The Juliet Spell (23 page)

early twenty-first century, and I am trying to contact

you to tell you what has happened to Edmund Shake.

speare or Shakeshaft. He is here with us, alive, well and

acting in his brother’s play Romeo and Juliet. I can’t be

sure how he came here, but I think it had something

to do with the momentary creation of what you might

call neutral space. In any case, if you see William Shake.

speare, please tell him that his brother is fine and that I

am working to make it possible for him to come home,

if he wants to.

Best Regards,

Drew Jenkins

“Doctor Dee was beside himself with joy and excitement,” Shakespeare said. “But there was naught to do but to tell me the great news and to wait, hoping that Doctor Jenkins would try again to pierce the veil of time.”

Drew was looking a touch more relaxed, but I couldn’t calm down myself. “My next email was a lot longer. Pages long, in fact. I thought that if I told Doctor Dee as much as I could about what I was doing and what my equipment was like, he might be able to come up with a way to contact me. And he did.”

“Doctor Dee did concoct a lightning bath, using lore which Doctor Jenkins sent,” Shakespeare said. “Then, us.ing it to increase the virtue of the device which he already had, he used the copper alphabet to scribe on time itself.”

“He means I sent the technology for the wet-cell battery,” Drew said. He shrugged like it was nothing. “It’s simple, really. The Babylonians probably had them. But all the rest was Doctor Dee’s. Anyway, I got a message back, but it took me a few days to discover it. It went into my spam file. Mostly it was questions about the future. But he also men.tioned that Will—that Master Shakespeare here—wanted to know everything about what Edmund was doing. So I told him about the play. Then today, when I started to write to Doctor Dee again, there was this low throbbing, kind of like an earthquake, and a bright light, and—”

“And I did come into this wond’rous world like a be.ing newly born,” Shakespeare said. “I was with Doctor Dee standing in his sanctum sanctorum as he tried to send an.other message to Doctor Jenkins when I did feel myself en.raptured by a force unknowable and translated in all time and no time to stand beside great Doctor Jenkins.”

“Ye mean, brother, ye thought to throw yourself into Doc.tor Dee’s pentagram to see if ye might come here and admire your own greatness,” Edmund sneered.

“I have always been a brave man.”

Now that I was past the initial shock of seeing William Shakespeare in my backyard, my brain was jumping around like an excited puppy. Edmund’s big brother was here. Where were we going to put him? How were we going to fit him into this world? Was he truly as vain as he seemed to be? And what was going to happen to English literature now that he wasn’t in his own time to write the rest of his plays?

“Drew, who else knows Shakespeare is here?” I asked.

“No one, fortunately. I got us out of the house before my mom came home. So we’ve just been driving around. It seemed like the best thing to do.”

“Doctor Jenkins has shown me marvels,” Shakespeare said. “We have ridden about in his thunder cart, and he has driven me through the place where the play will be acted. A fine site, I think.”

This was awful. We now had two Renaissance English.men to try to hide. Two who obviously didn’t like each other. Who couldn’t bunk together, unless we wanted to end up with a debt-of-honor duel or something. Where were we going to put this new Shakespeare?

My brain stopped jumping around and landed on one great fact.

“Drew,” I said. “He has to go home. You have to get him back.”

“Aye,” Edmund said. “And that soon.”

“Now, brother,” Shakespeare purred. “A man might al.most think his kin wasn’t glad to see him.”

“You don’t understand, sir,” I said. “If Edmund slips out of your world and into ours, it’s not a big deal. But you’re fa.mous. If you disappear from history—well, it won’t be good for history.”

“Famous,” Shakespeare said. “Yes. Doctor Jenkins did mention that in his letters. I should like to know more about that when time is convenient.”

“What are you going to do about this?” I said to Drew.

“I don’t know.... But there must be an equation in there someplace.”

“And no doubt in God’s good time Doctors Dee and Jen.kins will find it,” Shakespeare said. “And my brother and I will go home.”

