A Wounded Name (Fiction - Young Adult)

by Dot Hutchison

  Boxing is another of Elsinore’s treasured anachronisms. Other schools favor football or lacrosse, but Elsinore has always valued boxing—“the gentleman’s sport”—above all else, even as the opportunities to compete with other schools dwindle every year.

  It’s usually Dane and Laertes on opposite sides of the bag, egging each other on through warm-ups and exercises. My brother is—or was, as he’s gone now—on the boxing team, his thirst for competition, for winning, driving him towards several of the trophies in the lobby. Dane, though … Dane just wanted the skills. They partnered together in practice bouts, and Laertes never seemed to realize that Dane could have trounced him if he actually tried. Dane didn’t need to win, and my brother needed something to be proud of, so Dane made him work for it and gave it to him when he thought he’d earned it.

  But Laertes is gone, flying over the Atlantic, and Horatio stands in his place to hold the bag, wincing with each impact. Despite invitations and challenges from the other boys, he’s never taken up boxing, choosing to swim and row and soak up as much sunlight as water until the cold drives him to the indoor pool. He closes his eyes against another strong punch, bracing his feet against the concrete floor.

  Sweat tracks down Dane’s bare back, muscles bunching and moving under the skin with each punch. They’re both so involved with the bag that they don’t hear me come up beside them until I clear my throat. Horatio loses his balance and clutches the bag to keep himself upright. Dane straightens, dragging his hand across his dripping forehead. “What took you so long?”

  “Father.” I take his hand and trace his swollen, callused knuckles and the blood that seeps in fine lines from the cracks in his skin. “Aren’t you supposed to wear gloves?” I ask. “Or tape?”

  “Yes, he is,” Horatio sighs when Dane doesn’t answer. He releases the bag with what I suspect is relief. “Go get cleaned up.”

  Dane stalks to the locker room without looking at either of us. The door slams violently in his wake. A minute later, the pipes squeal overhead.

  I sit on the edge of one of the weight benches, legs crossed at the ankles, and watch Horatio press cautiously against his ribs. “Has he been like this all day?”

  “Pretty much.” He rubs a towel over his sweat-damp hair, and we sit in silence until Dane rejoins us, water stains making his black shirt cling to him.

  Horatio flicks off the light, and together the three of us leave the gym and cross the wide path to the school proper. Keys jangle too loudly in the uneasy night, and then we’re in the building, jogging through the deserted hallways and up the stairs to the attics, where Horatio pulls his keys from his pocket. The attics are ghost lands, populated with the cloth-draped relics of earlier times. Even the cleaning staff doesn’t venture here, and the dust stands thick on every surface.

  Dane yanks on the cord for the trapdoor in the roof, and a flimsy ladder unfolds to clatter against the floor. From time to time students have committed suicide off the widow’s walk that prowls the perimeter of the mansion roof; each time, the Board talks of having the trapdoor sealed, the ladder removed, and each time they leave it as it is.

  Horatio goes up first, and Dane motions for me to follow. The boys always sandwich me between them on stairs and ladders, I suppose to catch me if I should fall. Usually Dane would be making a crass comment about seeing up my skirt right about now, but he says nothing. His silence is a terrifying beginning to a night that cannot be anything but bad.

  Within my skirt, the syringe smacks softly against my thigh. I haven’t decided what to do with it yet; part of me still hopes that the ghost won’t make an appearance tonight, that Dane will think it all nonsense.

  I’ve never been very good with hope, either.

  When I reach the top of the ladder, Horatio pulls me up and sets me down out of the way. Dane climbs out by himself, and the boys close the trapdoor. There’s almost nothing to mark it in the darkness, a single iron ring at the base of the shingles, but Horatio pulls a handkerchief from the back pocket of his worn jeans and knots it through the ring. I’ve never been up here, despite how much I’ve wanted to. They think Mama and I had an accident all those years ago in the lake; they’ve politely kept me from the widow’s walk in case of another accident. It’s unnecessary but sweet. But that small shred of protection seems to make them feel so much better that I’ve never tried to go against their wishes.

