They moved so fast that Gertrude didn’t even have time to hoist herself into the back of the ambulance. One of the royal guards grabbed her by the arm and, at a near run, guided her into a black town car with tinted windows. The cavalcade sped off toward the hospital.
“Papa Don’t Preach” blared from my phone. I usually found the ringtone funny, but not just then. My father, usually a man of many words, simply instructed, “Stay in our apartment. Do not leave until you hear from me again. And do not call Hamlet.” He hung up before I had time to argue or question.
I pressed my lips together and told myself to breathe. The king would be okay. He had to be. He was young and healthy. But what could have—
A new set of engines rumbled outside, and heavy sliding doors opened and closed. I was all too familiar with the sounds of various news vans pulling up in front of the castle for special events and scandals alike. I flipped on the TV and moved back to the balcony feeling as if I were walking through molasses. I leaned over the railing and then decided to sit. Then I jumped back up and ran inside. There was nothing new on TV, so I went back out and leaned over the balcony again, and then dropped onto a patio chair. I started shivering and chewed on my nails while I wondered if Hamlet knew what was happening, wondering if his father was going to be all right, wondering what we would all do if he wasn’t. I wanted to be with Hamlet. To reassure him. To have him reassure me.
I was about to defy my father and call Hamlet when the soap opera that had been on was interrupted by a Special Bulletin logo and thumping music. I raced back inside as a camera zoomed in to a chiseled blond who began to speak, her voice shaky. Something about her expression made my breath short and kept me from focusing on her words. Unexpectedly, she broke down and cried, so the camera cut to an equally chiseled man. His face crinkled as he said, “This just in. Our king… is dead.”
I breathed out slowly and sank onto the couch without realizing it. Tears filled my eyes, but my arms could not move to wipe them as they slid down my cheeks. It couldn’t be. The man who had made me laugh at my fifth birthday party by pretending he’d stolen my nose could not be dead. The man who had told me not to worry when I was starting a new middle school could not be dead. The man who had put his arm around my shoulder and led me gently to my mother’s graveside could not be dead. It could not be that man. It could not be Hamlet’s father they were talking about. No. Not Hamlet’s father. Hamlet.
Oh God
, I thought. I stood back up quickly, focusing my thoughts with all my strength. I grabbed for my phone and typed: “find hamlet.” My thumb hovered over the Send button momentarily before I punched it.
I gripped my phone hard and stared at it, waiting for a reply. Helicopters were circling the castle by that point and, from the sound of it, they were over the hospital as well.
“Answer, damn it,” I muttered. I tapped my feet to try to keep my legs from shaking. I opened and shut my phone as if that would make something happen.
My phone
bing
ed and I jumped. A text message:
Keren: What’s going on?
Another
bing
.
Justine: King dead?
And another.
Lauren: OMG
And another.
Sebastian: U ok?
I couldn’t deal with my friends’ questions, so I hit Ignore over and over and paced.
My phone rang and when I saw Horatio’s name I flipped it open so fast, I almost dropped it. “You got my message?”
“Yeah. How did this happen?” Horatio was shouting. He sounded like he was running.
“I don’t know. Are you with Hamlet?”
“No, the royal guards grabbed him out of class. He’s on the helicopter already.”
“Is he okay?”
“I don’t know. I can’t believe this.”
“Me eith—” I fought away tears so I could ask, “Where are you?”
“Running to one of the cars. Officer VanDerwater said I could ride along if I hurried. Ophelia, try to meet him at the hospital.”
“I don’t know if they’ll let me in.”
“Oh please,” he said skeptically.
“I’ll try. Let me know if you hear anything.”
“Same. Later.” He hung up.
I ran for my room and grabbed my bag and keys. Stopping to turn off the television, I noticed that the streets were blocked all around the hospital and the castle. No point in getting my car or even a driver.
I pushed the elevator button. The first time it stopped, it was packed with very angry-looking faces. “No room!” someone shouted before pushing the Door Close button. The next time, it was equally crowded, but at the front stood Marcellus, who was Hamlet’s bodyguard everywhere but Wittenberg, as he was too old to blend in at college. He reached around the people in front of him and pulled me in. Everyone jostled impatiently to make space.
After being shoved into its midst by the crowd behind me, I stood in the lobby slightly disoriented by the sheer volume of people. The common area was full of workers who made the castle run but who suddenly had nowhere else to be. Some were crying; some were talking on cell phones; some were staring blankly at the flat-screen TVs.
“Come with me,” offered Marcellus. “We’ll have to run, but I can get you into the hospital.”
“Thanks,” I squeaked out through my clenched throat, checking to be sure I still had my phone in my pocket. I wanted to text Hamlet, but I resisted the urge to do so.
Marcellus’s uniform caused everyone lingering in the castle lobby to move out of his way, and we were out in the air sooner than I could have hoped. I was in shape, but he ran five miles a day and it showed. As he sprinted down the street, I struggled to keep pace with him.
“Have you heard anything?” I asked, trying not to sound too winded, afraid he’d slow down or, worse, leave me behind.
“Maybe a heart attack. Maybe a stroke. Sudden was all we heard.”
He grabbed my arm and tugged me in the opposite direction of the cameras, down three blocks, and around to the back entrance of the hospital. A guard waved us inside and we ran for the elevator.
The hospital had an eerie stillness about it. Everyone was standing around various televisions watching the latest emergency report. Nothing had changed since this had all begun, and yet the people acted as if staring would alter the outcome or make something happen. Running had kept my mind free, but once we stopped, thoughts of the king tugged at me. Images of his kind face rushed through my head, and his laugh seemed to echo in the silence. I pressed my fingers to my eyes to keep the tears in.
