Folly and Ignorance

He rolled over on his bare mattress and opened his eyes to see Shakespeare sitting on his futon with a bowl of popcorn, watching a movie. He rose up suddenly and rubbed his eyes and all he could manage to say was “Billy? What are you watching?” He shook his head unable to comprehend how he could have just called one of the world’s greatest geniuses of literature, ‘Billy’. But ‘Billy’ didn’t seem to mind, he was laughing at the movie, he slapped his leg and looked over at Sebastian.

“I apologize for waking you,” Shakespeare said.

“Umm…” Sebastian started to stand up, “what’s happening?”

“This play inside this box,” Shakespeare pointed to the TV, “this story reminds me of my play about the shrew, although none of the male actors that played her compared to this beautiful kitten on this screen.”

“It’s a movie actually, for teens but it’s really good, it’s based on the taming of the shrew, it’s called 10…” Sebastian paused, “wait why are we talking about this? You’re Shakespeare, and you’re in my living room.”

“You know this ‘moving’ as you call it is quite humorous, I don’t get all the jokes, but I can pick up most of the new language from context clues, I like this, it’s based on my work you say?” Shakespeare asked.

Sebastian gave up trying to figure it out and sighed, “yea, lots of things are these days.” He went and sat down on the futon and Shakespeare handed him the bowl of popcorn, he started to take a bite, and then he heard a blaring sound. He raised up and it was morning and his alarm was blaring. Tristan rolled over on the futon and looked at him.

“I had the weirdest dream…” Sebastian started.

“Don’t tell me, Shakespeare, again?” Tristan laughed.

Sebastian nodded and stood up, they both started getting dressed enough to go to the showers on their floor.

Tristan slapped his shoulder, “what movie was he watching this time?”

Later, after Sebastian was done teaching his history of Literature class, he stopped by the campus library like he did every day. Of course, he loved to study his favorite playwright, but he also liked talking to the librarian, Miranda. Tristan liked to tease him about this all the time

by insinuating that Sebastian had a crush on her. It was ridiculous and Sebastian couldn't think about it because today he needed to ask her a serious question. It was a few days before summer break, and he wanted to invite her to go with him and Tristan to Holy Trinity Church to visit Shakespeare's grave. They had been planning the trip for months, he supposed it was why he was getting nightly visits from the Bard.

He walked up to the reception desk and Miranda was working on something facing away from him. He cleared his throat to get her attention. She turned and smiled at him.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi," he replied.

"Studying again today?" she asked.

"Well yes but I also need to ask you a question," his voice shook a little and her head tilted in confusion. Her dark hair glistened somehow in the dim library. He put his hand on the counter and saw that it was shaking so he put it back in his pocket. "I told you about the trip Tristan and I are planning right?"

"Only about a million times," she giggled, "why? need me to water your plants?"

"Actually, I was going to offer you an invitation to come with us," he blurted out.

She stood there silent for a moment and bit her bottom lip nervously. He couldn't exhale for what felt like several minutes as he waited for any response.

She smiled finally and said, "well I'll have to see if I can get off work but yes I want to go, of course."

He could finally breathe again, and he almost fainted with relief, "you do?"

"Yes, yeah... I mean you know I love his work, and you are my friend," she said reaching across the counter to touch his arm. The word friend stung a little, but her touch warmed him. The contrasting emotions fought in his heart, causing him a sweet agony.

"Well I hope you can come, I'll pay for everything of course," he said.

"Oh, you don't need to..." she started but he held up his hand in protest. After that, he got the books he wanted and went back to their regular routine. The days flew by in a blur and before he knew it, all three of them were on a train to Stratford upon Avon. It wasn't that far away but they planned to stay for a few days. He wanted them to see everything the city had that could make him feel closer to his greatest influence. Tristan called it his obsession.

They decided to stay in a guest house long before Sebastian had asked Miranda to come with them and he wasn’t sure what to do about it. They had only booked one room with two beds. Miranda smirked at him as she walked into their small room and saw the situation.

“You boys are gonna have to double up,” she said.

Tristan started shaking his head ‘no’ but Sebastian gave him a look and he stopped and sighed.

“Let’s go get some dinner, I’m starving,” she said. After they ate at the Stratford Limes, they explored every inch of the city they could in the few hours before bed.

As Sebastian lay there in bed next to Tristan, wishing he was in the other one with Miranda, he tried to make himself fall asleep. Nothing worked and Tristan had started snoring loudly. Eventually, he gave up trying and stood up, he walked over to the window and saw that Miranda was now sitting up in bed and staring at him.

“Couldn’t sleep?” she asked.

“With a chainsaw? No,” he chuckled, she giggled a little and got out of bed.