  “Where was he?” Dane asks, and Horatio leads us around a corner of the roof to the stretch that overlooks the Headmaster’s House. The lake stands to the left, the gardens a broad swath between water and house; straight ahead, beyond the house, blue-white lights flicker in the cemetery.

  There are soft clicks behind me as the boys light up. I lean against the waist-high rail and look down into the gardens. Lamps burn at intervals, illumination in narrow pools. We’re too far up to see if the pixies are out tonight, but beyond the reach of the lamps, glowing white forms weave idly through the hedges and the carefully tended boundaries of the paths. I frown and try to see them better. They’re somewhat indistinct, and then I realize it’s because all the features blend together in that pearly silver light, hair and skin and long translucent robes layered not quite to opacity.

  The bean sidhe.

  They dance in broad patterns through the gardens, eerie in their silence and their inhuman grace. Goose bumps carve down my spine. I’ve never seen them away from the cemetery before.

  Before I even look to the lake, I know what I’ll find: all of the morgens—not just Mama and Dahut, but all of them—lined up against the shore where they can see the gardens and the widow’s walk, a breathless audience for whatever tragedy or farce will play at the midnight hour.

  I used to think the bean sidhe were angels. If all the eyes of the fae are on the roof tonight, surely Heaven and Hell have their eyes here as well? But there’s no sign of them if they do, only the desolate baying of the hounds that ride the Hunt.

  We wait in silence for midnight. Laertes isn’t here to fill the night with his nervous chatter, the only one who finds no comfort in the simple act of not speaking.

  Horatio’s voice shatters the stillness of anticipation. “Dane, look.”

  We turn to follow his shaking hand. On the far end of the walk, an ice-blue aurora slowly tightens into a man-shaped form, tall and broad, draped in professorial robes and an elegant suit. As he draws closer, we can see a tasseled mortarboard atop his dark hair, ribbons of silver through his neat beard. His strong face is written over in rage, the stern features replaced by an endless demand and fury.

  My hand closes around the syringe in my pocket.

  Dane stares with wide eyes. There’s no question that this thing bears the shape of his father. Where in life he bore the plain gold ring that now sits on Dane’s finger, there’s a narrow stripe of pale flesh, so bright it’s nearly an accusation. “It’s him,” he whispers. “It’s really … Ophelia, tell me it’s him!”

  “It looks like him,” I say repressively. I’m not sure he even hears. “Dane, appearances are never a guarantee.”

  “He was blessed and buried; what act could cause Heaven to reject him this way?”

  “It’s not about Heaven; it’s that there’s something to bind it here.”

  “Him.”

  “It,” I say again. “It, Dane, we don’t know for sure.”

  Dark, hollow eyes stare at me from that glowing face, then dismiss me to focus on Dane. A hand lifts from the folds of the robes and beckons.

  “You want me to come closer?”

  “Dane, no!” Horatio and I both speak, both reach to grab one of his elbows to keep him with us. Horatio shakes his head. “Dane, be reasonable. We’re four stories up; what if it just wants to trick you over the edge?”

  “Horatio, let me go.”

  I dig my fingers through his long sleeves, but I’m not strong enough to bruise his skin. “You can’t go.”

  “Let me go.”

  A muffled curse stings Horatio’s li
ps. “No.”

  “Damn you both, I’ll make ghosts of you if you don’t let me go!” he cries and wrenches away from us. He’s panting, his chest rising and falling in sharp little gasps as if there isn’t enough air in the world to fill the void inside him. “That may not be my father, but if it is and you keep me from him, I will never forgive you. I. Will. Go.”

  I’m the first one to look away, back to the morgens and the bean sidhe and their breathless anticipation. I can feel the heat between Dane and Horatio, the moment that burns and singes any who try to hold it. Then there’s a sigh, and Horatio leans against the rail beside me. Neither of us watches as Dane’s footsteps carry him away from us, towards the ghost at the far end of the walk.

  “What do you see, Ophelia?” Horatio whispers and lights a fresh cigarette. The thin smoke drifts around us in a filmy wreath, bitter and sour and familiar.

