The Dead Hamlets: Book Two of the Book of Cross Read Online Free PDF Page B

wore an older and older period costume, like time was running in reverse in the play. Which it was, in a way. And the set started to fill out, props appearing here and there when you weren’t looking. Trees with moss and cobwebs. Swords on a rack. A skull on a stick planted in the ground. Only they weren’t props. They were all the real thing.
    I waited for the scene I needed and worked on my character while the play manifested itself. I was going to take a starring role in a few minutes, and I wanted the audience to remember me as someone other than I was. I wanted them to remember me as just another man in the crowd. For good measure, I used a bit of Baal’s grace to turn some of my blood into wine. A quick way to get drunk, if you have the ability.
    And then I noticed the cauldron bubbling away at centre stage, and the Witches clustered around it, stirring their concoction with long, weathered bones. They weren’t the same actors as before—now they were three worn women in rags. They were so aged they didn’t even look human anymore. If they ever had. These were the real Witches. It was time.
    “Round about the cauldron go,” one of the Witches said, in a tone that was equal parts weariness and boredom. “In the poison’d entrails throw.” She went on with the rest of her speech, but I wasn’t listening. I pushed my way through the crowd and climbed up onto the stage. No one tried to stop me. You can generally get away with anything at the theatre, because no one’s sure if whatever you’re doing is part of the play or not. For instance, when I killed the angel Elijah onstage in Sarajevo during a production of Webster’s
The Duchess of Malfi
, I got a standing ovation for it.
    “By the pricking of my thumbs,” one of the other Witches said, looking across the stage at me. “Something wicked this way comes.”
    They all turned to look at me and smiled in unison. None of them had any teeth. I don’t think they’d ever had any teeth.
    “This isn’t what I paid to see!” I yelled at them, slurring my words to sound even drunker than I was. It wasn’t a lie, not really. “What the hell is this?”
    “A deed without a name,” the first Witch said.
    “A deed without a name,” the second Witch agreed.
    “Double, double toil and trouble,” the third Witch said.
    I don’t think they have names any more than they have teeth. It doesn’t matter. I’ve long suspected they’re the one and the same entity anyway, just split into different bodies. Kind of like the way gorgons are separate beings but all share the same group mind. Maybe it’s an ancient monster kind of thing.
    I kept playing the part of the drunk and stumbled across the stage to them. “I want a refund!” I shouted, then added in a lower voice, “I also want a favour.”
    The Witches left the cauldron and circled around me.
    “Speak,” one of them said.
    “Demand,” another said.
    “We’ll answer,” the third one said.
    I glanced into the wings and saw several of the stagehands talking. I knew I didn’t have long before they sent out some of the extras for an improv intervention.
    “I want a counterspell for the Macbeth curse,” I whispered to one of the Witches. “It’s run amok. I need to stop it before someone else gets killed.” I didn’t tell them who I was worried about getting killed. It’s not a good idea to let the Witches know what’s really valuable to you. Those are the sorts of things they like to put in their cauldron.
    “Seek to know no more,” the Witches said, shaking their heads together. “Double, double toil and trouble.”
    “Tell me,” I said. “Or I’ll tell the world you’ve been hiding in this play all these centuries.” Now I raised my voice again, so the audience could hear. “Tell me!”
    It was the only threat I could use against them, but it was a good one. The Witches had once lived in the real world, until too many people took an interest in them not living anywhere anymore.