by Dahlia Adler
Perdita fidgeted in her seat. I really should have picked the aisle. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t care. None of this actually matters. It’s just a story.”
Zal winced, and she didn’t understand why until he said, “I know. I know these things don’t seem that important—myths, stories … statues.” At that last word, Perdita’s heart gave a lurch of regret. She hadn’t meant to, but she had dismissed everything he loved and cared about as thoughtlessly as his father had. “But the stories we tell ourselves help us make sense of the world. It’s something humans have been doing for thousands and thousands of years—so if it’s not important, then why do we keep doing it?”
She let his words linger in the air between them, thinking about the time Aunt Polina had taken her to see the redwoods. Perdita remembered standing in front of one of them, her head tilted up to see it towering over her, silent with the awe of knowing that this tree had been around for centuries. She was so tiny beside it, but when she placed a hand on the trunk, she had felt connected to something infinite, something sacred. She wasn’t sure if she could find that same feeling by telling this story, but she could try.
She nodded. “I get it.”
He smiled. “How does the story end?”
* * *
The lost princess returned home with her Fairy Prince. The king received them both, but … but years of grief and solitude had hardened him. The girl and the Fairy Prince reminded him too much of the children he had lost, and so he sent them away, not wanting to be reminded of what he had done.
* * *
She paused, looking at Zal as if to ask if that was a suitable ending, but he still wore the expectant stare of a child waiting for a satisfying end to a bedtime story, so she continued.
* * *
But then the king noticed something—a charm around the girl’s neck, that had once belonged to his lost queen. He recognized it instantly, and he knew that the girl must be his daughter, the one he had condemned to the wilderness so long ago. He told her the truth then, told her what had happened, what he had done to destroy their family, how he had forsaken her when she was born. He told her everything, and the girl … the girl decided that there was only one way to make sure he would never hurt her, or anyone else, again. She took the dagger she had brought with her from Fairyland and plunged it into the king’s heart, taking her revenge.
* * *
“And then I guess she would be arrested for committing regicide and executed, right? The end.”
Zal sighed. “I have to say, I’m not a fan of that ending.”
Perdita shrugged, wedged so far into the corner of her seat that her shoulders barely lifted. “What do you want me to do about it? It’s a tragedy, isn’t it? Like all those Greek plays you tell me about. Fate decides that your life is messed up and there’s no way it can end except for bloody revenge.”
“But why does it have to be a tragedy, just because of what our parents decided to do?” he asked. He was shifting in his seat, clearly agitated. “Don’t we have any say in how things work out? Isn’t it our turn to make our own choices?”
“It’s not always that easy,” Perdita said. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Sometimes … sometimes other people make bad choices but you’re the one who has to suffer for them. Sometimes things are broken and you can’t fix them.”
“I disagree.”
“Well, too bad,” she said sharply. “That’s how it is.”
He opened his mouth to respond but then shut it again, leaning his head back against the headrest. “Is that how you want it to be?” he said, more softly.
“It’s not up to me.”
“Maybe not always in life. But in the story … the story can end however you want it to end. Even if it doesn’t make sense. Even if it doesn’t seem likely. The Greeks loved a deus ex machina.”
“What do you want me to say, then?”
* * *
When the king found his lost daughter, he immediately went to his knees in tears. He apologized to her for all the harm he had done her, told her he would never be able to atone for it, but that he hoped to try, to be the father she had always imagined having. The girl looked at this stranger who was her father and didn’t know what to do or how to feel. She had never seen the worst of him, only heard about it years after the fact, and so she didn’t know whether to believe that he was capable of doing good, or if he would hurt her again, or if they would just disappoint each other. She didn’t know if he deserved her forgiveness or if she was capable of giving it.
Just then, the witch appeared and told them that she had been waiting for this day. She brought them to the woods, to the tree that she had been watching over. And then she said to the tree, “It’s time. Awaken,” and the tree became flesh again. The queen was miraculously alive, and she embraced her daughter for the first time after so many years apart. The royals wept together, their broken family made whole—or as whole as it could ever be. The Fairy King saw this reunion through the fairy ring, and moved by it, he regretted his own hasty dismissal of his son. He crossed into the human world to give his son his blessing in whatever he chose to do.
