Nightmarish Sacrifice (Cardew) (36 page)

             
An eternity in which we could meet again...

             
However, was he putting my soul itself at risk of perdition?...

             
Did his pride mean honour as well? Would he ever strike me if I didn’t hold my shield up?

             
“He won’t kill me!” I pronounced aloud to force myself into believing in this sentence. “He loves me –”

             
But the echo of Odda’s voice was insistently repeating in my mind, more and more desperately with every breath:

             
‘Beware, Freya! Beware, beware –’

                                          “Freya, beware!” someone shouted unexpectedly and I jumped back by instinct, my rationality barely restricting me from screaming.

             
In the next moment, a large wooden ladder collapsed right where I had been standing, strongly hit against the boards of the stage, and jumped off them vigorously, and the boy who had shouted my name darted worriedly in my direction.

             
“I’m so sorry,” he blushed nervously as I turned to observe his work as he was picking up the ladder and almost dropped it again, having sensed my eyes on himself. “I saw it falling and –”

             
“Thanks a lot,” I gave him a distracted smile that intensified the redness on his cheeks, and I hurried to leave him alone not to embarrass him anymore, my hand pressed to my wildly leaping heart while I was walking away towards the space backstage.

             
His call had made me feel as if I was in the nightmare again...

             
‘Beware, Freya! Beware! –’

             
“Freya!” someone pronounced my name in fragrant caressing whisper and it was not until then when I realized I was gazing emptily straight into the eyes of my own reflection into the large illuminated mirror in front of my dressing table in one of the changing rooms.

             
Cardew’s hands slightly brushed my arms seductively when he bent above me to wrap me in a loose tender hug, and his satisfied smile gently fondled my face before he started strewing in thirsty fervent kisses my shoulders, bare as the shockingly fiery-red corset dress I was wearing was strapless.

             
“Scarlet suits you more than you can imagine,” he assessed with content and hurried to take advantage of the fact that I hadn’t put my lipstick on yet and steal an amazing prolonged kiss. “You’re too beautiful and I’m too jealous... That makes a dangerous combination –”

             
“Cardew –” I exhaled his name and he looked at me more carefully, having sensed the strange nuances in my intonation.

             
“What’s wrong, lovely?” he lowered his voice so that if someone was listening behind the door of the room, they wouldn’t hear anything, and the genuine silvery concern that blazed inside his dark gray stunning eyes somehow inexplicably made me instantly feel already protected. “How can I help?”

             
“You –” unable to find the right words, I just shook my head, then spontaneously jumped up and clasped him in a strong impulsive hug. “You already did –”

             
“Hey, if anything is wrong –” the boy’s voice was calming in my ear, his palms squeezing me to him soothingly tightly, and I buried my fingers in his hair, pressing my forehead to his neck and deeply inhaling his attractive scent – just like every other time, his presence was making me feel perfectly alright, and I just couldn’t urge myself to stay away from him, no matter what Odda’s ghost had told me.

             
I was so much in love with Cardew...

             
“You can tell me if something has happened,” he was going on; my outburst of weakness had made him turn tender again in his charming protective way, and his tone was soft and irresistible as he whispered, “There are only few things I can’t change immediately and I doubt that any of them exactly is bothering you –”

             
“No, no, I’m fine,” I smiled gratefully and pulled a bit back from his embrace so I’d have enough space to show my appreciation of his support by treating him to an intense feverish kiss on the lips.

             
“Wow –” Cardew breathlessly verbalized his satisfaction with my means of expression. “I should be terribly sorry that you’ll quickly get used to stage fright, lovely, if that’s your way of releasing stress –”

             
I rested my chin on his shoulder deceptively peacefully not to let him see how I had pressed my eyes closed in an attempt to rule myself completely; I really did feel fright, but it was not the liking of the audience that was rising my anxiety...

             
“Freya, Cardew, are you in?” Mr Shelton’s voice called from outside and his hand knocked on the surface of the door.

             
“I’ll get it,” my stage partner gave me a wink and another fast kiss before hurrying to open the door and greeting cheerfully, “Hello, sir.”

             
“Are you ready?” the producer smiled to both of us; his mood was naturally bright – everything was brilliant and there had left no time for anything to go wrong; even the way in which I had involuntarily rumpled Cardew’s hair didn’t make him any serious impression.

             
“Yeah,” I darted behind my boy’s back and quickly arranged the spilled precious curls. “Absolutely ready.”

             
The teacher shook his head good-heartedly, saving us the comments about what life had been when he had been young, and turned to leave, remarking above his shoulder, “We’re starting in half an hour –”

             
“You know what, lovely –” Cardew remarked mock-sorrowfully while – having leant negligently on the edge of the table, he was watching me with admiration as I was applying the burningly red lipstick. “I already can’t wait for this play to finish –”

             
I just shook my head smilingly.