  “Too much.” I glance to my left, where Dane and the ghost hover just within sight at the corner. I can’t hear the words, but I can hear sound. Hamlet has found his voice and uses it now as a weapon against his son. “You’re not going to Germany, are you?”

  “What?”

  “The study abroad.” I turn my gaze back to him, to the face drawn tight with pain. “You’re not going.”

  “No,” he says slowly, “I’m not.”

  “You haven’t told them that yet.”

  “No.” He almost smiles, even as he takes a deep drag and exhales the smoke in a sharp sigh. “How did you know?”

  “Because you love him too much to leave him alone, especially to go someplace he wants to go.”

  The cigarette drops from his hands and tumbles down onto the stone balcony below. The tip glows red for a little while, then fades away. He reaches for the pack and his lighter, but his hands are shaking and he can’t get a grip on either of them. “Ophelia …”

  “But you’ll never tell him.”

  This steadies him, because he knows me well enough to know that it’s almost a promise. If he won’t tell, I won’t either. I listen more than I speak, a lesson Father would rather Laertes take to heart. “No, I’ll never tell him.”

  “But you do love him.”

  He doesn’t answer immediately. His eyes are fixed on his hands, strong and capable, the tanned skin dim in the moonlight. When the trembling stops, he pulls out a fresh cigarette and lights it. “Yes,” he whispers. Every muscle in his body tightens with the word, like he’s expecting a physical blow.

  I reach across and take the cigarette. I rarely join them in smoking, but tonight there’s something appealing about dragging poison into my lungs, something about the bitter taste in my tongue and throat that feels right.

  With a breathless laugh, Horatio digs out yet another from the half-empty pack and makes the end burn cherry-red as he breathes in to light it. “I don’t know if I’m attracted to boys,” he says eventually, his voice even and earth-rich again. “I don’t know if I’m attracted to boys and girls or to girls and Dane or maybe just Dane. But I do know Dane, and if I told him … I don’t think he’d be scared by it. Others maybe, not Dane. But it would be … awkward because he doesn’t feel that way about me. And he does feel that way about you.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not.” He switches the cigarette to his right hand and takes my free hand with his left. “I’m glad he has someone to care about, someone who cares about him the way you do. And I’m glad it’s you, because I know you, and I know that you see Dane, not whatever else he might be.”

  “My father’s forbidden me to be around Dane anymore.”

  “And you’ve decided?”

  “At least for a little while, I think I have to. Not long, I hope, but Father …” I shiver at a sudden burst of laughter from the morgens. “Laertes is gone and besides the school, I’m all he has, and … I’m too much my mother’s daughter.”

  “And Dane is too much a blend of both his parents.”

  It makes me smile to hear it that way, but it’s true. He has so much of Hamlet in him, but he also has Gertrude’s high-strung anxieties. I finish the cigarette and rub it out on the railing. When he’s finished with his, Horatio takes them both and drops the stubs back into the pack to dispose of later.

  My hand closes around the syringe in my pocket again, thumb rubbing against the clay bead that protects me from the needle. Dane and the ghost are still talking at the corner, both of them worked up, but most of their words don’t carry the way they should in such an open space. “Promise” and “family” and “vengeance” float like whispers on the breeze, so faint I wonder if it’s the wind speaking instead.

  “You’ve seen the ghost before.”

  “Many times now.”

  “You didn’t tell Dane.”

  “And you don’t tell him you love him.”

  “Is it the same?” he asks with a faint smile.

  “It is.” I twine my fingers through the long silver chain and the ring that’s too large for any of my fingers. “Love makes us liars, and we call it protection.”

  “Are you still lying?”

  I hand him the syringe with its milky remnant of poison.

  He turns it over in his hands, a puzzled frown marring his features. “What is this?”

  “The reason the Headmaster is a ghost.”

  The breath rushes from his body as though he’s been struck. His hand closes around the glass so tightly I’m half afraid he’ll shatter it, but I can’t touch his clenched fist without the equal fear that he’ll drop it. “Who?” he demands shakily.