“What are you thinking about? I mean it’s not really just him is it?” she asked.

She was right, his heart warmed thinking about how well she read him, “just excited I guess.”

“What are you most excited for?” she smiled at him and his heart fluttered.

“His grave,” he paused to gauge her reaction, she raised an eyebrow but didn’t look disgusted, so he continued, “I know it sounds dark, but I lost my parents at a young age… I didn’t have many friends so I would go visit their graves and talk to them, I find it hard to talk to most people you know, one-on-one, so I feel comfortable bonding with stones, that probably sounds…”

“No,” she stopped him and put her hand on his arm, “I’m just a little surprised, I’ve stepped in on some of your lectures, I wouldn’t have guessed you had social anxiety.”

He blushed and she grinned back at him, batting her long dark lashes. He sighed and she moved closer to him, he closed his eyes and prepared to lean in for a kiss but suddenly the room light came on. He opened his eyes and Tristan was standing beside them, smiling.

“What’s going on?” Tristan asked.

Miranda crossed her arms annoyed but grinned a little at Sebastian, “we were discussing going out tonight, wanna come?”

Less than an hour later they were outside the Holy Trinity Church shivering even though it was almost summer.

“I’m not sure about this,” Sebastian said.

“Come on, where is your sense of adventure?” Miranda teased before walking toward the building.

Tristan leaned over and whispered, “here’s your chance man, impress her.” Sebastian rolled his eyes but started toward her with Tristan bouncing along behind him.

Somehow no one saw them as they went into the unlocked building, Sebastian wondered if he might be dreaming. They made their way to the tomb of Shakespeare, on it were the words Sebastian knew by heart, like all the rest of the words of the Author.

He read them aloud, “Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear, to dig the dust enclosed here. Blessed be the man that spares these stones and cursed be he that moves my bones.”

“Creepy,” Tristan whispered. Sebastian ignored him and knelt down, touching the etched words.

“It’s a little cold,” Miranda said, rubbing her arms nervously.

“I’ll just be a minute,” Sebastian said, an urge came over him and he had to see more. He started to move the stone lid.

“Sebastian!” Miranda whispered loudly.

“What are you doing man?” Tristan asked. Sebastian ignored them and moved it just enough to start digging. They started shouting protests, but he continued ignoring them. He lifted a skeletal hand in front of him and admired it in a daze. Once it was done his senses came back to him and he started to shake his head, “what have I done?”

The earth started to tremble and Tristan crouched beside him holding his shoulders. A big candle holder started to waiver and seemed to fall in slow motion. It fell right toward Miranda and Sebastian leapt to move her, they both fell out of the way in time but she had hit her head on the slab of the stone tomb. She was knocked unconscious, Sebastian sobbed and looked around for help. Curiously no one was around besides the three of them. A dense fog started to fill the room and Sebastian stood and grabbed Tristan’s arm. Tristan wouldn’t move, he just stared into the fog. He was frozen in place except for raising his arm to point at a dark figure moving in the fog. It moved toward them slowly until it finally came into view.

“Dad?” Sebastian choked out.

“How is your dad here? Isn’t he…?”

“Dead,” Sebastian finished for Tristan.

The ghastly and ghostly figure moved closer, and stared at them, past them for a moment. Miranda was still knocked out, laying on the ground. Sebastian was worried about her but a part of him envied the fact that she wasn’t awake for this. There was something more to the figure than the ghost of movies and fiction. Like he carried with him the whole of the afterlife as if he could suck them into it with him.

“You see an image of your father in me,” the figure spoke, the sound of his voice was maddeningly frightening. Hollow and echoing, booming and soft all at once. Sebastian and Tristan held each other trembling and neither could speak. The voice continued and Sebastian realized he could hear it coming from the figure yet its mouth didn’t move, “you disturbed the bones that laith here, your misfortunate end doth draweth near. The ten tales of woe you must see, one scene of each, one night each for thee…”

“What do you mean?” Sebastian’s desire to understand overpowered his fear.

“Tonight, the part of hamlet you play, tomorrow night you take the stage of who? I can’t say,” the figure said.

“Put the bones back man,” Tristan finally got the nerve to say, the figure looked at him and he fell backward on his back trying to walk backward away from it.

