I resist the urge to sigh.Nowshe chooses to lose her composure? Over a narrow tunnel? ‘Moles don’t drown in dirt, Anassa. They find their way forward. They’re resilient creatures.’ I wait a few breaths, trying to discern whether my words have any effect on her at all. She seems to hear me, at least. She’s not completely lost to panic. ‘And so are we,’ I add.
Anassa nods – or maybe she trembles. It’s hard to tell; the torch’s light flickers.
‘Do you need me to come and get you?’ I can’t fully turn around or extend my hands like this, but if I shuffle back a bit, she could grab on to my cloak. Maybe that would be some small measure of comfort; a red thread to grasp, to survive this labyrinth.
Isn’t that how my ancestors did it?
‘No, I … Just stay where you are, will you? I’ll catch up, and then we can keep going.’
It takes her several shoulder-wrenching breaths, but Anassa finally reaches me.
So we keep moving, every inch forward earned with grit and sweat. My torch-holding hand has become numb from putting all this pressure on my elbow, my fingers frozen despite their proximity to the flame. I’ve given birth too many times to baulk under discomfort, but this continuous strain on both my muscles and my mind weighs on me.
‘Will this wretched tunnel never end!’ Anassa exclaims, echoing my thoughts.
‘Calm yourself,’ I say, turning around to look at her, to ensure she’s not consumed by panic once again. But in doing so, I miscalculate. I’m not as agile as I was even a short while ago.
My elbow slips on a slab of rock. Out of instinct, I spread my fingers open to brace myself from falling face-down in blood – but in doing so, I drop the torch. It fizzles horribly, a smell like fumes from sacrifice filling my nostrils; the smell of burning blood.
Finally, the torch goes out.
And the darkness starts to whisper.
13. Anassa
We’re doused in darkness. Then a voice descends on us. Distorted, sibilant. The cave’s walls constrict around me, a mouth about to bite – one that sounds eerily like me.
‘Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be what thou art promised …’
‘What –’ Claret spits from somewhere in front of me. ‘What in the Tartaros was that?’
‘You heard that too?’ I don’t know if this reassures me or upsets me further. It’s getting hard to think. ‘That wasn’t me. Rather … it was my voice, but not my words.’
Yet these words did cross my lips once. Back in my castle, when my husband’s letter first informed me of the witches’ foretelling. When I first gazed upon our endless possibilities, in cursive words swirling in ink. Now all I gaze upon is darkness; the darkness of the ink bottle’s bottom, and I the fool who drowns in it.
‘Your voice but not your words,’ Claret repeats, as if trying to understand. She probably furrows her massive brows while at it. ‘I see. Let’s just keep going. Can you keep going?’
I want to laugh at the indignity of it all. What would he say, my lord, should he gaze upon me now? The Lady of Glamis and Cawdor, the would-be queen on her knees, fumbling her way through the bloody dark, hunted andhaunted by her own past declarations … I manage a weak laugh. But these walls are gripping me so tight, making every breath a labour.
‘Talk to me, woman!’ Claret insists.
‘Yes, yes, keep going, I heard you, let us keep marching on to our own de—’
‘Απ’ ?λα που ?χω πριν απ? σκοπο? ειπωμ?να, δε θε να το ντραπ? να πω τα εν?ντια τ?ρα.’ More whispers, this time attuned to Claret’s timbre. The words are not in any language I can understand, yet the malice in that voice is translation enough.
‘That … wasn’t you, was it, Claret?’
A growl, echoing through the walls like beasts awakening. ‘You’re godsdamned right that wasn’t me! This stupid cave is trying to trick us, but it’s slipping. This didn’t sound like – I’m not that pompous.’ She’s hyperventilating, almost wheezing. ‘Ignore it. We. Keep. Going.’
‘But how, when I can’t see anything? You had to drop that torch, didn’t you? And the walls, Claret, the walls keep squeezing us, don’t you feel it in your ribs? The teeth? The pain?’
‘I’m sorry you’re in pain.’ I didn’t know what I expected her to say, after I accused her of dropping the torch – but it was certainly not that. Her voice is calm now, blood dripping slowly from a cooling wound. ‘Anassa, this cave is trying to kill us. The whispers are messing with our heads, and the walls are messing with your breathing. I’m sorry. But if we stop now … We deserve a better death, if nothing else.’
‘Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood –’
‘… Am I right to assume that wasn’t you?’ Claret’s voice overlays mine, or should I say, the ghost of mine. I don’t remember being so loud about my wickedness, so vainglorious.
‘Yes. I sound … different.’ A giggle. Is it mine or the ghost’s? So uncouth to giggle now. I wonder if my ghost can recall her name, if she delights in keeping it a secret from me.
