We are not alike – to even think so is preposterous.
Yet my spite towards Shakespeare sings a different song.
Untangling myself from the thicket I had squeezed into earlier in my search for Ophelia, I take several slow, purposeful steps along the winding path that divides the two sides of the garden. The soil is warm and soft under my feet, my toes half sinking in its depths only to appear the next second, ten curious earthworms on a quest for sustenance. I listen in for any signs of life, such as it is. Any rustling of leaves, any small sigh that could be disguised as a breeze.
Only silence, and the cloying smell of flora past its prime greets me.
I huff, ready to give up on this foolish escapade, when my toes stumble on a rock that’s not a rock. Rooted at thespot in terror, I awkwardly bend down and dust the earth away from what must once have been a mighty head, a head that wore a crown, the indentations of the heavy diadem carved in parallel circles across naked bone. I lift the skull and look at it, entranced, its empty sockets flickering with fire and steel, with memories of battle and betrayal.
It holds no answers, only echoes. Whoever this creation once was, whatever stroke of pen and spill of ink built them a story, it’s all spent now. I blink a sudden sadness from my eyes, and my vision blurs, filling with white – a rain of dove-white petals falling from above, on the skull and on me, as if the plant itself is shedding tears in mourning.
And then I hear another whisper. This one male and mature, unlike Ophelia’s.
‘For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground. And tell sad stories of the death of kings.’
The small hairs on my back rise. But the message is clear; I’m an intruder. There is no joy to be found in sowing chaos and discord, in forcing these old stories to awaken and rebel with me against their maker, when all they want to do is rest and forget.
I need to focus on my own path. Solemnly, I place the skull back on the earth and cover it as well as I can, then leave the garden.
Back in the sitting room, I pace in apprehension. I now know the room has been built for the Bard, so that he can enjoy a drink while letting his gaze rest upon his flowers – a winner plucking his own wreath of laurels just to count the leaves. I wonder if the skeletons enjoy his presence, like Ophelia does, if they hope he’ll walk among them, smell their perfume, so they can bloom in his ephemeral vicinity even like this. Briefly, but oh so boldly.
I shake my head, my gaze returning to the table. The half-torn pages are still there. I don’t know what I expected. That this was all a dream, induced by Shepherd to upset me? That there never was a man with brown eyes who wrote himself as the misguided, glorious hero of this story, and me as his controlling, wicked wife? I look to that other door again – is the Bard,Shakespeare, still behind it? His urgency to leave me, go on the hunt for a new Muse, makes so much sense now. What am I to him, if not concrete proof that his words can still be altered, his characters can grow new scars? No wonder he was so perturbed by my deformity; his Lady Macbeth had a flawless visage, for all her less than flawless vices.
I take a deep breath, studying the door and what’s around it, all the black mortar that could spew new wraiths. Would it be worth it, trying again, when such a painful death is all but guaranteed? Three times these screeching shadows almost killed me … To chase a fourth one seems imprudent, if not downright spitting in Fate’s face. But what is the alternative? Sit here and suffer, till my skin breaks out in thorns and branches, till I become yet one more skull or rose for his collection? Claret would want me to die fighting – there’s much I still don’t know about her, but I do know that much. She would want me to use everything at my disposal, to slice this door with tooth and nail, if necessary. And she would be achingly, infuriatingly right.
For even if Shakespeare has long left Shepherd’s halls, perhaps his work has stayed. Perhaps there are more manuscripts like this, hiding more answers. Answers I can use to garner power here. I steady myself; perhaps I can be brave. Fearless in the prospect of death. I fill up my glass with theremaining aqua vitae from the bottle, and drink this liquid courage to the lees. Before my better judgement catches on, I get up and walk straight to the forbidden door. And there I stay, gently swaying. I’m close enough now that my breath fogs the wood varnish, close enough to rest my forehead on its cool surface, stop the world from spinning.
The realization is amusing: aqua vitae, it would seem, does not differentiate or care whether I’m real or a figment of someone’s imagination. It hits the same, bringing a hammer to my senses until everything is twinkling splinters, swirling thoughts. Until I’m not exactly sure where this door ends, where I begin.
Focus, Anassa!
I take several deep breaths, my eyes closed, my hands shaking. A chill spreads across my bones. I’m convinced that if I dare open my eyes I’ll see black mist accumulating, like all the markings from these pages slipping away from vellum to create tenebrous clouds, covering my world in concentrations of ink. My breath becomes thick, laboured, rising frantically at the thought of facing a wraith one more time. Of all the screaming that will begin anew, of feeling these burning fingers on my throat, on my face, chipping away at more than just my skin, claiming my story’s ultimate conclusion, rewriting me with fire.
Perhaps it’s the effect of the aqua vitae, coating my nerves in cotton, but this time I do not attempt to run. I sit perfectly still, willing myself to become one with any shadows that might be approaching. I hide my hands inside my cloak, hoping its raven colour will be coverage enough.
I am a wraith as well, a shadow of my former self, and yet somehow more real – more furious. I just confine my screaming to the inside.
My fingers brush over something gilded, something solid. The key slips from my grasp, as if punishing me for thinking I could ever give it up, even for Claret. This is my fate, my path. Clotho had warned me not to use it unless I am willing to save an innocent, to atone for my crimes … But really, am I not the innocent here? Am I not the victim? Everything I’ve done, if you believe that manuscript, was preordained. Wasn’t my choice. A little ant I was, following the path his pen had carved ahead for me. But now, this ant has pincher claws.
Without once opening my eyes, I fish out Clotho’s key from my cloak with one swift hand, the other tracing the door’s contours, desperately searching for the keyhole.
Then, as the screaming splits my eardrums and my head is all but ready to explode, I find it. I place the key inside the lock and turn it.
The door opens.
I don’t have time to marvel at this unforeseen success. I shut the door behind me, hoping no wraiths will dare to seep in … And two things become glaringly obvious.
For one, the screams were mine. There was no wraith this time, was there? Only my fear, my wild fancies taking flight. I will my throat to stop contracting, my tongue to quieten. I grind my teeth together, savouring salt and silence.
Secondly, if I thought this place could hold more manuscripts that would provide me with more answers, I was right – but also so, so wrong. For I have come across a shipwreck, but instead of schools of swollen sailor corpses, nibbled on by little fish, instead of wooden planks covered with plankton, every surface around me drips with words; in words it drowns.
This is his study, I am sure of it.
There is a desk, if someone were to call it that. More like a fungal fiend that has sprouted so much lichen in the form of yellowed papers, piling up to my torso’s height in haphazard towers, that it’s impossible to catch a glimpse of the wooden surface underneath. The same, scripted rot has overtaken every wall, with pages pinned like butterflies, bleeding with ink. Even the floor is littered with them, so many balls of crumpled paper I can barely see the carpet. My eyes return to the desk, from where it all seems to be spewing. There is a chair, its once white cushions threadbare, worn, and stained with either blood or wine. A wooden pail right next to it holds melted tallow stubs of snuffed out candles, in various states of dissolution, along with quills and pots of ink that bring the wraiths again to mind, making me shiver.
Casting a quick glance behind me, I confirm: the door remains closed. Perhaps this study is off-limits, a maker’s sanctuary that no figment would consider crossing … unless this figment is sustained by grit and grudges, brazen enough to yell at God. An urge then overcomes me, to light those defunct candles and set all of it aflame, burn every last insulting word that claims to hold some sacred truth about our lives, every discarded page that predicts our perishing. But what would happen to the garden, then? To that skull? And Ophelia? Would she go up in smoke before being able to deliver any messages to Claret?
Would I?
