CHAPTER VIII

The Witch’s Curse

“I’ll need more than luck if anything is wrong in the film department,” Irene said later when they were back on the studio floor.

She was worried about something. Judy could see that. She took the seat Pauline was saving for her. Flo was already seated next to Pauline with Clarissa occupying the chair next to the aisle. An usher was seating people in every available place.

“No empty seats! No empty seats!” he kept on repeating as the crowd surged in.

Two pedestal cameras were stationed directly in front of the curtain where Irene stood waiting. At one side, mounted on a large three-wheeled platform, rode the man who operated the mike boom. The man on the dolly was sitting in his funny little seat with the operator ready to raise or lower him.

The hands of the big studio clock over the exit door moved slowly toward the hour of seven. The camera men and the boom man, all wearing headphones, stood ready before their equipment. The floor manager also waited for the directions he would receive through his headpiece.

“All set?” asked the announcer.

“All set,” Irene replied, smiling.

Did Judy imagine it, or was her smile a little forced? “Nothing must go wrong,” Judy caught herself almost praying. “Please, don’t let anything go wrong.”

“One minute ... stand by!” sounded over the loudspeaker.

Were the other girls as tense as she was? Judy found it hard to read the expressions on their faces. The lights over the Golden Girl set made everything else look dim.

The television set suspended over the middle aisle was showing the end commercial from the previous show. As soon as it was over red lights flashed above the exit doors, and Judy knew Golden Girl was on the air. The announcer stepped to one side, out of camera range, and clapped his hands as a signal for the audience to clap.

“Isn’t she lovely?” whispered someone in the audience as the bright spotlight shone down on Irene. Quick tears came to Judy’s eyes as Irene began to sing:

“_My own golden girl, there is one, only one, Who has eyes like the stars and hair like the sun._”

It was her theme song. Judy’s thoughts took her back to the first time she had heard it on a roof garden while she danced with Dale Meredith.

“Irene is a golden girl tonight,” he had said, and from then on her happiness had become his chief concern. Judy thought of him now, at home in their new Long Island house, probably holding a sleepy baby on his knee as he listened.

“That’s Mommy,” he would be saying to little Judy. Or perhaps there was no need to say it. By now Judy’s little namesake must be well acquainted with the mysteries of TV.

“Better acquainted than I am,” Judy thought ruefully.

She couldn’t overcome the fear that something would go wrong with the show. Little Judy wouldn’t see the microphone dangling over her mother’s head. She wouldn’t see the cameras being moved in like menacing monsters. She wouldn’t know, as Judy did, that somewhere back in the film room there had been something “as dangerous as an atom bomb.”

“If Peter were here I could ask him about it,” Judy thought.

“The advertising is over, and the show is about to begin,” Pauline whispered.

Judy glimpsed the little girl cleaning her teeth on the TV set. Since the advertising was all on film, it did not seem to interrupt the play that was now beginning.

“Look!” she heard Clarissa whisper. “It’s the palace scene with the king and queen. I wonder if that’s a real baby in the crib.”

On the television screen the king and queen seemed to be crooning over a real baby, but Judy suspected the crib was empty. The throne room was only a painted scene on a wooden frame with a few props in the foreground to make it appear real. The spotlight rested on the royal family for a moment and then moved over to Irene. Dressed as one of the fairies, she sang to summon the others:

“_Fairies! Fairies! Now appear Bringing gifts for baby dear. One will give a pretty face, Two a body full of grace, Three the love light in her eyes. Four will make her kind and wise._”

In danced the fairies bringing their gifts and waving their wands over the crib. On the screen flecks of stardust could be seen swirling about. Remembering the tour, Judy knew how this effect was achieved.

More gifts were bestowed on the little princess as the next seven fairies danced in. Irene’s song was as beautiful and tender as a lullaby. A film strip of a real baby made it seem as if the audience had been given a glimpse of the little princess in her crib.

