Page 24 of I Know How This Ends

I frown. “I’m afraid I am not following the logic of this thread.”

The women reach the stage, where they kneel down, form a triangle and throw their hoods back to reveal faces wizened and haggard

with make-up.

“When shall we three meet again?” The tallest one looks at the sky. “In thunder, lightning, or in rain?”

“Hey!” Henry nudges me. “She likes weather too!”

“ Macbeth ?” I paid no attention in English class, but I only know of one very famous play with three witches in it. “I don’t get what

this has to do with me.”

Henry looks at me in surprise. “The Weyward Sisters?”

I stare at them again. “That’s what they’re called?”

“Are you kidding?” He laughs. “You didn’t know you’re named after the most famous witches in English literature?”

An older lady in front of us whips round and hisses, “ Shhhhhh .”

“ Sorry. ” I make an elaborate zipping motion across my mouth, and then—when she has turned round again—I throw the imaginary zip at the back of her head. “I didn’t know, no. Nobody said anything.”

Huh. Isn’t this exactly the sort of fact my grandfather should have been informing me of from birth? Enthusiastically and

in sweet but frankly unasked-for detail?

“Well.” Henry nods at the hunched, decrepit women. “Pretty sure they’re your ancestors. Much better-looking, obviously. Improved

posture.”

I laugh and push the top of his arm. “Sod off.”

Another flash of fury from the woman in front of us, and we grin at each other conspiratorially like two naughty kids at the

back of class.

“Weyward,” Henry whispers, looking so sweetly triumphant. “It was an alternative spelling of weird, by the way.”

I nod, looking at the stage.

“Yeah,” I say faintly. “That tracks.”

For the first ten minutes, I don’t have a clue what’s happening.

My entire focus is on Henry: how close he’s sitting, his hand resting on the blanket right next to mine, the smell of him—different

to my visions, slightly sage-like—and the freckle just behind his right ear. Every few seconds, I surreptitiously flick my

eyes in his direction so I can study him, totally absorbed in the play. It’s so lovely, watching emotions shift across his

face like sunrays. Like sitting in front of scenery that keeps changing, oblivious of how beautiful it is to those watching.

“What’s going on?” I whisper finally. “I’m a bit lost.”

Probably because instead of listening, I’m waiting for him to hold my hand.

“The witches have prophesied that Macbeth will become king,” Henry whispers back, still focused on the actors. “So now he’s

plotting with his wife to kill the king so that it comes true.”

Suddenly interested, I stare more closely at the stage. “Isn’t that cheating?”

Henry grins. “That’s kind of the point.”

Much more interested now—and with a faintly creepy tingling sensation at the back of my neck—I pay more attention.

“ If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me without my stir. ” And there it is: the ultimate question.

To sit back and let “fate” do its own thing, or actively participate in its completion?

Because, when it comes to prophecies, doesn’t time become circular? Once known, the prophecy itself becomes part of the future:

you essentially become trapped by your own knowledge. Everything you do or do not do—to avoid or chase that vision—leads you

to the vision. A vision that wouldn’t have happened without the vision itself.

My breath is suddenly strained and tight. I feel incredibly claustrophobic.

But what about free will? What about choice ?

More importantly—as I watch with mounting horror as Macbeth goes from an apparently nice, normal guy to a mass-murdering sociopath

within the space of half an hour, fulfilling the prophecy through force and bloodshed—which am I? The witches or Macbeth?

The seeing or the one being seen?

Because it’s starting to occur to me I’m both .

Which is possibly even worse.

Appalled, I watch as Lady Macbeth goes mad and kills herself, as entire families are murdered offstage, and then as Macbeth—apparently

unbothered by all of the above—is brought down by his own complacency and inability to understand what the visions actually

mean . He thinks he’s safe, bubble-wrapped by fate, when actually he’s already in pieces—he just doesn’t know it. Until finally some

dude strolls onto the stage with Macbeth’s chopped-off head under his arm.

Well... shit .

I take a long, deep breath. What a nice, uplifting story about the brutal consequences of knowing too much while also nothing

at all.

“Well?” Henry finally turns to me, eyes glowing. “What did you think?”

I think I’m screwed.

“Very interesting,” I say as lightly as possible. “Quite a lot of dying.”

Henry laughs. “For our next romantic venture, I’ll bring you to see Titus Andronicus .”

I smile faintly, still trying to recalibrate.

Because the weight of this gift—curse, whatever it turns out to be—is only now starting to hit me. If my visions are actually true, then every

single word I say now, every decision I make, is predestined. I’m nothing more than a breathing chessboard piece: shuffled

around by a giant hand I can’t see. I have no control. No autonomy. Looking down, I lift my hand slowly, staring at it in

awe. Was I always going to do that? If so, was that gesture even mine ? If not, who does it belong to? Even Banquo couldn’t escape the visions—even if he didn’t actively chase them—and he died

anyway. No wonder Lady Macbeth went batshit. It is a lot to process.