“Nay, Will. I will never go back to England,” Edmund emphatically proclaimed. “I will stay and become an actor here such I could never be in England.”

“Let that be as it must be,” Shakespeare shrugged. “But in the meantime, there is another matter I wish to discuss. Since I am here, I wish to help my brother to perform my play.”

“All the parts are given out,” Edmund said.

“’Tis Romeo and Juliet,” Shakespeare said. “There is always room for another citizen of Verona.”

“Not for thee,” Edmund said.

“Wretch! Then I forbid ye to perform it.”

“Forbid? Who are ye to forbid?” Edmund questioned. “Think ye that the Lord Chancellor will help ye to prevent it? The Master of the Revels close the theaters for ye? Be damned to ye, Will Shakespeare. The play will go on.”

“Brother, I ask only—” Shakespeare began.

“Ye ask only to snivel yer way onto the stage and take it over! I know your little ways, Will. There is no part for ye.”

“Edmund, ye little bastard, ye’ve no more right to prevent me being in me own play than ye have to steal the part of Romeo,” Shakespeare roared.

“Steal? I was parted for my skill,” Edmund roared back. “We real actors must earn our way on our abilities.”

“Look, guys. We can settle this,” Bobby was saying. “There’s no point in anybody getting hysterical.”

But the Shakespeare brothers weren’t listening. They were busy getting hysterical.

“Ye will never set foot on our stage,” Edmund shouted.

To which Shakespeare responded by slapping Edmund across the face and spitting on him.

To which Edmund responded by launching himself at his brother.

In the next second they were down on the grass wrestling and punching. And it was nothing like the fight that Drew and Bobby had had. This was a nasty, tear-your-clothes and kick-you-in-the-eye fight with the most amazing exotic curses I’d ever heard, erupting out of both their handsome mouths.

The back door opened.

“What the hell is going on?” Mom said.

Her voice rang with power. Maybe Queen Elizabeth had sounded like that. If not, she would have given her orb and scepter to be able to do it.

Shakespeare, who was on top of Edmund, looked up. Ed.mund turned his head toward Mom.

Mom took a step down from the door, which made the light behind her shine full on Shakespeare’s face.

“Mom, this is Edmund’s brother, Will...”

“Yes...I can see that,” she said in a very quiet voice. She leaned against the door frame. Her face was full of amaze.ment.

Then, it changed. I saw it set into that tough, determined look she had when she’d come to a decision.

“Everybody inside,” she said. “We’ll sort this out.”

Chapter Twenty.

Eight

And Mom did. When she had found out everything that had happened, she became very practical, as perhaps only a mom can be when faced with brawling Elizabethan time travelers. Shakespeare would sleep on the couch in the living room. Before that, he would take a shower—although, I noticed, Shakespeare didn’t have the incredible stink that Edmund had brought with him—he reeked of stale perfumes instead. Then he would dress in some more of my dad’s old clothes.

Then Mom thought for a while. We all waited for her to lay down the law to everybody.

“Edmund, your brother’s in the show,” she said in her take-charge nurse voice. “As long as he’s here, we might as well get some use out of him. Mister Shakespeare, you will accept any part you are given, and you will do everything you can to help your brother. Drew Jenkins, you will stop contacting Doctor Dee until and unless I give you permis.sion. Do you all understand me?”

“But, Ms. Hoberman, if I don’t contact Doctor Dee—” Drew began.

“You are in over your head!” Mom barked suddenly, but then regained her composure. “Drew, I appreciate that you were trying to help Edmund. But I have to point out that you’ve failed to do that. And you have made things a lot more complicated. You’ve performed major surgery on the past. So we’re going to see how the patient does before we do anything more. Got it?”

“Got it,” Drew said, and nodded.

“And are you both clear on the play?” Mom asked Ed.mund and his brother.

“I like it not, milady, but ’twill be so,” Edmund said.

