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

by Dahlia Adler

Come back But what are we going to do? I can’t go home. I can’t. I know I won’t let that happen Come back to the dressing room We’ll be together No matter what You’re so beautiful, Juliet I love you so much Nothing is going to separate us

O mighty Caesar! Dost thou lie so low? Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils, Shrunk to this little measure? Fare thee well. —I know not, gentlemen, what you intend, Who else must be let blood, who else is rank. If I myself, there is no hour so fit As Caesar’s death’s hour, nor no instrument Of half that worth as those your swords, made rich With the most noble blood of all this world. I do beseech ye, if you bear me hard, Now, whilst your purpled hands do reek and smoke, Fulfill your pleasure. Live a thousand years, I shall not find myself so apt to die. No place will please me so, no mean of death, As here by Caesar, and by you cut off, The choice and master spirits of this age.

When Julia was here, she was the lightning rod for their fear. But now, I fear so much more.

“We are gathered here today to say farewell to one of our own.” As if there’s much of Julia left to say farewell to. I still see it when I close my eyes. I’ve got the strongest stomach of any of us—I had to, to hold my own with her—but the smell of burning rubber and the sight of intestines draped over a steering column proved hard to scrub away. But now—right now—I don’t want to scrub it away. I need that power. I need that hate. And Julia—god, if there’s one thing she knew how to do, it was provoke. Briony and Cassie rub their thumbs over rough crystals, readying for tonight, dreaming of the Dark. Gathering their strength. But watching them gives me the strength I’ll need to see this through. The initial slap of Julia’s death has stopped stinging, and what’s left behind is different for us all. For Briony and Cassie, it’s the void now at the dark heart of our summoning circle and the question of who will fill it. For me, it’s the weight of everything Julia left undone. “Julia Simmons was a bright girl,” the principal continues. “A pillar of our student body.” Bitch, most would say. Tyrant. They wouldn’t be wrong. It was never about who Julia was, though. It was what she made out of the rest of us. “Her kindness and generosity should be an inspiration to us all.” Julia had claimed Westbrook’s greatest treasure for herself, and it got her killed. There was nothing generous in it. Nothing kind about her leaving me behind. But the worst part is that Cassie thinks Julia’s pla...

The lost cemetery outside Westbrook Township at night is a study in negatives: the vast star-strewn sky blotted out by the looming blackness of uneven mausoleums and worn-down statues and dark veins of bare tree branches. But it’s sacred and silent, save the sounds of seven pairs of boots stomping through dead leaves. Like we all sense, somehow, how soon everything is about to change.

The thing about the gift is, it doesn’t matter how you call on it, not really. What matters is believing. What matters is knowing yourself and what you have to bargain with. And Julia—there is nothing she wouldn’t give.

The tar that binds the stones. The darkness that swallows the light. If the words are in our hearts, our ears, or our heads—we have no choice but to let them in. The seven of us have forged an uneasy bond of shared hunger: hunger for the power of the Dark that lives beneath the town. Hunger to make use of this shiver in our blood and whisper in our hearts, convinced we’re all capable of more than what the town of Westbrook wants from us. But seven people wanting the same thing—how could we expect it to end any other way?

They say the Westbrook Shade was once named Philippa; that she was just a girl like us. What she bargained with and why is lost to time, but her anger echoes throughout the town. No one speaks her name if they can help it. No one questions the fortune she’s brought. Westbrook is hers to toy with as she pleases, and whoever gains her favor gains Westbrook. And if her words and her shadow follow you through a bitter Westbrook night—the worst thing you can do is run.

But the seven of us are here for a different kind of power. The kind even money can’t command. It isn’t enough to make this town our own. We want the same thing the Shade sought—an eternity to savor and forge.

Because we are stronger as a circle. No matter how we struggle and chafe against that yoke—we are stronger together. But the Shade’s whispered promises are stronger still.

But Julia kept all her bile-etched turmoil and honesty and passion locked beneath a powerful shell. Cassie’s simply empty inside.

But there’s only so much that one can dabble in the Dark before wanting to bargain for more. It wasn’t enough to give Eun-Min’s stepdad food poisoning or make Mrs. Gearig forget about a pop quiz. This town is built on secrets, lies, and shadow. If you want to break the first two, you’ll need more and more of the last. Julia’s hunger has always been there. Cassie’s, too, though she’s always lacked the wits and the will. But Julia—her, I love in spite of her darkness. Maybe because of it—the way it stretched her, tested her, made her even better and worse. I love the darkness in her, too—that’s what no one else can understand.