That Way Madness Lies: XV of Shakespeare's Most Notable Works Reimagined

by Dahlia Adler

The arrows, streaming down, set a rushing noise beneath the mermaid’s song. That far song rises, heralding the touch of arrow to earth. But they do not strike us. They do not sway the motions of our hearts. Instead, with each finding its ground, comes a bloom of color. I expect purple, as with the flower Puck fetched Oberon, turned white from Cupid’s mark. But the shade that opens before us is not purple or any of her sisters. It is brown, the soft heat and beauty of brown. Every pale flower touched with an arrow’s gentle weight becomes a rich and perfect brown. Every pitcher of milk and cream dons an amber glow. Every white gown is dyed to match the acorns and hickory. The fairies startle back. Even Oberon, his wide eyes green as leeks. For a moment, my heart is a weight pinning me to this patch of grass. Then I feel it shifting inside me, and I understand that is not my heart keeping me in the fairy court. My own fear has been the shell of stone around it, and my heart will forever be sealed inside if I do not take the bright star of this night between my fingers. “Show me,” I tell Narciso, soft enough that it’s a breath between us. “Show you what?” he asks, not as though he’s confused but as if I have only to tell him and he’ll do it. “That there is a world in which we belong to ourselves,” I say. He looks at me harder, the fall of the arrows lighting the edges of his hair. “Are you sure?” he asks, and I know he understands that I mean tonight to be the last Oberon and ...