And even though the princess still didn’t know if she could forgive, or could ever fill up the void her parents’ absence had left in her, or could become someone other than the lost girl she had always been, at least … at least this time, it was her choice to make. The end.
* * *
Perdita’s cheeks were warm, her throat tight from holding back tears, and she felt a little queasy. But most of all, she wanted to hide under her seat along with the flotation device she prayed she would never need. Childish, she thought. Pathetic. She wished she had stopped at the murder ending.
Zal just looked at her. “Ah,” he said at last. “Demeter.”
She let out a relieved laugh, some of the tears shaking loose. “I hate you.”
“Nah, I’m pretty sure you love me.”
She nodded. “Yeah, I do. Which one was she?”
“Goddess of the harvest. When her daughter was abducted to the underworld, Demeter grieved so much that she let the world fall into endless winter. Only when her daughter comes back to her for part of the year does spring return again. It’s about the seasons, the cycle of death and renewal—loss and return.”
She turned away from him, looking out the window, at the hint of the coastline below the clouds, and imagined the ebb and flow of the waves. Loss and return. What do you think it’d be like to live underwater? Zal had asked her, and she’d thought she didn’t know the answer, but maybe she did. All this time, she had believed she belonged among the trees, wishing to be rooted to the solid earth, but maybe she was wrong. Maybe she was actually a sea creature, subject to forces beyond her control and yet always finding her footing again and again and again.
“Perdita?”
She turned to him.
“I just want to tell you how much I appreciate that you’re doing this for me—for us. I know it must be hard. Or maybe I don’t know but—”
“Zal,” she said, interrupting him. Wobble with me, she wanted to say. But instead she said, “Whatever happens … fight for me, okay?”
He smiled at her, eyes shining like she was Latin roots and Greek conjugations and Sophocles plays all in one. “That was always the plan.”
She settled her head comfortably against his shoulder and said, “Which ending do you think will happen?”
“The one where we all get eaten by bears, probably.”
Perdita laughed, and at the same time, the seat belt sign turned off with a little ding. “Finally,” she said. She stood and shuffled to Zal’s other side, settling back down in the aisle seat, finally able to breathe.
What you do
Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet,
I’d have you do it ever. When you sing,
I’d have you buy and sell so, so give alms,
Pray so; and, for the ordering your affairs,
To si
ng them too. When you do dance, I wish you
A wave o’ the sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that; move still, still so,
And own no other function. Each your doing,
So singular in each particular,
Crowns what you are doing in the present deeds,
That all your acts are queens.
—FLORIZEL, ACT 4, SCENE 4
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
DAHLIA ADLER is an editor of mathematics by day, the overlord of LGBTQ Reads by night, and an author of young adult and romance at every spare moment in between. Her novels include the Daylight Falls duology, Just Visiting, the Radleigh University trilogy, and Cool for the Summer; she is the editor of the anthologies His Hideous Heart and That Way Madness Lies; and her short stories can be found in those anthologies, The Radical Element, All Out, and It’s a Whole Spiel. Dahlia lives in New York with her family and an obscene number of books. You can sign up for email updates here.
K. ANCRUM is the author of the award-winning thriller The Wicker King, the interstellar lesbian romance The Weight of the Stars, and the upcoming Peter Pan thriller Darling. K. is a Chicago native passionate about diversity and representation in young adult fiction. She currently writes most of her work in the lush gardens of the Chicago Art Institute.
LILY ANDERSON fell in love with the Bard when she was ten and never looked back. In the twenty years since, she has performed, adapted, and directed Shakespeare plays, as well as retelling Much Ado About Nothing as her debut novel, The Only Thing Worse Than Me Is You. Her other works include Not Now, Not Ever and Undead Girl Gang. You can find her at www.mslilyanderson.com.
