For a second, all I can do is stare. The screeching of the phantom birds subsides, but the colours linger. So sudden is the change in the world around me, I forget to breathe or move. Like a veil parting in the sky to reveal the sun, the whiteness of my surroundings withers, and what emerges underneath is filled with colours, shapes and textures.
‘Do you see that?’ my almost victim whispers, her green eyes wide. She makes to get up, and in my daze, I let her. Our hands are still entwined, but that’s all right. I cankill her later. I can withstand this searing sensation, this pain that seems to go straight to my heart. She clearly has magic – and knows more about this place than she’s letting on. ‘We’re … we’re in a castle.’
‘I don’t know what acastleis, but if this is the palace of some Anax, I prefer mine.’ Now that my eyes are once again my guides, I can’t help but compare these halls to Mycenae. No gold, no marble. Just stone, rows and rows of it, curving in high arches on both sides and above us, with torches affixed strangely on the walls, burning low. The rug under my feet must have once been red, but now its colour is half-faded, a beast’s cut tongue that lies flat, its secrets left unspoken, like someone left it in the sun too long. Yet there’s no sun – no windows anywhere. Nothing to orient me in space, or in time. It’s almost as unsettling as that former emptiness. Behind me, before me, an endless hallway stretches, lined with closed doors. One of them must be mine. One of them must be how I go back home. ‘Which one is mine?’ I bark at her – witch, goddess or woman – who has caused all this. I still hold my knife. If she does not collaborate …
‘I don’t know,’ she whispers, sounding shocked. ‘They all look the same to me. There’s nothing, no stain of claret on these doorknobs. I don’t know which one to pick.’
‘Pick one, and fast. You’re only alive because you pulled this little trick.’ Tugging on her hands, I push her towards a door at random and take a step back, to let her work her sneaky magic.
The world fades back to white.
7. Lady Macbeth
The door dissolves before my very eyes, its sturdy hinges swallowed by that waxy haze.
Colossal sadness settles on my heart. For one second earlier, just as I thought my life would end under that demon’s blade, the world had bloomed in colours. The terrain had made sense again, I was somewhere that made sense – and it was real, real enough to make that murderer think twice about slaying me. And now? What new treachery is this?
I reach for the door that isn’t there, the door that should be there, but my hands come away empty. It’s not just concealed; it’s rendered once again untouchable.
I’m quite aware I’m not the only one whose eyes and hands have failed her anew – that bloody nightmare of a woman prowls behind me like a trapped she-lion, promising to carve me a new spine with her claws if I don’t fix this now.
Yet my mind cannot seem to grasp the reasoning behind these recent shifts.
‘It’s toying with us,’ I say out loud, because that is the only explanation that makes sense. ‘This world,’ I gesture at the endless void, my voice raw, ‘is toying with us, tormenting us. Offering flickers of hope, glimpses of a way out, only to retract them when we try to act upon them.A doomed endeavour.’ I sag on that carpeted castle floor I once more can’t see.
I’m done. I’m tired. Let the witches have my carcass, let them cackle over it.
My murderer approaches, that knife of hers still fresh from almost severing my throat.
I look up to her demented eyes, at the ire that greets me there. ‘If you mean to kill me, best get on with it. I’d quite like for this humiliating chase to end.’
‘You mean that.’ Her voice is but a whisper, a brass shield vibrating before war. ‘Yet you brought me here. You cut into my home and trapped me here with you.’
I shouldn’t argue with a woman dressed in blood, who’s prone to stabbing first, finding reasons later. Yet the falseness of her words offends me. ‘I already told you; I thought I was going home. If anyone’s to blame, it’s you. I was about to walk away. Your realm was certainly alarming, and that bathtub …’ I shudder at the memory, at the dead body in that bathtub, its head cracked open hideously. ‘You’re the one who left her world behind to come after me.’
She flinches at that. Interesting. She’s not entirely incapable of recognizing she’s at fault. Perhaps that’s something to exploit – should I survive long enough.
I’m still not certain I should find the fortitude to try.
What is there to even strive for? My lord will surely be lost without me; I fear it was just my gentle pushes that kept him on the proper path of glory. Now, in this saturated shroud, it all feels so vain, our ambitions as far-fetched as a woodland sprouting legs and fighting us.
I sigh, burying my head in my hands, not bothering to care about their wretched, bloodied state. Our crimes have mingled on my skin, her kills and mine. The ironyis not lost on me. I tried so hard to wash the blood of Duncan and the others from my hand, the blood of all the needed deaths I shepherded, only to meet a woman-wolf who relishes in the reminders of her actions. She only kills those who need killing, she did say. Could be that I am one of them.
‘All I wanted was to be Queen.’ Mayhap this is my last confession. Mayhap my killer will allow me to say my piece before she strikes. ‘And for the name Macbeth to blaze in glory for a thousand years. For all the wretched things we did tomatter.’
I hear a sigh that is not mine. ‘Is that your name, then? Macbeth?’
I raise my head, surprised, only to see my killer squatting in front of me. What a brutal beast she is! The remnants of a dress that could conceivably have passed as white once – yet is now too drenched in blood to tell – cling to a figure made of curves, all brazen hills where should be modest flatlands. Preposterous to even look at. My gaze flees to her hair, which has now dried into tight, claret-coloured coils. I could swear even her eyes have a somewhat reddish hue.
If blood was God, she would surely be his emissary.
The blunt end of her knife finds my cheek, patting it lightly. Dismay battles irritation in me as the blade touches my skin, strangely warm and tingling, teasing a crime yet to be committed. I won’t retreat this time. When I’m the one holding that knife, I will teach this curvy demon a few lessons on respect.
Perhaps she’ll tire at some point. Do demons sleep?
‘I asked you a question,’ she says slowly, as if speaking to a simpleton.
I blink, trying to concentrate on her words rather than the absurdity of it all. What did she ask? Ah, yes. ‘Macbeth is my lord husband’s name. He was meant to be the King of Scotland. We were promised …’ My voice fades, as I am once again reminded of our spurned destiny.
