That night—that terrible, beautiful night—I made myself into a creature of pure purpose. When Duncan slept, looking so much like a weary grandfather than a king, I did not hesitate. I would have done it myself. Do you hear me? I would have driven the blade home, had he not resembled my father as he slept. That was my only mercy. One single thread of mortal womanhood, frayed but unbroken. And then Macbeth—my soldier, my coward—he came back with his hands painted red and his mind already beginning to come apart.
What do I see? Not a queen. Not a monster. Just a woman who loved her husband so much she unlearned every soft thing she was born with. And for what? He is a tyrant now, and he does not even look at me. He sends for the doctor, not for his wife. He plans his battles, not our future. I have become a footnote in my own catastrophe.
Here is my candle. Here is my gown. Here is the stain that will not wash out. And here is the end, approaching like a gentle sleep—or like a blade. I no longer know the difference.
At first, I did not know. The doctor is too afraid to tell me, but I know now. I walk the corridors of this castle—this gilded tomb —with a candle, because I am terrified of the dark. I, who once summoned night to cloak my dagger. I, who laughed at the owl’s scream and the cricket’s cry. Now I cannot bear a shadow. I scrub my hands in my sleep. I see the spots of blood that are not there. I say the words I swore I would never say again: “Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?”
How young I was. How monstrously, magnificently young.
But I? I am awake. I am always awake now.
They will remember me as the villain. The witch-queen. The dark mother of murder. But I will tell you the truth: I was afraid. I was so afraid of being small, of being powerless, of being the woman who watches her husband fail and says nothing. So I became the storm. And the storm has swallowed me whole.