EPILOGUE
(Enter LADY, walking down a long, dark corridor. She’s dressed as she was when they left, for travelling)
LADY Hello?
(Echo of her voice.)
Is someone here?
(Echo.)
Can anyone hear me?
(The MOTHER, MAIDEN, and CRONE are illuminated from the darkness)
CRONE It’s been a long time since you needed to be heard girl.
LADY You.
CRONE And you.
LADY How are you here?
CRONE You’re dreaming again.
LADY Not this time.
MOTHER Clever girl.
LADY I know you.
MOTHER Thumbelina.
LADY How did I get here?
MAIDEN You changed paths, but you never stopped walking.
LADY Am I...
(Offstage: Your majesty?)
MOTHER Too soon for that.
(Sounds of fighting/war offstage. A familiar voice: my dearest love.)
LADY My… husband.
MAIDEN He can’t help you now.
LADY But he needs my help.
MOTHER What’s done is done.
(The end of the corridor.)
LADY Is this it? When shall we three meet again?
(Mother, Maiden, and Crone laugh.)
CRONE We three shall meet.
MOTHER Battles lost, and won, and lost, and won, and lost and won.
MAIDEN We will return, constant as the rising sun.
CRONE A rising sun. Not the rising sun. This star will cease rising, some day. But some other star will burn bright, somewhere.
MAIDEN And we will wait, patient.
MOTHER Till there are no more battles to be lost and won.
CRONE And we will meet once more, and be done.
MOTHER But that’s not your story, love.
They disappear. Lady reaches a mirror)
LADY Hello?
QUEEN (echoed) Lo? Lo? Lo?
LADY Who are you?
QUEEN (echoed) You? You? You?
LADY Are you me?
QUEEN You Me.
(Silence)
LADY Just us now?
QUEEN Just you, and me.
LADY You don’t look well.
QUEEN I’ve not been sleeping.
LADY What ails you?
QUEEN Can’t you smell it?
LADY Smell what?
(Lady M offers her her hand. Lady breathes deeply.)
Like earth. Like what was here before, and what will be here after.
QUEEN Did I say that, once?
(She rubs her hands.)
Do I frighten you?
LADY Are you a witch?
QUEEN Been called worse.
LADY Then no.
QUEEN I know you.
LADY And I know you, though you don’t feel like an inevitability.
QUEEN What do I feel like?
LADY A reflection.
QUEEN Through a glass, darkly.
LADY You don’t look like me.
QUEEN And you don’t look like me. But yesterday I looked a little more like you, and tomorrow you’ll look a little more like me. And everyday between you and me.
LADY Tomorrow…
QUEEN And tomorrow. Ask me.
LADY Ask you what?
QUEEN Have I done terrible things.
LADY Did you?
QUEEN Yes. Have you?
LADY Yes. I/
QUEEN /I know. I was there.
LADY Right. Why ask me, then?
QUEEN Because you need to get used to saying it. Telling the story. There was a woman with no name, only her title and the name of her husband, a name so steeped in blood that they dare not utter it in the halls where stories are told.
LADY There was a girl with no name. But she took her husband’s name and with it she stitched herself into his story.
QUEEN There was a woman with no name who took for herself the highest name they dare bestow a woman.
LADY Queen.
QUEEN For they couldn’t call her King.
LADY Still, only Queen?
QUEEN What, not good enough for you?
LADY It’s still too soon, then. For a woman to be King?
(She looks back.)
QUEEN The witch can’t help you.
LADY Can’t help me what?
QUEEN With time. We are all waiting for time to catch up.
(She rubs her hands.)
Any further questions?
LADY No. Leave all the rest to me.
QUEEN It ends badly. In blood, and death, and ruin. You’ll wring your hands with a life of remorse but they will never be clean.
LADY Show me. Your hands.
(Lady M presents her hands. Lady turns them over, practically.)
There’s nothing here. Not the smell of blood, no damned spot. I’ve seen blood, I’ve seen stains and filth, and ruin. But I want it, still. I want what you’ve had.
QUEEN You are so young.
LADY Yes. I am.
QUEEN I only want to save you the mistakes I made.
LADY I want them, I want the mistakes. I want the triumphs, the falls, the struggles and the victories. Let me have them.
QUEEN To bed, to bed, to bed.
LADY And what dreams may come.
QUEEN This isn’t a dream. Can you believe that fucking doctor had the gall to ask “will she go now to bed?” Idiot.
(They share a laugh. The SOLDIER enters.)
SOLDIER Love? My father has asked for you, he’s desperate to meet my new wife. Can’t believe I can say it: my wife.
QUEEN (of the soldier) He doesn’t see me.
(Lady M tries to go to the Soldier. Lady stops her.)
LADY No. He’s mine.
QUEEN But he was mine.
LADY Yes. But he's mine, now. (To Soldier) Tell him I have a story for him. I’ll be there soon.
(He goes.)
QUEEN He’s so…
LADY Young?
QUEEN Gentle. He was gentle, once. Farewell, my Lady.
LADY I’ll see you again soon.
(Her reflection goes. Lady examines herself in the mirror.)
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.
End of Play.