MELISSA BASHARDOUST received her degree in English from the University of California, Berkeley, where she rediscovered her love for creative writing, children’s literature, and fairy tales and their retellings. She currently lives in Southern California with a cat named Alice and more copies of Jane Eyre than she probably needs. Melissa is the author of Girls Made of Snow and Glass and Girl, Serpent, Thorn.
PATRICE CALDWELL is a graduate of Wellesley College and the founder of People of Color in Publishing—a grassroots organization dedicated to supporting, empowering, and uplifting racially and ethnically marginalized members of the book publishing industry. Born and raised in Texas, Patrice was a children’s book editor before shifting to become a literary agent. She’s been named a Publishers Weekly Star Watch honoree and featured on Bustle’s inaugural “Lit List” as one of ten women changing the book world. Patrice’s debut fantasy novel is out September 2022 from Wednesday Books/ Macmillan. She is also the editor of A Phoenix First Must Burn: 16 Stories of Black Girl Magic, Resistance, and Hope as well as a YA paranormal romance anthology out in fall 2022. Visit her online at patricecaldwell.com, Twitter @whimsicallyours, and Instagram @whimsicalaquarian.
A. R. CAPETTA and CORY MCCARTHY coauthored the bestselling Once & Future series. They are also the acclaimed authors of over a dozen solo titles, including Cory’s feminist romcom Now a Major Motion Picture and near-futuristic thriller Breaking Sky, and A.R.’s witchy head rush known as The Lost Coast and the romantic, Italian-inspired fantasy The Brilliant Death. After meeting at Vermont College of Fine Arts, they began flirt-sparring much like Benedick and Beatrice. A.R. and Cory now raise a young maverick in the snow-swept mountains of Vermont … and continue to banter as if it were an Olympic sport.
BRITTANY CAVALLARO is the New York Times bestselling author of the Charlotte Holmes novels, including A Study in Charlotte, and with Emily Henry, the author of Hello Girls. Her most recent novel, Muse, was released in early 2021. Her poetry collections Girl-King and Unhistorical were both published by the University of Akron Press. Cavallaro lives with her family in Michigan, where she teaches creative writing at the Interlochen Arts Academy.
SAMANTHA MABRY lives and writes in Texas. Her books include A Fierce and Subtle Poison, All the Wind in the World—which was longlisted for a National Book Award in 2017—and, most recently, Tigers, Not Daughters.
JOY MCCULLOUGH is the author of the YA historical novel Blood Water Paint, which was longlisted for the National Book Award, finalist for the William C. Morris Award, finalist for the Amelia Walden Award, and winner of the Pacific Northwest Book Award and the Washington State Book Award, and the middle grade novel A Field Guide to Getting Lost, a Junior Library Guild selection. She is also a playwright with a degree in theater from Northwestern University and has Shakespeare’s words etched into her skin. She lives in the Seattle area.
ANNA-MARIE MCLEMORE is a nonbinary fairy prince whose family taught them to hear la llorona in the Santa Ana winds. They are the National Book Award–longlisted, Stonewall Honor author of The Weight of Feathers, When the Moon Was Ours, Wild Beauty, Blanca & Roja, Dark and Deepest Red, and The Mirror Season.
TOCHI ONYEBUCHI is the author of the young adult novel Beasts Made of Night, which won the Ilube Nommo Award for Best Speculative Fiction Novel by an African, its sequel—Crown of Thunder—and War Girls, a Nommo and Locus Award finalist. His adult debut was Riot Baby. He holds degrees from Yale, the Tisch School of the Arts, Sciences Po, and Columbia Law School. His fiction has appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Omenana Magazine, Uncanny, and Lightspeed. His nonfiction has appeared in Tor.com, Nowhere Magazine, and the Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy, among other places.
MARK OSHIRO is the young adult author of Anger Is a Gift, winner of the 2019 Schneider Family Book Award and nominated for a 2019 Lammy Award, as well as Each of Us a Desert, and their middle grade debut, The Insiders. When they are not writing, crying on camera about fictional characters for their online Mark Does Stuff universe, or traveling, Mark is busy trying to fulfill their lifelong goal: to pet every dog in the world.
