Only in the world of the theater can Nat Field find an escape from the tragedies that have shadowed his young life. So he is thrilled when he is chosen to join an American drama troupe traveling to London to perform A Midsummer Night's Dream in a new replica of the famous Globe theater. Shortly after arriving in England, Nat goes to bed ill and awakens transported back in time four hundred years -- to another London, and another production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Amid the bustle and excitement of an Elizabethan theatrical production, Nat finds the warm, nurturing father figure missing from his life -- in none other than William Shakespeare himself. Does Nat have to remain trapped in the past forever, or give up the friendship he's so longed for in his own time? *"Readers will be swept up in Nat's detailed, sensory-filled observations of life in Shakespeare's time...[The] overall shape of the novel, with its finely drawn connections between Nat's story and A Midsummer Night's Dream, is superb." ― The Horn Book, starred review *"[A] masterful novel." ― Publishers Weekly, starred review *"Part historical fiction, part fantasy, wholly entertaining." ― Booklist, starred review *"Readers...will revel in the hurly-burly of rehearsals and the performance before the queen, the near discoveries, the company rivalries, and some neatly drawn parallels." ― School Library Journal, starred review "A dramatic and sensory feast." -- Kirkus Reviews “In her portrayal of Shakespeare Cooper has created a superhero…[she] entertains her contemporary readers while giving them a first-rate theatrical education.” ― The New York Times Book Review Susan Cooper is one of our foremost fantasy authors; her classic five-book fantasy sequence The Dark Is Rising has sold millions of copies worldwide. Her books’ accolades include the Newbery Medal, a Newbery Honor, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, and five shortlists for the Carnegie Medal. She combines fantasy with history in Victory (a Washington Post Top Ten Books for Children pick), King of Shadows , Ghost Hawk , and her magical The Boggart and the Monster , second in a trilogy, which won the Scottish Arts Council’s Children’s Book Award. Susan Cooper lives on a saltmarsh island in Massachusetts, and you can visit her online at TheLostLand.com. King of Shadows By Susan Cooper Aladdin Paperbacks Copyright © 2001 Susan Cooper All right reserved. ISBN: 9780689844454 Chapter 4 "Nat?" said the voice. It was a young voice, sort of husky, and it had an accent I didn't recognize: halfway English, halfway American. "Nat?" "Unh." I woke up with my face in the pillow, and even before I opened my eyes I knew something was wrong. My face and my body told me that I was lying on a different pillow, and a different bed; hard, both of them, and crackly. The bed was really uncomfortable. I moved my hip; surely it wasn't even a bed, but a mattress on the floor. Maybe I was dreaming. Blurry with sleep, I turned my head, blinking in the daylight, and saw looking down at me the face of a boy I'd never seen before. He had long curly dark hair down to his shoulders, and black eyes, and he looked worried. "How do you?" he said. "Is your fever less?" He reached out a cautious hand and felt my forehead. I stared at him. "Who are you?" I said. "Harry, of course. Harry, your new fellow. Have your wits gone, Nat?" He peered at me. "You look -- strange, a little. Thin in the face. But better. Dear Lord, I was afraid you had the plague." I lay very still, with all my senses telling me that I had gone mad. The plague? Nobody's had the plague for centuries. Everything was different. This was a straw mattress I was lying on; I could feel bits of stalk prickling through the cover now. My pajamas had gone; I seemed to be wearing a long shirt instead. The room around me was smaller, with one window, divided into small panes. Sunlight slanted in through it to show rough plaster walls, a threadbare carpet on the floor, and a smaller one draped over a sort of bureau. I grew aware gradually of a rattle and hum of voices and creaking wheels and the chirp of birds from outside the window, and a stale smell in the room like...like something I had smelled before, but I couldn't think what, or when. I was baffled, and frightened, though at least I didn't feel ill anymore. I pushed back the rough blanket over me and scrambled to my feet. The shirt reached to my knees. My head reeled, and the boy Harry saw that I was shaky and reached for my arm. I realized that I needed to go to the bathroom. I said: "I have to -- " He smiled, understanding, looking relieved. "Tha must be better if tha needs a piss," he said, and he drew me to a corner of the room and took a flat wooden cover off a wooden bucket, whose smell made it instantly clear what it was for. I stared at it blankly, but Harry had turned away to fold up my blanket, and since there was no time to argue, I went ahead a