Chapter 6
Scene I, James
Festival day is James’ favourite. By noon the visual arts students have transformed the campus into a decadent museum, filled with mureals, chalk art, stained glass hanging from every tree, and have set up facepaint stands. The day is filled with professionally cooked food through Delecher’s downtown culinary school, and James drags Sirius, Mary, and Remus to Emmeline’s ballet performance in the banquet hall at noon, making sure to go early enough to wish her good luck.
In turn, Lily and Marlene drag him (very willingly) to the on-campus fashion show. As visual arts students, Dorcas and Pandora are doing their fashion credits this semester and both of them have unique pieces on the runway. Pandora’s collection features clothing made out of rich colours and silk, and Dorcas’ feminine suits made out of live plants. He has no idea how she does it and makes a note to talk to her later about how she pulled off such a feat.
All too soon, the sun is setting and James is ducking into the woods to get ready for their show.
It’s a trek, trying to get to the campus grave yard—especially when one is trying not to get seen by the other students preparing to go ‘on stage’ tonight. God knows what kind of strings had to be pulled in order to do this performance there.
His blood is pounding with excitement as he breaks through the treeline, hopping the fence into the grave yard. Paths wind through small mausoleums and decadent gravestones. It’s just dark enough that one or two of the outdoor lamps are starting to flicker on, casting a warm but eerie glow over the whole place.
His costume is simple. A white tunic, slacks, and an open vest. An untied tie hangs around his neck. What else could be expected from playing Horatio.
James has always been fond of Horatio. Hamlet’s best friend, his rock. A steady, loyal man who is willing to follow Hamlet to his death, but ultimately, does not get to.
There’s a rustle in the forest behind him, and a second figure stumbles over the fence. “Fucking forest,” the figure grunts, and James would know that voice anywhere.
Sirius is dressed in a silk black button up shirt and dark blue jeans. His hair is tied back in a bun, and he’s got a small bit of eyeliner expertly done.
When Sirius catches sight of James, he comes over, grinning and pulling him into a hug, “I was hoping you would be my Horatio.”
“I would not wish any companion in the world but you,” James quotes back. “Though I was wondering who would get the role, you or your brother.”
“We have been playing a bit of tug of war recently haven’t we,” Sirius muses, but his voice is good natured. “I think that’s over now, though. Has he talked to you yet?”
James shakes his head, a stiff feeling in his chest at the mention of Regulus. “He’s been avoiding me I think.”
“I don’t think he will for long,” Sirius assures him, expression genuine. For the first time in a long time, he feels a pang of jealousy. When they were kids, it was hard not to feel on the outside of their relationship. But around the time Sirius and James were thirteen, it felt like there was a break of some kind. And he got them both to himself in so many ways.
Still, there are intricacies within their relationship he will never learn to read. Will never be a part of. James is family, but he’s not part of The Black Brothers.
“I miss him,” James confesses. “We’re nearly a month into term and the only time we have any length of conversation is when we’re in rehearsals--and talking as Romeo and the fucking Friar does not count.”
“I know.”
“He’s working two jobs,” James continues, “he’s exhausted Pads, I can see it.”
“I know,” Sirius chides him. “Just let him figure everything out, ok?”
Figure what out, James wants to bite out. I thought that’s what we were meant to do together.
Instead he just takes a deep breath and nods.
Before either of them can say anything else, they start to hear voices coming from the gates. Students filing in for the show. Among them are Mary, Regulus, and Remus—who James knows have also received envelopes for tonights show. Apparently dramatic effect means nothing to them and they walked here together, though they quickly depart from the general crowd.
“Amateurs,” Sirius winks before ducking behind a colosseum so as not to be noticed.
James, on the other hand, was instructed by his script to enter from behind the large oak tree a few feet away and takes his place there.
After the crowd has mostly settled, a speaker somewhere emits a loud crash of thunder, signalling the beginning of the scene. He'd bet Edgar Bones is in charge of tech tonight.
