Page 19 of The New Couple in 5B

I get more tense as we approach Act One, Scene Four, where Chad plays Third Witch.

Finally, it’s time.

Thunder reverberates through the theater, and everything goes black.

When a spotlight comes up center stage, there’s a huge cauldron glowing green from within. The three witches enter, two from stage left, one—Chad!—from stage right. He’s unrecognizable in his hooded robe, hooked nose and monstrous makeup.

The theater is small, and Max and I are right on the edge of the stage. I’m so close, I can hear the hems of the actors’ costumes brushing the floor, see the lighting apparatus behind the cauldron.

Thrice the brinded cat hath mew’d.

Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined.

Harpier cries ’tis time, ’tis time.

Chad delivers his line perfectly and I suppress the urge to cheer. I search the hunched figure for signs of my husband, but he is transformed. A monster, a ghoul.

Smoke crawls eerily across the stage. Chad mentioned that they were having issues with the smoke machine, but it seems to be working, filling the stage, fog coming to our feet. The creeping smoke morphs from white to blood-red. As it does, an uncomfortable heat crawls up my neck into my cheeks.

The witches keep chanting.

Round about the cauldron go: In the poison’d entrails throw—

Sweat comes up on my forehead, and I shift away from Max, who is like a furnace giving off heat.

Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Suddenly, I can’t get a lungful of air, my throat constricting, my breath growing ragged.

The witches keep chanting.

Calm down. I know what this is. It hasn’t happened in years. I do what my therapist tells me to do, count backward from ten, ground myself in the moment. Breathe. I hear myself start to wheeze, drawing a look from Max.

“Rosie?” he whispers.

He’s seen this before. Once on the subway, once at a crowded publishing event. Please, not now.

As if through glass, I hear Chad’s voice.

Adders fork and blind-worm’s sting. Lizard’s leg and owlet’s wing.

I look up and he seems to be pinning me with his strange gaze. The smoke is making its way through the whole theater like a thick fog. A sickly sweet and acrid smell fills my nose, my mouth.

I look away from Chad. The woman from across the aisle is staring at me again, this time with a ghoulish smile. Who is she?

I can’t breathe. At all.

Oh, God.

Finger of a birth-strangled babe, Ditch-delivered by a drab, make the gruel thick and slab.

Panic sets in hard. I grab for Max, who grips my hand.

When Hecate enters, the audience gasps. She’s hideous, with a giant nose and straggling black hair, taller than the other witches, her face a mask of sagging flesh covered with warts.

Oh, well done! I commend your pains. And every one shall share in the gains.

I’m gasping, the room around me fading to gray. Then I’m on my feet, Max shuttling me toward the door.

---