In Kenna's dreams, a mellow voice spoke harsh words. Hazel eyes that had seen tragedy fixed her with a woeful stare. The smoky mist licked at a pair of cothurnus boots.

It wasn't a dream.

As fragmented as the memories were, they were too vivid not to be real.

Kenna had really met Melpomene, the Muse of Tragedy, and offended her, a truth that struck her like lightning when she woke up in a strange place yet again.

This time, she found herself blinking up at a wooden ceiling. Still groggy, she tried to pull herself upright. Instead, she rolled.

The surface beneath her disappeared, leaving her to fall through space for a terrifying moment before she landed on her side with a dull thud.

"Ouch!" Kenna rubbed her shoulder and glared at the large wooden step on which she lay as if it had struck her deliberately.

It was one of four steps that formed a stand. Kenna's frown faded as her eyes followed it along its curving path.

It was a gallery, winding around a large area of flat ground like seats in a stadium. The midday sunlight passed over the building's thatched roof at a slant, casting a crescent-shaped shadow onto the dirt in front of Kenna. A stage dominated the central clearing.

Kenna scanned her surroundings again, putting the pieces into place.

She glanced at the gallery, imagining a group of sophisticated nobles enthralled by the onstage performance. Looking at the pit the ground formed at the centre of the seats, Kenna pictured the one penny-paying playgoers standing in a crowd, knocking elbows and treading on each other's toes. And when she gazed at the stage, she could almost see Juliet driving the dagger into her heart and taking her final resting place beside Romeo.

Kenna didn't know whether it was a vision of the past or just her overactive imagination, but one thing was for sure.

She was in an Elizabethan theatre.

Kenna had expected that the wooden floors would be rotting away and the balustrades would have fallen to pieces in the hundreds of years since the theatre had last been used, but maybe it had been restored for the enjoyment of tourists. It certainly looked like something right out of the 16th century.

Kenna started as a man appeared on the other side of the balustrade in front of her.

He brushed some stray strands of his unruly dark hair behind his ear. A small hoop glinted in his earlobe.

He paid Kenna no notice, keeping his eyes on the papers in his hands as he paced and muttered to himself.

Kenna sat up. "Excuse me..."

It was the man's turn to be startled. He looked up at Kenna, his pale blue eyes dazed as if he was drifting somewhere between this world and a daydream.

Kenna leaned forward and laid a hand on the balustrade. "Can you tell me where I am?"

The fog cleared from the man's eyes, but his answer didn't give Kenna the same clarity.

"What is this tongue thou speaks?"

Kenna knew that language well enough to know that it hadn't been spoken outside a classroom or a theatre in hundreds of years, but this man seemed too dreamy to be a teacher, and his puzzled frown made it clear that this wasn't an act.

A nauseating apprehension building within her, Kenna studied his clothing—his dark boots, his loose, puffy shorts and the syrup-brown short-sleeved jacket he wore over a beige long-sleeved shirt.

Then Kenna saw what she was wearing—a floor-length dress the colour of the sky when it was deciding whether or not it wanted to bring forth rain. The tightness around her chest wasn't painful, but it was distinct enough to confirm her worst fear. She was wearing a corset.

Amidst her dawning horror, Kenna looked up at the man again.

There was something familiar about the set of his mouth and the placidity of his round eyes. Under Kenna's scrutinising stare, he cradled his papers against his chest as if it was a child. Some words were scrawled at the top of the otherwise blank back page.

Lady Capulet      Good night. Get thee to bed and rest, for thou hast need.

Exeunt Lady Capulet and Nurse

Juliet                   Farewell!

Kenna's mouth went dry.

Romeo and Juliet hadn't yet been written to completion... which meant that this was the 1590s. It had to be 1594 or later since the theatres appeared to be open again after an outbreak of the plague had shut them down.

Kenna wasn't just in an Elizabethan theatre. She was in Elizabethan England.

The realisation washed over her like icy water, soaking through her countless layers of clothing right down to the bone.

Kenna had fallen behind her parents in the Louvre when she was seven years old. It had been terrifying, being too short to see past people's legs and knowing too little French to tell the guards that she was lost. She had jumped into her father's arms when her parents found her, promising never to wander off again.

This was a million times more frightening.

This time, Kenna had wandered beyond the boundaries of her time. She now found herself among people who spoke a language nearly as foreign as French, and there was no one to rescue her but herself.

The man cleared his throat, drawing Kenna's attention back to her new present. When her gaze rested on him, it clicked why he seemed so familiar.

She knew who he was.

William Shakespeare, the Bard—someone Kenna might've recognised instantly if the time travel hadn't scrambled her brain.

His nose was wider and his eyes were closer together than she'd imagined, but there was no doubt that his face was the one embossed on the cover of her leather-bound collection of his works.

Kenna swallowed and rephrased her question. "Canst thou tell me what is this place?"

Shakespeare's face lit up. "Why, I welcome thee to fair Verona, a city in two cleaved by two's bitter enmity," he said with a flourish.

Kenna's brow furrowed. How could this be Verona? Shakespeare was speaking English, not Italian, so where were they really?

Before she could ask, another man flurried up to them.

"I pray thee, lass, mark old William not! He's one to whom fancies are as solid as reality."

"Such a wicked tongue to speak such vile untruths." Shakespeare shook his head at the newcomer.

