Free Dating Hamlet by Lisa Fiedler Page A

kindness apropos of one who assists others in mourning.
    Closer now, I see how very much alike we are. My eyes are surely a gift from him, and the long thin line of my throat indeed resembles his. His hair is the same rich chestnut as Laertes’ hair, and I recognize they have in common
a very uncommon squareness of the jaw. Oh, handsome is he!
    He sings a ballad I’ve not heard before, as I gather stalks of withered green and slick yellow stems from which I pinch off dead blossoms. Beneath my feet the hedgemaids are crisp, and the rustle they make is a sound like applause.
    At last, I speak. “God save you, sir, and a pleasant day to thee.”
    The gravedigger, my father, inclines his head. “And to thee, lady.”
    â€œYou … knew my mother, I believe.”
    â€œAye.” He nods again. “Knew her. Loved her.”
    His frankness startles me, but only a moment. I bolster my own courage to ask, “Do you know me?”
    â€œYou are Ophelia.”
    The sound of my name on his lips is a comfort I can not describe! This, I understand, is a most particular piece of eternity we share. His eyes moisten with tears; mine, I am sure, already flow freely, though I am too numb to feel them.
    â€œShall we walk?” he asks, reaching for my arm.
    â€œAye.”
    The gravedigger, my father, leads me up a winding way to the crest of a small rise I remember all too well, though I have not been back to it near on two years now. It is my mother’s grave, and I am not surprised to see how gently it has been tended.

    â€œBlue vervain,” I remark, brushing my fingers o’er the tips of the tall, slender flowers growing there; the candlelike wands bloom from bottom up, tiny bluish blossoms climbing heavenward like flame.
    â€œâ€™Tis said this flower grew on Mount Calvary,” he says, “and ’twas used to dress the wounds of our Saviour.”
    â€œYes,” I tell him, nodding. “I’ve heard that. And these”—I crouch low to examine the brilliant red of a Lobelia cardinalis —“they are cardinal flowers, are they not?”
    He nods, proudly. “Rare, this time of year especially.”
    â€œIndeed they are.” I palm one graceful petal. “I’ve seen some doing poorly along the water’s edge e’en in midsummer. How is it they flourish here and now?”
    â€œI coax the shoots from pots of soil I keep at home, then bring them to this sacred place and commend them to the earth.”
    I sigh. “They will not last, then.”
    â€œThings most rare and beautiful,” he replies, touching the cross that marks my mother’s grave, “are all too often all too brief.”
    â€œOh!” My hand moves to a cluster of weeds. “Eupatorium purpureum,” I cry, delighted.
    â€œFrom the Latin,” he says, standing taller, “meaning ‘of a noble father.’”
    â€œYes, I grow it in my chamber! The weeds are homely but smell sugary when their leaves are crumbled.”
    â€œYour mother, saints rest her, loved the scent, and so I
grow them here.” He bends beside me, plucking a pinkish flower. “They yield quite a cogent physic, you know. A medicinal antidote to most any manner of lethal poison.”
    I blink in surprise. “I did not know.”
    â€œGood to keep such knowledge handy,” says he, adjusting his ragged cap.
    â€œVerily.” There is a pause. “Good sire, how came you to know my mother? Was she married when you met? Or was it when you were both younger? And why, pray tell, if she loved thee, would she bind herself to such an addle-pated knave as Polonius?”
    He chuckles, deep in his throat. “You are a most inquisitive female, you are!”
    â€œBut I would know. I must know!”
    â€œSo you shall.” The gravedigger’s eyes go distant, and his voice is mild, musical. “We met just days after her father promised her to