A Wounded Name (Fiction - Young Adult)

by Hutchison, Dot

  “Do you think you qualify?”

  His laugh makes warmth pool in my chest, radiating outwards from the silver band of his ring. I follow the speechless, shaking boy to the restrooms, and he blushes when I thank him. I retrieve the bit of fruit and throw it away, then wet a paper towel to wash away the stickiness of the juice. The mirror shows me Gertrude’s creature, a young woman dressed with more assurance than she feels. I can’t help but wonder what makes the boy blush. I look like Mama, but my mother’s beauty was a feral thing, a beauty as like to cut as captivate. I don’t have my mother’s wildness, don’t have that hard-to-define piece that draws the eye. Who looks at the shadows when they can see the light?

  When I leave the restroom, Dane is waiting in the short hallway, leaning against the wall, between the doors to the men’s room and an employee area. “You do look lovely,” he says softly. He reaches out to trace one finger along the chain that holds his ring. “It isn’t you I mean to mock.”

  “No,” I agree with a small smile. “It’s the whole world.”

  He tugs me gently against him and kisses me, barely a whisper of his mouth against mine. Pearly pink gloss gleams on his lips when he pulls away. For a moment I wonder if he’ll leave it there for Laertes to see, but he winks and disappears into the men’s room.

  With a deep breath, I make my way back to the private dining room, all too aware of the eyes that track my progress. I don’t think I like being Gertrude’s creature. I miss my shadows, miss being unseen. This isn’t real, like Cinderella at the ball. It has to end, and what happens then? Father nods absently when I reclaim my seat, Laertes studying me with narrowed eyes, and when Dane returns several minutes later, the waiter comes in with reinforcements and the main course.

  When the desserts are delivered, the waiter nearly runs from the room. He won’t be needed again, and I suspect he’s not so secretly grateful for the chance to escape.

  Claudius stands, his glass of wine in his hand. It’s his third or fourth of the evening, his cheeks flushed, and his cold green eyes are bright. “You may have been wondering the reason for this celebration,” he says grandly, as if he speaks to a room full of people rather than a mere five others.

  Dane smirks and rests his cheek on one fist. “Not really,” he mutters.

  I raise my glass to hide my smile.

  “Our cause for joy is twofold,” Claudius continues. Either he didn’t hear his nephew or he’s choosing to ignore him. “The Board of Governors has made its final decision: the Danemark legacy will continue to be the guiding force of Elsinore Academy. They have selected me to uphold the traditions my brother held so dear to his heart.”

  He pauses, clearly expecting applause as would be suitable for a larger gathering, and Gertrude and Father are quick to oblige him. Laertes follows suit, his elbow digging into my ribs when he feels me too slow to join in. We’re expected to congratulate him for murdering his brother to take his place. But of course they don’t know that, and even Dane manages a bored-looking golf clap.

  And they don’t know what’s coming. They’ve already forgotten that he said there were two reasons to celebrate. They haven’t noticed the blocky diamond on Gertrude’s left hand. I fold my hands in my lap, stare at the veins that trace through the thin skin of my wrists. A shoe nudges my ankle, and I look up to see Dane’s curious, half-concerned expression.

  He has no idea what’s coming.

  Claudius reaches down for Gertrude’s hand; she blushes as she places it in his palm, the diamond bright and gaudy in the candlelight from the table. He lifts her hand to kiss the ring. “And Gertrude, whom I have loved since we were but children, has consented to be my wife.”

  A stunned silence follows his words. Even Father stares, blindsided by this information. He’ll never say it, especially now that Claudius is the new headmaster, but I think a part of him is appalled. He never remarried after Mama’s death, never even considered dating. For Gertrude to consent to an engagement barely a month after her husband’s death …

  “Uncle, if that is a joke, it is in very poor taste,” Dane says quietly, his dark grey eyes riveted on the blond man at the head of the table.

  “This is no joke, son.”

  Wrong word.

  Dane explodes into motion, dishes rattling and glasses toppling as his movement shakes the table. Water and wine splash violently against the pristine cloth, a rapidly spreading stain. “So it’s not enough that you take his position in the school; now you must take his position in bed?”

