Shaken Shakespeare | RTC2023

After She Awoke

Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.
A Midsummer Night's Dream

Dawn had half-broken, and the forest was dimly bathed in the still-stirring morning light. The leaves on the trees were dewy, and the forest floor patterned with a tapestry of scattered shadows. In their dens and burrows below the ground, nocturnal animals settled down into a slumber, while in the trees far above them the birds began to wake, their songs as yet unheard as the world held its breath.

The quiet stillness of the morning was interrupted by the arrival of a young woman, who tore through the trees with ragged breath and seemingly little respect for the ways of the woods. From her appearance, however, one would have almost been forgiven for thinking that she belonged here in the wilderness. Certainly she looked half-wild, with her matted hair, her bare legs and feet, and the fine scratches that the thickets had left on her skin as she ran through them. Even her face was painted like that of a savage, with red smears around her lips and dark marks that ran down her cheeks in thin lines from her eyes.

The woman ran like frightened prey, panicked and casting glances over her shoulder as she made her way through the forest. She stopped when she reached the stream that flowed through the woods, its clear waters reflecting the green hues of the trees that lined its banks. The woman shivered in her brief moment of pause, before wading into the stream, the material of her short dress billowing in the water around her.

There, with fresh tears running down her face, the woman began to wash. Her hands cupped as she brought the river water to her skin, and flattened as she began to rub her limbs with her palms, gently at first, then firmly, almost aggressively. By the time her fingernails almost scratched at her own skin, it was obvious to anyone watching that this woman didn't feel as if she would ever be clean again.

And someone was watching.

A second woman stood on the opposite river bank, too tall and too beautiful to be human. She was clad in a long green gown that shimmered in the morning half-light, and a dainty gold crown adorned her head. Her face, a passive mask, gave no clues to her age. She could have been as young as the woman bathing in the stream, or she might have been as old as the forest itself.

"Who are you?" she asked in a voice so imperious that the branches of the nearby trees swayed in time with each word she spoke. "How did you come to be in my forest?"

There was the slightest inflection placed on the word 'my', and one eyebrow quirked upwards. In the stream, the other woman — the one who was but a mere human — had stopped attempting to clean herself, and was shrinking back from the newcomer. She stammered a few incoherent words that did nothing to appease the forest queen.

"Why have you come here?" the queen asked again.

The young woman before her opened and closed her mouth without making a sound. Her cheeks turned pink, then white, and she lowered her tear-filled eyes to her feet, visible through the clear water of the stream.

The forest queen softened. "Come here, child," she said, more gently this time, and the other woman did as she instructed, wading through the water and out of it, her dress clinging to her wet skin.

Once the two women were standing face to face, the forest queen looked the human in the eye. She did not look away until after she had used both thumbs to wipe tears from the young woman's face. Running her now damp thumbs across her fingertips, the forest queen raised her face skywards and breathed deeply.

Memories of the previous night flashed in the mind of the woman whose tears the queen had taken. The party, the music, the drinks, the darkness. She remembered little after the darkness set in, but there were still fragments, enough for her to piece together what had happened to her. A voice, a face hovering above hers, the fear that froze her body, the pain that seared up through her core.

The forest queen looked back at her with understanding eyes. She had seen. She knew.

"Walk with me."

She had one hand extended to the young woman, who took it without knowing why she felt compelled to do so. She walked at the queen's side, almost stumbling as she sped up in order to keep up with her. The forest queen did not stumble once. She appeared to glide rather than walk.

Eventually, the pair came to a clearing in the trees. Lush grass cushioned the young woman's bare soles, and the smell of thyme and musky roses wafted through the air. The forest queen sat her down on a knoll where the grass grew thickest and a canopy of honeysuckle sheltered her from the still-rising sun.

"I am going to tell you a story," said the queen. "Once, I took a changeling into my care to raise and love as I would my own child. My husband grew jealous, and over time, vengeful. It was here, in this very spot, that he took his revenge. Do you know what he did?"

The young woman shook her head, though she was almost certain that she could guess.

"He used a magical flower to enchant my eyes and my heart," the forest queen told her. "And so, for a short time, I believed myself to be in love with a hideous beast; half-man, half-ass. When the enchantment was removed, I at first thought that I had been dreaming, but then I saw the creature...

"When I first realised the truth of what had come to pass, I was angry. I felt betrayed, not only by my husband, but by myself. My eyes had thought this monster a beauty, my heart had been softened by him. I was ashamed of myself, and felt distanced from myself as well. Do you understand?"

In response, the young woman nodded her head. She understood completely.

"In time, however, I came to grow wise. And as I grew wise, I healed the rift within myself. I came to trust myself again. My eyes are still my own eyes, my heart is my heart, my body and my soul are one and both wholly my own. My power had not diminished, and nor would it be." The forest queen touched the young woman's face once more. "You are tired. You must sleep."

Against her own will, the young woman yawned. She had not realised how exhausted she felt until that moment. She lay down with her head on her grassy pillow, and a blanket of flowers came to rest over her body. In a slow and level voice that seemed to lull her closer to her sleep, the forest queen told her:

"Sleep here, and I shall see that no harm comes to you. After you awake, you will return to from whence you came, rested and angry, and one step closer to being healed. One day, you too shall grow wise. You may still be angry, but you will be whole and your own self. And you shall find that your power is not diminished."

The young woman, almost at the point of slumber, spoke for the first time.

"I don't have any power," she told the queen in a voice thick with fatigue. "I'm not... whatever you are. I'm a person. I'm just me."

She could almost hear the smile in the forest queen's voice as she ran her fingers through her hair and replied:

"My dear child, that is all the power you will ever need."