“Absolutely, we should,” I say to Fauve. “You and I together. Hand in hand.”
I smile and reach out my hand to her.
“Miranda!” says a voice. A hot grip on my arm. Pulling me away from Fauve into the wings. “Miranda, please. I need to talk to you.”
Ellie in her Act One dress. A dress exactly like the one I wore how many years ago. Dark hair pulled back. Clutching Kleenex, which is slightly anachronistic. Already crying beautifully. Helen. My Helen. It’s like looking into a mirror.
“Helen,” I breathe, “you look so perfect.”
She starts to cry again.
“Helen, please,” I tell her. “Please, save your tears for Act One. Let them fall then, all right?”
“Miranda, I just want you to know I didn’t mean for it to go this far. I swear I didn’t.”
“For what to go this far?”
She looks at the floor. “Briana,” she whispers.
Oh Jesus Christ, not this again. “Ellie, what did I tell you only yesterday? Remember? About the wheel? Wishing for something won’t make—”
“I didn’t just wish for it, Miranda,” she says now.
“What?”
“I didn’t just wish for it,” she repeats. “I did more than just wish for it.” She lowers her eyes. “A lot more.”
Oh god. “Ellie—”
“I know you don’t want to believe that I’m capable of such a thing, Miranda. Good little Ellie.” She shakes and shakes her head as if it’s all too much. “But I am capable. I am.”
“What did you do to her?” I ask her. But she just begins to cry again. So overcome by her notion of her own dark will. I picture her eyes shut tight in her dorm room as she calls upon the Harpies. Casting her hex by tealights.
“Look, Ellie, this is absurd, do you hear me? It’s just not possible. None of it is. It’s coincidence is all, all right?”
She looks up at me. “I healed you, didn’t I?”
“Healed me?”
“With my baths, remember?”
She gazes at me with such hope. I should just say I never used the fucking baths. Forgot they even existed. I should tell her about Briana, about Mark, about Grace. The three men. How they gave me a gift. But she’s looking at me so seriously now. With such mesmerizing intention. So aware of her own low place in the scheme of things, yet weighted by what she believes to be her awful powers. Putting two and two together. Her powers, her place. Taking the remedy into her own hands, just like Helen. She is so absolutely Helen. Through the curtain, I see the three seats up front are still empty.
“Of course you did,” I lie.
“You took the new bath last night,” she says, suddenly smiling. “I can smell it.”
She reaches out her hand and pulls something from my hair. A white flower petal. She smiles at it sitting there in the small bowl of her palm.
And then I remember those petals and twigs floating around me in the sea, that musky, woodsy scent that suddenly rose up from the waves. The herbal mulch I found in my dress pocket. Ellie’s little ziplock bag was in my pocket. Must have opened in the water.
“Yes. Yes, of course, I took the bath.” At least it’s not a lie.
“I’m going to fix it all tonight, Ms. Fitch,” Ellie says to me, looking up at me now with new purpose. “That’s what I wanted to tell you.”
“What? How are you going to fix it, Ellie?”
Ellie looks at me, like, Isn’t that obvious? “Just like I broke it, I’m going to fix it. Onstage.”
“Onstage? What—”
“One minute to curtain, Miranda,” someone cries.
“Ellie, listen to me—”
But then music suddenly swells all around us.
“Oh god, the music already.”
“Music?” Ellie says. “What music?” She looks at me confused. “I don’t hear any music.”
How can she not hear it? The swelling of the strings, the dreamy violins. Dreamy violins? Is that the opening I chose?
“Ellie, how can you not hear that music? Are they putting on a show tonight in the black box theater? Is Fauve putting something on? Did she go behind my back and put on a musical?”
“Miranda, are you okay? Oh god, I hope it isn’t the recipe. Maybe I should stop putting so much—”
“Speaking of stops, I have to go put a stop to this music. Otherwise, how will you be able to perform, am I right? How could anyone be expected to perform in this din?”