile. Edie didn't like the smile, but something beyond that seemed to bother her. She just couldn't tell what.

"How was the rehearsal? The, uh, costumes looked great." Edie was pretty sure they were supposed to be working on the costumes, and she didn't want to start the conversation with demands about Leila.

"Thanks!" said Genesis cheerily. "Just wait until opening night, they'll be perfect then. You are going to come, right, Edie?"

"Um, sure," said Edie, though Genesis seemed to be looking at Corrie and Naomi. "This is Corrie, and this is Naomi."

"Nice to meet you," said Genesis, reaching out toward Corrie. Corrie took her hand to shake, but Genesis just squeezed it instead. Corrie withdrew her hand hastily, the skin around her mouth tight in a way that Edie recognized as her trying to hold back a smile. Genesis was trying to flirt with her, and Corrie had no idea how to respond except to not flirt back.

"And you are...?" Naomi leaned in with a strange grin, holding out her hand.

"Oh, I'm Genesis." Looking a tiny bit embarrassed, she turned to shake Naomi's hand.

"I'm Chris," Chris said to the others, then turned back to Edie. "So what brings you to rehearsal, Edie? I know you like theater, but it's always better to wait until everything's polished."

"I wanted to talk to you," said Edie, and realized as she spoke what was different about them. They were calling her Edie. They'd never done that before—Leila had wanted to call her Edith, so all her friends did the same. She swallowed against her suddenly dry throat and forged ahead anyway. "Have either of you seen Leila lately?"

"Leila?" asked Chris blankly.