The Veil by Cory Putman Oakes Read Free Book Online Page A

it was time to pick up Nate for rehearsal. I ran back downstairs and yelled goodbye to Gran, who was humming as she banged around the kitchen.
    ——
     
    Because the school auditorium was being renovated, the second rehearsal for Olivia’s play took place in the school courtyard. The technical crew consisted of only three people: Nate was the stage manager, Terrance Seaver was his assistant, and I was the property manager.
    As soon as rehearsal started, Mrs. Grimsby dragged me into the art studio where all of the play’s props were being stored. She parked me in front of a large cardboard box and shoved a script into my hand. On the front, in big letters, it read:
    The Last Will and Testament of Mrs. Harriet J. Goodrich
     
By Olivia Barton
     
     
    Mrs. Grimsby shook the box so the props inside rattled. “These are the things we got from College of Marin. By the end of the day, I need a list of the props we’re missing. God help us if it’s too many. The lighting has already put us over budget.” She continued to grumble as she hauled Nate and Terrance outside.
    I settled myself on the ground beside the box and began leafing my way through the script, highlighting every time a prop was used and noting in the margin whether it was a prop we had in the box or still needed to get. Olivia’s play told the story of a group of people who gather at the country estate of the late Harriet J. Goodrich for a reading of her will and begin to die mysteriously, roughly in the order they were to inherit. Victoria Goodrich, Olivia’s character, was Mrs. Goodrich’s dutiful and adoring niece.
    The script was much heavier on dialogue than on sets and props; by the time I made it through the end of the last act, I’d concluded we had pretty much everything we needed, with the exception of the most important prop in any murder mystery—the gun.
    “Did they give us anything useful, or is it all junk?” Olivia asked over my shoulder. She rooted through the box and extracted a floppy hat; smiling, she shook it free of dust and placed it atop her head.
    “Actually, it’s looking pretty good. We just need a flower vase we don’t mind shattering—one for each performance actually, plus a few extras for rehearsals, I guess. We also need a gun.”
    “Oh, I’m taking care of it. The gun, anyway. Mrs. Grimsby wants us to use a stupid water pistol, but I’m trying to talk her into letting us use my dad’s flare gun.”
    “A
real
flare gun?”
    “Unloaded, obviously,” she said. “The water pistol is tiny, and it looks stupid on stage. The flare gun is oversized, so it looks like a normal-size gun from the audience. The only problem is that it’s bright orange. We’ll have to paint it black.”
    “And your dad’s okay with us using it?”
    “He will be, when I get through with him. Oh, and, I meantto ask you earlier . . . are you doing okay? After yesterday, I mean?”
    “I’m fine,” I said mechanically, looking down at the script in my lap for a change of subject. “Hey, I can’t believe your character dies!”
    “Shhhh,” Olivia raised a conspiratorial finger to her lips. “That’s the best part. Everyone knows I wrote the script, so no one will suspect I’d kill myself off! Plus,” she smiled sheepishly, “I’ve always wanted to do a dramatic death scene.”
    “You will die beautifully, my dear,” Nate said, sneaking up behind her.
    Olivia smiled at him, grabbed his wrist, and twisted it around so she could see the time on his watch. “It’s late!” she yelped. “I’ve got to find Casey and see if she’ll run lines with me before she leaves.”
    As Olivia left to chase after her costar, Nate stuck out his hand and pulled me off of the floor. “Mrs. Grimsby says we can leave,” he said, then added, “I don’t have to work tonight.”
    “Do you want to do something?” I asked.
    He shrugged. “The rally for the Sonoma game is starting soon. I don’t care about the game, but the bonfire might be