Hamnet

by Maggie O'Farrell

Joan lifts a piece of soiled cloth, one hand over her nose, a bedsheet with the tang of urine (her youngest son, William, is still not wholly reliable in that respect, despite threats and cajolings, though he is only three, bless him).

“Nothing. A heaviness of spirit. A melancholy. It’s nothing.”

And if either of them is to live, it must be her. He wills it. He grips the sheet, tight, in both hands. He, Hamnet, decrees it. It shall be.

“Someone who knows everything about you, before you even know it yourself. Someone who can just look at you and divine your deepest secrets, just with a glance. Someone who can tell what you are about to say—and what you might not—before you say it. It is,” he says, “both a joy and a curse.”