Two pale shapes rise from the dark waters of the lake. One of them glitters silver like fish scales in the flashes of lightning, diamonds glinting like stars in the pale gold hair that floats around her on the rippling surface. The other is a bruise against the night, purple-black hair clinging to moonlight pale skin like a teasing gown that displays more than it conceals. Wine-stained lips curve in a secretive smile beneath large indigo eyes.
“That’s my girl,” greets the second one. “Self-preservation is not our first impulse, is it?”
My mother.
I close my eyes and remind myself again that I’ve taken my pills every day. When I open them, she’s still there. “I know,” I whisper.
“It scares you, doesn’t it? Being my daughter?”
“Shouldn’t it?”
She shrugs and her damp curtain of hair shifts across her breasts. “I left fear behind a long time ago, Ophelia.” She curls around my leg and I tense, wondering if she’ll pull me in. She has before. I only drowned the once, when she drowned too, but since then she sometimes finds it amusing to pull me in and remind me of the promises she made.
Because down deep at the bottom of the lake, she says the City of Ys waits to rise again. It was a great city once, until a spoiled king’s daughter opened the gates that held back the tide. The storm-swollen waters rushed in, and the princess was lost to the sea.
The princess smoothes a hand over her jewel-strewn hair and looks back at me with an indifferent gaze. Dahut became a morgen, a sea spirit who lures men to their deaths in the waters. She and Mama have been friends of a sort ever since Mama came to the school, or perhaps just kindred spirits. My mother has promised for years, ever since I can remember, to take me deep beneath the lake to where the church bells of the city still ring the hours.
“It’s different,” Mama says suddenly. I look down at the face that will never change. “You love him. That makes it different.”
“Does it?”
“Passion is different when there’s more than just hunger to feed it.” She takes my hand, tugs me down towards her, but only kisses my cheek. “I keep my promises, Ophelia. As rarely as I make them, I always keep them.”
“I’ve been taking my pills. Every day, I take them.”
“Oh, sweetheart.” She moves as though to sit beside me, but my mother can never fully leave the lake. None of the morgens can, but she and Dahut are the only ones who come so near the shore. “The pills are meant to strip away what isn’t real. They can’t take away what actually exists.”
“But they usually take you away. Always before, I would take them, and your world would just go away, like it doesn’t exist at all. Just stories that you used to tell us that I believed too much.”
“But things are changing, Ophelia. Can’t you feel it?” Her bruise-colored eyes nearly glow with excitement, and her cold hands clutch my arm around the deepening marks. “The bean sidhe feel it. The washerwomen ready their tubs. The Hunt senses the rage that stirs. Even the board of that absurd school you cling to cannot help but feel what is coming. Things are changing, and you, my dear daughter, my mirror, are a part of it. What could pills possibly do against that?”
I struggle to my feet, legs tangled in the mud-heavy skirts, and race back towards the safety of Headmaster’s House and the bedroom with the curtains I close to keep the other world out of sight. Mama’s laughter follows me through the rain, punctuated by the deep toll of church bells from beneath the waters of the lake.
CHAPTER 11
Despite Dane’s furious protests, despite even Father’s cautiously worded concerns, the plans for the wedding have gone forward unabated. Try as I might, I cannot understand why it isn’t delayed until a more appropriate time, when mourning has run its course and they might attempt such a venture without censure. To remarry only six weeks after Hamlet’s death … it smacks of everything unnatural—and it will surely cause tongues to wag. Gossip is never a friend to those who must maintain a reputation, and Gertrude knows this as well as anyone.
She at least tries to mitigate the damage. It’s to be a very small affair, one with witnesses instead of guests, and no honeymoon. She and Claudius have shared a name these two decades past, and so there will be no eyebrows raised on that score, but Claudius seems oblivious to the consequences of their engagement. He calls her Sweetheart and Love and Angel, no matter the company, and whenever they share proximity, his hand seeks a way to touch her in some way. It might be sweet were it less possessive, less like a trophy clutched to the chest in equal parts shock and triumph.