“I’ll put them back, see,” Sebastian said, placing the skeletal hand back in the tomb and closing it. The clouds started rolling away and the figure started moving away, back into the shadows of the church. Sebastian let out a sigh of relief and it made him feel faint enough to drop to one knee. He bowed his head and started crying into his hand. Miranda stirred and Sebastian and Tristan ran to her and helped her outside, they couldn’t bring themselves to tell her what they saw. She refused to go to a hospital because they had broken into the church. The next morning, she was fine and none of them talked much and Sebastian told them they should go home. Both just nodded in agreement, no one wanted to discuss the weird things they’d seen. It was almost as though they could tell themselves they had imagined it so long as they didn’t confirm each other’s stories. They got back to campus and it was nearly abandoned for the summer. Miranda would stay at the library for the summer working because she always did for the summer stragglers. This included Sebastian who lived on campus and didn’t have anyone to leave for, no family or friends outside of Tristan and Miranda, who were here. Tristan could have gone home but he felt too bad for Sebastian to leave him alone.

Sebastian and Tristan went to the English lecture hall to pack up for the summer, Tristan was a dedicated assistant professor even though he was the youngest one on campus. Sebastian appreciated him even though he could sometimes be annoying. He sang punk rock songs as they cleaned. That must’ve been the thing that drew dean Duncan to the room, like a ‘please yell at us’ siren song. He yelled at them to quiet down and insulted Sebastian for his lack of a place to be in the summer. Miranda came in and heard the interaction and joined in defending Sebastian. The argument died down and the dean asked Miranda to speak to him in private in the library. She reluctantly agreed and gave Sebastian a sly smile as she followed the pompous man out of the room. They were nearly finished cleaning when Tristan let out a gasp.

“Ow, I pricked my thumb,” Tristan said.

Sebastian stopped in his tracks, “what did you say?” He didn’t know why but he started to feel pressure in his chest like something bad was about to happen.

“Oh, I know, I know, something wicked right?” Tristan chuckled. Sebastian stared at him but through him as he saw a black cauldron in the corner of the room and heard a faint cackling. He blinked and the image disappeared. He shook it off and they headed back to their dorm. As they walked by the library they heard a scream. They both took off running into the library and stopped dead in their tracks when they saw her. Miranda stood over Dean Duncan with blood on her hands, she was shaking uncontrollably. Sebastian ran to her and embraced her.

“What happened?” he asked. She just shook her head violently. He looked at Tristan who stood there staring in horror at the bloody mess on the floor.

“Miranda, calm down okay, I need you to tell me what happened,” Sebastian took her shoulders and turned her toward him, forcing her to look into his eyes. Her expression softened a little and she gulped.

“I-I came in behind him and he was just… he just… and then he just… exploded, he just blood came out and he fell over,” she said.

Sebastian looked over at Tristan who ran both hands through his blonde hair, he looked up and shook his head in disbelief, “it’s the curse.”

“Now wait,” Sebastian started.

“Curse? What? What curse?” Miranda asked. Sebastian sighed and gave Tristan an exasperated look.

“It’s gotta be and she should know since apparently, she’s part of it,” Tristan said, Sebastian knew he was right. He walked her to a different part of the library away from the body and they explained what happened while she was unconscious.

“Ten tales of woe you must see, one scene of each, one night each for thee…” Miranda repeated the words Sebastian told her the ghost said.

“Yes, but what does that mean?” Tristan asked.

“Ten… Shakespeare has ten basic tragedies,” Sebastian said.

“Tales of Woe,” Miranda pointed at him.

“Exactly,” Sebastian nodded excitedly, “and the rest, ‘one scene of each’… meaning one scene from each play, ‘one night each’… one scene a night for ten nights.” He clapped his hands and laughed.

“Umm that’s not something to cheer over, that sucks,” Tristan said.

“But now we know when it ends,” Miranda said.

“But not how it ends, tragedies usually involve death and well…” Tristan motioned to where the Dean lay bleeding.

“It’s still progress on figuring it out,” Sebastian said, “now I put the hand back, but for some reason, it didn’t break the curse, but why?”

“Well we have eight more days to figure it out,” Tristan said.

Miranda spent the rest of the night rewashing her hands ala lady Macbeth, while the other two worked to clean the library and hide the body. They had to keep it somewhere safe in case Dean Duncan came back to life when the curse was over. After that night they read and studied all they could to try and figure out a way to break the curse while also battling fictional scenes. They mostly stayed in the library, even to sleep, school was out and no one came by and Miranda didn’t want to go home and be alone. Seven nights later and one day left, they had all made it through relatively okay.

“Tomorrow is the last night,” Tristan said once they had finished watching Titus bake.

“I’ve got it!” Sebastian shouted making the other two jump, “the curse doesn’t say ‘whoever steals my bones’ it says ‘moves my bones’, if I go back and lay them exactly where they were, maybe that will break the curse.”

“I don’t know, it’s a long shot and we only have one-night left,” Tristan said.

“But it’s worth it because we don’t know which scene is left, we’ve been lucky so far to not be killed but we have been everything but, if this might save one or all of us, I have to try it,” Sebastian said, he got up and started putting on his jacket.

