Read Tracked by Terror for Free Online

at the end of the long makeup table. She was murmuring something softly, echoing what Jarvey had just said: “Redder than mine. Give me wine,” she said in a low, despairing voice, “wine as red as a young woman’s lips, and redder still than mine. Let me drink of it, as I drink of sorrow.” A tear rolled down her right cheek.
    Jarvey resignedly clapped for her, and she thanked him with a little smile and a slight bob of her chin. He muttered, “Well, thanks for nothing, anyway.”
    He edged past her and peeked out, but no one stood in the wings. Onstage the actors, both the real ones and the doll-things, were singing heartily, a song with a lot of “Yo-ho’s” in it and a lot of high soprano trills from the ladies.
    Maybe if he went the other way, went down the hallway where the boy had gone to fetch the tea—
    Jarvey opened the door and whooped in alarm, and a hand clapped over his mouth at once. Betsy grabbed his wrist and hauled him down a long corridor. “Come on!” she growled. “You’ll have them all on us, cully!”
    They pounded out a door and into dazzling sunlight.
    Jarvey blinked, not daring to believe his eyes. “You found the way out!”
    â€œDon’t wave the flag yet. Come on, duck down low and get into the wheat—no, you goose, the wheat, the tall grassy stuff! Lower!”
    She put a hand on his back and forced him to lie on his stomach, while she hugged the ground next to him. A moment later, the door they had come through opened again, and the older man and the boy stepped out. “Nothing,” the man said. “Augustus, what is the matter with you? You know that an actor should never break character—”
    â€œI heard someone call out,” Augustus doggedly insisted. “I know I did, Father.”
    The man looked at his son for a long time, shaking his head.
    Jarvey’s breathing was painful, because inside his shirt the Grimoire pressed hard against his chest, and he was trying to push himself right down into the dirt. If the two looked the right way, they’d spot him for sure, he thought, wishing he had chosen a spot with better cover. Betsy was more well hidden than he, with tall clumps of wheat growing all around her. Jarvey lay more or less between rows.
    However, neither of the two figures glanced his way. The older actor sighed and said, “Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps you did hear something at that. Katrina Three has been behaving oddly these past few months, missing cues, even ad-libbing laughter now and again. Perhaps it’s time I retired her to become an usher and created a replacement.”
    â€œI don’t think it was her.”
    The older man clapped the younger one on the shoulder in a fatherly gesture. “She, my boy. The proper way of saying it is ‘I don’t think it was she.’ ”
    Jarvey could see Augustus’s expression, and from it he judged that Augustus didn’t much care what the proper way of saying it was. He looked angry and a little dangerous, as if he wanted to hit something, anything.
    â€œCome back inside, son,” the father said, holding his hand out. “We must return to our rehearsal.” He patted the boy on the back, and they both disappeared through the door.
    As soon as they were gone, Jarvey sat up. “What happened to you?” he asked. “I looked everywhere!”
    â€œStay down!” Betsy clamped a hand on his neck and pushed him so he lay on his side, hidden by the wheat. “I found a door that led backstage,” she said before he could speak. “I thought you were right behind me! I heard—”
    â€œI thought I saw you—”
    They stared at each other for a moment, and then they both laughed. It was a shaky, nervous kind of laugh, but still a relief “Those dolls,” Betsy said. “They wear out or something, and then—”
    â€œHe makes new ones,” Jarvey