Whatever progress Dane had made in recovering from his father’s death is gone now, shattered in the face of his mother’s betrayal. His black clothing—he has worn nothing else since that day—is less a sign of grief than a weapon, an accusation to make Gertrude flush and pale in a tight sequence of pain and mortification. She fears he’s gone off his medication, and I think she must be right, because his mood swings become truly terrifying. He rages and weeps and sulks with little warning or transition between them.
I try to be there for him, but Gertrude pulls me into the preparations for the ceremony and the formal, private dinner afterwards. She seems to think I need to learn the skills of a proper hostess, or perhaps she simply needs the additional distraction to overcome the insults her son hurls at her so frequently. I learn more than I have ever wanted to know about flower arrangements and centerpieces and how to pair wines with foods. She orders me a dress for the wedding but keeps it in her closet “as a surprise” as if I have any reason to look forward to it, as if anticipation is a feeling that should even be applied to the circumstances.
She takes a simple pleasure in the arrangements that’s both sweet and painful. She doesn’t know how to be a widow; she knows how to be a hostess. As she experiments with the placement of flowers in different vases, she smiles and hums.
Until Dane walks in. Where he goes these days, pain frequently follows.
One afternoon, he joins Gertrude and me in a small workroom attached to the greenhouse. We sit in silence as his mother talks about the meanings of the different flowers, as she twines different ribbons into bows and smiles or frowns at the results. My eyes glaze over as she meditates on the advantages and disadvantages of wire-edged ribbon.
Dane leans forward and pulls an untrimmed stalk of lavender from the scarred wooden surface. “The Victorians, wasn’t it?”
“What?”
“They’re the ones who came up with the language of flowers, right?” He reaches out to roll the lavender across my cheek, the scent filling my nose with each breath. “Every flower has a meaning?”
I think that was somewhere in the lesson. Gertrude’s given me this lesson so many times over the years, and I’ve never given it the attention I should.
“Shall we make a bouquet for my mother?”
“Dane …”
“Now, let’s see if I remember my lessons. Lavender, that’s for … distrust. Yes! An excellent flower for my mother!” He places it in my hand and turns to rummage over the surface of the table. Gertrude clipped one of everything in the greenhouse, so the table is a riot of color and different kinds of petals. He holds up a slender stem with deep pink flowers edged in white, like starbursts. “What’s this one?”
“Love-lies-bleeding,” I answer automatically. “Amaranth.”
“Amaranth, right. ‘Immortal love.’ No, that doesn’t quite work for Mother, does it? Out with it!” He grinds the plant underfoot. “Hyacinth? No, no sincerity here. Pansy? Not a bit. Jasmine? Yes, grace and elegance she has, if not the sense that should accompany them.” He scoops the pink-tinted blossoms into my lap.
Gertrude watches him with tears in her eyes, her hands clutched around a vase with sapphire ribbon twined about her fingers. But Dane ignores her, intent on rooting through the flowers. He sorts through them with ruthless efficiency until the floor resembles a botanical slaughterhouse. When he’s done, he finds a bit of coarse twine and knots it around the flow
ers in my lap.
It’s an ugly bouquet of ugly meanings, and one by one I touch the blooms to name their meaning. Lavender and jasmine, yes, but also marigold—desire for riches—and stargazer lily—for ambition—and clumps of rue and fennel for regret and flattery and deceit. He hurls the arrangement at his mother and it smacks her in the chest. She catches it before it can drop and, cradling the bouquet against her breast, walks quickly from the room.
Not quickly enough to hide the tears.
I can’t remonstrate Dane for his mother’s pain, can’t censure him in any way that won’t provoke one of his rages. Instead, I nudge a shredded globe of hydrangea—perseverance—and keep my eyes on the floor. “I don’t think the flowers did anything to hurt you.”
“No,” he agrees pensively, “the flowers were quite innocent, as flowers usually are. Sometimes the innocent are the first to suffer, and I’m not sure if that’s a mercy. But then there’s you.” He pulls his hand out of his pocket and uncurls the fingers, revealing a solitary blossom sheltered from the carnage.