Mary steps up onto the edge of the water fountain at the centre of their make-shift stage. She’s wearing a suit of armour with a sword hanging by her side.
Remus, dressed similarly a few feet away shouts up at her, “who’s there?”
“Nay, answer me; stand and unfold yourself,” Mary demands back.
James was watching with such rapt attention he doesn’t hear Evan sneak up and crouch beside him until he hisses, “these suits are uncomfortable as fuck.”
“How did you change into them so fast,” James muses, glancing at Evan over his shoulder. His outfit is the same as Mary and Remus’.
“You don’t want to know.”
“—If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus, the rivals of my watch, bit them to make haste,” Remus (Bernardo) tells Mary (Francisco) as she jumps down off the fountain.
“I think I hear them. Stand ho!” She looks in their direction, “Who’s there.”
James gives Evan a smirk before revealing himself to the crowd, sure Evan is right behind him. “Friends to this ground!”
“And liegemen to the dane,” Evan pushes past him.
“Give you good night,” Mary tells them both, half facing the audience half calling over he shoulder at them.
“O! Fairwell honest soldier: who hath relieved you?”
“Bernardo,” Mary says before exiting the stage via disappearing behind a small crypt.
“Bernaro,” Evan grins turning to Remus.
“Say,” Remus glances past him, tilting his head, “Is Horatio there?”
“A piece of him,” James jokes, stepping forward to pull Remus into a one armed hug. “Has this thing appear’d again to-night?” He peers around the graveyard, as if looking for another person.
“I have seen nothing,” Remus shrugs.
“Horatio says ’tis but our fantasy, and will not let belief take hold of him touching this dreaded sight twice seen of us. Therefore I have entreated him along with us to watch the minutes of this night, that if again this apparition come. He may approve our eyes and speak to it.”
James rolls his eyes, “’twill not appear,” he stands between them, arm on each shoulder, and speaking as though he is to children, “ghosts don’t exist.”
Remus shakes him off, “then sit down a while and let us once again assail your ears, that are so fortified against our story, what we have two nights seen.”
James drops to the ground, dragging Evan with him as if they are also part of the audience, “Well, sit we down, and let us hear Barnardo speak of this.”
Remus rubs his hands together, “Last night of all, when yond same star that’s westward from the pole had made his course t’ illume that part of heaven where now it burns, Marcellus and myself, the bell then beating one—“ he cuts off gaze snapping to the left where Regulus, dusted in white paint and fake blood, wearing a blood-stained shirt and black pants comes stumbling out of the woods.
Evan jumps up, James too. “Peace, break thee off. Look where it comes again!”
“In the same figure like the king that’s dead,” Remus says, specifically to James in gloating.
Evan grabs James and pushing him towards the ghost. "Thou art a scholar. Speak to it, Horatio.”
“Looks it not like the king? Mark it, Horatio,” Remus says, tone delightful.
“Most like,” James says nervously, glancing from Remus to the ghost. “It harrows me with fear and wonder.”
James approaches Regulus, who stands aimlessly, looking up at the sky and not really noticing James at all. “What art thou that usurp’st this time of night together with that fair and warlike form in which the majesty of buried Denmark did sometimes march?”
Regulus moves away, causing Evan to hiss, “you’ve offended him.”
“See? It stalks away,” Remus agrees.
“Stay!” James tries to get Regulus to notice him, reaching out to grab him but Regulus is too quick—thank god or else the illusion would have been ruined.
Regulus disappears from the audiences view by ducking behind a tall gravestone, and James turns back to Remus and Evan.
“Tis gone,” he says, “and will not answer.”
Remus comes and pats James roughly on the back, “How now, Horatio? You tremble and look pale. Is not this something more than fantasy?”
James shakes his head, “Before my God, I might not this believe without the sensible and true avouch of mine own eyes.”
“It is the king,” Remus’ voice turns solum.
James: “As thou art to thyself.”
Evan stares at the way Regulus had gone, “Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour, with martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.”
