A Creature Was Stirring

A written prologue states that in Stratford, England, "Hamnet" and "Hamlet" were considered the same name. Agnes is in a forest near a mysterious cave, where she summons a hawk with her falconry glove and gathers herbs. William Shakespeare works as a tutor, paying family debt. He leaves his students after seeing Agnes, and they share a moment. William's mother, Mary, informs him of rumours that Agnes is the daughter of a forest witch who taught her herbal lore, which Agnes later uses to treat a cut on William's forehead. She asks him for a story, and he recounts the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, delighting her. Agnes reads William's palm, foretelling a successful future for him, and two children at her deathbed. The pair consummate their relationship, impregnating Agnes, leading her family to disown her and forcing her to move in with the Shakespeares. The pair hurriedly marry, and Agnes gives birth to Susanna in the woods. William retaliates when his father, John, beats him for rejecting manual labour. Seeing William's frustration with writing, Agnes suggests to her brother Bartholomew to send him to London, leaving her and Susanna in Stratford. Later, a pregnant Agnes tries to go outside to give birth, but William's family tells her the river has flooded and keep her in the house, where she gives birth to twins Hamnet and Judith, the latter seemingly stillborn. Agnes demands to hold the baby despite superstition, and Judith awakes. Years later, a now-successful William returns intermittently while the children grow up very close. The twins believe they look similar, and frequently try to trick family members by wearing each other's clothes. Agnes's hawk dies and is buried; she tells the children to make a wish to the hawk's spirit, who she says will carry them in its heart. Agnes foretells that Hamnet, who wishes to join his father's theatre company, will flourish. Returning to London, William wanders the streets during an outbreak of bubonic plague and watches a puppet show depicting the plague carrying people off to death. In Stratford, Judith contracts plague. As the family treat her, Hamnet lies beside her and evokes the tale of the hawk to encourage her, proclaiming he wants to take her place to trick death. Judith recovers, but Hamnet falls gravely ill and dies; on his deathbed, he envisions himself on a stage calling for his mother and prays to Agnes's hawk. William rushes home and is distraught to find Hamnet dead. His absence strains his marriage to Agnes as they cope with Hamnet's death. William buys the largest house in Stratford and departs for London again. Agnes holds his hand and says she now sees nothing. William rehearses Hamlet in London, but is frustrated with his cast's flat delivery. In despair, he leans over the edge of a jetty on the River Thames and recites his "To be, or not to be" monologue from the play. Agnes's stepmother Joan shows her a playbill for a production of Hamlet in London and upbraids her for marrying William, but Agnes rebukes her. Agnes and Bartholomew travel to London to see William. Finding him absent from home, they resolve to attend the first performance of Hamlet at the Globe Theatre. Initially offended, thinking her son's name is being profaned, upon seeing William as the ghost of Hamlet's father, she realizes the play is a tribute to Hamnet, and is moved to tears by the scene between Hamlet and his father. Backstage, William, having noticed Agnes, breaks down in tears while listening to the play, and returns to see Agnes from the wings. The play progresses as Hamlet engages Laertes in final combat, fulfilling Hamnet's dream for a role of that nature. As Hamlet dies, Agnes reaches for the actor's hand as she had held William's when they first met, and the rest of the audience reaches toward him in turn. She envisions Hamnet on the stage, as seen earlier in his dying vision. He moves from sadness to a smile before disappearing backstage through a hole resembling the forest cave. 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