Chapter Text
The students of Los Feliz Academy for the Performing Arts swarm around like agitated bees on any given opening night, their nerves and the surge of pre-performance adrenaline driving many of them to hysterics. But tonight the tension is at an all time high the likes of which the school has never seen before. The crew is running between dressing rooms in a frenzy while in the lobby of the performing arts building, the crowd is buzzing with anticipation, vying for a glimpse of the school’s most generous donors, the Danforth-Evans family, and the school’s most elusive member of the Board of Governors, Mr. Covington.
Oblivious to the storm of whispered rumors, anxious line-readings, and last minute fittings happening backstage, the crème de la crème of LA’s performing arts world go on rubbing elbows while the first seat trumpet player, Flynn Taylor, has just been sent into a metaphorical lion’s den. (Although with the size of the acrylic nails she’ll be facing, she would prefer an actual lion.)
“Why me?” she hisses as some nervous sopranos push her toward the dressing room door. “I haven’t been on the stage since I was nine! You can’t just drag innocent orchestra members into this!”
One of the dancers, Kayla – who’s way more qualified for this job than Flynn – gives her a final nudge into the doorway. “You’re the only one brave enough to do this! She’ll eat us alive!”
“Whimps,” Flynn scoffs. She has to steel herself with a deep breath, and then before she can turn back, she knocks firmly on the dressing room door and pushes it open.
The dressing room is much more quiet than it should be. Soft, pink lights and the smell of fresh roses welcome her into the room as the door clicks shut behind her. Only when her eyes adjust to the light does she notice the puffy chaise lounge chair in the corner that’s piled high with fluffy blankets. It looks so cozy, what with the guzey pink drapes and fairy lights hanging over it, that it’s almost hard to imagine the sharp edges and rough personality that are hiding under it until a frustrated voice demands, “What?!”
There it is. Suddenly, Flynn isn’t scared to deliver the news. Her confidence has caught a second wind and she feels almost invigorated to say it, even if she is the metaphorical messenger that people love to shoot down.
“Mrs. Harrison says that the show must go on, even if you’re sick,” Flynn announces, trying to keep her voice somewhere firmly between giddy and somber.
“Oh?” The blankets on the chaise lounge shift and Carrie appears from under them, sweaty from her fever, but still looking like she could happily pose in a photoshoot at a moment's notice. “Who have they found to fill in? Kayla? That makes sense, I suppose; she follows me everywhere, she probably knows all my lines. Expect her voice to be a little pitchy, though.”
“No, not Kayla.”
One of Carrie’s perfectly shaped eyebrows raises quizzically. “Then who?”
Flynn has to clear her throat before she speaks because she’s already having to stifle a laugh from picturing the look on Carrie’s face when she hears the news.
“Julie Monlina,” she manages to say in a somewhat flat voice.
“What?!” Carrie’s eyes widen and she’s on her feet in a second, running to her makeup table and brushing powder onto her sweaty face. “Julie Molina sings like a crock. How could they let her on stage? Oh, you wait until my father hears about this – he’ll be furious! The show will be ruined!”
“What are you doing?”
In her rush, Carrie has piled too much blush onto her already flushed cheeks. The combination of too much makeup and her sickness make her look slightly crazed as she pushes Flynn aside, heading towards the door.
“I have to save the show!”
“You’re too sick to perform,” Flynn objects. Easily, she catches Carrie as the mezzo-soprano lunges for the door. Carrie has weak upper body strength on a good day, and now, in the midst of her sudden sickness, it’s virtually nonexistent. It’s barely even a struggle for Flynn to escort her back to the chaise lounge, where Carrie falls back onto her pile of blankets, panting in exhaustion from her escape attempt.
There’s a moment of silence as she catches her breath. The room is almost peaceful again as silence settles in with the rest of the room, giving its warm, gauzy glow a dreamlike quality that inevitably shatters just as Flynn starts to enjoy it.
A smile tugs at Carrie’s lips as a terrible thought crosses her mind.
“Fine,” she seethes. A soft laugh echoes through the room as she flops backwards on her blankets and settles into them. “Let Julie and her stage fright take the leading role on the biggest performance night that Los Feliz has had in a decade. It’ll be fun to see the videos of her embarrassing herself in front of the school’s donors.”
