Lady Macbeth

by Ava Reid

It is an unearthly beauty that some in Wrybeard’s court call death-touched. Poison-eyed. Witch-kissed. Are you sure, Lord Varvek, my noble Duke, Wry of beard, that she is not Angevin? They say the House of Anjou are all born from the blood of the serpent-woman Melusina.

Vengeance is not a wooden cup that empties. It is a jeweled chalice which endlessly spills over.

It was her desire, fed into his blood like poison from a barb. She wanted him and she made him want her back. That is the danger of her eyes. That they may compel men to do as she wishes.

From Adelaide, she has learned all the things she must never, ever do; all the things she must never, ever be. She must not lack in beauty. She must keep her mind whetted like a blade. And she must always be safe around sharp objects. Madness, of all things, is the most unforgivable in a woman.

“You must go,” she says. “Promise me you will stay safe. Far away from here. Free.” “There is no freedom for me when I am absent from you.” “Please.”

“You will haunt me, too,” she says at last. “We can never be truly apart then, if we are each other’s ghosts.”

She knows she is still trapped, but even horses run in spirited circles around their pens, imagining freedom.