22

The air left Rachel’s lungs. “Jessica—” she tried to speak, but she could only whisper. “Jessica. Be careful.”

Jessica looked down. When she spoke, her voice echoed hollowly through the empty auditorium. “Oh. It’s you.”

“What are you doing?”

“Miss Cooper, I can’t do it.”

“Jessica.” Rachel approached the steps slowly.

The girl’s thick-soled shoes wobbled on the hand rail. “Don’t come up.”

Rachel stopped at the foot of Lee’s hand-crafted staircase. “Come down and we’ll talk.”

“I can’t come down.” Jessica’s voice was flat. “I don’t know my lines.”

“You know your lines. I know you do.”

“I don’t.” Jessica wobbled again, but she caught her balance. “I messed up yesterday three separate times.”

“Everyone messed up yesterday.” Rachel willed her voice to hold steady. “Todd said Chris’s lines instead of his own at one point. Remember?”

“Todd always messes up. I never do.”

Rachel had ascended the first step, but she stopped moving as Jessica removed her hand from the ceiling, transferring it to the hand rail where she crouched, ready to spring. She looked like a beautiful gargoyle. Beautiful, but infinitely more terrifying.

Rachel stepped onto the second stair. “Everyone messes up.” She kept her tone low. “I mess up more than anyone I know. I fell offstage a few weeks ago, remember?” She carefully moved to the third step, wincing as she placed weight on her sore toe.

Jessica didn’t seem to be listening. “Come lady,” she murmured, appropriating the Friar’s speech from Act IV of Much Ado About Nothing for purposes Shakespeare probably never anticipated. “Die to live.”

Before Rachel could take another step, Jessica tipped forward over the rail.