Lisse nudged Marc with a black-clad and kept her voice low. “Theater manager’s furious.”
He nodded, his headset’s microphone bobbing up and down. “That lady in the front row keeps laughing at the wrong parts.”
She pulled her gloves back on and gripped the rope. The timing was automatic by now, after thousands of rehearsals and shows. “It’s throwing off the actors. Estelle already ran offstage crying. Her understudy’s just not as good.”
The frantic hyena cackle came screeching backstage again. Lisse was already in motion, but the sound jarred her enough the rope sped up inadvertently. Her fingers wrenched as her palms heated through ancient gloves.
“Quick!” The hiss came from where Marc wasn’t supposed to be. “Director’s kicking her out!”
Marc and Lisse rushed to stage left and peeked through the layers of curtains. As was to be expected, the director had a flair for the dramatic, one honed by an ego the size of Broadway, if not quite the talent. His aggrieved flounce was positively indignant, with one beringed hand over his heart and the other waving a clipboard.
“Jack, follow spot.” Marc tapped the button on his ancient, wired headset automatically.
Lisse looked upward, squinting against the glare. Jack was a blur in dark clothing behind an enormous spotlight now focused on the drama unfolding at center stage.
“Madam, please, you are disrupting the show!” He had a flair for sotto voce projection, the kind actors and audience alike hushed to hear.
The thick Greek accent floated easily backstage. “As if the daughters of Ares would ever need to marry! What a farce! Oh, good show!”
Lisse blinked as the woman rose to her feet, and dodged Marc’s startled drawback before his shoulder hit her throat.
The cackling continued until the woman had slammed the auditorium door, which was merely a factor of how hard she’d hit the exit, not a factor of intent.
“She…”
“Back to work!” The director barreled straight for them, pale lips pressed tight.
Marc scurried out of the way. Lisse gripped the rope again. “But she had a sword…”
***
I got stuck this week and had no idea what to do with AC Young’s challenge at first. Hopefully I did it justice, even though I took it liberally as an idea. “The local theatre had put out the adverts for their latest production, “Seven Grooms for Seven Sisters”. Apparently it was an Amazon’s favourite musical…”
My prompt went to Cedar Sanderson: “The grid pattern showing the safe path flashed once, twice, and then vanished.”