AUSTIN SIEGEMUND-BROKA and EMILY WIBBERLEY are the authors of Always Never Yours, If I’m Being Honest, Time of Our Lives, and What’s Not to Love. They met in high school, where they fell in love over a shared passion for Shakespeare. Austin went on to study English at Harvard so he could continue to impress Emily with his literary analysis, while Emily studied adolescent psychology at Princeton. They live in Los Angeles, where they’ve combined their interests and decided to write stories of high school, literature, and first love.
LINDSAY SMITH is the author of Sekret and other novels for young adults. She writes for Serial Box’s Marvel’s Black Widow: Bad Blood, Orphan Black: The Next Chapter, and The Witch Who Came in from the Cold. She has also written for comics, RPGs, and more. She lives in Washington, DC, where she works in international cybersecurity.
KIERSTEN WHITE is the New York Times bestselling and Bram Stoker Award–winning author of more than a dozen young adult novels, including the And I Darken trilogy, The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein, the Camelot Rising trilogy, and the Slayer series. She lives in Southern California with her spouse and three children, none of whom are allowed to read her books.
ABOUT WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
William Shakespeare was born in April 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, to John Shakespeare and Mary Arden. (His exact date of birth is unknown, though he was baptized on April 26.) At the age of eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna and twins Judith and Hamnet, the latter of whom died in childhood.
After 1585, there is nothing known of Shakespeare’s life until 1592, when he was already in London and known as both an actor and a playwright. The following year, the plague broke out in the city, closing theatres for the rest of the year and turning Shakespeare to poetry. In 1593, he published Venus and Adonis, and the following year, he published The Rape of Lucrece and joined the prestigious acting company Lord Chamberlain’s Men, which later became known as The King’s Men.
Together with a few other members of the company, Shakespeare became a part owner of London’s famed Globe Theatre in 1599. Many of Shakespeare’s most famous works were performed there, including Julius Caesar, Hamlet, As You Like It, Othello, Macbeth, and King Lear.<
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Shakespeare published a book of 154 sonnets in 1609 (though they were written considerably earlier), and retired to Stratford a few years later. He died there on April 23, 1616, and was buried two days later at Holy Trinity Church.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It takes the work of so many people to make such a beautiful volume happen, and I feel impossibly lucky that I’ve had the good fortune to have the excellent team at Flatiron behind me for not one but two of these amazing collections. Thank you once again to my wonderful, insightful dream of an editor, Sarah Barley; her fabulous assistant, Sydney Jeon; my amazing publicist, Cat Kenney, and publicity manager Chris Smith; the killer marketing team of Nancy Trypuc, Jordan Forney, and Katherine Turro, and copyediting/production team of Manu Velasco, Lauren Hougen, and Eva Diaz; audiobook producer extraordinaire Matie Argiropoulos; magnificent cover designer Jon Contino and art director Keith Hayes, who knocked it all the way out of the park once again; Devan Norman, who designed these absolutely beautiful pages; managing editor Emily Walters; and, of course, agent Victoria Marini and her assistant, Lee O’brien, for getting it into their capable hands.
To the contributors who poured their Shakespearean hearts and souls into this work—Kayla, Lily, Melissa, Patrice, A.R., Bri, A-M, Joy, Samantha, Kiersten, Emily, Austin, Lindsay, Tochi, Cory, and Mark—you have made the most incredible collection and I hope you love it and take as much pride in it as I do. Thank you for opening Shakespeare up to a wider audience in the very best, most brilliant, and most creative ways, and for trusting me with your work.
So much love and thanks to the friends (and agent Patricia Nelson) who keep me calm and guided through this and every process: Katherine Locke, Marieke Nijkamp, Maggie Hall, Emery Lord, Becky Albertalli, Tess Sharpe, Jess Cappelle, Sharon Morse, Candice Montgomery, Jessica Spotswood, Maxine Kaplan, Lev Rosen, Becca Podos, Sona Charaipotra, and too many more to name. Sasha, Barrie, and Liz—our monthly dinners turned weekly Zoom chats mean the world to me, and I am so lucky to have you in my life these past [More Decades Than I Care to Mention].
