Douglas Rees - The Juliet Spell

I put the smelly tights, shirt, and filthy unmentionables in the wash on gentle, which, since there were no labels with washing instructions, seemed like the safest bet. Then I went back to check on Edmund.

The shower was running full blast, and I could hear him splashing around.

“Everything okay in there?” I shouted.

“Okay, indeed!” he replied. “I’m never coming out.”

“I should tell you, the hot water runs out eventually.”

“Then I’ll come out when it does so,” he said. “This is the greatest work of man since the creation. If only Doctor Dee could know of it.”

I figured this was a good time to find something to cover him up when he was done. I left him splashing away, went into my mom’s bedroom and went through the closet and chest of drawers she’d shared with Dad.

There was quite a bit of his stuff left. He’d been traveling light when he went off to develop as an individual, and I could have dressed Edmund in anything from a three-piece suit (ten years old, but in great shape) to a Moroccan caftan with about a hundred buttons down the front. I decided to go for simple: tan pants, and a polo shirt. I found a belt and some white socks. Nothing would be an exact fit; Dad was taller than Edmund, and Edmund had broader shoulders, but I figured it would get him through till tomorrow. Then Mom and I could get him some stuff.

“Edmund, your clothes are outside the door,” I called as I set them down.

“Thank ye, Miranda,” he said.

A few minutes later, he came into the living room. He was a shade lighter, and his hair was damp. He’d managed the clothes. The shirt was on all right, and the pants were okay, except that the zipper was down.

“Edmund, that little metal thing down in the front? Pull it up.”

It took him three tries. Then he worked the zipper up and down another ten.

“Marvelous strange,” he said.

“Are you hungry?” I asked.

“Not a whit. But I would like another cola.”

“Help yourself.”

On his way to the kitchen, he paused by our flat-screen TV.

“What device is this?” he asked.

“Television,” I said. “Get your cola and I’ll show you how it works.”

I wasn’t going to throw Edmund in at the deep end of TV. I had the perfect introduction to the whole concept ready to go. It was a DVD of Romeo and Juliet. I’d watched about six productions as part of my preparation for my audition, and this one was ideal for him. The whole thing was staged in Elizabethan costumes and was done on a copy of an Elizabethan stage. And Mr. Gillinger had told us that R&J was one of Shakespeare’s two most popular plays. Maybe it would turn out Edmund had seen it.

When he came back, I got all teachery. “Now. Edmund, this is television.” I turned on the screen. It flared up huge and blue.

Edmund pushed himself into the back of the sofa. His eyes got big.

“What are ye conjurin’?” he said. “Be this some hole like the one I just fell through? Are ye openin’ a portal to another world?”

“It’s okay. It’s just television, and it’s just turning on. There are a lot of different things you can do with TV. Right now, we’re going to show you a movie. It’s also called a DVD. See this little disk? The whole movie is on it. All we do is turn on the television with this thing called a remote, put the DVD in the player like so, turn on the player and then we get this screen that asks us what we want to do. Play movie, select scenes, special features, languages. Anybody can do this. You can do it, too. Ready?”

I put Romeo and Juliet into the player.

There were a couple of ads for British movies. They whipped by so fast that Edmund didn’t understand anything about them I’m sure. But that wasn’t what really confused him. It was the pictures themselves.

“Are these people or spirits?” he asked. “Why be they flat and small? Why do they jerk so, like mad poppets?”

“They’re just clips from movies,” I said. “To get you to want to watch the whole thing. Don’t worry. The thing we’re going to see will make sense to you. In fact, you may even have seen it in London.”

“I feel like me head’s being whirled about by a huracano,” he said. He grabbed one of the sofa cushions and held it across his chest. “I do not like this television.”

“You’ll get used to it,” I said. “Everyone does. Now watch.”

The screen changed and I hit the play movie button. There was a fanfare of old-fashioned music and the title came on the screen: Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare.

“Nay,” Edmund said. “’Tis never.” His jaw dropped; he held his breath.

“’Tis,” I said.

The movie started. An actor called Chorus was standing in the middle of the set that was supposed to be a street in Verona. “Two households both alike in dignity, in fair Verona where we lay our scene—” he began.

“’Tis never,” Edmund repeated.

“From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean—”

Edmund made a sound between a scream and a shout. He turned to me, and his face, which had been almost relaxed when he came out of the shower, was full of horror.

“Witch, by what enchantment have ye conjured up me brother William’s play?”

“William Shakespeare is your brother?”

“Aye, if my parents are my parents and the world is the world,” he said.

“You said your last name was Shakeshaft.”

“Shakeshaft, Shakespeare, ’tis the same thing—the family goes by either. I use Shakeshaft to difference me from Will.”

I hit the pause button. The Chorus stopped with his mouth open.

“What devilishness is this?” Edmund asked. “What trickery? I thought ye honest, Miranda Hoberman, and kind, too. But now I take ye for a sly witch after all. Did ye pluck yon from my memory? What else have ye taken from me?”

“Edmund,” I said. “Get a grip. There’s a simple explanation. We’re still doing the play. Now. People today.”

“Four hundred years and more after we opened it?” Edmund said. “Go to. It isn’t that good!”

“We think it is,” I said.

“Who thinks so?” Edmund demanded.

“The whole world, pretty much. Romeo and Juliet gets done everywhere. Not just England. Here, too. Russia. Japan. Canada. Everywhere.”

“Never.”

“Edmund, you know how you think Doctor Dee is the greatest man of the age? Well, that’s what most of us think about William Shakespeare. Probably not one person in a hundred now knows anything about John Dee. But everybody knows Shakespeare’s name.”

Edmund looked totally shocked. “Ye’re lying! Ye must be. But why? Why do ye tell me this?”

“I can prove it,” I said. “Wait right there.”

I went into the little room that Dad had used as his office when he was working out of our home. There were two walls of books in there. One was all his psychology stuff. The other was my mom’s. It held her nursing books and a whole lot of stuff on theater. On the bottom shelf on that side was a big red book called The Riverside Shakespeare. It had all the plays. I flipped it open to Romeo and Juliet.

“Look,” I said, and I dumped the book in Edmund’s lap. “If you’re Edmund Shakeshaft or Shakespeare, and William was your brother, then this is his book. And Romeo and Juliet’s on page ten fifty-eight.”

Edmund touched the title like he couldn’t help himself. “The Prologue…” he said. “Enter Chorus…”

Carefully, he turned one page after another. His lips moved. “Sampson. Gregory. Benvolio. Romeo. Mercutio.” He went through the play until he came to the last scene. “Aye, ’tis all here, seemingly,” he said. “Ye spell passing strangely, howbeit. Every word alike every time.”