The WITCHES THREE

Chapter One
 

   “Victor, I do not think it is at all polite to die in the midst of seducing a maiden. It’s probably even against th’ union rules.”
   The maiden stood by the bed and stared into the motionless eyes of the man in the black afro wig. The wig was awry, revealing iron gray hair beneath. He continued to stare at the ceiling of the lush hotel room, ignoring her best attributes. Victor was good at playing dead, but this good?
   “Victor, are you really dead?” She prodded the actor’s shoulder with the tip of a carefully tinted finger.
   The object of her pensive study, Victor Edwin Booth, lay silent and unmoving. The maiden dimly felt that she really should be quite angry with him, yet that was difficult under the present circumstances.    He really was dead.
   “Thou tell’st me there is murder in mine eye.
   ’Tis pretty, sure and very probable,” recited the young actress absently.
   Still he did not respond. The maiden, her voluptuous body exceptionally seductive within the diaphanous pink gown, for want of anything better to do, pensively chewed her lower lip and strained to focus her vision on the actor.
   Her long blonde hair flowed in gracious waves across her creamy shoulders to her slender waist. The weight of her hair pressed the gown against the curves of her unadorned posterior. Her healthy breasts lifted the gown and draped it from her pink nipples.
   Her china blue eyes were wide with concern and distress. She breathed deeply, causing her breasts to heave, setting their gossamer covering flowing gently, temptingly. The man lying on the black satin sheet was not tempted. He continued to stare at the ceiling, smiling slightly, unaware and uncaring that the maiden was in such distress.
   Silence spread through the luxury suite as if it were quite alive; alive with the breath that no longer animated the silent actor’s body. Outside the room, outside the hotel, the city itself was silent with the lonely silence of the wee hours of the morning. The young lady, barely breathing, contemplated the motionless corpse.
   The staring eyes, and the slight smile that twisted his thin lips, gave him a jaunty air even in the final act of his life-long performance. He must have died in the midst of happy anticipation. That was nice.
   Resolutely, she pulled the non-concealing gown close about her, placed her small trembling fingers against the actor’s neck. No pulse, temperature below normal. Carefully, she bent over the handsome profile and brought her soft cheek to his nostrils, expecting, hoping, his muscular arms would seize her voluptuous body and press it to the satin sheets. No breath of life. Surely, if even the teeniest bit of life were left, even in the midst of a coma, the pallid lips would curl to kiss that downy cheek.
   No.
   Nothing.
   She straightened her inexplicably weary body and again considered her options.
   She could run screaming from the hotel, which did not seem smart or productive in her present state of dress (or undress). She could attempt to revive him, but she knew nothing of CPR or other brave medical things to do. Besides, he was dead (probably). She could get herself dressed, disguised perhaps, and sneak home. That did appeal to her, for she could easily be very, very sick.
   The maiden, as she always did in times of distress or confusion, retired to the nearest mirror; this time to the old, faded, full-length mirror on the massive wardrobe that commanded the wall opposite the bed. The door in which the mirror was fastened was slightly ajar, and so presented not only the most agreeable reflection of herself, but also a decidedly unpleasant view of the body of the great actor in final repose. She closed the door; it reopened. Irritated, she shoved it shut again and twisted the latch firmly to make certain it would stay shut and eliminate the distracting image on the bed, then conferred with herself.
   “What do we do now?” she asked herself.
   Considering that neither she nor her image had a bit more experience than the other, the result of these seances was usually predictable—no advice forthcoming. With a conscious effort she brushed the light-headed feeling and the developing headache into the background of her pretty head. A vague feeling that the tranquilizer the great actor had persuaded her to take was more than just a tranquilizer rang alarms in the remote reaches of the brain within that pretty head, for unfamiliar things were happening to her stomach as well as to her—elsewhere. She could not worry about that right now. For the moment she was not even interested in admiring the young woman who gazed so earnestly at her from the glazed surface, although the image clearly called for admiration.
   Her skin was scrubbed clear and glowing. Pink and cream. Her blue eyes were decorated with long pale lashes. The mouth was perhaps a bit small, lips full, emphasized with pink lip gloss and backed by straight white teeth. Within the envelope of the pink gossamer gown, the body, just verging on being sumptuous, was well worth anyone’s second look, even a third.
   She studied her slightly fuzzy image.
   “Silly. Are you drunk on a single glass of champagne?” she asked. Her image remained silent, although it did move in and out of focus slightly.
   “We should call nine-one-one, I suppose,” she mused to the mirror, “there might be the slightest chance he is only in a coma.” Her image seemed to rustle in negation.
   “Don’t sass me back,” she crisply ordered her image in her mother’s voice.
   The girl gathered her hair in her left hand and twisted it tightly into a bun the way Margaret did when playing Lady Macbeth.
   “Be not lost so poorly in your thoughts,” the sharp voice of Lady Macbeth now rebounded from the worn surface of the mirror. “But screw your courage to the sticking place.”
   She picked up the Othello knife from the night table where it reposed. It was a trick knife belonging to the great thespian. It was as solid and strong as any knife unless you pressed the button on the side. The blade then slid harmlessly into the handle, giving, the actor had explained with great authority, the greatest appearance of authenticity, yet perfectly safe.
   A final test: She believed the actor to be dead, but if he were shamming, the prick of his own blade should awaken him. Wondering vaguely what it would be like to actually stab someone, the maiden placed the point of the knife against the actor’s stalwart breast.
   “I’m going to stab you, Victor, if you don’t stop play-acting.” She plunged her hand sharply downward. The blade moved swiftly, the guard struck the graying hair on the stalwart chest of the motionless body. The Great Victor Edwin Booth did not move.
   He was really and truly, and most unfortunately, dead.

“Things without all remedy Should be without regard; what’s done is done.” Was that the sly voice of Lady Macbeth whispering in her ear? Regardless, the advice was sound: What’s done is done. If she could but fight off the sickness that even now threatened to undermine her will, she would hide her golden locks under Victor’s Othello wig, color herself a new color with the actor’s makeup and escape, if escape she could.

 To order

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