Hamnet

by Maggie O'Farrell

down the curtains surrounding the bed, given to them as a wedding gift by his parents. She pulls aside the curtain and contemplates the form of the man within, her husband, ocean-deep in sleep, sprawled in the middle of the bed, arms outstretched, as if drifting on a current. She looks up at the ceiling, beyond which is a small, slope-roofed attic. This

above him grow darker, gather its horrible rank strength. She wants to reach across the table then, to lay her

A breeze slips invisibly, insistently through the streets, like a burglar seeking an entrance. It plays with the tops of the trees, tipping them one way, then the other. It shivers inside the church bell, making the brass vibrate with a single low note. It ruffles the feathers of the lonely owl, sitting on a rooftop near the church. It trembles a loose casement a few doors along, making the people inside turn over in their beds, their dreams intruded upon by images of shaking bones, of nearing footsteps, of drumming hoofs.