The Rebirth of Wonder by Lawrence Watt-Evans Page B

he
persisted.
    She hesitated. “I'm not sure,” she said.
    That was ridiculous, of course; how could she
not know what town they lived in? He glowered at her.
    As he glowered, he was trying to figure out
just how the Bringers could have known about all those lost things.
It seemed clear that they must have local people working with them
– but who? And why?
    The whole thing was just crazy.
    “ I need to go shut
off the air conditioning,” he said, putting down the
box.
    “ I'll see you
tomorrow, then,” Maggie said, smiling. “At seven, this
time.”
    “ But tomorrow's
Saturday, you can have all day...” he began. Then he stopped. “Oh,”
he said. “Do you mean seven in the morning?”
    “ No, no – seven p.m.
In the evening. Even if it is Saturday.” She opened the stage door
and blew him a kiss, and then she was gone.
     
     

Chapter Eleven
     
    The Boston Public Library
wasn't any more help than the Bampton library, as far as Merton
Ambrose and The Return of Magic were concerned, and his car overheated on the
drive back. By the time he got home and rushed through a quick meal
of leftover chicken it was five past seven.
    He wasn't sure whether he expected to find
the Bringers of Wonder waiting for him in the parking lot or not;
it might be more in character for them to appear mysteriously once
he was inside.
    In the event, he found Maggie sitting alone
on the porch, elbows on her knees, watching the sun set over old
man Christie's fields. Christie's aging white gelding, Spanner, was
in the nearest field, watching her in that vaguely puzzled way
horses have. White birds were circling over her head; as Art
approached they swooped away and seemed to vanish, like soap
bubbles popping, in the shadows of the theater's eaves.
    “ Hi,” he called.
“Sorry I'm late.”
    She turned and smiled. “Hi, Art,” she
said.
    “ Where are the
others?”
    “ Oh, they saw you
weren't here and went down the street to get a soda or
something.”
    He looked up at the sidewalk, but didn't see
any sign of anyone else. “I guess they aren't in any hurry,” he
said.
    “ I guess not,”
Maggie agreed. “After all, everything's been going so
well...”
    “ Has it?” Art asked,
startled.
    “ Well, yes,” Maggie
replied, equally startled by his reaction.
    “ But it's been
almost a week, and you haven't built any of the sets, or hung any
lights. Do you have costumes designed, or
anything?”
    “ Well,
no...”
    “ Then what's going
well?”
    Maggie hesitated before replying. “The
performance,” she said at last. “The preparations. I mean, I guess
we haven't done much on the... the technical side, but we've got
the scripts all set, and I think everyone knows his part, just
about.”
    “ Really?” He glanced
up at the red-painted clapboards behind them. “I hadn't heard
anyone rehearsing.”
    “ Have you been
listening?”
    “ Um...” Art realized
that for the past few days he had been far too busy in the prop
room to pay any attention to noises overhead. For that matter,
while one could hear what was happening onstage from the big room,
from the prop room events upstairs were pretty
inaudible.
    “ I guess not,” he
admitted.
    For a moment they stood silently on the
little porch; then Maggie suggested, “Let's go on inside; they'll
all be along in a minute, and if I'm not here waiting they'll know
to come on in.”
    “ Right.” Art fished
the key ring from his pocket and unlocked the stage
door.
    Inside, with the work lights on, he could see
that a second, larger white chalk circle had been added to the
design on the stage, completely surrounding what had been there
before.
    “ What's that?” he
asked.
    “ What? Oh, that,”
Maggie said. “That's just so we all know where to stand. See, over
there, that red squiggle? That's my place. At the beginning, I
mean, when the curtain goes up.”
    “ Blocking marks,”
Art said.
    “ I guess,” Maggie
agreed.
    “ Sort of funny
ones,” Art remarked. “Fancier