A violet.
He knots it into my hair, arranges it so it falls over my heart. “Do you know what violets stand for, Ophelia?” Before I can answer, he kisses me deeply and walks away.
I finger the silky petals over my heart. Hamlet used to greet me with a basket of violets every time I returned from the cold place, and as I shared the secret of their scent, he shared the secret of their meaning.
Faithfulness.
Oh, Dane.
Claudius has learned from the debacle of the restaurant, from the shouting match over the chair at the head of the table. He doesn’t try to remonstrate with Dane, even when his behavior is at its worst. He doesn’t try to be stern, doesn’t try to discipline, offers no sign that he considers himself in any way an authority figure over him. He’s unfailingly mild and polite against even the worst insults. Dane’s pain is very real, but Claudius’ serene countenance makes his nephew look somewhat ridiculous in his vehemence.
It forces me to revise my opinion of Claudius. He isn’t just ambitious; he’s clever. He knows very well that the appearance of a thing is far more understood than the thing itself, and so he gives the best appearance possible. When visitors see uncle and nephew interacting, they don’t remember the nagging feeling of distaste that Claudius is so quickly marrying his brother’s widow; they remember the awkward ugliness of Dane’s uncontrolled anger—righteous though it may be. They leave in sympathy for Claudius, having completely forgotten the moral outrage that brought them to the school in the first place.
With Father consumed with educating Claudius in his new official role as the Headmaster, Laertes has taken it upon himself to watch me like a hawk. He bursts into my room whenever he feels like it, wants to watch me take my pills each morning because he thinks I’ll seize on any excuse not to take them. There isn’t a way to tell him that I actually want to take them, because that would involve telling him what happens when I don’t.
Those first few days after speaking with Mama at the lake, I purposefully didn’t take the pills. I wanted to see if she was right, if they really were useless. The first day, even the second day, were fine, or as fine as they ever are when I can hear the Wild Hunt riding through the woods and see the ghosts flicker like blue flame in the graveyard at night. By the third day, though, as always happens when I don’t take my meds for any stretch of time, my thoughts splintered and the fear crawled up my spine. I tried to stay away from everyone that day because words fell from my lips, nonsensical and too honest, too full of meaning to mean anything.
Horatio stayed with me through that evening, kept me walking through the gardens with him so no one could go to one place and expect to find me there. He listened patiently to the fractured sentences, answered them when he could, and never looked at me with pity or disgust. Or fear. He gave me the gift that Father and Laertes can never give me, that Dane is too wounded now to give anyone.
He made me feel real.
I took my pills the next morning, but it wasn’t until the next day that my brother began his morning raids, as ever too late.
The morning of the wedding arrives, and I’m supposed to be making my way to Gertrude’s room for hours of female indulgence before the late afternoon ceremony. Instead, I sit on my bed, my hands in my lap as I contemplate the dark rings of bruises around my upper arms. They’re finally starting to fade, but the marks were deep, and I bruise so easily. My body lets go of its wounds reluctantly, as if the physical injuries could excuse the mental fragility. No one but Dane has seen them; since the night he gave them to me, he’s asked to see them only once, and upon sight his face was etched over by the deepest expression of loathing, and he stalked away to ignore me altogether for two days.
I lift a hand to trace the lines, the purple edged in sickly green and yellow as it heals. I can actually see where his fingers were, remember the feeling of his grip. As much as he despises the pain he gave me, I think there’s a part of him that would enjoy seeing the bruises ruin his mother’s perfect day. It’s the first time I’ve wished to see the dress Gertrude has selected for me. It’s still summer, still hot despite the cool breezes that whisper in over the lake, and the air is thick with humidity and promised rain. If the dress is sleeveless, the bruises will show, and there’s really nothing to disguise them for what they are. One arm I could perhaps blame on Father, for how strongly he grabbed and yanked at the restaurant that night, but there is no excuse for the other that does not shine a foul light directly on Dane.