“Then break we our watch up, and by my advice, let us impart what we have seen tonight unto young Hamlet, for, upon my life, this spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.”
Evan nods, agreeing. “Let’s do ’t, I pray, and I this morning know where we shall find him most conveniently.”
They disappear from the main stage, and once they’re clear the speaker soon plays morning bird songs to signal the time change. But when Sirius comes on stage from behind the same mausoleum Mary had ducked behind, the song stops.
He’s carrying an empty wine bottle and sways as he walks as though drunk. “Oh, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew, or that the Everlasting had not fixed his canon ‘gainst self-slaughter! O God, God! How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world!” He stumbles over a grave, tumbling to the ground. Pulling himself to his knees he seems to speak directly to the audience, "Things rank and gross in nature possess it merely. That it should come to this.But two months dead—nay, not so much, not two.” He gestures wildly, “So excellent a king, that was to Claudius Hyperion to a satyr.”
Remus, James, and Evan come back into view behind Sirius, and James puts a hand on his shoulder, startling him up. “Hail to your lordship.”
Sirius breaks out into a grin, tackling him in a hug, “I am glad to see you well—“ he backs away, tapping his chin like he’s thinking, “Horatio? Or I do forget myself?”
“The same, my lord, and your loyal servant ever.”
Sirius chides him, “my good friend, I’ll change that name with you. And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio?—“ Sirius glances behind him, catching Remus and Evan standing there as well. “Marcellus! Bernardo.”
He leaves James’ side to greet them, shaking their hands. “I am very glad to see you, but what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?”
James scratches the back “A truant disposition, good my lord.”
Sirius shoves him good naturedly, “I would not hear your enemy say so, nor shall you do mine ear that violence, to make it truster of your own report against yourself. I know you are no truant. But what is your affair in Elsinore?” He picks up the wine bottle where he’d dropped it, shoving it into James hands. “We’ll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.”
James hands the bottle back gently, grimacing, “My lord, I came to see your father’s funeral.”
Sirius’ grin falls into a scowl, taking a deep swig of wine before speaking. “I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow student. I think it was to see my mother’s wedding.”
James shrugs, “it followed hard upon.”
Sirius turns around pacing a bit away from James, “Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables. Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven or ever I had seen that day, Horatio.” Sirius’ face turns white as he flings himself back to James. “My father—methinks I see my father.”
James looks around, searching the landscape for the ghost. “Where, my lord?”
“In my mind’s eye, Horatio. He was a man. Take him for all in all. I shall not look upon his like again.”
James grips him gently, “My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.”
Sirius stumbles back as if James had struck him. "The king my father?!”
“Season your admiration for a while with an attent ear, till I may deliver,” James gestures to the men behind him, “upon the witness of these gentlemen, this marvel to you.”
Sirius sank to the ground, dragging James with him. “For God’s love, let me hear.”
“Two nights together had these gentlemen, Marcellus and Barnardo, on their watch, in the dead waste and middle of the night, been thus encountered: a figure like your father, armed at point exactly, cap-à-pie, appears before them and with solemn march goes slow and stately by them. Thrice he walked by their oppressed and fear-surprisèd eyes within his truncheon’s length, whilst they, distilled almost to jelly with the act of fear, stand dumb and speak not to him. this to me in dreadful secrecy impart they did, and I with them the third night kept the watch, where—as they had delivered, both in time, form of the thing, each word made true and good—the apparition comes.” James lowers his voice just a fraction so the audience can still hear him, but so that it feels intimate too. “I knew your father. These hands are not more like.”
Sirius’ face looks so broken if James didn’t know they were acting he would have already stolen him away from prying eyes. “But where was this?”
Evan steps forward, “My lord, upon the platform where we watch.”
“Did you not speak to it?”
“My lord, I did, but answer made it none.”
“’Tis very strange.”
“As I do live, my honored lord, ’tis true. And we did think it writ down in our duty to let you know of it.”
Sirius straightens, some of the Prince Hamlet coming out. “Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles me. Hold you the watch tonight?”
