of ladies most deject and wretched

[chariestmaid]

The first feeling is fury. When Ophelia wakes from a warbling, uncertain dream like the reedy call of a recorder, there are tears in her eyes, but she can tell they're tears of anger. Ophelia would always cry, whenever she tried to argue on her own behalf, always broke down and bit her tongue before she got another word in. But if something saddened her, she could never summon tears. Her father didn't believe her because of it — she doubted her own feelings, doubted they counted if she couldn't express them appropriately. Hamlet could, he could swear his love with all the holy vows of heaven, before he ripped up his own words and threw them back at her.

And now her father’s left her, to weep herself to sleep. All propriety, all decorum left with him, not that it was been enough to cover her. He put his jacket on her shoulders instead of his arm, and turned his back to her, to go with the king.

Fury fades, and what remains is a drowsy numbness, a sense of wrongness as she sees herself as if from the outside: a missing cog in a breaking-down machine. What should she be feeling now? Ophelia doesn't know.

Hamlet was right, she thinks. She wasn't made to live in a court. She should have been a convent girl. She should have worn a veil, so no man could ever see her face, nor smear the paintings from it.  The chariest maid, her brother once said, is prodigal enough if she unmask her beauty to the moon. She keeps her eyes down, lest the moon catch her crying, or her angry tears unmask her.

When she looks up again, she's still clutching her father's jacket, thinking of the shame she'll bring when she's found out of doors. How did she come to be in these woods? It’s a quiet relief, after the stone walls of Elsinore, to see so much green.

Comments

[chariestmaid]

"I once thought I saw ghosts," she says. It's chilling to think how many spirits must linger in Denmark, if she were right. Her father thinks she was an overimaginative child. "Is it magic like that?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Yes, from what I understand. Among other things. Thomas and I spoke more of the England we remembered than the magic he practiced, I'm afraid, but there are others here who can say more about it." The distance to the lake-house feels shorter today, and they're quickly at the door. Without releasing Ophelia's arm, Susan opens it and nods for her to slip inside. "The magic of this world is different, though. It's less obvious and tremendously more useful."

[chariestmaid]

Susan guides her well, as well as any gentleman. Ophelia thinks she prefers it this way. "Useful how?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"It provides any sort of item you might wish - and a great many you mightn't think to ask for."

[chariestmaid]

Like a magic chest in a fairy story, one of the old ones which still carried the marks of pagan lore. One of the many, many things Ophelia tries not to understand, when she quietly listens to stories and songs. "I wouldn't know," she admits. In that, it might be useful, if she could simply quiet her mind and open herself to whatever this world gives her. "So many of things I want aren't material."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan squeezes Ophelia's arm, then releases it at last so she might start getting water in the kettle and switching it on to heat. She fully intends to follow through with what Ophelia has just said, but they've got another pressing matter at hand that might be easier to tackle. "What sort of tea would you like?" she asks. "We've got bog standard English Breakfast, which is just a blend of black teas, but there's also sachets of some herbal varieties and some Chinese sorts, too. And of course if there's a different sort entirely you'd like to have, there is the magic."

[chariestmaid]

The tea Ophelia usually drinks is usually the tea put in front of her. Once, Hamlet rattled off a list of teas he’d tried with his mother, back when he still openly adored her and didn’t carefully hold himself apart from her happiness. Carefully in the beginning, at least. She can admit he’s been careless with at least one other woman’s feelings. “Something herbal, an it please you.”

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Now, let's see," says Susan, sorting through the options and holding each one up in turn. "We've got chamomile or peppermint as options... or perhaps the two of us might brave whatever 'golden milk' or 'rooiboos chai' might be. What do you think?"

[chariestmaid]

"Golden milk." It sounds pleasant and comforting, like a cup of warming manna plucked from the sky.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I've not tried this one before," Susan confides, setting the other options back in their places. "It does sound ever so interesting, doesn't it?"

[chariestmaid]

"Ay. Like something in a tale."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan skims the back of the box, and nods. "As I expected," she says. "It ought to be served with actual milk." And because Ophelia naturally won't have context for foil colors, she asks, "How creamy do you prefer your milk?"

[chariestmaid]

Ophelia thinks about it, for a good long time, in which Susan would be forgiven for believing she declined to answer. "I like milk best before the cream has been skimmed from 't."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

And yet Susan counts Galahad amongst her greatest friends - and Edmund often thought before he spoke, besides. Gold-foil topped it is, then. "That's easily managed," she says, and stoops to bully Thomas's miniature icebox into providing the appropriate milk. She's learned the hard way not to put milk in an electric kettle, but Thomas has got a hot plate, and so she pours the milk into a little pot and puts it on to warm - based off the instructions on the tea box, the optimal amount of milk shall make the tea lukewarm indeed if it isn't heated, too.

[chariestmaid]

There's something reassuring in Susan's easy competence, in watching her work with so many tools Ophelia has never seen before as if they were familiar friends. A small spark of curiosity penetrates the deep grief she's found herself in, watching the hot plate warm and gain a dim red glow, with no fire in sight. "Is this more magic?" she asks.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"It certainly must look it, mustn't it?" Susan wonders, flashing her best attempt at a smile in Ophelia's direction. "The answer is yes and no. The emergence of the milk was magic; the tools I'm using are scientific innovations from times beyond ours."