  “Dane,” Gertrude reproves. Her eyes flick anxiously to the doorway that separates us from the rest of the restaurant.

  “Father’s been dead barely a month! What the hell is wrong with you? Barely in the ground but you need to replace him? Christ, and with his brother!”

  “Dane—”

  “Did you even wait for him to die? Did you even wait for his body to be—to be in the ground before you took that thing into your bed?” He kicks at the table. One of the legs cracks, groans, and then fractures in an avalanche of splinters and shattering dishes. Laertes hauls me out of my chair barely in time to avoid the candelabra that crashes down where my head would have been; the wicks land in a puddle of water on the floor and sputter out in a hiss of weak smoke. “How could you?”

  An ugly flush rises in Claudius’ face as he takes in the destruction. “Hamlet Danemark, you will restrain yourself this instant!”

  I lower my head into my hands and laugh silently, much to Laertes’ dismay.

  “You’re not my father! You are—” Dane bellows. He closes his eyes, forces himself to take a deep breath. When he opens them again, his voice trembles with a terrible intensity. “You are nothing but a pale shadow who has to steal what my father left behind because you could never earn it in your own right. And my dear, sweet mother is apparently the filthy whore who lets you.” He rips open the door and stalks out; as it swings awkwardly on its hinges, I can see the entire restaurant staring at our private room.

  The blood drains from Gertrude’s face, leaving her ashen beneath her makeup, and one hand flutters weakly in my direction. “Ophelia … he listens to you.”

  What does she expect me to say to him? It’s all right, Dane, at least the incest is better than the murder? This is not a grief that I can wash from his eyes.

  But I can see the tears she won’t let fall in public as she reaches for my hand, the faint lines around her tightly held mouth. I’m not sure which has wounded her more, her son’s words or his pain.

  Father grabs my arm, his fingers digging into my skin, and yanks me towards the doorway. “For the love of God, calm him down, Ophelia,” he pleads. Real fear—a father’s fear for a son unhinged—fills his eyes. “Do not let him hurt himself.”

  He closes the door behind me as though that will return some sense of dignity to the proceedings. Fire burns in my cheeks as the other diners stare at me. I am the one who goes unseen, who disappears into the shadows, but now every eye is on me. I try to walk gracefully, try to remember the poise that Gertrude has spent so long teaching me, but after only a few steps, my courage deserts me and I run through the restaurant and out the front door.

  Dane stands at his motorcycle, one arm shoved into the bulky leather jacket as his other struggles behind him. He growls when he sees me. “Did they send you out to calm me? Make me see reason?”

  His voice stabs me, because it’s exactly why they sent me out. “That’s what they expect,” I whisper.

  He stares at my hand, and I realize that once again I’ve clutched the ring without thought, like a prayer for strength. “Is it what you’ll do?”

  “No.”

  Three quick steps and he’s close enough to pull me against him, the jacket draped off one shoulder. His fingers slide into my hair, yank out the pins that keep it contained and toss them to the asphalt. “Put the helmet on,” he snaps.

  “Dane—”

  “If you’re coming with me, then put the helmet on. Otherwise, stay here
with the other idiots.”

  I reach for his jacket and silently hold it up for him to slide his other arm through. He gives me a fleeting smile, as much grimace as smirk, and puts the helmet on me himself. It’s heavy and awkward, and the padding reeks of mildewed shampoo, but as soon as it’s securely fastened, he lifts me by the waist and drops me onto the back of the motorcycle.

  He mounts in front of me and grabs my knees to pull me flush against his back. He wraps my arms around his waist; I can barely hear his warning through the helmet. “Hold on tight.”

  The motorcycle starts with a snarl. He doesn’t even bother to pull out of the space but just goes over the grassy divide that separates the lot from the main road. He cuts off one car, nearly runs into the back bumper of another, then starts weaving through the evening traffic. Even through the helmet I can hear him laughing, a manic sound that tugs at my heart and makes me weep. Car horns blare around us; sometimes through an open window I can hear a muffled curse before we tear away.