“We do, my lord,” Remus says.
“What looked he frowningly?” Sirius asks, voice a bit strained.
James tilts his head, “A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.”
“Pale or red?”
“Very pale.”
“And fixed his eyes upon you?”
“Most constantly.”
Sirius laughs, a bit sad, running his hand through his hair. “I would I had been there.”
“It would have much amazed you.”
Sirius stands, dusting his knees off and holds a hand out to James. “I will watch tonight. Perchance ‘twill walk again.”
“I warrant it will.” James takes his hand.
Sirius faces the guards now, “I pray you all, if you have hitherto concealed this sight, let it be tenable in your silence still. And whatsoever else shall hap tonight, give it an understanding, but no tongue.”
Remus places a hand to his chest, “Our duty to your honor.”
“Your loves, as mine to you.”
The three of them exit the view of the audience. Remus gives Sirius a thumbs up before heading for the tree line, probably to meet up with Mary. One more scene, and then the celebration really begins.
Like they’d timed it, the sun chooses this moment to dip below the horizon, casting a dark glow on their scene for when they enter again.
“The air bites shrewdly. It is very cold,” Sirius’ teeth chatter as he rubs his hands up and down his arms.
“Yes, it is a nipping and an eager air.”
"What hour now?” Sirius asks.
James looks around, “I think it lacks of twelve.”
A second after he says it, a clock strikes 12 times over their speakers,
“No, it is struck.” Evan grins foolishly.
“Indeed?” James quibs back. The audience laughs.
In the corner of his eye, he catches sight of Regulus creeping through the graves. “Look, my lord, it comes!”
Sirius grips James’ arm, “Angels and ministers of grace defend us! Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned, bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell, be thy intents wicked or charitable, thou comest in such a questionable shape that I will speak to thee. O, answer me! Let me not burst in ignorance, but tell why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death, have burst their cerements; why the sepulcher, wherein we saw thee quietly interred, hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws to cast thee up again. What may this mean, that thou, dead corse, again in complete steel Revisits thus the glimpses of the moon, making night hideous and we fools of nature, so horridly to shake our disposition with thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?” He turns to James, “Say why is this? Wherefore? What should we do?”
“It beckons you to go away with it, as if it some impartment did desire to you alone.”
Sirius nods, pulling away from the two of them. “It will not speak. Then I will follow it.”
“Do not, my lord.” James grabs his arm back.
Why, what should be the fear? I do not set my life in a pin’s fee, and for my soul—what can it do to that, being a thing immortal as itself? It waves me forth again. I’ll follow it.”
“What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord, or to the dreadful summit of the cliff that beetles o’er his base into the sea, and there assume some other horrible form, which might deprive your sovereignty of reason and draw you into madness? Think of it. The very place puts toys of desperation, without more motive, into every brain that looks so many fathoms to the sea and hears it roar beneath.”
Sirius stares off at Regulus, who looks at them both expectantly.
“It waves at me still,” Sirius says surely, and speaking to Regulus, “Go on, I’ll follow thee. ”
“My lord—“ Both James and Evan try to hold Sirius back, but he shakes them off for the other side of the fountain, and he stops just in front of Regulus.
James and Evan back away, “He waxes desperate with imagination.” They exit the stage, leaving the Black brothers alone.
In a traditional Shakespeare play, they would have followed him. But since the focus of this performance has been Hamlet and The Ghost, instead they stay backed away, letting them have this moment to themselves.
That doesn’t mean they can’t watch from the wings.
Regulus begins walking the edge of the fountain as Sirius speaks, “Where wilt thou lead me? Speak, I’ll go no further.”
Regulus talks, almost to himself. “Mark me, my hour is almost come when I to sulfurous and tormenting flames must render up myself.”
“Speak. I am bound to hear.”
Regulus steps down, looking Sirius in the eye, "So art thou to revenge when thou shalt hear.”
“What?”