Marcellus and I got into the elevator, which was antiseptic and cold. The only sound was our panting as we tried to catch our breath. I felt sweat trickling down the small of my back, so I dried it with my shirt. A gentle
ping
announced our arrival at the tenth floor, the one reserved for the king and his family, whatever the cause.
As we emerged, a door opened midway down the hall, and I spotted corn-silk hair bobbing between the black trench coats. “Hamlet!” I called, but he couldn’t hear. The group was headed away from me, and I knew I had to do something since, once he found Gertrude, it would be ages before he and I could speak. I needed to know he was okay.
“Marcellus, where are they—Can you—?”
Marcellus lifted his wrist and spoke into a tiny microphone hidden under the cuff of his shirt.
The flock of guards halted and I heard, “Phee?”
“She’s here,” called out Marcellus, and I put my hand up.
Hamlet rushed around his detail and flew at me. I was relieved to finally talk to him, to touch him.
His cheeks were as cold as his hands. He started to break down but wiped his face hard, looking at the doctors and nurses who had stopped to stare. “Come on,” he said, grabbing my hand and yanking me into the circle of guards who had followed. “Privacy, damn it. We need a place that’s empty!” His voice was shrill. Two guards fanned out and began opening doors. When one signaled, Hamlet dragged me along with him.
I was suddenly fearful that when we were alone, I would have nothing to say. What words would make him feel better? None. I knew from experience that talk meant nothing at a time like this. But I could hold him. And I could listen.
He nodded almost imperceptibly at the guard, who nodded back and shut the door behind us. Hamlet’s angular face was pinched and red, his eyes unfocused. “Hamlet,” I said softly, and put my arms around him. My chest ached with sympathy and my own loss. I couldn’t help but mix this moment in with the day my mother died, and thinking of how much he had helped me that day, I determined to push aside my own feelings so I could help him.
He sank into my embrace and wept openly. I could hardly hold him as his body shook and heaved.
“My father, my father,” he rasped over and over. My shirt was soaked with his tears, but I held him still, stroking his smooth hair and kissing it every so often. He broke from my arms and put his hands on his knees, gasping like when he was cooling down from a run. When he finally stood up and tucked his hair behind his ears, every bit of his face was wrinkled and distorted. “I have to go back out there. Damn it.” He walked to the sink, splashed water on his face, and pulled the paper towels with a sharp
tch-tch
. He dried his face, furiously crumpled the paper towels, and let the flap on the trash can close loudly. Every sound was exaggerated. I just wanted to be somewhere quiet and familiar.
“Come on,” he said, and he opened the door.
Guards surrounded us as soon as we stepped into the hall, and we all began walking toward a set of double doors. Knowing there might be a dead body on the other side forced acid into my throat. I squeezed Hamlet’s hand. He misinterpreted it as checking in because he whispered, “I’m okay.”
We all came to an abrupt halt. Too short to see around the guards in identical black trench coats, I could only hear Claudius’s voice. “Leave Ophelia out here,” he commanded.
“But Uncle Clau—” began Hamlet. His request was cut off when Marcellus stepped between us, and the rest of the huddle moved forward through the double doors. Hamlet’s fingers slipped from mine and I stood on my toes, hoping to catch at least a glimpse of him. I couldn’t.
“Marcellus, this is ridiculous. He wants me with him,” I argued.
“But Claudius doesn’t.”
“Why does he get—”
“Go home, Ophelia. Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
I left to find Horatio and tried not to think about hating Claudius, feeling bad for Hamlet, or how much I was going to miss the king.
Francisco:
(clears throat)
Why did you text Horatio “find hamlet”? Was it so he could kill him, too?
Ophelia:
Of course not. They were best friends.
Barnardo:
We think it was a code. We think Horatio was in cahoots with you.
Ophelia:
Cahoots?
Who even uses that word?
Francisco:
Answer the question. Did you and Horatio plan to murder the king and then get to Hamlet?
Ophelia:
That’s ridiculous. It was a text to—
Barnardo:
You two exchanged a lot of messages.
Ophelia:
Yeah, we’re friends.
Francisco:
Maybe we should bring him in.
Ophelia:
No, please. He had nothing to do with this.
Barnardo:
Unlike you?
Ophelia:
No. I didn’t either. God!
“What a shocking day for us all,” Zara says solemnly. A mother in the audience puts her arm around her young daughter. “That day you sent a message to Horatio but not Hamlet. Why is that?”
“My father told me not to communicate with Hamlet.”
“Did you always listen to your father?”
Ophelia looks down and blinks rapidly. “No. But I should have.”
Zara pats Ophelia’s leg.
Ophelia twists the bottom of her sweater between her fingers. “Each decision that day seemed really important, but I didn’t know what to do, how to make things right.”
Zara nods hard in agreement. “We were scheduled to tape a show that day on dog makeovers. It just didn’t seem right to carry on, but the puppies were ready, the stylists were all set with their specially designed outfits, and the runway had been built to scale. Hard to know what to do on a day like that. I think that day we were all feeling it.”
Ophelia blinks a few times, her lips pressed together. Then she says, “So you know then.”
* * *
“You look dashing, Dad,” I said, pulling at my father’s tie.
“I’m not supposed to look dashing. I’m supposed to look mournful. A man who does not know his place is a man who loses it.”
I cocked my head and answered, “Then you are a man who, despite himself, looks great, but in the most respectful, unpresumptuous way.”
He pinched my cheek. “Ready?” he asked, putting out his arm.
“Yeah. I told Hamlet I’d meet him upstairs.”
He clucked quietly.
“What?” I asked impatiently.
“He should be with his family.”
“Dad, he’s been trapped with his family for the past few days. He told me he can’t stand it anymore and just wants to be with me.”