             
A strange premonition was making me desire to freeze the time...

             
Before the beginning of the play.

                                          All dazzling lights were aimed at me from the first moment when my feet touched the stage, and this fact was pleasing me so much more than I had expected that I was hardly suppressing my smile of superiority. Everyone had been speaking to me about nervousness and stage fright being natural, but it seemed they had missed to remark that some people are addicted to attention and the more they receive from it, the better they feel.

             
‘Seems I’m like this,’ I thought while confidently walking straight towards the edge of the stage, my chin up in a rather arrogant way when I was indifferently passing by the other stage deities as if they were plain mortals.

             
The entrance of the new goddess of Fire was supposed to create a dramatic effect and I was already enjoying the muffled applause of the audience, their silent exclamations filling me with pride. On the dress rehearsal, Claire, one of the girls in the crew, hadn’t missed to nag that each of them would have done for this part of the role, as the impressive aspect of the scene was all made up by the flamboyant clothes, strong light effects, and soundtrack hinting the creation of a legend – but Mr Shelton had placed her in my position only once and she was too ashamed to speak to me since.

             
Not that she had been so bad, just average – but the stiff and at the same time overly unnatural theatrical way in which she was moving, her obvious anxiety and constant glances aside had just spoiled the drama.

             
Oh, yes, modesty definitely wasn’t a trait of mine – at least not on stage – but that was not something I was considering a flaw.

             
‘So, why exactly should I be nervous?’ I asked myself again while walking slowly and haughtily, the majestic crimson of my dress shimmering like a precious piece of briskly crisp crystal in the warm light. I was feeling perfectly at ease there, and the careful staring of the audience was only delighting me, as I was completely aware that everything on me was just in the way I wanted it to be, from the luxuriously spilling waves of the magnificent dress to my each little movement, the posture I had taken, and the expression on my face – icily but dynamically cold in the inflamed energetic way which only a fiery person could display.

             
Could anyone have missed to notice that I was a Leo?

             
Highly unlikely.

             
My favourite part of the scene with the ball of gods was coming, and I did my best to make it memorable: turning my head with a single secure movement, I pinned my eyes straight into Cardew’s with such fervent intensity that the wave of heat should have been sensed in the whole large hall.

             
This was how the young supreme god met the new goddess of the element of Fire...

             
Quickening my footsteps, I stopped beside the edge of the stage, my face open for the people in the audience to read there the feverish interest Cardew’s character had awaken in me, while my mind was still relishing the sincere utter admiration I had seen in his gaze – I couldn’t define if it had been real or just a flawlessly-played detail of his role, but I couldn’t help feeling flattered by it.

             
“Who is she?” I heard his voice ask someone, and cast him a fast smile over my shoulder; his eyes were sparkling with joy.

             
“The goddess of Fire, adorable: humans made an element called Fire, and a new deity was born to rule it –” the reply didn’t delay – the one who was to give it was obviously nervous, although he had no other words in the whole play, except for this short dialogue.

             
“Fire?” Cardew smirked in charmingly maddening way and I hardly managed to neither burst into laughter, nor throw myself to mock-attack him with furious passion – I could bet that one of the reasons why he was so content with his role was that he was allowed to thirstily eye me from the crystal diadem on my head to the edges of the brightly scarlet regal glistening dress, and present it as just a part of the play. “What is Fire?”

             
“A source of light and warmth for the humans,” his servant stuttered out like a schoolboy asked to spit out a definition he had learned by heart.

             
But I doubted that anyone could have noticed him as he was standing beside Cardew...

             
“Light, warmth... and loveliness –” the supreme deity was perfect as usual in displaying how he was falling in love with me.

             
Was it an illusion that the actors in the roles of lovers were so often staying with each other in real life, too, I wondered while unintentionally admiring Cardew’s movements as he was approaching me.

             
Well, at least I didn’t have to wonder whether it was me or my character’s emotion that was making my heart leap faster, or if I was attracted to the role he was playing or the boy behind the mask – I had long ago realized that I had been his from the moment when the heavy stare of his satin-steel eyes had first fixed onto me. He had been on stage then, but I had absolutely forgotten about the existence of roles at all – and I could tell from my memories that then he hadn’t been playing for at least a single second: the fraction in which our eyes first met...

             
Or at least I wished that was true...

             
With a gesture I knew well as we had repeated the scenes dozens of times, Cardew laid his hand open for mine to relax in, and I followed him to the central part of the stage after an officially looking bow – and, weirdly, despite the practice, when I was about to begin the dance with him, I perceived that my hand slightly shivered in his, as if the electrified atmosphere had infused its excitement in my blood.

             
But it was not because of the audience or some fear of making mistakes.

