Read Online Dating Hamlet by Lisa Fiedler - Free Book Online Page B

the spell her husband casts and show to her the wickedness that surrounds this scene. But I cannot, for I’ve only one role to play this morn. “Madam,” I whisper, “I wish it may.”
    She takes her leave, and my almost-father gives me my direction.
    â€œOphelia, walk you here.” He hands to me, of all things, a book of prayers, suggesting that my reading such will give purpose to my being about alone.
    Claudius and my father withdraw to witness. In moments, Hamlet draws nigh. I look up from my missal, and the breath is all but gone from my body. He carries his beauty most dangerously this morn—tousled hair and hooded eyes. He approaches as though he sees me not, and speaks aloud to none, to all.

    â€œTo be, or not to be—that is the question … .”

    His passion draws me in. My eyes are wide, my lips parted and trembling. It is poetry, pure and dark, and deathish. I have never heard such words as these from Hamlet. He speaks a truth, disguised by madness, and together they chill my blood. Has he thought upon this sin before? Has the notion of giving himself over to an always sleep occurred to him before this game? And dare I confess it hath occurred to me? On the day I lost my mother, aye.
The gravedigger. Did he sing that day when I returned alone to the freshly scarred earth beneath which my mother lay? I heard him, aye! Did not I wish to follow her on that most mystical journey to anywhere but here? And did my father’s cold and callused hand clamp firmly on my shoulder without ever reaching to wipe a tear?
    Hamlet turns to face me, cutting short his speech.
    I nod at him. “Good my lord, how does Your Honor for this many a day?” On impulse, I remove the gilt pendant from my throat and hold it out to him. I feel my father’s wicked wonderment, the King’s concern.
    â€œMy lord,” I say, effecting a tremble so that the chain sounds a hollow jangle between my fingers. “I have remembrances of yours that I have longed long to redeliver.” As I extend my hand, the pendant slices a shaft of sunlight, exploding in brightness. “I pray you, now receive them.”
    Hamlet gazes at the charm and tosses off a shrug of pure indifference. “No, not I,” he murmurs. “I never gave you aught.”
    I widen my eyes, and shake my head. “My honored lord, you know right well you died … .” I press the precious pendant in his palm, and finish firmly. “There, my lord.”
    I pray the spies see not the sparks that surely fly at Hamlet’s touch, his chain, our chain, clutched between my hand and his. He does not let go as he frowns hard at me and asks me if I’m honest.

    I pretend to be stunned. I know he means two words with one—with “honest” he inquires if I be truthful, and also, more scathingly, if I be chaste. He alone knows the answer to both. I plump my lower lip as though I may begin to weep and respond in a quivering voice:
    â€œMy lord?”
    â€œAre you fair?”
    â€œWhat means Your Lordship?”
    And now, with fiery speech, he begins a wordy tempest in which he scolds me for my beauty, and insists there can be no honesty in one so beautiful.
    â€œI did love you once!” he roars.
    I stammer in reply, “Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.”
    Now he begins to pace, a purposeless march around me, so that I must spin on the spot where I stand to keep my eyes on him. One hand is clenched in a fist around the necklace, the other he drags through his hair as he hollers, “You should not have believed me … . I loved you not!”
    A wail comes unbidden from my throat. Even in this fantasy I cannot bear to hear it. Tears surprise me, and I bellow in return, “I was the more deceived.”
    â€œGet thee to a nunnery” is his evil command. “Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?”
    Were I not so schooled upon this task, I would laugh.