Page 54 of Potion Sickness

“He gets a lot of notes,” Addie says, with sympathy.

Gabe opens the envelope and reads for a moment. “Page one says ‘you are a tree describing a forest fire’, whatever that means. I’ll save the rest for tonight.”

He drops into Duncan’s throne, which at the moment is being played by the chair where he seats next-of-kin.

“I can’t read all the words,”Addie says, matter-of-fact. “I take notes on some, but it’s hard, so for the big speeches Dad just says the lines and I check the little words around the big ones. And I do everybody else’s part.” She flips to a dog-eared page. “I’m best at Lady Macbeth.”

“Show her,” Gabe says.

She climbs back onto the footstool, squares her shoulders, finds the line with her finger, and delivers: “When you durst do it, then you were a man.”

“See? Exactly like Pru,” Gabe says.

“Better than Pru. Don’t tell Pru.”

“Now do the cue for the dagger,” Gabe says, and Addie pages forward. I take the chair next to the Banquo lamp and watch the two of them work. He hits the dagger speech clean, every word in its place, with all the smoke and terror of a man reading a shipping confirmation.

“Right,” she says.

“It didn’t sound right.”

“The words were right. I only do the words. Englebert does the other part.”

“The other part is going slowly,” Gabe tells me.

“He said your dagger is ‘a dagger of fact,’” Addie reports, unhelpfully, “and your ghost is ‘a ghost of paperwork.’”

“Thank you, Addie.”

“I wrote them down because they’re insults but they sound like poems.”

“Englebert is good at that.”

We run the banquet with me drafted in as the assembled lords. I raise an invisible goblet and am told by an eight-year-old that I’m doing it too early. Gabe walks the row of folding chairs and when he turns and finds the lamp in Banquo’s seat, he flinches. It’s the closest thing to acting I’ve seen him do.

They call it after another run-through.

“Be honest,” Gabe says, walking me to the door. “Scale of one to ten. How bad is it?”

“The acting?”

“The acting.”

“Four,” I say, hesitant. “But you know that. Englebert can work with a four who knows it. He can’t work with an eight who doesn’t. He told me that. He described it as ‘ancient theatrical wisdom’.”

Gabe leans on the doorframe. Behind him, in the parlor, Addie is returning Scotland to a funeral home, chair by chair, chattering away to lamp-Banquo as she works.

“Are you helping with the bees later, Ms. Mari?”

“What bees?”

“Ms. Annabel says I can come learn how to make honey. You should come learn, too.”

“Maybe,” I say.

“And to think,” Gabe says. “A year ago I couldn’t even get her to talk at dinner.”

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