Illyria by Elizabeth Hand Page B

and neither Rogan nor I ever mentioned it to our parents. We still couldn't figure out what had happened--did Aunt Kate lie to them? Had they undergone some weird middle-aged conversion? Had they all gone senile?
    But, no, Aunt Kate made no secret of what we were doing.
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    She asked for permission each time, always announcing we'd go to Rosoff's first for dinner, or for lunch if it was a matinee. Our parents remained as intransigent as ever otherwise; Rogan's even more so, as his grades, never good, had gotten worse. He'd snuck off twice to hang out with the band fronted by his brother's friend Derek, something I got furious about when he told me.
    "They'll kill you if they find out." We were in the secret attic, naked. Rogan had gotten some condoms from Derek, which was how I came to learn about the band rehearsals. "That is so stupid, Rogan."
    "Don't you start." He drew away from me. "Stupid. I know, I'm a fucking retard."
    "Shut up." I pulled him back toward me and kissed him. His mouth was liquid, his breath pungent with hashish: another gift from Derek. "Don't ever say that. You're brilliant."
    It had become more difficult for us to get time together alone-- we were with Aunt Kate most of our free time. And my parents made it clear that they didn't want me constantly at Fairview.
    "I want you to spend time with your friends," my mother said.
    "Rogan's my friend."
    My mother gave me a keen look. "He's your cousin, Maddy." I knew it was a warning.
    Now, in the attic, I rolled on top of him. My head bumped the ceiling, and plaster fragments rained onto us.
    "Be careful," murmured Rogan. "Let's look..."
    He gently tugged the board loose so we could peer inside the wall. It never changed--or no, the stage changed every time we looked at it, the footlights glimmering green or cobalt or vermilion, the
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    backdrops shifting as well to signal dawn, or late afternoon, midsummer or deepest winter. Sometimes it snowed; sometimes by some trick of the light the stage seemed slashed with rain or sleet. Once we heard odd chirping strings, like a cricket orchestra, and once a crackling that I realized must be the rattle of a tiny thunder sheet.
    But the toy theater itself never changed. The proscenium with its paired masks and delicate frieze of languid Muses; the gauzy red curtains, bound in place with gilt thread--day to day, week to week, all remained unaltered. The invisible audience rustled and sighed, the invisible actors moved, if they moved at all, in steps unknown to my cousin and me.
    It was late October. One Monday we arrived at school to find that Mr. Sullivan was now an English teacher. Sister Alberta had gone into St. Joseph's Hospital for treatment.
    "Will she be back?" a girl asked.
    Mr. Sullivan smiled wistfully. "I don't know. I hope so."
    "I don't," said another girl, and everyone laughed.
    Immediately, Mr. Sullivan became an object of much speculation. He was handsome, though maybe not as good-looking as Mr. Becker, who also taught English, and who was rumored to smoke pot.
    But Mr. Sullivan was mysterious. He had been in the seminary-- why hadn't Rogan and I known that?--and he'd also been an actor, with a small recurring part as Dr. Burke on One Life to Live. He'd been in a commercial for Irish Spring soap, a commercial that still aired and which I'd seen at least a dozen times.
    "Why didn't you tell us?" demanded Rogan after class one day, when Mr. Sullivan admitted that, yes, that was him in the commercial,
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    him in the boat, wearing a tweed walking cap and speaking with a brogue so patently false I was ashamed for him.
    "You didn't ask," said Mr. Sullivan mildly. "And I can't play favorites in school."
    We'd noted that already, when we tried in vain to get him to change the curriculum for Freshman English.
    "These books," said Rogan. He began to tick them off on his fingers. "Billy Budd. The Catcher in the Rye. A Separate Peace. Romeo and Juliet. Lord of the Flies. Every single ninth-grade book, everyone