In the Court of the Yellow King (8 page)

“That doesn’t matter,” Broach said. “Read, will you?”

Jayda Rivera gave him a questioning look, and Broach replied by staring at her with impatient eyes and stamping one foot.

Jayda glanced at Kathryn and drew a steadying breath. “‘Forgive my bluntness, my queen, but you have been looking for Carcosa. Again.’”

“‘The Hyades have not yet risen, thus Carcosa may not appear. I am simply watching the Lake of Hali swallowing the suns. Again.’” Kathryn’s gaze at Jayda was haughty, but her voice carried a wistful note. She felt Broach’s eyes warm with approval.

“‘If only the lake would swallow our enemy,’” Jayda said, her voice gaining assurance as she began to immerse herself in her part. “‘But, Mother, does it not lie within your power to destroy Alar?’”

“‘It does not, and you know this.’” She drew herself up and in a commanding voice said, “‘Listen well, daughter. Do not mock me, for I still have power in Hastur, and I would as soon you never live to succeed me.’”

Jayda’s eyes widened in pure, authentic fear. “‘I do not mock, my queen. You withhold powerful secrets. I desire only to learn.’”

“‘I should first share them with agents of Alar.’”

The ensuing silence felt so deep that Kathryn swallowed hard to make sure she could still hear. From the direction that Broach had indicated lay the purview of the King in Yellow, a movement caught her eye.
Do not look there.

She looked. Just for a second.

A tiny figure, standing in the shadows, barely visible.
A child
.

A sudden rhythmic clattering drew her attention back to director Broach. The stout man was doing a weird little two-step dance to himself, a blissful grin broadening his already broad face. The sounds of his feet tapping on the floor were soon joined in syncopated rhythm by another set of echoing,
tap-tapping
footsteps.

In the room’s far shadows, the child was dancing as well.

Three weeks later: lunch at Brodjian’s Café with Jayda, who, it turned out, worked by day in a nearby office.

“I don’t like those damned masks,” Jayda said, giving her chicken salad wrap a suspicious glance. “They’re creepy and uncomfortable.”

“Creepier on some than others.”

Jayda smiled and nodded, then looked back at her lunch. “I asked for no walnuts. Screw it, they won’t kill me. You think this play has a chance of taking off?”

Kathryn’s turkey and brie croissant must have sat on the counter overnight. It was not thrilling. She shrugged. “It’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever been in. I tell you, if I were in the audience, I don’t know I’d sit through it — at least as much of it as we can perform.”

“Please! What
are
we going to do at the end? Stand there like dummies as the curtain falls? And who’s that little girl? One of the cast members’ who can’t find a babysitter?”

“Little girl?” For a second, she drew a blank. “Oh, wait. I thought it was a little boy.”

“Pretty sure it’s a girl.”

“Okay.” Boy or girl, the kid was a mystery. Always lurking in the shadows, never quite revealing his or her face. Six or seven years old at most. She had never heard the child speak, yet he — she was
s
ure
it was a boy — sometimes mimicked the actions of the players during rehearsal. She didn’t think the kid was Broach’s; he was reputedly as gay as they came and had been an old bachelor since before Moses’ day.

“We still don’t even know who that is playing the King.”

“Nope. Could be anyone, since we never see his face.”

“The orchestra’s on tonight. You ready?”

Kathryn nodded. The play featured a single musical number, “The Song of Cassilda,” in the second scene of Act 1. Till now, she had simply sung it
a cappella
from the sheet music, which, most curiously, Broach had transcribed by hand. This evening, the prior production having finally cleared out, the theater proper would be open for rehearsal, and she would sing with orchestral accompaniment. She had a fair mezzo-soprano voice, best suited to singing in a chorus, but in college she had held her own as Lady Macbeth in their production of Verdi’s
Macbe
th
, and more recently as Luisa in a revival of
The Fantasticks
. She had no doubt she could nail the song, yet for some reason she was on edge about it.

Like about so many t
hings in this play.

“What are you doing?”

Jayda was looking at her, one eyebrow raised. Kathryn realized one finger was tracing a pattern on the table and had twisted a portion of the tablecloth into a knotted mass. She’d had no idea she was doing it.

A chilly worm slid down the back of her neck. “I’m done,” she said, pushing away her half-eaten croissant. “Not hungry. And I gotta get back to work.”

“You really are nervous.”

“Something about being poor as dirt, I guess. I need this play to fly, and I’m not sure it’s going to.”

“If it doesn’t, it won’t be on your account.”

“Well, thanks for that.”

They settled their bills and headed out of the café into the afternoon sunshine. Lunchtime pedestrians and traffic choked West 47th Street, the usual barely controlled chaos. For the moment, the aroma of cooking meat from a dozen nearby eateries overwhelmed the exhaust fumes, just barely.

“Till tonight, then,” Kathryn said. She gave the younger woman a little wink. “If you see crowds of people running away, it’s because I’m practicing my song in the streets.”

“Now, that I believe.”

“Oh, and Jayda?”

“Hmm?”

“It’s a little boy.”

Jayda returned an exaggerated sneer. “Yes, Mother.”

Dark,
dark
theater.

