I rummage through the rest of the papers, on the walls, on the floor. I reopen all the drawers – even search for false compartments. Nothing.
I am swimming in Shakespeare’s words, yet cannot find a single other sign that I’m not jumping to conclusions about Gruoch and me, a single other branch I could hold on to to secure my path ashore. This study hides no secrets I could yet uncover. Dejected, I abandon my search and decide to return to the sitting room, wraiths willing. Perhaps I should venture to that ghastly garden once more, see if Ophelia has returned. I reach for my key, first in my cloak, then in the keyhole.
I can’t find it.
Belatedly, it hits me: dazed as I was with drink and desperation, I unlocked this door from the other side … and left my key in there. In a flutter of hope, I try the doorknob on this end, a gilded thing, shaped too much like a skull for my liking – but it doesn’t budge an inch.
Damnation! Not caring any more for stealth and silence, I bang my fists on the door, repeatedly, until my strength ebbs out of me and I slide down, sitting on the floor amid so many skeletons of characters, forever trapped in tattered paper, in dried ink.
How fitting, then, that this should be my grave. I close my eyes, so as not to die gazing upon his words. I keep them closed until something attacks my shoulders, shaking me from my shallow repose. Have the wraiths found me?
‘For Heaven’s sake, woman, what have you done? My notes! You’ve ruined months of rumination, of careful planning, when I was this close to striking lightning!’
… Then again, wraiths don’t gabble.
Groaning, I open my eyes. The bane of my existence kneels in front of me, brows knit in indignation, hair wild and falling on his face. I don’t know what possesses me,but suddenly a laugh comes out unbidden, like blood gushing from a wound.
He lets go of me, perplexed.
My laughter turns to little hiccups. ‘When they say … hiicc … you will meet your maker … hiicc … I don’t think they meant … this.’
Shakespeare shakes his head, combing his hair nervously with his fingers. ‘You have gone mad. I suppose it is to be expected, Shepherd had warned me this would happen, that I shouldn’t get attached …’ He turns around to assess his study, as if this chaos sings to him, as if he can detect each errant note my presence played there. ‘You even opened up my drawers? Have you no shame? An artist’s abode …’ He keeps mumbling, but the words get lost in the shuffling of papers and the thrumming on my temples.
Perhaps I shouldn’t drink again; perhaps Shepherd offered me this drink to slow me down. I get up, unwilling to continue this exchange with Shakespeare looming over me. I find I’m mostly stable; for all my shock, my mind still works.
‘How did you get in here?’ I ask. There is no door that I can see. What am I missing?
‘How did I get in here? The gall of you, woman! This is my place of work, where secret alchemies take shape, transforming humble ink and paper into plays and poems that enchant, delight, arouse, dare I say and –’
‘Yes, truly, your work causes such delight to people,’ I say, cutting him off. What is he going to do to me anyway? Write me a wart? ‘But not to the people you created. For us it’s only blood and death and ghosts and witches three … who truly are much more handsome than you made them out to be, I have to say. More goddesses than ghouls.’
Shakespeare blinks, then sinks on his chair abruptly, like the wind has gone out of his sails. ‘In all my years visiting Shepherd’s domain, in all my time leaving old stories to her care as I search for new ones … Never, never has one mouthed back such nastinesses. Perhaps I should have called you Katherina – what an utter shrew you have turned out to be.’
Outrage envelops me like yet another cloak. If only I had Claret’s knife … I would show him who would squeak like a shrew. Blood would go well with ink, I think, to paint these pages. But one must deal with the weapons one has presently at hand; and this fool wrote me never to be without one. I smile. ‘Interesting, my lord, that you should say so. Katherina is a fine name, yet one I fear would not suit me. And neither would Ophelia, since we both know I am not helpful by nature.’
He pales. ‘How did you –’
‘I met her. Such a kind girl, if a bit … soggy. She calls you her “sweet prince”.’
‘Ophelia is still here? Shepherd had said …’ His eyes lose focus, locked in some inner torment and confusion that brings me joy to see, but does not serve my purpose.
I don’t want him focusing on her, or on Shepherd.
‘But we were talking about names, weren’t we? Names like Glamis. Like Cawdor. Like Macbeth. All fine, proper names for kings and thanes.’ I take a step closer, a cobra that’s about to strike its mesmerized audience. ‘What of me, then? Was my true name to be lost between your pages? Did Gruoch Macbethad not sound adequately poetic for your play?’
He gets it, then. He whips his head towards the wall behind him, where the name and the notation underneathit hang like an indictment of his guilt. ‘Gruoch Macbethad …’ he whispers, then looks at me as if he sees me for the first time. The sudden pity in his eyes makes me want to shove my blackened, wraith-like fingers in his sockets, gouge them out, until all he cries or sees is ink. Until my face, with my scar gleaming and my eyes shooting him green daggers, is the last thing he regards. Yet patience blinds better, I have found.
‘Yes. Her. I assume we’re not entirely alike; after all, I am your creature.’ I force my lips into a smile, wishing I had sharp, leopard teeth. ‘Gruoch Macbethad was your Muse, however, wasn’t she? Your inspiration?’ I turn my blackened fingers to myself, pointing from head to toe.
He sighs the most dramatic sigh. ‘I need a drink to have this conversation. Come, Shepherd never leaves the good stuff unattended but there should be some aqua vitae left.’
I would tell him that there isn’t; that I’ve drunk it all. But what happens after takes me by surprise. Because Shakespeare gets up and strides to the door, the door I struggled so impossibly to open, the one that still holds my key captive. He opens it, as if it’s no trouble at all.
Shakespeare steps through to the sitting room, headed straight for the table.
I hover at the door, hesitant. There are no wraiths that I can see, no Shepherd. And yet, the room is not entirely how I left it. For starters, the aqua vitae bottle seems refilled anew … and the manuscript that caused me all this heartache is nowhere to be found.
What trickery is this? Did I dream all of it? The folio, Ophelia, thinking that I could contact Claret, the skull that whispered, the liquid courage needed to unlock –
