Hamlet by John Marsden

naturally pale that it was hard to imagine her becoming paler, but now her face was no longer even white; she lost all color. “Is it Hamlet?” she asked. As he hesitated with his answer, she turned to the piano, which was open, and, astonishingly, began playing a tune that he remembered from their childhood, though he did not know its name. It was a sweet and cheerful song that they used to sing on long walks, something about a blackbird in the snow.
    When she finished the tune, she closed the piano and walked to the window. Horatio was stupefied. He did not know what to say or how to act. She swung the window open and then horrified him by climbing through it and sitting on the sill, with her back to him. Cold air rushed into the room. Horatio started forward, then hesitated. Bound by the strict rules of etiquette that applied even between those who had been childhood friends, and despite his awareness that she no longer had a protector in the castle, he nonetheless was afraid to touch her.
    “Ophelia!” he screeched, in a voice he had never heard from his mouth before. “What are you doing? Nothing’s happened to Hamlet.” Though even as he spoke, he knew this was not true.
    She glanced around at him. “Do not fear,” she said. “Say what you have come to say. Then I will stay, or fly away.”
    He stared at her. “Are you crazy? Come back inside. I’m not telling you anything while you’re sitting like that. You’re twenty meters from the ground.”
    She immediately became very docile. She climbed back in at once and came toward him, head bowed, hands clasped in front of her. “What do you have to tell me?” she muttered. “Go ahead, say it. I’ll be good.”
    He took a deep breath, stood taller, and began. “Ophelia, a terrible accident happened last night. Quite late. There was an awful scene in the queen’s apartment. I’m still not sure of the details, but it seems that Hamlet . . . I think perhaps Hamlet mistook your father for an intruder. . . . There was some kind of fight. . . . Well, I don’t know how to tell you this, but . . .”
    “He’s dead, he’s dead.” The girl began to rock herself. “He killed him. I knew he would. Oh, I knew he would. Sweet Jesus. Sweet mother.”
    “It’s true, he is dead.”
    “You said nothing had happened to him.”
    Horatio realized she still had not understood the truth. He cursed himself for making such a mess of it. “No, no, Ophelia, it’s not Hamlet who has died; it’s your father. Hamlet mistook him . . . There was some kind of terrible confusion . . .”
    She fell back onto a sofa, her hands covering her face. “Oh! My father! Then not Hamlet! Oh God, forgive me, I did not want it to be Hamlet.” Suddenly she sat bolt upright, took her hands away, and stared at Horatio. “Are you saying that Hamlet has killed my father?”
    The boy nodded.
    “He killed my father,” she whispered, unable to take her eyes from his face. “Oh, better that he kill his own father. To kill a father! But, God help me, I am as bad. The reek of this must reach to heaven itself. We will all be damned.”
    “No, Ophelia, please, you cannot think like that. You must not. It was an accident. I don’t know the details, but I’m sure that when it all comes out, we will find that Hamlet’s honor remains intact.”
    “Yes, yes, honor. That is everything. To keep honor intact. So, men fight. Oh, how little they know. How little they understand me. So, the young man must fight the old. They think that is the only way.”
    Horatio did not know what she was talking about. He was greatly relieved when the door to his left opened and Ophelia’s maid came in. Ophelia had never had a maid until recently, and Horatio did not even know the girl’s name. She was from the north, daughter of a farmer, unused to the ways of the court, but Polonius had gotten her for nothing more than the cost of her board, in exchange for the promise of experience in serving a noble family.