Hello! As most of you know, I’m serializing The Phantom of Oz here in a bit of an experiment. Once a month, you’ll still receive the “regular” Slightly Silly News. If you missed earlier chapters of Phantom, you can find links to all of the earlier installments here.
I am in love.
I found my love, as many do, via the internet. I have a Google alert set for a few terms, like Echoes of the Lost (my newest book), Cindy Brown (my name, which I share with a basketball player, former Playboy bunny, and many other women), and Macdeath (my first book). That last Google alert is a leftover, something I forgot to turn off. And it’s the one that led me to my new love: Lady Macdeath.
Lay Macdeath is a flower, but not just any flower. She is rare: Fewer than 1,000 of her kind remain in the wild. She is gigantic: Her bloom can be up to nine feet tall. And she is stinky, so while her Latin is Amorphophallus titanum, she is better known by her popular name: the corpse flower.
Though I have never met her in person, I love Lady Macdeath for her smell of rotting meat (which attracts pollinators). I love her gigantic-ness (new word). I love the fact that she flowers rarely, sometimes going ten years between blooms. I love her name, of course, though I would have loved her almost as much if one of her other names had stuck (they included “Nose-feratu,” and “Stinkerbelle”). And I love her because she would be a great place to hide a small-ish body.
I also love the fact that she appears to be camera-shy, as the all of the photos from the Norfolk Botanical Garden seem to be of her post- … um, bloom.
Maybe the staff was sleeping when the lady was at her full glory? Luckily, you can get a glimpse of that splendor in this time-lapse video from the U.S. Botanical Gardens:
Thanks to those of you who are leaving reviews, and writing to me. I love hearing from readers!
If you’d like to read my new book, Echoes of the Lost, you can …
And now, on to Phantom!
Ivy goes to her first rehearsal for “The Wizard, A Space OZpera,” where she must understudy al the female roles and search for her missing friend Candy.
“What’s wrong with your nose?” asked Madison. “It’s all red.”
Dang. I’d powdered it before coming into the theater, but it must’ve worn off. Or my nose was so red that powder didn’t cover it. “Nothing.” I looked around the green room for a mirror but didn’t see one.
The actor playing the Scarecrow leaned in to get a closer look. “Aah!” He made the sign of the cross. “You have a cold! Stay away from me.”
“Who has a cold?” asked the Tin Man. Not a great introduction to my new cast family.
“Just allergies,” I said. “Aflueyyy!”
“If you feel like you need to sneeze when you’re onstage, look at a light,” Madison said with authority. “It’s not scientific, but it works.”
“Really?” I said, then, “Aflechh! Oops, guess I could have tried it right then.”
“And if it was a cold,” said the Tin Man, “I have a great recipe for a hot toddy that’d fix you right up.” He gave me a charming smile. “A hot toddy from a hot Toddy.”
“His name is Todd,” said the Cowardly Lion, who had a slight British accent. “And he’s not hitting on you.”
“I didn’t think—” I began.
“Because he’s mine, all mine. Rarrrr.” He gave a lion-y purr-growl.
“Not yet,” said the Tin Man. “I’m playing hard to get. My name really is Todd, by the way, and we already know you’re Ivy. Candace used to talk about you. So you’re joining our little family?”
“Yeah.” Arrestadt and I had decided to tell the cast I was the permanent understudy. “Though I really hope Candy comes back soon. I can’t imagine playing Glinda on Thursday night.”
“You’ll be fine,” said Eden, who seemed nonplused about her understudy role.
“Any word about Normina?” I really just wanted to hear what they would say. I’d already done my own research. Normina Portella, a.k.a. the Wicked Witch of the East/Auntie Em, had a pretty standard actor’s resume: lots of theater, a couple of independent films, a few small roles on TV shows. No criminal past or anything that could have made anyone want to kill her.
“Back to her wicked self, I hear,” said the Cowardly Lion. “Berating the nurses and such.”
“But her leg’s going to take a while to heal,” Eden said. “She won’t be coming back to the tour.”
No one looked like they’d miss her.
“Ten minutes ’til places for the top of the show,” said the stage manager via the speaker mounted in the corner of the green room. I checked out Candy’s “known associates” as they drifted toward the green room’s door. I was the only one not in costume, since I was just walking through the show with script in hand. My earlier suspicion about the reason behind costumes during rehearsals proved true: hula-hoop tummies and tin bodies and straw ruffs around your neck made it hard to move. Or as the Cowardly Lion put it, “You try to dance with a tail between your legs.”
The Wizard, A Space OZpera was basically what it sounded like, The Wizard of Oz in space. Oz was a green planet and Dorothy’s house had been pulled into outer space through some tornado time warp. Dorothy was the only character who didn’t look like she was from outer space, since she was supposed to be from Earth. The rest of the cast was costumed with a nod to some famous science-fiction movies: the Cowardly Lion looked like a Wookiee, the Scarecrow had a sort of big-headed ET quality, the Tin Man was based on Marvin the depressed robot from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and the Daryl Hannah replicant character from Blade Runner inspired the look for both of the Wicked Witches. Glinda was costumed like one of the babes Captain Kirk was always kissing on the original Star Trek, and the Wizard wasn’t a cast member at all, just a projection, sort of a nod to the original movie and a way to save on actors’ salaries. The munchkins/flying monkeys looked like space-age Oompa Loompas, and creepy monkeys with jet packs...hey. Speaking of creepy.
“Who is that kid?” I pointed to the familiar hollow-eyed boy, who was staring at me without blinking. I stared back. Didn’t want to lose sight of him this time.
“Unfortunately,” said Madison, “that’s Vincent.”
“I swear I saw him in one of the backstage passages. With bloody scissors.”
“That’s him,” said the Tin Man. “He’s scary.”
“And mean,” said Madison.
“And pervy,” said Eden. “The blood on the scissors is fake, but I bet he managed to brush up against you after he scared you.”
I thought back. “Yeah, he did.” I glared at the kid. He smiled slowly, still staring. “Do you think he could be responsible for some of the accidents you all had earlier?”
“Maybe,” said Eden. “But to call costume, lighting, and sound issues ‘accidents’ is a bit of a stretch.” She looked at the Tin Man. “Some people like to create drama, you know.”
“Moi?” said the Tin Man. “C’est ouf.”
“That means she’s crazy,” said Madison. “He’s teaching me French. Do you know what ‘merde’ means?”
I nodded and dragged their attention away from French scatological terms and back to the previous accidents. “But what about the old Scarecrow? Didn’t he catch on fire? That couldn’t have been a costume malfunction.”
“More like a brain malfunction,” said the Tin Man.
“What do you mean?” And why wouldn’t anyone answer my question about the former Scarecrow?
“He was just an old gas bag,” said the Tin Man, chortling.
“Old?” I said.
“He was tooting his own horn,” Eden said with a snort.
“He’s a Bumsen burner,” added the Cowardly Lion, and they all burst into hysterical laughter. Ah well. Maybe I’d understand some day.Watch next week for another Slightly Silly Newsletter!
And if you haven’t read the first four books in the Agatha-nominated Ivy Meadows series:
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