Read an excerpt from Lady Macbeth by Ava Reid

We are delighted to share an excerpt from Lady Macbetha novel by Ava Reid reimagining Shakespeare Macbeth—released by Del Rey on August 13th^th.

The Lady knows the stories: how her eyes induce madness in men.

The Lady knows she will marry the Scottish brute, who does not abandon his warlike ways when he presents himself in the marital bed.

The Lady knows that her hostile and distrustful court will be a game of strategy, requiring all her cunning and hidden sorcery to survive.

But the Lady does not know that her husband has occult secrets of his own. She does not know that the prophecy girdles him like armor. She does not know that his magic is greater and more dangerous, and that it will threaten the order of the world.

She doesn’t know it yet. But she will.

He stands up silently and motions for her to follow him. Roscille keeps her eyes fixed on the ground, but every now and then she looks up and steals a glance at him, her husband. A scar lacerates her throat, white and rigid, like a worm in an apple. It is not a clumsy blow. It can be nothing other than death, pushed back.

He leads her down another narrow hallway, in the opposite direction from her room, and then up a crumbling staircase to an even narrower hallway. The sound of the sea rises, as does that of their footsteps, as if the ground were becoming thinner and thinner. At the end of this hallway is a door. Its iron gate is rusty.

“A husband and wife should have no secrets from each other,” said Macbeth. “And they should keep their secrets from each other.”

Before Roscille can think of an answer, he pulls a key from a leather strap around his neck. He inserts it into the lock. The sea roars toward them, then grows oddly silent. Wood scrapes against stone as he pushes the door open.

Beyond the door, darkness spreads in all directions. It is not the barbaric darkness she saw when she arrived in Glammis, the desolate edge of civilization. It is an unearthly darkness, such as would confound the Pope himself. The air blowing toward them is damp and cold, and though the light slips through the threshold behind them, it stops very suddenly, the darkness a wall she cannot cross.

Macbeth steps forward and hears a splashing sound. Water, he has stepped into water. Roscille blinks, blinks, but staring into the unchanging black brings tears of joy to her eyes, as if she were asleep. Is she supposed to follow him? The air has a terrible weight, like the pressure in the deepest chasm of the ocean.

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And then: the light. A solitary torch, vaporous and indistinct, lights up in the center of his field of vision. The reflection of the flame runs along the dark water, in intelligent beams and quick flashes. The water has the iridescent sheen of a snake.

Her husband stands in the center of the room, which is actually a cave, its walls formed by rock formations that form strange angles. He is as silent and still as the rock itself.

The current trembles around him. Three different currents, all converging, sucking the hem of his tartan. Three women stand in the water at a distance, their backs hunched with age, their hair shaggy and silver, each holding a soaked garment in her hands. Each woman slaps the water with her rag, then wrings it out, then dampens it again. Submerges, lifts, submerges, forming her own tight, roaring whirlpool.

Roscille stumbles backwards and falls against the mold-covered wall. She lets out a cry of fear, of disbelief, that her husband doesn’t seem to hear. Then she stands up and crosses herself.

But the act seems like a mockery: she invokes the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, while the three women advance towards her, their faces white as lightning. They are so thin under their wet clothes that every gash in their spine is clearly visible. Their hair is so long that its rough ends brush the water.

“Mister President,“Macbeth breathes. The world is cold smoke in the air. Witch.

Only then does Roscille see the chains around their bony wrists and the long rusty chain that binds them all together. As they move, it scrapes against the cave floor. If they come any closer, they will strain their bonds and the metal will cut into their soggy flesh, which seems to peel away from their bones easily, like rot on a log.

“Macbeth,” says one of them. He whistles.

The other two echo him: “Macbeth.” “Macbeth.”

Roscille read this from the monk’s books: Duncane wrote a treatise on witchcraft in Scotland. Witches exist, he proved it. They kill pigs and cast spells with their entrails. They send storms to chase sailors to their watery graves. They turn men into mice and women into snakes that swallow them. They can hide in the skin of any woman, but you can identify them by their sharp teeth. Or their silver hair.

In Breizh, there is no such canonical accounting. The Duke does not waste his efforts on the creatures of hell, just as he does not waste his efforts on the affairs of heaven: he is rarely persuaded to attend mass. In Alba, the punishment for witchcraft is death. What is the punishment for keeping witches prisoner?

Macbeth throws his torch on the water. “I come to hear your prophecy. Tell me my fate.” Their eyes are milky white, marked by a deadly blindness. Their noses are but a gash on their faces. When the light catches them, their skin seems to sizzle, like oil in heat.

“Hail to Macbeth,” cries the first in a hoarse voice, “Thane of Glammis!”

The other two clap in approval, their chains clicking. Their soft, wet flesh collides together.

“Hail to Macbeth!” cries the second thane of Cawder!

And then, together: “Hail Macbeth! Hail Macbeth! Hail Macbeth!” They shout and shout, until their voices pile on top of each other, like heavy raindrops in a river, water on black water. They shout until the words are blurred, their thin-lipped mouths open in bacchanalian joy, as if they expected the wine to flow from the very air and down their throats.

Perhaps Roscille should drink of this water too. Her plan, once merely insensible, has now become blasphemous, vulgar, truly evil, sanctified by these most impious creatures.

Macbeth turns to her, his face shining in the torchlight.

“You see,” he said, “my bloodlust will be rewarded. We will leave for Cawder at dawn.”