“Good morrow, everyone! And well met!” Her voice had a cheerful lilt to it, and when she spoke, a smile lit up her face like sunshine. A chorus of good morrows answered her back, my voice included. “Great, everyone knows that first phrase, that’s not a surprise. But the other greeting we’ll be using a lot at Faire is ‘well met,’ which can be a simple ‘nice to meet you,’ but it can also mean you’re particularly pleased to see that particular person at that particular time. This is a good meeting, so we are well met. Got it?” Her smile stayed in place throughout the entire speech, which was an impressive feat unto itself.

“I’m so glad to see everyone here,” she continued. “Welcome to the tenth season of the Willow Creek Renaissance Faire. Ten years! Can you believe it?” This sparked a small round of applause, and I clapped too because I wasn’t an asshole. “I know I say this every year, but I’m excited about this year’s Faire. For those of you who are new or might not know me . . .” She looked right at me as she said this last bit, and good God, was I the only stranger in this town? “I’m Christine Donovan. Most people call me Chris, or Miss Chris, or Your Majesty.” She shrugged through the friendly laughter. “Which is my subtle way of letting you know that yes, I will be your Queen again this year. The year is 1601, and Elizabeth is still on the throne.”

I did some quick math in my head and then leaned over to Stacey while Her Majesty continued her welcome speech. “Elizabeth was pretty old by then, right? Chris looks good for someone pushing seventy.”

She shushed me through a grin. “We take a little dramatic license around here.”

I got the message and settled down, crisscross applesaucing my legs in front of me as Chris finished outlining the rehearsal schedule, stressing how important it was we not miss too many of them. We’d be learning about the history of the period—apparently the more purist of the patrons made a day out of quizzing the cast as to their religious preferences and hygiene habits. We would also spend time working on costuming and in our various groups. Singers had songs to rehearse, dancers had dances to learn. And the fighting cast had to, well, learn how to fight.

Next up was . . . I groaned, but covered the sound by taking another pull off my iced coffee. Simon. Form-police guy. The one dull spot in this whole experience. As he took his place in the center of the circle I noticed he looked as put-together as he had the last time I’d seen him. How early did he wake up to get ready? I was only marginally sure I was wearing clean clothes, while it looked like both his jeans and his light blue button-down shirt were freshly ironed. He handed a stack of papers to someone in the circle to pass around, and I stifled a sigh. Great. Homework. That did absolutely nothing for my opinion of him.

“Chris already welcomed all of you, so I won’t do that again.” He gave a small smile, and some people chuckled. “For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Simon Graham, and I’ve been with this Faire since . . . well, since the beginning, like Chris. She and my older brother, Sean, started the Faire ten years ago.” He smiled again, but this time it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “And yes, I’m back again this year too, doing my best to fill Sean’s shoes.” His smile fell fast, and he ran a hand over his close-cropped brown hair. “If you have any questions about how things are run, or what you need to be doing, you can always come to me. I’ll be glad to help you out.”

Ha. Fat chance. He’d be glad to tell me what I was doing wrong, more likely.

“This morning I’m going to talk about names.”

Names? I tilted my head like a cocker spaniel.

“One of the first things you’ll do as a cast member is decide on your Faire name. This is a very important decision for each and every one of you.” He turned in a slow circle as he spoke, never standing still, making fleeting eye contact with everyone in the group. This guy wouldn’t projectile-vomit in front of a crowd. He was used to talking in front of people. “You already know what part you’re playing: nobleman, merchant, dancer. But your name is your identity. Names are important. Names have power. Names are one of the things that tells you who you are.” He tapped the knuckles of his closed fist against his chest.

I still didn’t like this guy, but that made an odd kind of sense. I didn’t realize I’d leaned forward to listen, my elbows on my crossed knees, until Stacey nudged me and handed me the diminished stack of papers. I took one and passed the rest to the teenager on my left.

