Let him continue making me the villain, if it helps him sleep at night.
‘Who can tell, my Bard, how Shepherd’s kingdom shapes us after your departure? In any case, let me cater to this child of yours. She seems to need assistance.’
Indeed, Ophelia’s going through her cycle of vanishing and reappearing drenched, and daunting as it is to see – and smell – the possibility is too precious to discount. For if she safely transferred flowers, feathers … why not people? Now that I’ve proof she can return unharmed …If my feather made it to Claret, is it such a wild leap to think the rest of me might, too? I only have the bare beginnings of a plan, and enough dogged determination to uproot this whole ghost garden if I must. I approach Ophelia, grab the girl’s arm and hold on tight, trying to ignore the squelch of bone and empty sleeve. ‘Take me to her,’ I whisper.
‘Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,’ is all Ophelia murmurs in response.
That phrase, again. A threat, or prophecy, or just the ramblings of a madwoman – no time to ponder which one it is before we leave a stunned Shakespeare behind, before Ophelia’s waters claim us both.
Drowning is drier than I thought, this time around.
I see the running river but I’m not submerged in it; rather I float on raven wings – or is it my cloak – right above its surface. Only my hand, holding Ophelia’s, is attacked by angry spray and frosty foam; the oddest, saddest bird, black claws latched on to this dramatic brocade salmon as she takes us both upstream. Yet it’s a weightless, wondrous struggle. Everything shimmers as though I’m underneath thin ice; everything sparkles as I soar amid celestial flames, carnation pinks and belladonna purples painting the sky the colour of a dream.
It reminds me of the sky in that meadow, where I almost kissed –
‘Doubt thou the stars are fire …’
Ophelia’s voice reaches me although her face is underwater; it pierces through the burble of the current and the whooshing of the wind. The flames around me pulse in tandem with her words, their colours growing iridescentas she talks about the sun and about love, until everything blooms in this bizarre, deathless domain of poetry and drowning where Ophelia’s word is law, where she is the goddess of the river, a pensive Persephone swimming in asphodels – and I the soul who trusts her to deliver them to the beyond.
Then, everything bursts into black.
An unkindness of ravens wraps around me, thousands of feathers keeping me protected, grounded even in mid-flight. I thrive within this susurration, within this certainty of seeds blooming at midnight, of powers locked so tight within me for so long, yet now finding their way upward, from root to ribs, from ribs to wraith-like fingertips.
A path forever mine, a tale told in shadow.
I almost cry, forlorn, when the ravens flock away; when Ophelia lands us back into the light. As the world once more takes shape around me, I lose my grip on Ophelia’s sleeve – and my balance. I fall on marble floors, on a hallway that looks ancient yet untouched by time. Two women stare at me from an odd angle, both frozen halfway through approaching.
They look so different, side by side, like columns built in different eras. One of them tall and blonde and fair, exuding aristocracy and poise; the other short and stout and blazing, a sunlit carnage, a sword that I would guide straight to my heart and let it pierce it, a holy heresy of hips and hair and –
‘Claret,’ I whisper, and if this be the last word that I utter, it’s a good one.
32. Claret
Ophelia blinks into solid existence, her blackened bundle falling on the hallway floor.
My eyes are drawn to it – to her. A mess of tangled hair and lithe limbs, her raven cloak immersing her in shadows, her scar carving a liquid trail of moonlight.
Anassa.
She sees me and she smiles and I don’t know what to do – help her get up and hide her before the skeletons or the wraiths come, wage war against a goddess for attempting to divide us, or flee until this thump inside subsides, until I’m in control of which direction my blood flows and doesn’t feel like it will leave my body from my teeth, flow at her feet.
‘Claret,’ she says with that small mouth of hers, and I’m undone.
‘Sister! Snap out of it, or you will get us caught.’ Helene’s voice; next to me, aimed at me, yet missing me by miles. I take a step back to steady myself while she and Ophelia help Anassa to her feet. She wobbles but remains standing.
I watch as if I’m under vapours, clogging my thoughts, turning my movements languid, while Helene and Ophelia hurriedly guide Anassa to our chambers, away from curious eyes. Perplexed, she follows them, looking back at me, her earlier smile tinged with uncertainty. I follow, slowerthan I would like, trudging through waters I can’t see, each step sinking in sand.
I know what Anassa will find when they enter our chambers. A pile of petals scattered on the floor, like yet another confirmation of my crimes – and my saving grace, a single feather on my pillow. I pick up the pace until I reach the rest of them.
They’ve placed her in my bed, Helene pressing a wet cloth to her forehead. How long has it been, really, since we crossed that arch together with Shepherd? Why does it feel like an eternity has passed? Anassa looks more frail than I remember; thinner and brittle, with dark circles clouding those forest eyes of hers, with fading bruises all around her slender neck.
Bruises …
Something stirs in me, a force so chthonic, so long buried it takes time to recognize it. A fury – at whoever, god or man, did this to her. It’s so intense it turns my innards into licking flames, coiling like a dragon’s tail soon to strike.
‘The walls … are shaking,’ someone mumbles, but their words mean nothing to me. I’m blind to everything that’s not Anassa. I breathe through my nose, trying not to explode while I observe the rest of her. No blood or other wounds that I can see. But her hands … Her hands look more like Shepherd’s now – obsidian, all the way up to her palms.
Did she have to fight more wraiths while we were parted? While I was not there to stab and slash at anything that threatened her?
