Brimstone and Lily (Legacy Stone Adventures) Read Online Free PDF Page A

Eddie into her arms with us. “You’re getting to be big. It’s about time to tell you, I suppose. Only right and fair that you know how the world really is. And what your part in it might be.”
    Eddie made a face. “Is this that talk about babies and storks? Because I have to be honest, Silky Sadie who works the corner told me that what really happens is---”
    Ma laughed despite herself. “No, it’s not that.”
    Eddie had been holding out on me. “What did Silky Sadie tell you?” I asked him.
    “Never mind,” Ma said. “We’ll have that talk soon enough, I imagine.” She scooted me off and stood up. “As for the other thing, that’ll have to wait till tomorrow. Time for supper now, and then off to rehearsal. Mr. Booth will throw a hissy fit if it starts late. Go wash up, you two.” We ran off to the basin and the soap. As we did so I heard her say to Romulus, “Be extra careful this evening. It’s the summer solstice and…things… will be abroad.”
    * * * * *
     
    Ford’s Athenaeum started out as a Baptist Church. When they’d moved on to a new place, John T. Ford had taken over the 30 year-old building and made a music hall out of it. He owned several such theatres, here and in Maryland. Folks trusted him as being wise in business affairs and as honest as a saint. That meant something in Washington. Mr. Ford had even been acting mayor of Baltimore once. When he decided to do a thing, it got done right. I’d seen evidence of that firsthand. The theatre had just opened in March, after an expensive remodeling. Popular from the first, President Lincoln had even attended a play there, only three weeks before. It’d turned from a house of God to a house of Art, but you could still sort of tell that it had been a church once. It had that feel, like ancient forces throbbed beneath it.
    I finished stowing the last piece of scenery, Duncan’s throne, backstage. Helping to stow it, anyhow. It took four of us to move the thing, they’d built it that massive. Booth, both the star and the producer, had gone all-out on this show. We half-expected a stage full of horses for the Act V battle scene. Nearby, Eddie and Ma dressed actors in armor and wigs. I wouldn’t see much of them once the play started, as my duties were mostly on the other side of the stage. After giving them a wave, I weaved my way through the crush of performers and stagehands to the up right corner, where I’d wait until they needed me to help shift a flat or adjust a bush.
    Ducking under one of the half-raised drops, I smiled at the fly operator next to his bank of ropes. It amazed me that all of this chaos—flats, curtains, trapdoors, smoky fire-prone gas lights, racks of costumes, tables full of greasepaint—could result in something as wonderful as a play. Even more amazing, some of the flightiest people you’d ever seen managed the chaos. Booth, as full of himself as any man who’d ever lived, impressed me as a paragon of sense compared to most of the actors who shared the stage with him. Lady Macbeth loved laudanum a little too well. Our doddering King Duncan didn’t always know what play we’d staged. Sometimes he’d burst into a song from some music hall performance he’d done as a young man. Banquo seemed well-cast as a ghost, because he frequently became invisible (well, actually he had to be fetched from the basement maintenance closet, where he’d be romancing one of the witches). Despite all of this, the play itself proved a marvel. Only Shakespeare could have made so artificial a thing into such a scary, dreadful event. The jaws of our opening-night audience would drop. That I could guarantee.
    It felt hot as Hades in the stuffy theatre. All of the gas lamps and limelights seemed to double the temperature. It made me real glad I didn’t have to wear any of the heavy costumes Ma’d made for the actors. My union suit and overalls had me sweating enough without adding velvet to it all. The boots they forced me to wear