The cavernous space beyond the stage might as well be outer space, Kathryn thought, the only illumination out there the murky red glow from a pair of exit signs over the far doors, like ancient, dying suns floating in the void. The Frontiere, once a posh venue for first-run shows, had decayed as old buildings will decay over the course of a century, and nowadays audiences rarely filled more than half the seats, even for its biggest shows. Still, its acoustics were phenomenal, the ceiling rising to dizzying heights, the spacious stage framed by columns and faux-Greek sculptures.

The cast had assembled within a warm island of light on the otherwise barren stage, and director Broach was in a corner conversing with Joseph Morheim, the orchestra conductor. Down in the pit, the musicians were tuning their instruments, producing a stream of background noise that alternated between soothing and jarring. This felt
almost
like a normal production, Kathryn thought, which in itself seemed bizarre, since little about
The King in Y
ellow
had so far been “normal.” She had no understudy; no one did. At their read-throughs, the director stopped them at varying points before the non-existent ending. It wasn’t only her script that was incomplete. Broach — or perhaps the anonymous playwright — had excised those portions of the play, the director’s explanation being that “Spontaneity, my children, will have its day, and your reactions will be as authentic as the audiences’.” Three actors — none, thankfully, in major roles — had dropped out after only a few rehearsals, claiming the play was causing them “psychological distress.” While Kathryn and Jayda Rivera had hit it off from the start, the actors who played Cassilda’s sons, Uoht and Thale, never associated with the rest of the cast. The former, a handsome, chisel-faced youngster named Les Perrin, always appeared sullen and withdrawn, his every free moment spent with his face stuck to his iPhone. The latter was a chunky, bearded gentleman named Kenton Peach who had starred in several noteworthy shows, including
I’m Not Rappa
port
and
The Odd Couple
; ironically, he
was old enough to be Kathryn’s father. He seemed polite enough but frequently faded into the shadows as if performing a soliloquy for no one.

Labeling Broach an ‘eccentric’ was like saying Jenna Jameson was a little audacious. The director’s moods swung between exuberance and depression, sometimes within minutes of each other. At least he seemed taken with Kathryn’s portrayal of the moody Cassilda. “You give her life,” he told her, “which is more than she ever knew before.”

To date, the “Yellow Sign” had been represented by an “X” rendered in yellow paint. Why, she wondered, did that bother her so? Not to mention the fact the King in Yellow himself was played by some anonymous actor, whose identity only Broach knew.

Kathryn’s roommate, Yumiko, after one read-through, refused to practice with her any further. “This play is not happy for me,” she had said. “It feels bad.”

Two weeks remained before the opening. Broach had promised the sets would be “phenomenal,” and the stage crew had their work cut out for them. Until then, there would be rehearsals every night, but they still had no inkling of how the play would actually end.

However, as Kathryn had hoped, the first stage rehearsal felt different.
Good
different. Even without the sets in place, the theater aura bolstered her confidence, and as Cassilda slipped inside her, the two of them breathing together as one, the orchestra sent up swirling, mystical strains from woodwinds and strings, weaving an otherworldly atmosphere that was at once dark and lovely. As Scene 2 of Act 1 — Cassilda’s song — loomed nearer, the music became more intense, the brooding bass deeper and more ominous, the ethereal flutes more melodic.

The introduction to the song began. Weird and wistful, the instruments assumed the quality of human voices, humming and warbling in an eerie melody that gave Kathryn a chill.

She needed no cue to begin.

“‘Along the sh
ore the cloud waves
break,

The twin suns
sink beneath the lak
e,

The shadows length
en

In Carcosa.’”

Her voice was not hers.
Alien
, it seemed, more assured and more beautiful than any her vocal cords could produce. She felt herself diminishing. All she could perceive — all that was left of her — was her voice.

“‘Strange is the night where blac
k stars rise,

And str
ange moons circle th
rough the skies

But
stranger still is

Lo
st Carcosa.’”

“‘Songs tha
t the Hyades shall s
ing,

Where flap the t
atters of the King,

M
ust die unheard in

D
im Carcosa.’”

Her heart swelled, and her feet seemed to leave the floor, her body as light as a dust mote, her emotions overflowing, spilling into all those within her presence.

“‘Song of m
y soul, my voice is d
ead;

Die thou, unsung,
as tears unshed

Shal
l dry and die in

Los
t Carcosa.’”

The last syllable echoed away into pure, empty silence. She had no breath left in her lungs.

Camilla — no,
Jayda
— stood nearby, her eyes bright jewels, tears glistening on her cheeks. Kenton Peach lifted an arm and propped himself on Les Perrin’s shoulder, as if to keep from toppling. Somewhere beyond the island of light, a soft female voice breathed, “Oh, my.”

At the edge of darkness, stage left, Vernard Broach stood with his hands folded together as if in prayer, knees slightly bent, face to the heavens, eyes closed. After a moment, he began to shiver as if clutched by bone-numbing cold. Then he was not shivering but
vibr
ating
, his entire body quivering in a way no human body could or should move.

Behind Broach, a shadow stirred, and the reed-thin voice Kathryn had heard in her dream sang out: “Aldebaran.”