“Ye are wise as ye are beautiful,” Shakespeare said. “I repent me that I had to meet ye in such wise as I did. My brother did provoke me.”

Edmund opened his mouth. I put out my hand and touched his arm. His mouth closed again.

“Thank you.” Mom smiled. “In spite of all the difficul.ties your presence here raises, it’s an honor beyond telling to meet you, Master Shakespeare. Just one thing.”

“Aye, milady?” Shakespeare said.

“You seem to be a vain man. Vain, and ambitious. Ed.mund is a friend of mine. If you do anything to try to un.dermine his control of the play—if you put a foot wrong in any way—I’ll cut that foot off. And I’m a trained nurse. I know just where to cut, Mister Shakespeare. Welcome to California.”

Shakespeare looked very thoughtful. “Brother, d’ye not think her much like our sister Joan?” he said at last.

“Aye, as our Joan might be had she had such chances to be learned as Milady Hoberman has had,” Edmund agreed.

“Our sister Joan is a great woman,” Shakespeare said. “I will swear to you, milady, as I would swear to her, that I will be loyal. Whatever service I can do, that I will, and no more. ’Twill be enough to see how my play is done in these

marvelous times. I have but one more request.”

“And that would be?” Edmund said.

“Doctor Jenkins has spoken of a folio,” Shakespeare said.

“Ah. No wonder ye came to the twenty-first century,” Edmund said. “Now ye can steal lines from yourself.”

“I’ll get it,” I said.

But when I went to the coffee table where Edmund had left it, it was gone. And it wasn’t in its place on the shelf. It wasn’t anywhere.

So we all went looking for it, anyplace we thought it might be, until Drew slapped his forehead and said, “Idiot!”

“What?” I said.

“There is no First Folio. Shakespeare’s here, so the plays were never collected.”

“Wait, wait. Then how come we all know it exists?” Mom said. “Shouldn’t we have no memory of it if it doesn’t exist?”

“No,” Drew said. “Because it did exist until this after.noon. We all remember it. But right now there isn’t a sin.gle First Folio, or Second Folio, or Third Folio or Riverside Shakespeare anywhere in the world.”

“Whoa,” Bobby said. “That’s big.”

“Damn it,” Shakespeare said. “To come so far and find my coming has all but erased my reputation—but how is it then that Romeo and Juliet still is known?”

“Written before you disappeared,” Mom said.

“Would you like to look yourself up?” Drew said.

“What?” Shakespeare said.

“Take a look at what is still known about you?” Drew ex.plained.

“Aye,” Shakespeare said. “That I would.”

Drew went out to his car and came back with his com.puter. He flipped it open and the screen glowed. The screen saver came on, random shapes and colors moving in an end.

less pattern. Shakespeare gasped. “’Tis beautiful,” he said. “Okay,” Drew said quietly. “Let’s see what kind of a world

we’re living in without that book.” He typed in “William Shakespeare.” There were quite a few entries, and they all said pretty much the same thing. Here’s one.

Shakespeare, William (1564–1597?) English poet and playwright. Shakespeare was a prominent writer of the English Renaissance best known for his long poem Venus and Adonis, and three plays, Richard III, Henry V and Romeo and Juliet, which are still sometimes per.formed. He is known to have been born in Stratford-on-Avon, probably on April 23rd 1564. The date of his death is not known, but no mention of him occurs after 1597. Many scholars consider that he had not come into the fullness of his powers, and that had he lived his best work might well have awaited him.

That was all. “Three plays?” Shakespeare said. “I have written a dozen.” “No one collected them,” Drew said. “Only the most

popular ones survived.” “Mom,” I said in a panic. “You still used to be an actress,

right?” “Sure,” she said. “Did you ever work three seasons in Ashland at the Shake.

speare Festival?” “The what?” she said. Then a look of horror crossed her face. “Oh, God... I did do that. But at the same time, I know

there’s no Shakespeare Festival there now. And there’s no