YEAR OF THE VAMPIRE 19

Chapter 19

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Mar 01, 2025

Music from: Are You Satisfied? by Marina and the Diamonds

"No, no, no!" Mr. Sandovar cried, crossing the stage and waving his arms at the teen boys playing the rivaling Capulets and Montagues. He was in charge of choreographing the rumble scene. "This is a duel, a dancing duel number, not a real melee!"

Ivy wanted to giggle, but could only stare. The dark theater offered a sort of solace from her thoughts, but the play practice for the fight scene in Romeo and Juliet wasn't proving enough of a distraction. She glanced to Forrester, who was in his practice costume as Paris. He kept fiddling with his fake mustache, sneezing. Everywhere, wooden swords in rapier style were clashing.

Lornie stood at stage left, beaming at her chance to stand in for Juliet's Are You Satisfied? scene in her post-engagement number. Carlie had a cold. Lornie had practiced pining over Romeo all afternoon as they finished Ivy's dress.

Still, Ivy's mind was full of black-and-white images of Maeve—sometimes Mabel, Mary or Madeline—from the library school archives. She'd tried to show one of the class groupings to Lornie from her cell phone pictures, but Lornie didn't see any familiarity.

"But that guy," Lornie had pointed out, indicating a boy two photos away from Maeve in 1928, "looks kinda familiar. Geez, we had such a small graduating class that year that they let the girls and boys have a photo together?"

Ivy had taken another look at the cell phone image. "No, the ovals were placed on the class archives later, for posterity. I'm sure they had separate pages at the time."

"Posterior?" a voice from behind them had said.

Ivy had nearly keeled over. Dred stood looking over their shoulders as they waited for the rush of students to leave the school hallway earlier. She'd snapped the phone off, staring at him. "No."

"What ya up to?" he'd wanted to know.

She didn't tell him, and he didn't seem to recognize Maeve's old photo. "Research, for . . . for my dress."

"Yeah?"

"I'm going," Lornie had told them. "See you there, Ivy!"

And she'd left her alone with Dred.

Now in the safety of the dim theater, Ivy realized how weak her excuse of not going with him to the Hall was. He'd bought it—after all, she did have a lot of homework—but it would only take a few wrong words to let slip her interest in the school archives.

But, she had learned, he didn't wear the same aftershave she'd detected at the library.

The conductor tapping his baton on the music stand in the orchestra pit brought Ivy's attention to the stage. On it, in mostly full costumes, the scene was set for Juliet's post-engagement to Paris number. Lornie stood in the center of the bedroom, pulling at her hair as she began the song. Nearby, Heidi as Juliet's nurse, looked on, this time with a headset to autotune her voice when her part of the song came to join in. Ivy marveled that Heidi could join the fluidity of roller-skating with her jerky mime-like movements while singing.

Lornie went through the number, but all Ivy could concentrate on was the violins in the pit, their harmonized chords plucking through the mostly empty auditorium. Somewhere in her memory of the last week or so, Mandrake's playing at Brylinden Hall floated back to her. She smiled, recalling the blond man's aggressive talent with the instrument. There had been something bold in his playing, something not undermined by his ability to make the violin play the more sensitive notes with the same affect.

At least, affect on her. She shook her head, trying to shake it from her mind as her curiosity brought back the name of the piece he was composing in the second floor music room. Year of the Bone. She couldn't imagine what it meant, except to have something to do with Scarlet's play. She'd done an internet search for the term, but found nothing about a play of the name.

By the time she looked back at the stage, and really focused, the setting had changed for the Mantua apothecary scene. Instead of being fourteenth century Verona, a Victorian mad scientist-type of shop was set up, complete with steaming and bubbling beakers on the counter. Ms. Decker had cast junior Fritz Hrez as an androgynous apothecary, complete with steampunk goggle-eyepatch and vest of chain and glass vials. Lornie had talked-up the character so much, Ivy felt she'd seen Fritz in costume before; she hadn't, and now, he was nearly unrecognizable as the somewhat standoffish teacher's aide in her English Pre-Lit class. According to Camille, he wasn't shy outside of school.

A series of sharp, climbing notes came from the orchestra pit, followed by Fritz's high, girlish laugh onstage, and then Lornie's half-boyfriend Jeremy's banging away at the piano keys burst out as Fritz launched into his rendition of Marina and the Diamonds' Girls!!! Ivy sat forward, realizing she'd missed most of Lornie's performance by letting her mind wander back to the Hall.

She watched the number, impressed and feeling guilty, until Lornie waved to her from the left wing. Ivy finger-waved back. By the look on her friend's face, Ivy assumed Lornie hadn't seen her expression glaze over. After Fritz' number, the orchestra took a break as the scene was set up for Romeo's duel scene. Ivy looked down as her cell phone hummed. She quickly looked at the text.

Gotta run thru again. Staying? Lornie was asking.

Ivy felt a rush of relief. No sign Lornie knew she'd drifted out. Teaching @ 6.

Sry. 4got. Later!

Ivy shot back a goodbye and stood up. Lornie wasn't side-stage now, so Ivy assumed she was backstage, secretly texting.