Jacqueline Fantoche

Jacqueline Fantoche.

Last time, I told you that I'd talk about my summer play, as well as Jacqueline. Or Jac as she likes to be called.

I met Jac at the first rehearsal for my summer play. At this point our director hadn't announced the roles for everyone. But we all knew the play by this point, and had all auditioned. I honestly have no explanation for that, our director has always been very strange, and we all figured this was one of his eccentricities. Most of the cast was people that I knew from the previous years in the company, except for one girl. Jac.

Jac seemed like a normal girl, honestly. The only reason she stuck out was because she was a new face to the crowd. However, once I began to actually look at her, I noticed something odd. She was wearing gloves. In the middle of summer. She must have noticed me staring, because she made eye contact with me and.... smiled. This slow, knowing smile.

I looked away, back to the director. Her smile unnerved me.

When we were broken into pairs, in order to do some warm up exercises, I was put with Jac. Her smile this time seemed less.... probing, as she introduced herself. We couldn't talk too much as we went into our exercises. Singing our scales, the mirror exercise, and a few short ad lib scenes. The rehearsal ended early, but I left unnerved, Jac's smile seemingly constantly following me.

The next rehearsal the roles were announced. The play we're doing is Il Bosco di Burattini. From my understanding, the play is about a group of children who venture into a woodland near an old family home. There they enter a game of chance with a group of other "children" with risks close to Life and Death. In the Third Act, it's fully realized that the other "children" are either changelings, or lost children made into puppets for a dark force in the forest that wants to gain more "toys." Our director named the cast from supporting to primary. Slowly he named more and more people, my name not being called. As he got into the primary roles, he named Jac as the dark force's right hand, known only as Ombra, or Shadow. Then finally, at the very end, he named me. As La Fata del Lago, or The Lake Fairy. Who later is revealed as the Dark Force, La vera oscurità. The True Darkness.

After our rehearsal, I approached the director. I asked him why I was chosen to be the lead villain. I had always been a secondary character, maybe a supporting primary.

He gave me this odd.... blank smile, his eyes staring through me. "Because you know Italian." Before I could question him more, he walked away.

Jac clapped me on the shoulder, congratulating me. She insisted that since I was La Fata and she was Ombra, that she and I needed to become good friends. Jac's smile was huge as she insisted in adding each other on Facebook, and exchanging phone numbers. She stood close to me as she found herself on my Facebook app, smelling of.... freshly cut wood and something... else. That I can't quiet place.

As we left the theater, she laughed to herself. "What is it....?" I asked, wearily.

"Oh no, I was just thinking. We make a pair. Your name, Mariette, it sounds like Marionette, no? And my last name, Fantoche. It's french for Puppet"

As I stared blankly at her, she laughed, walking away from me.






Fantoche. Puppet. Jac.... might be "The Girl."

I need answers. And I will be damned if I don't get them.