  I don’t think this is what Father intended.

  CHAPTER 10

  As we leave the lights of the town behind us, I bury my head as best I can against his back and hold on for dear life, something I suspect Dane no longer finds all that dear.

  We streak past the school guards at the gate and up the long circular drive. Dane jerks us aside onto the cobblestone pathways, then off any path at all as he aims across the manicured lawns and down the slope. For a heart-stopping moment, I think he intends to drive us straight into the lake, but at the last possible second, he yanks us into a tight spin and we skid across the grass.

  The wheels stop half a foot from the water.

  I can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t do anything but cling to him.

  He just laughs.

  Thunder, bone-deep and menacing, rolls across the sky. We’ve been promised rain all week, but nothing’s happened. Clouds have drifted in all afternoon, impossible to see now that night has fallen. There are no stars. Even in the gaps where stars might be, there is nothing, no stars, no moon, nothing but a darkness swelled with rain that refuses to fall.

  With shaking hands, I loosen the helmet and pull it off; some of my hair tries to follow it. Dane snatches the helmet and hurls it away as far as he can. It lands in the lake with a dismal splash.

  We sit there in silence, our hearts racing frantically. Just as I start to think the storm might be over, he dismounts and hauls me from the seat, his grip on my upper arms punishingly strong. He yanks me across the grass to the stand of willows and shoves me up against one of the trunks. His entire body presses flush against mine; my feet can’t even touch the tangled roots below me.

  “You knew,” he whispers fiercely. I can’t hear my Dane in his voice.

  “No.”

  “You weren’t surprised, Ophelia. Everyone else, even your damn father, was stunned, but you knew!” He shakes me a little. Pain blossoms where his fingers press into my skin.

  “I wondered!” I cry, startled by the pain. “I saw how he watched her, how he touched her, how she … how she let him! I didn’t think this would actually happen!”

  “What would happen? That she would betray everything my father stood for? That she would whore herself out to the first man that came sniffing around, even her own brother-in-law? My father loved her with everything in him, and this is how she repays him? His own brother?”

  He shakes me again, harder, and my head knocks back against the tree. Stars bloom in front of my eyes, and I can’t help but smile. The night has stars now. How can a night with stars be frightening?

  “What woman who claims to love a man could do such a thing?”

  “A woman who’s afraid.” I whisper.

  Curses spill from his lips, dark and sour and knife-sharp, but with each splintered word, his grip lessens slightly and my feet come a little closer to the tangle of roots. He doesn’t actually let go of me, doesn’t let me step away from the tree, but I can finally stand on my own. “Afraid of what?”

  “If she isn’t the Headmaster’s wife, who is she?” I try to piece together things Jack has told me, things Gertrude herself has told me, even things Father and Mama have said over the years. “It’s the only thing she’s ever known, ever been. If she had to leave, where would she go? What would she do? Dane, you were the primary beneficiary of your father’s will; what he left her is comfortable but not what she’s used to. She’s never been alone, never had to support herself.”

  “She could have stayed as his hostess,” he snarls, but his head drops to rest against my hair. “The school rules allow for an unmarried headmaster to have a family member act as his official hostess—even I know that—so she could have stayed in that respect. But they’ve called each other brother and sister for twenty years! How can they be brother and sister and suddenly become husband and wife?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How, Ophelia, tell me how!” He slams me into the tree again.

  “I don’t know!” Tears burn in my eyes. An ear-shattering crack of thunder shakes us, and the salt spills down my cheeks. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But I don’t know.”

  “It’s unnatural.”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s horrific.”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s … it’s …”

  “Yes,” I say anyway, because he’ll never find the word he needs. I can’t even touch him, my arms pinned at my sides by his grip, by the weight of his body slamming against me.

  With a violent explosion of lightning, the rain finally falls. It batters the lake, the trees, and the willows provide little shelter against the stinging slap of each drop. A rain like this will shred the gardens, churn the soil until the roots are exposed and broken, tear the petals away and leave only ugliness in its wake. I shiver and try to turn my face against Dane’s chest for shelter. The water soaks through my hair, weighs down the lovely rose dress that can probably never be saved. The buttons dig into my spine.