“I am thy father’s spirit, doomed for a certain term to walk the night and for the day confined to fast in fires, till the foul crimes done in my days of nature are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid to tell the secrets of my prison house, I could a tale unfold whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres, thy knotted and combinèd locks to part and each particular hair to stand on end, like quills upon the fearful porpentine. But this eternal blazon must not be to ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O, list! If thou didst ever thy dear father love—“
“O god.”
“Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.”
“Murder?”
“Murder most foul, as in the best it is. But this most foul, strange and unnatural.”
“Haste me to know ’t, that I, with wings as swift as meditation or the thoughts of love, may sweep to my revenge.”
"I find thee apt, and duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed that roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf, wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear. ‘Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard, a serpent stung me. So the whole ear of Denmark is by a forgèd process of my death rankly abused. But know, thou noble youth, the serpent that did sting thy father’s life now wears his crown.”
“O my prophetic soul! My uncle?”
“Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast, with witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts—O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power so to seduce!—won to his shameful lust the will of my most seeming-virtuous queen. O Hamlet, what a falling off was there! From me, whose love was of that dignity that it went hand in hand even with the vow I made to her in marriage, and to decline upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor to those of mine.”
“Father—“
But soft! Methinks I scent the morning air. Brief let me be. Sleeping within my orchard, my custom always of the afternoon, upon my secure hour thy uncle stole with juice of cursed hebenon in a vial, and in the porches of my ears did pour the leperous distilment, whose effect holds such an enmity with blood of man that swift as quicksilver it courses through the natural gates and alleys of the body and with a sudden vigor. Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother’s hand of life, of crown, of queen at once dispatched, cut off even in the blossoms of my sin, unhouseled, disappointed, unaneled. No reckoning made, but sent to my account with all my imperfections on my head.”
Regulus curls away from Sirius’ touch, “If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not. Let not the royal bed of Denmark be a couch for luxury and damnèd incest. But howsoever thou pursuest this act, taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive against thy mother aught. Leave her to heaven and to those thorns that in her bosom lodge to prick and sting her.
Somewhere, birds are singing again. Regulus takes a step back, Sirius a step forward. “Fare thee well at once. The glowworm shows the matin to be near, and ‘gins to pale his uneffectual fire. Remember me.”
With that, Regulus leaves.
Sirius paces in silence for a moment. Letting the audience sit with it. Sirius is the most non-verbal actor James has ever come across. His most magical moments on stage are when he’s reacting silently. His body and face portraying everything he feels.
And then he shouts, “O all you host of heaven! O earth! What else?And shall I couple hell?” He topples over, clutching his chest, “Oh, fie! Hold, hold, my heart, and you, my sinews, grow not instant old, but bear me stiffly up.” Sirius stares in the direction the ghost left, as if wishing he could follow. "Remember thee! From the table of my memory I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records, all saws of books, all forms, all pressures past that youth and observation copied there, and thy commandment all alone shall live within the book and volume of my brain, unmixed with baser matter. Yes, by heaven!”
Out of rage, Sirius seems to sag down. “O most pernicious woman! O villain, villain, smiling, damnèd villain! My tables!—Meet it is I set it down that one may smile, and smile, and be a villain. At least I’m sure it may be so in Denmark.”
Sirius drags himself up, talking right to the audience, “So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word. It is “Remember me.” I have sworn ’t.”
The audience cheers, a roar unlike anything else. And Sirius breaks out into a smile, his eyes finding James’ even though he should have no idea he’s still there.
Evan and James move to bow, Remus and Mary coming out on stage too. Regulus from the other side.
The audience roars louder, and near the front James spots Marlene and Lily, cheering them on even though they were not part of the performance.
Regulus bumps into his side, bright smile on his face, linking his arm with James as they take their final bow. He's sure some of the white power Regulus is doused with gets on his face. In his hair and his clothes. But he doesn't care.
There's nothing like it. Putting on such a show.
It's like he's on top of the world.
Part II, Evan
No matter how hard he looks, nowhere in the crowd is Barty.