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There is a willow grows aslant a brook.
As children, Ophelia and her brother would run rings around it in the sweet-smelling grass. When she grew tall enough to climb the branches, she would retreat to it with her books and her thoughts; sometimes, she needed more freedom and warmth than there is to be found in a cold stone castle. She shared her first kiss with a prince under its verdant leaves, but it does not do to dwell on that now.
Now, Ophelia gazes into the brook’s muddy water. Lying along the bottom, there is a creature. A mermaid, perhaps, or one of the Nereids of which the Greeks have written. The lonesome thing has wild hair and wilder eyes. There are scratches upon its cheeks as if from thorns or the tiny claws of fairies, and it would appear that even the water of the stream cannot wash away the grime that coats much of that pale, gaunt face.
“Poor, wretched nymph,” Ophelia sighs, but it does not seem to want Ophelia’s lamentations. Indeed, it stares up at Ophelia as if she is the one to be pitied. “I shall make thee a garland,” she promises.
She plucks flowers from every place she can reach. Even nettles are gathered into her indiscriminate bouquet. Ophelia giggles at the dead men’s fingers, for that is not the name she gives them in her mind.
She returns to the water, humming a ditty to greet her new friend. When she peers over the grassy bank, the mermaid is gone.
In its place, Ophelia sees her own wild eyes gaze back at her.
Oh, she thinks. Wretched nymph, indeed.
She clutches, too tight, at the flowers in her hand before releasing them into the water. Fragrant juices from the cracked stems turn her palms sticky. They are no longer an offering.
Ophelia reaches a shaking hand-- scratches on her skin, like thorns or the tiny claws of fairies-- to the water. She touches a spot near the floating image of her cheek, watches the way her face ripples.
She slaps the water with more violence than she has ever been allowed, and the reflection disappears.
Everything else snaps into such perfect clarity, Ophelia cannot help but laugh. Of course, this is why men who profess to love her will not listen to a word she says. When she is angry, when she cries, when she falls to madness and sings as bravely as she can, still they mold her to their own devices.
How can they know her, truly, if she cannot recognize herself?
Ophelia knows now that there is no coming back from this, just as there is no repairing her father’s death or dissuading her brother from his revenge. There could, perhaps, have been reparations from her prince, but he is gone and now so is she.
She climbs her willow’s branch. She wishes she could stare out beyond the forest into the blue horizon, but the trees are iron bars. Though winter is gone, the sky is still slate-grey. She looks, at last, to the water.
When she falls, she is as close to flying as a chained girl can be.
The water is not warm, but it is freedom. She sings a final song. It is louder than she dared before the king, but this is not for her father or her brother or any man at all.
It is a dirge for a girl with stolen choices. It is a melody for the one left for her to make.
If they misunderstand her now, it is none of her concern.