I wish I had achieved more with my life, done glorious deeds, felt Scotland’s crown weigh heavy on my forehead yet carry it with grace. Still, as my inner light dims, another wish grabs hold of my retreating senses. A meadow, glistening with rain, and Claret looking at me as if I held the answers to all life’s sacred questions, and she was willing to die to prove it. Claret …
But moments before death comes to claim me, the pain lessens.
My vision returns first, then my hearing.
The wraith screams silver murder, its shadowy hands still wrapped around my throat, yet they have lost their substance. They’re immaterial, no more harmful than any ordinary shadow darkening my path. The silvery tendrils subside, and with a jolt of apprehension I realize they were in my ears before. I want to throw up. For now, all I can do is take in air again, my lungs ferociously expanding, clinging to this newfound hope for life.
The wraith’s wailing breaks into syllables, words.
‘To be … or not to be … that isss the question …’
Before I can make sense of what it’s saying, Shepherd is by my side. Her warmth crackles like a fire amid a snowstorm at first, promising safety and repose, before increasing tenfold in its potency. My skin becomes flushed with fever. Shepherd’s scalding light pushes the wraith back, much like the Bard used his torch to push the girl-shaped wave away from Claret. As my eyes adjust to the increased luminance, the screeching shadow recedes into smoke, melting into the inky mortar on the wall from whence it came. The trickling silver follows it, like a thought left unfinished. It’s gone.
It’s gone.
I hyperventilate, gratitude battling revolt in my stomach; this wraith is gone, but it can come back. Or others might. All I have to do is rebel against Shepherd. Suddenly the room feels smaller, even less safe than before. The scent of flowers is too sweet, too ripe, too funereal.
I’m trapped inside a rotting prison, with gaolers who can walk through walls.
Shepherd sighs. ‘The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune …Easy, child, breathe. You’re safe now. It can’t harm you in my presence.’ She props me up gently,helping me back to my chair and pouring me a drink. Her light has dimmed again to a comforting warmth. Friendly. Non-threatening. Perhaps I’m rushing to the wrong conclusions, as scarred as my soul is from this last attack. Shepherd did save me from the silver shadow’s clutches, after all.
I accept the glass of aqua vitae she offers me. ‘Thank you,’ I say weakly. ‘I was hoping never to have to face one of these wailing wraiths again …’ I drink, the aqua vitae slowing down my frantic heart, cottoning my frazzled senses. Slowly, my mind unspools the incident.
Shepherd did save me. She saved me without expending any effort, in the time it takes to blink or form a thought. Yet she waited to do so until I was almost gone, until my life was near snuffed out. Why do such a cruel, calculated thing, unless it’s to convey a message?
To show she wields ultimate power in this place – that I am at her mercy? That if she’s not around to be my saviour, my life hangs by a silver thread? And why do I feel like every wraith has been trying to tell me something, just as ferociously as they’ve tried to end me?
Afraid to look her fully in the eye, I finish my drink, noticing she takes the armchair to my right this time, the one the Bard was sitting on before. She drapes her legs languorously over the armrest, her whole body facing me. Her necklace ripples, a river of undulating gold. Something about it repels the eye, as if it is bespelled to ward off studying gazes.
She notices. ‘This would be easier if you faced me, Lady Macbeth, instead of feigning demureness or subservience. It won’t work. I’ve read your play several times; I know the depth of your depravity, your never-drying well ofwickedness. You are a villain, my dear, not a frightened rabbit. Do me the courtesy of behaving like one.’
Ah, her saviour mask is slipping now. She presumes to know me well, when I hardly know myself these days. Maybe Lady Macbeth was indeed all those things. But I am not, not any more, not since my world was tumbled upside down and a woman cloaked in claret became my foe, my furious ally, and my fierce protector. Because of Claret, I am Anassa. And the fact that Shepherd doesn’t seem to know this, or know I gave Claret her nickname, gives me some hope.
If she is not omniscient, she may not be omnipotent either.
‘You seem to hold a lot of knowledge,’ I say eventually, forcing my gaze to hold hers. Big, amber eyes rimmed in cat-like malar stripes, as if constantly crying ink, stare back at me, amused. ‘Yet you refrain from sharing it with me. You haven’t told me how I got here, whathereis, and where my friend –’
‘For the love of Thoth, don’t make me repeat myself, it’s tedious. Klytemnestra is not your friend.’ Shepherd sighs. ‘But if you must know, she is faring fine. I was just with her.’
A thousand ravens stir inside my chest, pecking at my patience.This is what wakes you, bastard black birds, not my imminent demise?I find their priorities quite troubling, but not as troubling as Shepherd’s statement. So I choose to challenge that one first. ‘How could you possibly be with her, when we’ve been here all along since we crossed through the arch?’
The smile on Shepherd’s lips is self-indulgent, triumphant. ‘My dear, who ever told you I can only be in one placeat a time? This is my domain; my existence in it is not as limited as yours. I can be here with you, this instance, and at the same time guide other stories to their appropriate resting places. I’ve done the same for Klytemnestra. She is with her own folk now.’
With her own folk … I try to imagine Claret happy, among family. But the woman I survived so many ordeals with? She would not concede her power in order to belong – and her family, from what I’ve seen and heard of it, was but a cesspool of death, pain and betrayal. Yet till I know more about how Shepherd’s realm works, about the limits of her reach, there’s nothing I can do to help. So I push on, hoping I’m asking the right questions, the ones that she’ll deem fit to answer. ‘Why do you call us stories? Creations? Why didhecall me figment?’
‘Ah. Going straight for the kill, aren’t we? Are you sure you’re ready for the answer, child?’ Shepherd fiddles with the pendants hanging from her full-body necklace, charcoal-black fingers dancing amid gold, tips sharp enough to cut through metal.
For the briefest second, I see the leopard again, its markings moving on her skin. I shake my head. ‘I’m sure I wish to know,’ I say. I need to. ‘What is this place? Why did this man … Why did the Bard bring us to you? And why does he look so much like …’
‘… Your husband? Lord Macbeth? Your worthy thane?’
Whatever warmth my drink has lent me evaporates.Worthy thane. Shepherd spits back my own words to me, my private expressions of endearment only suited for my husband’s ear – just like that grisly, blood-soaked cave did when we were crawling through it.
To break me. Or to scare me.
With strength I didn’t know I have, I smile my coolest smile. ‘Like I said, you seem to possess a lot of knowledge. And since I’m seemingly imprisoned here, at your disposal, perhaps you could humour me by sharing some of it. Who would I tell? The roses?’
‘Imprisoned?’ Shepherd makes a show of placing her hands over her heart, as if my words are an affront to her. ‘My dear child, you’re not imprisoned, you’re home.’