"Not untruths but things thou wouldst fain deny." The other man gave a dramatic toss of his head.

He couldn't be much older than Shakespeare was. He wore similar clothes to the Bard, but they hung from his skinny frame. He reminded Kenna of a weasel with his fair hair combed back from his pointed, inquisitive face.

He turned to her. "I, Aelric Golding, welcome thee to The Curtain Theatre. I would know thy name."

"Kenna Fernsby." Uncertain whether the etiquette of this time called for her to curtsy, Kenna settled for a polite nod.

"A fair name, as befits a fair maid." Aelric looked her up and down with his small dark eyes.

Kenna's skin crawled at the sense that he was evaluating her.

"If mine eyes do serve me true, thou art the maid sent from London. Shouldst thou not but a week from now hither come?" Aelric raised his eyes to Kenna's.

Kenna blinked.

She was a freelance writer from the 21st century, not the maid Aelric spoke of, but this felt like a blessing of sorts, a convenient disguise she could use to blend in.

Melpomene must've sent Kenna to this theatre for a reason. If she needed to impersonate a maid in order to stay here long enough to figure out what it was, that was what she would do.

Kenna stood and smoothed her skirt to buy herself time to tap into her Elizabethan English word bank. She hoped the men didn't notice the way her knees wobbled as they took on her weight.

"Aye, but my mistress bid me earlier come."

"May I see thy letters?" asked Aelric.

Kenna gave him a blank look. "Letters?"

"Aye, letters of recommendation. From thy mistress." He held out his hand.

Kenna didn't have a mistress, nor did she have the letters Aelric was asking for.

She felt along the bodice of her dress, hoping that Melpomene might've arranged them the same way she had allowed for Kenna's change of clothes as she travelled back in time, but all her hands patted over was her ribs.

"Alas, I must have misplaced them!" Kenna widened her eyes in feigned horror. "What a journey was it from London!"

"Worry not, lass." Aelric dropped his hand to his side.

Kenna allowed herself a sigh of relief. It was fortunate employment standards were so lax in this time, or she might've been exposed for the imposter she was.

"Providence it must be that thou hast come at such a time!" cried Aelric.

"Our last girl hath fallen ill. Poor lass." Shakespeare shook his head sadly. "The Black Death, methinks. Fortune be praised, we have three others."

Three others? Kenna brightened at the thought. At least she wasn't alone in this job she had taken on.

"Peace, William. 'Tis much chatter. Come, we must away." Aelric took Shakespeare by the arm. "Thy players await thee most restlessly. Soon will the audience be here." He turned to Kenna. "Fare thee well, lass. I shall see thee anon."

With a final nod, Aelric pulled Shakespeare away from the gallery. They made their way across the battered ground of the pit. Kenna fought every impulse to run after them and ask the questions racing through her mind.

Where was Kenna supposed to be? Was there anyone who could show her around, maybe one of the three other maids Shakespeare had mentioned?

As soon as the questions blossomed into thought, they wilted on Kenna's lips.

Kenna knew enough Elizabethan English to understand it, but not enough to fit seamlessly into an era where it was the norm.

She no longer used the language as much as she once had, and it had rusted accordingly inside her head.

Her brain worked hard to understand what people were saying, then twice so when she had to reply. Maybe she had best take some time alone to come to terms with her situation.

Kenna was in Elizabethan England—a history lover's dream come true and a pragmatist's nightmare, and unfortunately, she was both.

Her mind still reeling from her conversation with Shakespeare and Aelric, Kenna made her way along the curving gallery towards the stage where several indistinct figures swarmed.

The last thing Kenna needed was to be burned at the stake for being a witch. That was the fate of anyone from this time who was considered "other", a word that certainly described time-travellers like herself.

She'd never return to the 21st century if that happened, but she couldn't leave her parents and Gloria behind with no idea what had happened to her. She had to return safely to them.

Kenna's best bet was to act like an average young woman in the 16th century and hope that she aroused no suspicion.

Those Shakespeare lessons from school were certainly going to be more useful than Kenna had imagined. Her life depended on them now. If only they could've taught her more about the world outside the theatre. There was nothing for it but to make do with the knowledge she had.

Aelric had said the new maid was due in a week. Kenna had until then to return to her time. If she was still here when the real maid arrived, her cover would be blown, and she'd have to face the consequences.

But dwelling on her predicament wouldn't help. Making a plan was a better idea. 

A way home wasn't going to fall into Kenna's lap while she sat around waiting. If she wanted one, she would have to find it. She got herself into this, and she would get herself back out.

Coming to a wooden door at the back corner of the stage, Kenna gave the players a last glance.

She had read about the Lord Chamberlain's Men, but the stories hadn't captured their essence. Their vibrancy and joy was far too lively to be encapsulated in a historical account.

The players had gathered at the front of the stage at Shakespeare's beckoning, chattering and laughing in various stages of dress.

A shoeless young man in a long coat slapped another on the back. A bearded older man with a lopsided hat shared a joke with a young woman wearing a corset without a dress. If what Kenna knew about Elizabethan theatre was true, that wasn't a young woman at all, but a boy.

With Aelric at his side, Shakespeare called the men to order.

They fell silent. A sense of solemnity dimmed their smiles. When their backs were to Kenna, she pushed the door open and slipped past it.