Read Online Dating Hamlet by Lisa Fiedler - Free Book Online

gaze to the apparition.
“Tell me, lady, Mother, ghost, and friend, what of Laertes? Does he share this fate, and if he does, do we also share our father?”
    â€œAye.”
    â€œAnd do I know him?”
    â€œYou will.”
    â€œPray, how?”
    â€œBy his singing.”
    And now I hear the voice—a rich and distant manly timbre. The singing wraps around me with the smoke.
    â€œAm I the child of one who would love me if he knew?”
    â€œThat is most certain.”
    And now the vision ripples in the smoke.
    My chamber door opens and Anne appears; I see her through the shimmering image of the ghost before me.
    â€œOphelia …”
    â€œOphelia!”
    My mother’s voice is one with Anne’s. Yes, Anne is here. She is beating at the mist with her hands, coughing, throwing back the fur covering at the window.
    â€œLia? Wake! Please.”
    I open my eyes to Anne. They sting, and she looks as though she is melting. “Anne?”
    She leans over me.
    â€œGood lady, do you breathe?”
    I sit up slowly. “Most excellent well,” I tell her through heavy lips. “My head throbs slightly, but …”

    â€œLia, there is a most rank odor in here.” She finds the smoldering crucible and dumps its scorched contents from the window.
    â€œActually”—I am enjoying the tingling of my fingertips—“I believe I found it … pleasant.”
    â€œPleasant? I daresay, Lia, this smoke hath removed you from your mind.”
    â€œNo, friend,” I tell her, looking to the spot where my mother stood. “I daresay it has restored me to my heart.”
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    My chamber has been cleared of smoke, and Anne hath rinsed the stale aroma from my hair using water scented with a blend of lemongrass and lavender. I sit beside the fire and coax away the snarls with my fingers.
    â€œThere is news of a play,” Anne tells me. “A troupe arrived not two hours ago, and are meant to perform tomorrow night.”
    â€œPlayers!” I grumble. “This castle verily crawls with players, and the King be the worst of them.”
    We are interrupted by a knock, which Anne answers. I am aware of an exchange of whispers.
    â€œThe Prince sends word,” she reports, reaching for my gown. “You will meet him in the outer bailey—now.”
    I spring from my stool to step into the gown’s billowing skirt, and shove my arms into the snug sleeves. Then I pull on my cloak, and away.

    We meet in moonlight’s faint beginnings ’neath an early-evening sky. It is bitter in the bailey shadows where we hide. Hamlet tells me of his meeting with Polonius, how he played at madness so completely that the man did quake within his shoes.
    â€œTell me of this discourse,” I demand. “Leave naught to my imagining. I would know every furrow of confusion in his ignoble brow.”
    Hamlet rests his chin upon my hair. “I called him a fishmonger, to start.”
    â€œWise of you.”
    â€œOne must always be wise when one is mad.”
    â€œGo on.”
    â€œI carried with me a book, and Polonius did ask what I read. I told him, ‘Words, words, words.’”
    â€œâ€™Twas a silly answer.”
    â€œAye, but ’twas a silly question. What else could one read but words?”
    â€œThink you he’s convinced, then?” I ask.
    â€œI do.”
    â€œAnd what of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern? Think they too that you are … shall we say, several fathoms shallow of a full moat?”
    Hamlet laughs. “Aye. Methinks they do, though they are uncertain of what causes my mental drought.”
    â€œPerhaps it shall rain sanity soon,” I tease.
    â€œBut already I am in it too deeply, love. Indeed, I overrun with reason.”

    â€œNow, what of the play?”
    â€œThe play,” says Hamlet. “’Twill entertain us tomorrow evening. I confess, I’ve altered the production. Know