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The saboteur stood up straight and pulled back the hood, revealing feathery blonde hair around a face with too much makeup.
Tatiana.
“Hello, Nadia,” she said. “Long time no see.”
“Wha… what?” I sputtered. Then, remembering I was tied up in a secret room, I opened my mouth to scream.
Tatiana was on me in a flash, covering my mouth with her hand. I tried to bite her but then she shoved a wad of cloth in my mouth, a handkerchief or rag. She took another piece of rope, like the one binding my hands, and tied it around my head and in my mouth to keep the rag in place. I winced as she tied it so tight that it dug into the corners of my mouth. I felt like a horse with a bit in its mouth.
When I tried to shout, all that came out was a muffled groan.
“There,” she said conclusively. “That is more like it! No more annoying screams.”
My chest heaved as I tried to breathe through the rag. Tatiana. Here in front of me.
“You’re the saboteur?” I tried to ask. It sounded like someone talking with a mouthful of oatmeal.
“You did very well tonight,” Tatiana said, mouth twisting bitterly. “You were supposed to be bad. This is unacceptable.”
I grunted.
She leaned against the crates. Now that I saw her with the hood down, I was certain she was the figure I’d tried chasing that night outside the theater. The one who’d dropped the note.
Tatiana watched me for a few seconds the way someone examined a half-dead rat stuck in a rattrap. There was a sparkle in her eyes that filled me with unease. The fire of a crazy person who had finally broken.
“None of this has gone how it should,” she informed me. “Part of that is not your fault. But some of it is. I always wanted to be a Broadway actress. I wanted to play Christine in Phantom of the Opera! It was only a silly dream, but my parents convinced my rich grandfather to buy a theater so I could have a lead role.” She shook her head. “Do you understand the pressure that puts on a girl? I doubt you do, since you were thrust into the lead role so late. No time to think about it. Whereas I had weeks and months to panic about the theater’s renovation, and the third-rate show I was being given without any training or lessons or experience. Here you go, Tatiana! Fulfill your dream!
“I could not handle it. The pressure, the looks from the cast and you, insisting I wasn’t good enough. That I didn’t deserve it, that I only got the part because of my grandfather. I wanted to quit, but my parents would not allow it. Not after Paw Paw John bought the theater and set everything up. I was to be a star, they insisted! Didn’t I know how lucky I was to get such an opportunity, how real actresses would have killed for such a chance?”
There was a shimmer in her eyes, a mourning that softened the madness beneath.
“So what did I do? I performed poorly at rehearsal. Singing the wrong notes, walking the wrong track. Acting like a diva and treating the rest of the cast and crew like they were beneath me. All an act. But the director was too much of a coward to fire me. He couldn’t fire Paw Paw John’s little girl! Of course not!” she said bitterly.
She wasn’t even talking to me, now. She was talking past me, like I was an audience to a monologue in a show even more tragic than The Proposition. I didn’t know what to do—and didn’t have anything I could do—so I sat quietly and listened.
“When my poor performance was not enough, I resorted to more drastic measures: shutting down the show itself. I spread rumors that the theater was haunted. Your loverboy Ryan ate those rumors up like candy. I tinkered with the lights, unplugged random cables and wires backstage. When that did not work, I sabotaged larger props. I loosened the bolts to the spotlight so that it would crash when activated during my song. I made sure to avoid my actual track so I would not be injured. I set other traps that were discovered by the stage hands, and orchestrated direct threats against myself from an unknown saboteur. When all of this was done I refused to perform, insisting it was not safe, but Director Atkins was not convinced. Paw Paw John even intervened to tell me everything would be safe, that I would get the show I always dreamed of. He even increased security and purchased new cameras. To make me feel safer, because he loves me.” She wiped a tear. “I could not tell him the truth. He has given me so much. So I did the only thing I thought I could. The only way out of this nightmare.”
“The trapdoor,” I mumbled into the cloth.
“Faking my own injury was the only way to get removed from the show. The old trapdoor triggering mechanism was in storage, and it was easy to configure in the sub-stage while those two technicians were busy installing cameras at all the theater entrances.” She flexed her knee. “I did sprain my knee somewhat. It hurt like hell when I fell. But it worked. A doctor recommended I not perform for four to six weeks. I was free from the crippling pressure! I was free from the show!”
Now her gaze fell to me, and that hateful stare returned.
“The show was supposed to be a failure without me. I would receive all the glory for what could have been, without needing to perform. But then you stepped in.” She said the word you like it was a curse. “You were better than I ever could have been. And to make things worse? Paw Paw John increased the budget for the show. He hired a dedicated musical director. He spent five times as much on marketing—everywhere I went in the city I began seeing billboards and advertisements! Even men handing out pamphlets in the street! He gave the show a true chance at success. Why would he not do that for me, his own granddaughter?”
Abruptly, the anger disappeared from her face. She shrugged, and crouched down by the small trashcan. Her body blocked what she was doing.
“You were not supposed to be good. The show was supposed to be a spectacular failure!” There was a scratching sound, and then the glow from a match. “But that is okay. The show will not go on, now. You can never hurt me ever again. Everything will burn away and I will never feel this shame again.”
She stepped away, giving me a view of her handiwork. The small metal trashcan was filled with scraps of paper, and was now smoldering with a faint orange glow. Burning evidence that it was her, I supposed.
“Goodbye, understudy,” she said as she opened a trapdoor next to the wardrobe. She descended halfway into the darkness, then gave me a final look. “You were very good tonight.”
She closed the trapdoor behind her, leaving me alone.
60
Nadia
