The rest of the wall needed to be filled. Purple brushstrokes—coarse and swift—became the sky. Red rain pelted down. The drops grew longer and sharper, becoming daggers. I would paint daggers because I could use none. My thoughts turned angrier. Unearthly flowers of odd shapes and colors sprouted near the floor, under furniture that I did not bother to move. Some flowers had teeth. Some had eyes. Some had fangs. They grew from the ground and crept up and around the tower. Vines. Fingers. Strangling the tower of happy faces, covering the watchful eyes.
With the wall full and my hands aching, I slumped onto the bed and regarded my work. It was wild. It was disturbing. I was the best painting I’d ever done, and no one would see it.
Ophelia:
You know they locked me up?
Barnardo:
Yeah.
Ophelia:
Was that part of my sinister plan?
Barnardo:
They knew you were a danger.
Ophelia:
So it was my fault?
Francisco:
You threatened them. What else would you have had them do?
Ophelia:
You seem pretty big on blaming the victim.
Barnardo:
I don’t see any victim here. I just see the last girl standing.
“How did being locked away make you feel?”
Ophelia’s eye twitches. “Trapped.” She studies her laced fingers.
“And?” Zara pushes.
Ophelia pauses and looks out at the audience. The camera cuts to their expectant faces before she adds, “I guess… Horrible. Lonely. Terrified. I didn’t know what Claudius had planned.”
“Just Claudius?”
Ophelia nods.
Zara puts her hand on Ophelia’s. “So much for a young woman to go through.” She dabs at her eye before saying, “We are sooo glad you are safe and free.”
“What the hell is going on?” Horatio shouted as he pushed past Officer Cornelius.
I leaped off the couch and ran to him. His presence snapped me out of my malaise, and I clutched him, allowing relief to wash over me. Once I felt ready to let go, I guided him to where I had been sitting for most of the week. Taking his hands in mine, I forced myself to stay composed. “Hamlet killed my father.”
He winced. “I know. I went up to see Hamlet first, and he told me.” His leg was bouncing. “Where’s Laertes?”
I felt my face twitching as I struggled to push down the emotion. “He hasn’t been told.”
“How can I know but your brother can’t? This is outrageous.”
I nodded and started to whimper.
Horatio squeezed my hands. “Ophelia, I can’t get you out of here.”
I nodded again.
“I tried to talk to Gertrude, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She told me I wasn’t supposed to know and that if I told my parents, she’d fire them and imprison me as a traitor.”
I whispered, “She said that?”
He nodded. “It really took me by surprise. Gertrude has never been anything but civil to me. She’s scared, Ophelia. And getting desperate.”
My lip trembled again. “I don’t know what they’re gonna do to me.”
“They’ll let you go. They have to.”
I felt an emptiness in the pit of my stomach. “I’m not so sure.”
“They’re not going to hurt you,” he said. Horatio’s powers of forgiveness and optimism were usually endearing, but just then he seemed a fool in my eyes.
“You don’t know that.” Again I thought of Claudius grabbing me, his face so close to mine.
“What would make you think—”
“What would make me think they’d lock me up and hide my father’s body? I’m done with making excuses for them. Done with giving anyone the benefit of the doubt. Done with predicting. Nothing makes sense anymore, Horatio, and trying to reason it out hasn’t worked so far. I have cause to be afraid, and you know it. There are a million reasons a high school girl could disappear. They could put out any story, and everyone would believe it.”
“I wouldn’t.”
I felt a chill thinking of Horatio as a whistle-blower for my murder or my kidnapping or my banishment or whatever they might have in store for me. “Then you’d better watch out yourself. You’re expendable, too… though at least you have parents who would look for you.” My father, blue and on a slab somewhere awaiting a proper burial. My mother, deep beneath the ground rotting or already dust. It was too awful to consider.
I leaned back on the couch and looked at the ceiling, willing myself to be as neutral and empty as that expanse. “Gertrude knows that the public will react badly if this comes out. Could her dear Hamlet become king if he’s found guilty of murder?”
“People forget, and if not, they certainly forgive. Especially if that someone is powerful and good-looking enough.”
I knew he was right. You could drive off a bridge and kill your girlfriend, but if you had gorgeous teeth and your family had a significant enough title, you could go live a happy life in a ducal palace somewhere.
I conceded. “Maybe. But in the end, the public will need someone to blame, and Gertrude will see to it that the blame will fall on me. I know it.” Pinpricks of anxiety spread across my back.
Down below, multiple cars squealed to a stop and van doors clanged opened. I vaguely realized that either the king or queen was arriving, and my body immediately tensed.
I had left the television on, and the sound of my own name made me look up and listen. “We haven’t seen Hamlet or Ophelia in a while. Is anything the matter?” asked Stormy Somerville, wearing an uncharacteristically high-necked sweater.
Standing in front of the castle’s gleaming entrance, a dozen and a half floors directly below my balcony, Gertrude explained, “Hamlet and Ophelia have gone on a little getaway together.”
“We heard they’ve been fighting lately.”
“Thus the need for a getaway.” Gertrude winked and disappeared inside.
Horatio exhaled loudly.
A buzzing in Officer Cornelius’s earpiece made me turn around. Once he had taken his finger off his ear, he said, “Ophelia, the queen is on her way up. Sir, you should go.”
My face went numb, and I couldn’t make myself breathe.
Horatio turned to Officer Cornelius and asked, “Why are you even here?”
“Orders, sir,” he mumbled.
“There are cameras and guards everywhere. How’s she gonna get out undetected?”
Officer Cornelius shrugged and leaned against the wall.
“This is ridiculous.” Horatio looked at Officer Cornelius, then at me. Frowning, he said, “I’m not leaving you alone. I’m hiding in your dad’s office.”
