Belinda lets the heavy door from the corridor shut behind her and sees the dancers already moving about on the stage. She checks her watch. Two forty-six. Bugger. Cecile always starts rehearsals bang on time, she’ll have to wait until later – maybe even tomorrow – to get her to sign off on these expenses.
‘Belinda? Can I have a word?’
Hot breath on her neck and a waft of something frying in old, rancid grease and Belinda turns to see Derek standing too close, hands deep in his pockets, staring at her intently. She suppresses a shudder and takes a discreet step away from him.
‘Of course. Everything all right?’
‘Depends on how you look at things. I saw hoof-prints, on the earth, by one of the graves out there. Name of Desmond C Jones, if you care to see for yourself.’
‘Right.’ The man makes her skin crawl, she can’t help it. When she pricks his finger to take his blood on his pledge day what she squeezes into the vial is a bright, mossy green. The Crow has brought him here for reasons it has declined to share with her but now she has to put up with the sour stink of him, the litany of complaints he produces and the vaguely menacing air of threat that he knows something she doesn’t.
‘I just thought, All Souls’ and all that. You—’
‘Yes, thank you Derek. I’ll look into it.’ He shrugs in a maddeningly casual way and walks off, a little, taunting whistle under his breath.
Belinda sighs, pulls out her clipboard and shuffles the papers there. She’ll go find AJ and remind him, once again, that Madagascan vanilla macarons and pots of loose leaf lapsang souchong from Fortnum & Mason are not reasonable company expenses.
***
In the musician’s green room, Wilf the cello, Jasper the timpani and Steve the bassoon are introducing David the new harp to one of their favourite discussions – the timbre and pitch of the Grub’s bell, its esoteric meanings and its role in the music of the spheres.
‘Well.’ Wilf leans back, takes a swig from the plastic water bottle in his hand which mostly contains vodka. ‘We’re pretty sure it rings on D when it does the single peal before we leave the Grit at the end of the show. That’s the note we hear, mind, not necessarily how the bell smith cast it, because of the… What does Lance call it? Time and space warp of the Grub when it gets going at midnight—’
‘—we should ask that fella, next time he comes—’
‘—not likely, Belinda keeps him on a tight leash—’
David is interested in this conversation, and in general finds these three men good company in many ways, but he is feeling quite bleary after last night’s whisky and struggling to hold back a yawn. Wilf talks about the bell smith often, and always in tones of hushed admiration. David has the idea of some kind of consultant wizard who graces them all with a visit every couple of years to do arcane magic around the bell and leave Belinda with a signed year’s warranty that guarantees absolutely nothing but the sheer existence of the peal.
‘—but we disagree about what we hear at the half when the bell rings the Angelus – just another of the Crow’s jokes – because Jasper swears it’s D again, how could it be otherwise? But Steve has always said he hears E in winterand C minor in summer. And the weather does matter you know, the sounds bleed, you can’t quite make it out—’
***
Up in the lighting box, Zach shows Lara each of the buttons and dials on the lighting board and talks through each lighting cue of each act.
‘I feel a bit awkward asking this, Zach, but who am I replacing?’
Zach knows what she’s trying to say but his stomach swoops at the thought. Harder than he thought, to explain all the little pieces of etiquette here, all the stupid dos and don’ts.
‘Me.’ He smooths his fingers across the folder of cues, buying himself time. ‘The old lighting director just retired, she was called Juliet, taught me everything I know. Mackie promoted me and hired you.’
She exhales. ‘So I’m not replacing someone who got snatched.’
‘No.’
‘When was the last time that happened?’
Zach winces. ‘To be honest, it’s not something you’re supposed to talk about. People get twitchy about it. Superstitious. About a month ago, maybe two, a dancer went missing after class. No one saw what happened.’
She frowns. Zach can see she’s not satisfied but he can’t bring himself to give her more details. What would he say? That Alex had been well-liked, left behind a girlfriend,played poker in the tournaments on Saturday nights, that even Cecile looked a bit sad as she drank her white wine in the Grub as the Crow cawed its fury that afternoon? Is that all a life amounts to, after the Fae folk have stolen it for their own?
Zach clears his throat. ‘All right, let’s change the subject. I have to tell you about days off.’
Lara looks cheered to hear that. ‘So, days off are safer, obviously, because we’re back in the real world.’
What’s this real world you’re talking about, Zach? he hears Juliet laughing.Tell me more.
‘Belinda tells us where it’s going to be with a few days’ notice, then the Grub doors open at first reveille – that’s nine o’ clock, absolutely sparrow’s fart but there you go – and we’ll be on some platform of some train station somewhere, usually where there’s, like, engineering works or a red signal or some bullshit like that. You’ve got until midnight to get yourself back on the Grub and then we leave for the next place.’