             
Not even because of an instinct to listen to Odda’s advice and beware...

             
It was just because of him...

             
“I really really hope that it’s me who you’re thinking about right now,” Cardew whispered in my ear while we were both doing flawlessly with the complex figures of the dance. “This dreamy smile... You even blushed! –”

             
“As if you’re not thinking of me as well!” I nagged under my breath, already regretting that the scene with the kiss was not following immediately after this one, so we could start with the improvisations in advance.

             
The way in which his gaze was touching mine was making me feel as if not only the colour of the ruby-red crystals on my necklace was burning in ardent impatient flames but the translucent precious stones themselves. Although the hall was full and all eyes were tight on us, his affectionate stare was utterly personal, for me only, and I was enjoying that fact in the most egoistical way possible.

             
And maybe I was ready to find it illogical, but I felt as if on stage Cardew was ready to be far more expressive than in real life even when we were alone – as if being in a role was giving him the freedom he couldn’t allow himself otherwise – theatre was accepted as a game in which he was the winner – nobody would take his actions seriously, nobody would judge him or pin responsibility on him...

             
His character would be blamed, loathed, discussed, and adored – but somewhere there, behind his mask of a hero, Cardew would remain faceless.

             
Anonymous.

             
Or at least he seemed to perceive it this way...

             
The silent mechanical click somewhere close to the floor sank in the back of my consciousness to the heaps of noticed facts I would never need to use, but the very next second made me look for it and explore it carefully – my step aside had been so alarmingly unstable, it couldn’t have been anything but...

             
The heel of my right shoe was innocently rolling around – irritatingly red like everything else on me, including the haze of fury which suddenly wrapped me from all directions.

             
If no one was watching me, I would clench my teeth and give out an enraged scream – someone was trying to fail my performance on purpose! My intuition made me cast an unnoticed glimpse at Claire and I saw her wince with guilt as – even though nobody had noticed yet that my shoes were falling apart, she knew what would follow and who would be accused of it.

             
And I didn’t look particularly merciful right then...

             
However, the envy which blinked into pleasant emerald green on her face in the next moment made me suddenly want to grin – Cardew had noticed the heel, too, and – in one of his split-second decisions he was so damn brilliant at, he decided to change the script and improvise.

             
I knew I’d be saved the need to balance on only one of the high shoes as soon as his smile winked at me, and – in the time I needed for just one blink, I was already off the floor in his tight secure embrace, and the music was going on towards its culmination, but it didn’t matter anymore.

             
The game was on.

             
“I’m still not sure that I know you at all –” Cardew started loudly – as an actor utterly confident as if it was all a part of the play we had rehearsed so much, but as a character stupefied and so overly excited that his intonation was shivering. “But you, beautiful creature of unknown forces, are tempting my breath away! –”

             
As I was facing him and the audience could only see my back, I allowed myself to bite my lips not to whisper his real name and throw on his neck.

             
Oh, if only I could somehow know whether the explosion of emotions I could see in his eyes was real or just flawless faking? If only I knew what was on his mind, in the heart of his heart...

             
His words had finished the scene in a more impressive way than the planned dance would, the music adding to their dramatic effect which his intonation had made irresistible, and from the darkness there rose applause, quiet so as not to prevent the audience from hearing if he added anything else.

             
It cost me much effort to concentrate on letting go of him after he twirled me once again around himself, spilling richly the satiny waves of my dress, and then carefully left me on my feet, but still I managed to walk towards backstage, completely in character, and – fortunately – without tripping.

             
Nonetheless, I could perceive his wary eyes on me, and the whole freedom of improvisations that I had unexpectedly been given was luring me to misbehave at least a little...

             
With a natural outburst of giggle, I turned round towards him in the last moment in which I would be visible for the audience in this episode, and to his great contentment, I playfully narrowed my eyes and blew him a fiery kiss before running away among a real chaos of lucent scarlet tulle veils.

             
His admiring smile was still occupying my whole mind when I found myself backstage, face to face with Claire.

             
“Oh, you?” I didn’t give her the honour to demonstrate that I knew her name, why would I need to remember it? “By the way, thanks a lot!”

             
And, with an amused grin in return to her half-surprised half-annoyed face, I patted her shoulder like I was praising her, then kicked my shoes aside and ran barefoot to the place behind the curtains from where I could enjoy Cardew’s performance in a short monologue of his.

             
This part of the play was surprise for everyone except for Mr Shelton, as Cardew had always been rehearsing it alone, and it was a fragment he hadn’t practiced in front of the cast on usual days. Even I hadn’t seen it, although he had willingly let me witness his rehearsing for his other monologue which had nothing to do with this play – the supreme deity’s thoughts after his first meeting with the goddess of fire were secret to everybody.