“Now, Shakespeare disagrees,” Simon continued. “In Romeo and Juliet, he said ‘a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,’ implying the essence of a thing doesn’t change just because it’s called something else.” He shrugged. “He makes a good point. But we humans are easily persuaded. We see commercials all the time. We buy the brand name of something instead of a generic, thinking it’ll be better quality, right?”

Something about the cadence of his voice was both familiar and comforting. He had a voice I wanted to keep listening to. That, combined with his obvious comfort in talking in front of a crowd of both teens and adults, not to mention the bit of Elizabethan literary criticism thrown in on a Saturday morning, made a lightbulb click on in my head.

I nudged Stacey again and nodded in Simon’s direction. “English teacher?” I kept my voice a low murmur; I didn’t want to distract him while he was on a roll.

She gave me a lopsided smile back and a confirming nod. “How’d you guess? The Shakespeare?”

“Kinda gave it away.”

“Did you have a question? Emily, right?”

Oh, shit. I turned innocent eyes at Simon, who faced me now, arms crossed over his chest. “Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to—”

“No, please.” Yep, he was definitely a teacher. He had a full-on why don’t you share with the rest of the class attitude, as though I were one of his students he’d caught passing a note. “What was your question?”

“Oh.” I thought fast. “I was wondering who’s playing Shakespeare. You?”

A couple people in the group tittered, but Simon looked like he was about to scowl. “No. We don’t have a Shakespeare in the cast.”

“But we could,” I argued. I don’t know why I let this guy get under my skin. Thirty seconds ago, I didn’t give a damn if we had a Bard of Avon wandering around or not, but the idea of it seemed to annoy Simon, so now I was all for it. “You said 1601, right? He was giving command performances of his plays for Queen Elizabeth around that time. She was a big fan, so it would stand to reason—”

“We don’t have a Shakespeare in the cast.” And the subject was closed. I was impressed; he had a grade-A Teacher Voice. But instead of giving me detention, he went back to addressing the rest of the group as though our conversation had never happened. “Most of us who are repeat offenders here have our names and identities pretty well established. But for those of you joining us for the first time this season, or if you thought your name last year didn’t fit, you’ve all got a list of names that fit the time period. Take a look, see if anything looks right. Feels right.”

Jeez. This whole thing took a quick left turn into culty. I’d been planning to coast through this: wear a cute costume and hang out in a bar so Caitlin could participate. I hadn’t intended to spend the next few months in some kind of live-action method-acting exercise. I stifled a sigh and looked down at the paper in my hands.

Thankfully, Simon didn’t make anyone stand in the middle. Instead, we went around the circle, where we each introduced ourselves by our real name as well as our chosen Faire name. The point of the exercise was probably for everyone to start to get to know each other. Instead, my blood pressure rose with every new voice that spoke, as my turn to talk inched closer and closer and I had no idea who my character was besides someone who served beer. The paper crumpled in my hand as I focused on Caitlin across the circle from me. She giggled at something one of her friends said, and seeing her that relaxed made something inside me relax too. I could do this.

Next to me on my right, Stacey spoke up. “Hey, everyone! I’m Stacey Lindholm, and this is my . . . oh, God, eighth year doing the Faire. Is that right? Can that be right?” She moaned dramatically. “Anyway, I started when I was in high school, as a singer, but now that I’m an adult—” A snort came from a few people down to my left, and Stacey tsked in that direction. “Shut up, Mitch. Now that I’m an adult, or once I hit twenty-one anyway, I moved over to being a wench. There are two of us this year.” She nudged me with her shoulder, and oh, shit, it was my turn.

But she wasn’t done yet. Simon cleared his throat. “I assume you’re keeping the same name?”

“Oh! Yes. Of course.” Suddenly Stacey slipped into a pretty good English accent and she drew herself up into a straighter posture. Before my eyes, she became a completely different person. “If you want to find me in the tavern, ask for Beatrice. That’ll be me.”

Would I need to have an English accent too? But I didn’t have time to worry about that, because it was my turn to speak.