“What you’re leaving now?” Miranda asked.

“Yes, and I’m going alone, you two stay here and hunker down, I’ll be back my sunset tomorrow at the latest, before anything happens,” Sebastian said.

He rushed back to Stratford and thought about the past few days while he was on the train. He knew there was only one left and he just hoped the scene from that play wouldn’t be the one he thought it was. He rushed back to the church and it was around five in the morning and not a single person stopped him. It was almost as if Shakespeare’s ghost had wanted this, he hadn’t had a single dream about him since this started. He moved the hand back exactly as it was before he’d touched it. His anxiety fought with his body's desire to sleep all the way back on the train. He dosed on and off all the way there.

As he made his way briskly up the sidewalk, Tristan came running out and Sebastian’s heart jumped into his throat. He knew something was wrong.

“She just passed out, I don’t even think she’s breathing,” Tristan nearly shouted. Sebastian said not a word as he took off running past him and into the library. He slid baseball-style the last few feet to Miranda’s body. He felt for a pulse but felt nothing.

“Is she?” Tristan asked.

“It seems that way, but I don’t think so,” Sebastian said.

“Should we take her to a hospital?” Tristan asked.

“Yes, we need to rule anything else out,” Sebastian said. They declared her dead at the hospital and took her to the morgue. Sebastian didn’t buy it.

“We need to sneak her body out,” he said.

“What? Man, you heard the doctor,” Tristan cried. Tears streamed down his cheeks, Sebastian hadn’t shed a tear.

“Please just help me get her out of here,” Sebastian pleaded. They snuck downstairs and waited until no one was around. Sebastian went in alone and carried her like a baby out of the morgue and to the stairwell, the elevator was too much of a risk.

Sebastian was a small frail man, but he walked up a flight of stairs and ran to Tristan’s car carrying her by himself the whole time. Tristan drove well above the speed limit back to the library. They took her in, and Sebastian laid her on the floor, almost in the same spot Dean Duncan had been.

“Well the hospital was no help, maybe you can kiss her and wake her with true love's kiss,” Tristan said.

“I-I… I would love to, but I don’t think that will help, help me move her somewhere more comfortable,” Sebastian said. They carried her upstairs and laid her out on the couch she’d been sleeping on the past week.

“I thought I fixed it,” Sebastian said.

“Maybe this is something else,” Tristan said, “maybe she really is…”

“No!” Sebastian shouted, “it’s the curse, I know she’s…” A crash stopped him, the room went black. He looked out the window and realized the sun had set. Thunder rolled and lightning lit up the room, then the room lit up again with what seemed like hundreds of twinkling lights. Candles that had never been there littered the room, the couch where Miranda lay now was a platform, with a soft mattress atop it. She lay there holding a bouquet of roses. A figure came from the shadows. A man in priest’s attire, they were both used to this and they waited for the announcement of the play of the night.

The figure spoke, “the tenth and final night of the tales of woe, tonight you play the part of…”

“Romeo,” Sebastian interrupted, then shook his head, “I fixed it.”

“It’s too late,” a voice came from behind him, he turned and saw Shakespeare standing there.

“What?” Sebastian breathed.

Shakespeare walked over to him and handed him a sword, “she won’t wake until you finish the scene.”

Sebastian took the sword as Tristan fought to stop him, “we don’t know that it will work or that you will come back.”

Sebastian shouted, “then let me die, but don’t let her sacrifice herself for me, as long as she is awake the curse doesn’t matter.” He didn’t wait for Tristan’s response as he climbed up next to her and drove the sword through himself. She rose up just as he laid down, “No!” she shouted. He smiled at her, “it worked.” She sobbed and bent down to kiss him.

“Thus with a kiss… I die,” he breathed, and his eyes closed.

“He loved me,” she sobbed, “the curse,” she looked around wildly, “I can fix it.”

“Miranda no!” Tristan grabbed her arm, “he didn’t want you to.”

“He’s a stubborn ass,” she said.

“It might not work and you’ll both be dead,” he shouted.

She looked up at Shakespeare, “will it work?”

“The show must go on,” he said.

“He’s crazy, look what he put on us all,” Tristan shouted.

“I don’t want to live without him,” Miranda sobbed taking the sword out of Sebastian. Tristan wrestled with her, but it was no use, she had the power of the curse on her side. She drove it through and coughed, then slowly laid down by Sebastian. Her eyes closed and the ghosts faded away. The curse was broken, and Miranda and Sebastian lay hand in hand.

“You idiots!” Tristan sobbed, going to his knees.

‘the story ends with sacrifice, for lovers cause to end their life, to end the curse the two must die, but with its end, an open eye.’