  I’m not sure Dane even notices the rain.

  One hand finally releases my arm, and I can’t help the hiss that slides between my teeth as blood rushes back to the area. He lifts his head away to see my face, rain dripping from his hair to splash against my chest. His fingers trace the angry red lines left behind on my biceps. “I did this to you,” he whispers, voice soft with horror. “Ophelia, I … I …”

  “Shh.”

  He steps away from me, drops to his knees at the sight of my other arm equally adorned with the promise of future bruises. “I’m not this person. I swear I’m not. My father didn’t raise me to be this person.” He clutches his hair, his entire body folded in under an incomprehensible weight. “You’re the only thing that’s real. It’s like breaking you will make it all a dream.”

  Still on his knees, he comes forward again and presses his face against my stomach, his arms sliding around my hips to pull me from the tree. “Ophelia, forgive me. I’m so sorry.”

  “There’s nothing to forgive.”

  Except there is. But I can’t ask him to forgive me for the secrets I keep, can’t form an apology without giving away the truths that will only cause him more pain. I run my fingers through his soaked hair, stroke away the strands plastered to his pale face.

  “Ophelia, why can’t this all be a terrible dream? Why can’t I wake up?”

  How many ways can a heart break?

  I suspect, because of Dane, I will discover them all.

  But I sink down onto his lap, sitting across his thighs so we’re nearly the same height, and kiss his cheek. “Just for tonight,” I murmur. “Just for tonight, it can all be a dream. In the morning you’ll have to wake up, and the terrible things will still be there, but tonight can be a dream.”

  He almost laughs. One finger brushes against the slender chain at my throat. “I need … Ophelia, I need … Ophelia, please.”

  I don’t even know what he’s asking, but I nod, and his hands tear at the buttons at the back of my dress. He
fumbles with the tiny loops of cord. He yanks at them in frustration, and they come away in his hands, drop to the ground to float in small puddles like rose petals. The fabric clings to my skin, but he peels it away until it pools at my elbows and waist.

  I know I should protest, know I should voice the fear that stabs through me, but the way he looks at me … His hand shakes as he traces the chain down to the silver ring between my breasts. His palms smooth across lace, and he lowers his head to place a soft kiss against the skin where the ring rests.

  Every time, he asks a little bit more of me, needs a bit more of me, and I know I should say no.

  And yet, the word can never form, never find breath or impulse or even origin. I should tell him no, but I can’t, not when I drown in his kisses, not when I tense under the unfamiliar touch that tightens everything within me to a single, terrifying point. Not when he says my name that way, like I’m the only beauty in a dark world, like I’m the only thing that keeps him whole.

  His hands, his lips fall still, and he cradles me back against the tree, his ear pressed to my racing heartbeat. Thunder rolls through us. Goose bumps ripple along my skin with each new wave of rain, each cold wind off the lake that blows more water at us.

  Headlights flash up the drive, the limousine returning from the carnage at the restaurant, and Dane sits up with an unfathomable expression. He says nothing as he fixes my bra, pulls the dress back up where it belongs. The buttons are a lost cause, so he shrugs out of his leather jacket and drapes it over my shoulders with a burning kiss that leaves me feeling selfish for wanting more of him.

  “Dane …”

  “Why can’t the dream be real?”

  “Then what would we dream?”

  “Tell them we fell,” he says abruptly. “To explain the mud. Just tell them we fell. It won’t really be a lie.” He walks back to the motorcycle and starts it with a wild spray of mud from the spinning tires. He leaves me there at the edge of the lake.

  I should follow him, should say something to Gertrude or Father, should at least get warm and dry and clean, but I sit down at the edge of the lake, take off my heels, and let my feet dangle into the rising water. Fear sparks up my spine, an unexpected warmth. Dane says he can’t bear to think that I’ll walk away from him, but I’m never the one who walks away. Never the one that could.