It was almost too real when the witch whirled in. A gasp went up from the audience as she interrupted the fairy song with a hoarse shriek:

“_I was not invited. Why? For punishment I’ll make her_ die!”

“No, oh, no!” Judy almost forgot it was a play and found herself crying out with the fairies. All had given their gifts except Irene, who was playing the part of the twelfth fairy.

The queen, rising from her throne, began to explain that there were only twelve golden plates for feasting.

“That is why you weren’t invited, dear, good fairy,” she said to the witch. “Please take away your curse.”

“_For shame!” cried the witch. “I’ll make it worse! She shall live to age fifteen, But she shall_ never _be a queen. While spinning she shall prick her hand. There’ll be no cure in all the land._”

“Have pity! Have pity!” cried the poor queen, wringing her hands and sobbing so realistically that Judy almost cried with her.

“I will have every spinning wheel destroyed,” the king declared. “This cruel pronouncement must not come to pass.”

“Can’t you help us, dear fairies?” sobbed the queen.

They drooped like wilted flowers. “I’m afraid not,” one after another of them replied. “She is not one of us. She is a witch. Her powers are greater than ours, but we will try.”

At that they began dancing around the witch, trying to touch her with their wands. The music played wildly as the witch whirled and danced, always eluding them and finally dancing off the set.

“She’s gone!” exclaimed the king. “She’s left her curse on all of us.”

“You good fairies, is there nothing you can do?” The queen turned to the dancers with a pleading gesture. Eleven of them shook their heads. Irene, the twelfth fairy, danced into the spotlight and began to sing:

“_A twelfth gift I have yet to give. The princess shall not die, but live. A fairy mist will change the spell From death to sleep. She shall sleep well A hundred years. Yes, all shall sleep. Change, curse, from death to slumber deep!_”

With a wave of her wand, Irene stepped out of camera range and stood smiling and bowing to the studio audience as the curtain descended. Judy forgot to look at the advertising. She was seeing only Irene.

“She’s the star of this show. Francine Dow can’t be any more wonderful than she was,” Judy whispered.

“I hope she’s here.”

Was Pauline worried, too? Clarissa was heard to whisper, “Oh dear, I left my two bottles of shampoo back there in the witch’s dressing room.”

“You can get them after the show,” Flo whispered back. She turned to Pauline and said something about the commercial. Several people left their seats during the intermission, but Judy stayed where she was. She didn’t want to miss anything.

As soon as the commercial was over, the cameras were again on Irene. She stood in front of the curtain.

“The king has issued a decree commanding that every spindle in the kingdom be burnt, but it is no use,” she said sadly. “Fifteen years have passed. The witch’s curse is almost forgotten, but look what’s hidden away in a dusty old room at the top of the castle!”

The curtain opened on the set she had described. There, before an old spinning wheel, sat the witch spinning flax. For a time nothing was heard except the whir of the spinning wheel. Then a door opened, and a lovely young girl tiptoed in. Judy breathed a sigh of relief.

“It’s Francine Dow! Her hair is golden just as I knew it was,” Pauline whispered.

“It could be a wig,” Flo whispered back.

The princess stood behind the old witch, not saying a word until she turned her head. Then, appearing frightened, she said, “Good day, my good lady, what are you doing here?”

“I am spinning,” said the witch, nodding her head.

“What thing is that which twists round so merrily?”

“It is a spindle. Want to try it, my pretty?”

It was the same evil voice Judy had heard back in the dressing room.

“I—I’m afraid.”

The princess did sound afraid as she took the spindle. Her long golden hair fell almost to her waist. Were those real tears in her eyes when she pricked her finger? She fell, almost immediately, in an undramatic pose with her face turned away from the audience. The witch, chuckling softly to herself, began to chant:

“_My curse is done. The sleep of death Shall take away the princess’ breath!_”

Judy drew a breath of her own that was almost a gasp. She knew the old fairy story by heart, and yet there was a moment when the play seemed so real that she wasn’t at all sure the curse wouldn’t come true.