As Felix is finishing his ginger ale, 8Handz, Leggs, and SnakeEye come over to him.
“There’s one more thing,” says SnakeEye. “About the coursework and all.”
“What’s that?” says Felix. What has he forgotten?
“The ninth prison,” says 8Handz. “We only counted eight. Remember?”
“You said you’d tell us if we didn’t guess,” says Leggs.
“Oh. Yes,” says Felix, gathering his scattered wits. “It doesn’t come out all that well for Prospero at the end, does it? He gets his dukedom back, but he’s not very interested in it any more. So he wins, but he also loses. Most importantly, he loses the two beings he loves: Miranda, who is now paired with Ferdinand and will live far away in Naples; and Ariel, who leaves Prospero’s service without even a backward glance. Prospero will miss him, but Ariel himself shows no sign of missing Prospero: he’s happy to be free. The only one who might stick with Prospero is Caliban, hardly a big treat. Still, why would Prospero need him, now that he’s leaving the island? He will have other servants back in Milan. Maybe he’ll take the thing of darkness with him out of some feeling of responsibility: it’s his, not anybody else’s. But at this moment Prospero’s feeling guilty about a different thing.”
“Where do you get all that?” says Leggs. “About him feeling guilty?”
“It’s here,” says Felix, rooting through his playbook. “He says, ‘Let me not dwell / In this bare island by your spell.’ Prospero has undone his charms and is about to break his magic staff and drown his book, so he can’t perform any more magic. The spell is now controlled by the audience, he says: unless they vote the play a success by clapping and cheering, Prospero will stay imprisoned on the island.
“Then he says he also wants them to pray for him. He says: ‘And my ending is
despair, / Unless I be relieved by prayer, / Which pierces so that it assaults / Mercy itself, and frees all faults.’ In other words, he wants a divine pardon. The last lines of the play are ‘As you from crimes would pardoned be, / Let your indulgence set me free.’ It has a double meaning.”
“Yes, it’s in the notes,” says Bent Pencil.
“I forget that part,” says SnakeEye.
“An indulgence was a get-out-of-hell-free card,” says Felix. “You could buy those once.”
“Still can,” says SnakeEye. “It’s called a fine.”
“It’s called bail,” says Leggs. “Only that’s not free, right?”
“It’s called early parole,” says 8Handz. “Only you don’t pay for that. You’re supposed to kind of earn it.”
“What was the guilty thing?” says Anne-Marie. “What’s Prospero done that’s so terrible?”
“Indeed, what?” Felix asks rhetorically. More of the cast have gathered around. “He doesn’t tell us. It’s one more puzzle in the play. But The Tempest is a play about a man producing a play—one that’s come out of his own head, his ‘fancies’—so maybe the fault for which he needs to be pardoned is the play
itself.”
“Elegant,” says Anne-Marie.
“I don’t get this,” says SnakeEye. “A play’s not a crime.”
“A sin,” says Felix. “Not a legal lapse. A moral one.”
“I still don’t,” says SnakeEye.
“All those vengeful emotions? All the anger?” says Felix. “Making other
people suffer?”
“Well, yeah, maybe,” says SnakeEye.
“Okay, but what about the ninth prison?” says 8Handz.
“It’s in the Epilogue,” says Felix. “Prospero says to the audience, in effect, Unless you help me sail away, I’ll have to stay on the island—that is, he’ll be under an enchantment. He’ll be forced to re-enact his feelings of revenge, over and over. It would be like hell.”
“I saw a horror movie like that,” says 8Handz. “On Rotten Tomatoes.”
“The last three words in the play are ‘set me free,’ ” says Felix. “You don’t say ‘set me free’ unless you’re not free. Prospero is a prisoner inside the play he
himself has composed. There you have it: the ninth prison is the play itself.”
“Okay, cool,” says 8Handz. “That’s neat.”
“Crafty,” says Anne-Marie.
“I’m not sure I’m entirely convinced,” says Bent Pencil.
“What play’re we doing next year?” says Shiv. “You’re coming back, right?
We saved the program?”
“I promise you there will be a play next year,” says Felix. “That’s what we all worked for.”
—
“I feel kind of weepy,” says Anne-Marie as they walk down the corridor together. “Because it’s over. The revels now are ended. And that was a fucking good revel!” She takes Felix’s arm. The security door locks behind them with a dull thunk.
“Revels end,” says Felix. “But only these revels. You’ll have others. How’s it going with Freddie?”
“Not bad so far,” says Anne-Marie, understated as ever. He surveys her profile: there’s a definite grin.
They pass through Security, where Felix says goodbye to Dylan and Madison.
“It’s been awesome,” Dylan tells him. “Fantastic cookies,” he says to Anne- Marie.
“See you soon, Mr. Duke,” says Madison. “Same time next year?”
“Triple merde, eh?” says Dylan.
“Looking forward,” says Felix.
In the parking lot he thanks Anne-Marie once again, then drives out through the gates in his wheezy car and winds down the hill. Dirty heaps of snow line the road, meltwater trickling from them. All of a sudden it’s the beginning of spring.
How long has he been inside Fletcher Correctional? It seems like years.
Did his Miranda leave the cast party too, did she come out through Security, is she in the car with him? Yes, there she is in the back seat, over in the corner: a shadow within the shadow. She’s sad to have seen the last of all those wondrous
people inside their brave new world.
“ ’Tis new to thee,” he tells her.