“No. Go. What if they find you?” I stood up quickly. “You’ll come back later, though, right?”
He nodded as he stood. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he walked in large strides to the stairwell.
Moments after he left, Gertrude burst into my apartment, silk scarf flapping in her wake. She looked me over, scowled, and announced, “People are starting to ask questions. You need to be seen. Next week should do the trick.”
“What about Hamlet?”
“He’s being sent to England tonight. The incident with your father delayed—” She pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed her eyes. “The details are none of your concern. We need people to know you are still around but to see you alone. Eventually, the public will assume you two broke up, or we’ll tell them you did, and then we can finally end this charade.”
I felt a chill as I wondered what exactly her plan for ending it was.
“In one week, you can go with Horatio for that coffee you wanted so bad,” she said, and clicked away.
While Horatio waited at the counter for his coffee, I sat silently. I let the steam from my cup tickle my face. The feeling mesmerized me. I had begun finding pleasure in little sensations during the weeks that had passed. I had spent an entire afternoon musing over what part of my arm was the most sensitive and found it curious that, for all the tickling that happens with the armpit, it is hardly as ticklish as the inside of the forearm. I also found that poking oneself with a pin, if done lightly, actually feels more like a tickle than pain.
In that time, I had also grown so used to silence and solitude that it was odd being suddenly surrounded by strangers. They all seemed so loud. They all moved so fast. They were all so fixed on their destination, so serious in their anonymous self-importance. Would it really matter if they made one bus or the next, skipped work that day, or had an affair with the next person they saw? Who would really care or notice?
I watched them walk in and out, ordering their very expensive coffees just so, taking secret pleasure in their complex orders. It occurred to me that those decisions at the coffee shop about what flavor and how much foam might be the only element over which those people had any control for that entire day. Perhaps that was why everyone loved to come for their latte-macchiato-double-shot-light-whipped whatevers.
“Welcome back to town,” a redheaded employee said as she wiped the table next to mine.
I stared at her blankly before realizing what she meant. Perhaps it was my look of shock or the close proximity of a regular citizen that tipped him off, but Officer Cornelius strode up next to me.
“I’m sorry, what?” I asked her.
“You and Prince Hamlet have a good trip?”
Cornelius stepped closer to my side.
I looked at him, and he nodded subtly. “Uh… yeah,” I said.
“Too bad you couldn’t go somewhere to get a tan.”
I nodded slightly.
“Hey, mind if I take a picture with you?” She pulled out a camera, handed it to Officer Cornelius, then put her arm around me. I was too stunned to nod or smile. I did, however, notice other people taking our picture as well.
“Thanks.” She smiled pertly before going to wipe a table across the store.
Cornelius raised his eyebrows and backed away while I stared out the window and wondered if Gertrude had planted her or if she just happened to ask.
Horatio sat, but I didn’t acknowledge him. “Ophelia?” He waved a hand at my face.
“What? Oh, sorry.”
“You’re freaking me out. Where’d your mind go?” he asked.
I shrugged, not wanting to discuss the girl quite yet.
“Now I’ve got two of you on my hands.” He sighed.
“What do you mean?” He suddenly looked really uncomfortable, and I realized he was talking about Hamlet again. I felt a pain run across my forehead, and I steadied my breath. “You talked to him? How is he?”
Horatio looked over my shoulder at Officer Cornelius, who was standing by the door. Horatio leaned closer and whispered, “I can’t believe you want to know.”
“Me, either,” I said weakly, not sure why this time I was curious rather than infuriated. Maybe it was habit. Or maybe Gertrude’s tears had made me wonder if the trip to England was part of a sinister plan.
He squinted at me as if measuring whether or not I really wanted the information. I nodded my assent, and he looked down at his own cup, picking at the cardboard sleeve wrapped around it. In a low voice, he continued, “Bad. Confused. Unpredictable.”
I felt nauseous but also like something in me was reaching out for the Hamlet I knew and loved. Part of me was worried for him just then, wanted to be with him and talk to him as much as another part of me wanted to hurt him and his family.
Horatio looked around and then whispered, “He says Claudius wants him dead, but he has no proof. Things are… this can’t end well. I’m really getting nervous, Ophelia.” Horatio looked over my shoulder.
Officer Cornelius walked up behind me and cleared his throat. “Sorry, sir, but I have to get her back.”
Horatio looked as if he were going to protest, but I stood up immediately. All I needed was to get either of us into trouble and end the possibility of a second outing. Even an outing used to manipulate the public was better than being locked away. I would do what I had to do to get out. And to stay alive.
Francisco:
You were seen having coffee with Horatio. That’s not what I call imprisonment.
Ophelia:
That took weeks to achieve.
Francisco:
Even so.
Ophelia:
A guard was with me, and you know it.
Barnardo:
So is that when you worked on your plan for escape?
Ophelia:
That’s when I worked on my cappuccino.
“So here you are just before your disappearance. It’s a little fuzzy, because it was taken on a camera phone, but that is you, right?”
Ophelia, looking a little bewildered, nods. “Wow. Look at that picture! I didn’t know one like that existed. That’s… that’s scary, actually.” She starts to laugh, and the audience, feeling this gives them permission, giggles a little, too.
Zara tilts her head slightly and smirks. “So the rumor was that you went crazy.”
Slightly amused, Ophelia says, “I do look crazy there, but I was, well, distressed, to say the least.”
“This is during the time you were being locked away?”
“Yes, and after Claudius threatened to kill me.”
Zara looks out at the audience with feigned shock. As the women and men gasp and mutter, nearly undetectable satisfaction registers on Ophelia’s face. Zara allows them their moment and then turns her attention back to Ophelia. “It was just an act?”
“Yes. I needed what came next to be believable.”