“Ophelia?” Fingernails tap against the door in a perfunctory knock. “The car’s ready to take us into town.”
There’s nothing to be done; the bruises will either be seen or they won’t. With a deep sigh, I pull on a light cardigan and go to meet Gertrude at the door.
We spend the morning at the salon in town. Gertrude says nothing of the wedding, but she shows the women swatches of fabric I’m not allowed to see and lets them think this is some sort of occasion for my honor. Perhaps a debut or a cotillion or whatever it is the young women of society have that I will never truly be part of.
Obedient to Gertrude’s wishes, I keep my eyes closed almost the entire morning as women bustle around me. They hiss when they see the bruises. I manage some story of falling off the motorcycle, of Dane grabbing me to keep me from injury. It must be believable because their voices turn to what a fine young man he is, of how proud his father would be, and the part of me that’s petty hopes it causes Gertrude pain to hear about Hamlet’s legacy in their son.
They file and buff and polish my nails, massage lotions into my hands and feet, paint my face with something thick that stings and strips away layers of dead skin like an acid wash. They shampoo my hair and trim the ends, then arrange it into some heavy confection that makes my neck ache from the strain of keeping it all upright. Even my makeup is seen to under their talented hands. They render me into Gertrude’s creature, a china doll meant to be displayed.
I have no idea why Gertrude even bothers. This evening will only be the Danemarks, the Castellans, Horatio, and the priest. There is no one to amaze, no one to awe, no one who needs to see me as anything other than I am.
She undergoes the same treatments, and before she tells me to close my eyes again, I can see that she’s a picture of soft pinks and muted golds, a natural beauty accentuated by the powders that hide the faint lines at her eyes and mouth. She can’t blindfold me without smudging my makeup or ruining my hair, so she bids me keep my eyes closed, and I let her lead me around blind.
She doesn’t talk about Dane as we sip smoothies for lunch. She doesn’t talk about her soon-to-be-husband either. She chatters about gossip from the city or reminisces about places around the world she’s seen that she wants to show me someday. They’re places I’ve always been curious about but never felt any particular drive to see. The school is home. It’s safe, even when it isn’t. It’s where I can disappear.
Finally, we return to the school, and
she walks me carefully up the stairs to her rooms, the private suite she had even while married to Hamlet. I asked her about it once, when I was too young to know about tact, but she just smiled and said that even married women need space sometimes, a place to call only her own.
She still doesn’t let me open my eyes, tells me she wants everything to be complete so I can see the whole picture. Is that what I am? A painting? Will I be framed and displayed somewhere, admired for my silence and the colors across my face?
One of the maids helps me step blindly into a dress of slithering satin that whispers against my skin with every movement. Even without seeing it, I know my father will have a heart attack when he sees the strapless dress and the light boning that makes my waist seem smaller than it is. Then the maid slides a lace bolero jacket up my arms and tugs the back to make it sit correctly, and Gertrude laughs at my relief.
“I’m out to educate your father, sweetheart, not shock him.” Her fingers brush against my neck and something cold settles between the ridges of my collarbone. “Open your eyes, Ophelia.”
It takes everything in me not to shriek and tear the dress from my body. Gertrude’s insensibility is shocking.
Ice blue, cold blue, the color of drowned skin and Hamlet’s coffin lining.
So might I have looked had Hamlet not pulled me from the lake that day, if he and Father had let my mother take me the rest of the way down to the City of Ys to see the morgens that live among the drowned towers and keep time not by day and night but by the cathedral bells that toll with no one to ring them.
I can’t look at the dress or the pale azure and white makeup that makes my eyes huge bruises against my face, nor the icy silk flowers in the heavy crown of braids and dripping curls that’s too sophisticated for me. I can’t look at the drowned creature in the mirror, so I look at the necklace she’s put on me, a silver-set double heart. The larger sweep of the outer heart glitters with tiny diamonds; the other side glints with aquamarine. Nestled within the outer design, a heart-shaped sapphire draws the eye, dark against the flashier brightness of the other two types of stones.
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