  “Does it matter?”

  “Ophelia!”

  “Claudius.” I take the syringe back and slide it once more into my pocket. I wish I could give him this thing to carry, but Horatio will have enough burdens to bear after I walk away. For the first time in my life, I’ll be the one walking away. “There’s no proof. Except, perhaps, the word of a ghost, but while that might make for an excellent tale of blood and madness, there’s no good to come of it in truth. There’s no proof. Nothing to be done.”

  “And so no good in making it known,” he finishes for me. He doesn’t agree, exactly, but he knows me.

  “If a heart attack was impossible to get over, how much more so murder?”

  He swears and rakes a hand savagely through his hair. “So I should never have brought up the ghost?”

  “You thought it was for the best.”

  The bean sidhe have stopped dancing. They’re gathered now around the stone chaise, their hands linked as they stare up at the roof and the ghostly figure who lectures a boy all too flesh and blood.

  “Besides,” I add slowly, “I think he would have seen the ghost eventually anyway.”

  “You know things I don’t.”

  “They’re waiting.” I can barely hear my own voice, scared and small and little more than a wisp of sound in breath. “Everything is just waiting to see what happens. They shouldn’t care. We’re mortal; we die all the time. But they’re waiting.”

  “He’s coming back.”

  We both straighten and put our backs to the rail, watch the haunted young man tread carefully across the widow’s walk as if any step could send him plunging straight to Hell.

  “We lie and call it protection, because the truth hurts so badly,” I murmur. “Just once, I have to be a good daughter. Take care of him, Horatio.”

  He fixes me with a troubled gaze but has no chance to answer before Dane rejoins us, his dark eyes alight with a feverish glint. His face is pale but for two bright spots of color that burn high on his cheeks. “Well, hello.”

  “What did he say?”

  Dane considers this a moment, his head cocked to one side as he studies both of us in turn. “I think not,” he replies coolly. “I think you’d tell.”

  “You know I never would,” retorts Horatio, his pride—or perhaps his love—stung by the accusation.

  A small, bitter smile floats about Dane’s lips. “And Ophelia is incapable of telling, so perhap
s there is some truth to that. But you must swear to me, both of you, that you will never tell anyone what you’ve seen or heard tonight.”

  “I swear it,” Horatio says immediately.

  I just shrug. To swear, to promise, they’re words, and words have loopholes. Intent means more than the vow. At least this promise I can keep.

  The smile twists, deeper and stranger at once. His hands reach under his shirt for the crucifix on its plain silver chain. “Swear by the cross.”

  A sudden bellow rips through the night, and we all flinch. “Swear it!” The ghost stands still at the corner, black holes where his eyes should be, hands curled into fists at his side. “Swear it!”

  With shaking hands, Horatio lifts the cross to his lips. “I swear it,” he whispers.

  Dane turns and lays the cool silver against my lips, the feet of the Savior digging into the tender skin. “Swear it, Ophelia.” My lips shape the words against the metal. Something savage flashes across his face, and he doesn’t even move the crucifix before his mouth crashes against mine. He tastes of toothpaste and tobacco and blood. The pendant’s sharp edges bite into my lips, my tongue, before the crucifix falls away to swing against his chest with a smear of blood against the dark fabric of his shirt.

  “This is …” Trembling, Horatio wipes away the fine beads of sweat from his brow. “This is unlike any …”

  “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” He suddenly seizes his friend’s hand, grabs mine in a crushing grip. His skin burns with a fever no medicine will cure. “We have things to set right! But first … first we have to know. We have to have proof, even if it’s only knowledge.”

  “Dane—”

  “Don’t be scared, either of you. I may act … I may …” He shakes his head and tries again. “I’ll only be acting, I swear it, but you have to trust me. You can’t let them know it’s not real. Promise me!”

  “We’ve already sworn,” Horatio points out dryly.

  Dane gives him a manic grin and laughs so loudly—so suddenly—the entire night seems caught in it. “So you have, my truest friends.”