“She won’t! Julie will be great, and then you’ll be the one who’s embarrassed that you ever doubted her!”
But Carrie’s NyQuil has kicked in, and she’s not awake to hear Flynn’s outburst, or to see the trumpet player’s worried look as she makes her way to the door. Because Carrie is right – Julie does have terrible stage fright. But she has the voice of an angel, and a mysterious new voice teacher that Flynn has heard her practicing with.
The question is: which force will win tonight?
The darkness of the school’s mysterious tunnels always envelopes him like a familiar, endless blanket. It’s easy to become lost in it, to forget that he’s not invisible, not a shadow himself. As usual, it’s someone’s hand on his shoulder, pulling him back that reminds him of this.
“The show is about to start,” Alex whispers. “Reggie is in the box already. Are you coming?”
“I will,” Luke assures him, but he’s too busy watching the wardrobe crew through the two-way mirror, watching them run around in a frenzy as they ready tonight's costumes, making sure that they’re ready for Julie and not Carrie.
Alex rolls his eyes and tugs Luke away, leading him through the tunnels and towards box five.
“She’ll do fine, you know. You don’t have to worry about her.” Through the darkness, he casts Luke a worried glance. “And you don’t have to feel guilty, considering that Carrie’s unexpected sickness was from natural causes . . . Right?”
Now it’s Luke’s turn to roll his eyes. “Yes.”
Alex nods. “Good.”
The tunnels echo with their footsteps. Alex has been worried about that all day. And when he’s worried, his shoulders feel tight and his chest feels like a rubber band is squeezing it. He and his friends cause plenty of mischief around the school, because they can’t get caught, and even if they do, it’s not like anyone can do anything about it. But deliberately harming someone crosses a line for what is and isn’t acceptable for them to do. (In Alex’s mind, anyway. It’s not like there’s a rulebook. Maybe he should write one . . .)
His shoulders are just starting to relax when Luke says something even more anxiety-inducing than the thought of a prank gone wrong against the school’s leading mezzo-soprano.
“I want to bring Julie down to the lake.”
Alex freezes, which makes Luke slam into him from behind. He spins around in the darkness to face his friend. “What?”
“Okay, don’t freak out.”
“I am not - !” He clears his throat. “I am not freaking out. It’s just . . . How would that even work, Luke? You make such a big deal about her not seeing you - “
“I know.” Instinctively, Luke’s hand reaches up to touch his face. “I know, but I’ve got it all figured out.”
“Of course you do.”
“I’ve been thinking about it for a while. Reggie even helped me come up with a plan.”
“Of course he did.”
He smacks his friend’s arm. “Would you stop that? Look, tonight is her big night, and it seems like the perfect time to show her where we live – “
“Except that she doesn’t know much about me and Reggie.”
“ – and she won’t really see me, or, the parts of me that I don’t want her to see.” When Alex gives him nothing but a blank stare through the darkness, Luke focuses all his confidence into standing a little taller as he says, more to himself than to his friend, “The school musical is Beauty and the Beast . It would be ironic if she couldn’t get past my face.”
“Luke, it’s not that bad,” Alex promises.
“Well, she won’t know if it is or not,” Luke says. “I’m going to wear a mask.”
And before Alex can call any more of his plan into question, Luke has pushed past him and followed the tunnel all the way to box five, where Reggie is waiting for them. He hands Luke a bundle of clothes as the two take their seats, shrinking into the back of the box as the house lights go down and applause fills the theater as the show begins.
“Managed to sneak these out of the wardrobe department while everyone was distracted.”
“Thanks, Reg.”
“I still think that you need to think this through some more,” Alex hisses as the overture begins. “After all: Julie thinks that we’re angels, or something, and we’ve let her think that. How are you going to explain to her why angels would live under her school next to a spooky lake?”
Reggie shushes him. “Don’t you know it’s rude to talk during a show?”
Alex elbows him in the ribs and turns back to Luke on the other side of him. “ Well? ”
But the only response he gets is his friend taking a mask from his bundle of clothes. It’s quite large and costumey, covering half of his face. He slips it on and looks at Alex, smiling at him and Reggie before turning his attention to the show happening on the stage below them.
Okay , Alex thinks anxiously. So we’re doing this.