“So,” I say as casually as possible. “What would you do? If you were in Macbeth’s shoes?”

You know, just conversationally. No personal relevance here.

“I’d have nothing to do with any of it.” Henry grins easily. “Nope. I bump into three old crones dancing in a circle in the

middle of a storm? I’m out of there. No thanks, not for me. Enjoy your Saturday night, ladies.”

I laugh, relaxing slightly. “It would be a very short and less famous play.”

“A three-minute wonder, and then everyone goes to the pub.” Henry fills my glass as the rest of the audience begin to pack

up, then he holds out a piece of garlic bread: we’re clearly going nowhere. “I have absolutely zero interest in knowing what’s

going to happen to me. Finding out is the best bit, isn’t it?”

“Right.” I take the bread and chew on it thoughtfully. “Even if it meant you could prepare for whatever’s coming?”

“Ever the meteorologist, huh.” He nudges me with an affectionate expression. “I’ll forgo my metaphorical umbrella and just risk getting wet, I reckon.”

I look at where our shoulders have touched, warmth suddenly radiating.

We are so incredibly different—in outlook, in temperament, in verticalness—but I like it. As if we are on either sides of

a scale, balancing each other out. Where I am anxious, he is calm; where I look forward, he is always present.

Henry puts his hand on top of mine and I feel my fingers curl around his.

“And if Winter grows up to become a professional base jumper, which is her current plan,” he grins, “at least I’ll hopefully

be ready to put her back together again, if needs be. Thanks for brainwashing my six-year-old daughter, YouTube.”

“Oh yeah?” I study his fingers. “You going to be a magician in the future?”

“Pretty much.” He laughs and holds both his hands out. “Although I think they’re called surgeons these days.”

I blink at them, then up at him. “Wait—what?”

Oh God, here we go. The inevitable Red Flag: forty-something waiter thinks he’s going to be allowed to operate after watching

two episodes of Grey’s Anatomy .

“I start back at medical school next September,” Henry says easily. “So I’m currently trying to catch up, revising everything

I missed.”

It feels like I’ve been joining the dots of Henry, thinking it’s a picture of a kitten when it’s a bloody spaceship. I did

not see this coming either.

“Missed? What do you mean?”

“I was three years into my medical degree when...” He pauses, his eyes softening.

“We’d just had Winter, so when Amy died there was no chance of me going back.

I had a baby to look after, and a lot of shock and grief to deal with, and I needed to be there for Winter all day and also work in the evenings.

Now she’s finally at school, I’ve been taking extra shifts at the restaurant while my parents cover the gaps when needed, which is a lot. And then revising when she’s in bed.”

I suddenly can’t quite swallow. “That’s...”

“Exhausting.” Henry smiles with a shrug. “No wonder Winter keeps coming home with drawings of me with wrinkly lines all over

my face, the little rotter.”

I was actually going to say amazing . That’s amazing. You’re amazing.

“But you’re going back?” I can’t quite wrap my head around the dedication it takes to go through all of that trauma, pick

yourself back up and start studying again in your forties. “And you’re training to debut as a surgeon? In your... fifties?”

“I’ll be fifty-four when I qualify in my specialized area of surgery, yes.” Henry laughs. “I was already by far the oldest

student on the course when I started the first time round.” He sticks his fork in a piece of lasagna. “Worth it, though. I’ve

been playing Operation obsessively since I was four years old, and I don’t want to brag, but I win every time. And yes, I will be telling my patients that just before the anesthetic kicks in.”

I guess that explains the laminarectomy conversation, or whatever it was.

“Do you even have time to date? Physically?”

“Nope.” Henry laughs. “Not at all. I’ll have to squeeze you into loo breaks.”

“I can be the human equivalent of one of those fact books that gets left on the back of the cistern.”

Henry smiles, puts his hand on my cheek and leans forward.

“You weren’t part of the plan, Margot,” he says quietly as he studies my face. Something in my chest catches, leaps, and there

it is: fire. Except it’s a different kind, this time. Warm, not burning. Healing, not destructive. No red flags; just a glorious,

contained heat. “And that is exactly why I prefer not to have one.”

Suddenly, I understand why Macbeth went all out to fulfill the prophecy: to do what had to be done to make it happen.

Because when you’ve seen a glimpse of something you really want, it’s impossible not to run toward it as hard and as fast as you can.

Not to grab for it and hold on tightly. It’s difficult to just leave it up to chance, to fate, to the whimsical decisions of a massive, unseen hand.

Not when you know something beautiful is just within your reach.

So screw the consequences; screw the warnings.

Because, as Henry leans in to kiss me and I feel myself light up in a way I haven’t for years, all I can think is: this is

what I want.