A Wounded Name (Fiction - Young Adult)

by Hutchison, Dot

  Tonight is a night to need comfort. From the chest at the foot of my bed, I dig out the few things of Mama’s Father couldn’t bear to throw away, the things he knew she would have wanted me to have. Her wedding dress is in there, carefully wrapped in layers of tissue, along with some of the ridiculous, beautifully old-fashioned gowns she wore whenever she was forced to appear at a formal occasion on Father’s arm. I unwrap each gown and hang them up around the room. With each new yard of cloth, with each embroidered hem and jeweled bodice and set of stays, I get to retreat deeper into the fairy tale.

  My nightgown is simple next to all the lovely gowns, white satin that shivers in the moonlight, soaked through where I brush the tangles out of my hair until it falls in a wet mass down my back and thighs.

  I can feel the toll of the bells in my bones. There’ll be no sleep this night, but it’s too cold to cross the chain to the island in the center of the lake. Frost dances patterns across the surface of the water, not yet frozen, a delicate layer with the elegant, fractal geometry of a snowflake. I pull the coverlet from the bed and wrap it around me as I drag the chair from my vanity to the window.

  The morgens gather at the edge of the lake, dancing in the shallows. They feel no cold, no pain, no sorrow. They haven’t felt any of that in a very long time. Their pale skin glows in the moonlight, hair spinning around. Dahut’s golden hair glitters, a bright beacon in the darkness.

  Mama’s a bruise, a shadow against the deep night. I can see her smile from here, her laughter still bouncing around the inside of my skull from the ruins of the church. Wreaths of dried flowers are the morgens’ only adornments.

  Beyond the shore, right at the edge of the gardens, the bean sidhe gather in their own dance, solemn and stately, a dance set to laments instead of laughter. Their long, silver-white hair flows down their backs, indistinguishable from the long robes that waft around them with every movement and breeze. Their mouths move with the shape of their songs, their sorrow a living force that guides the patterns of their feet in the dead grass.

  Scattered clouds clear away, spilling a host of stars across the sky. They glitter like the diamonds at Gertrude’s throat, the candles at the bottom of the lake. Moonlight expands, a flood across the grounds, and illuminates the bean nighe at the edge of the shoreline.

  The grey-clad women in their tattered gowns cluster around their enormous basin, their grey hair in thick braids that twine down their backs to pool between their feet. One of them reaches into the ragged bag beside her and pulls out a piece of clothing she hands to the woman next to her. Piece by piece she hands the clothing out until everyone has one, then pulls out the last article for herself and holds it up to inspect it.

  It’s a dark blue blazer, the cuffs frayed slightly, the elbows creased from constantly being pushed back. One of the lapels refuses to lay flat even after she shakes it out, and the heavy wool is distinctly rumpled. She slaps it against the water in the basin, scrubs it against the corrugated board. The other women follow suit, and they all scrub in time to the morgens’ laughter, to the bean sidhe’s keening.

  Tears burn my eyes as I watch them. They say the washerwomen launder the clothing and armor of those about to die in battle, and Dane is out to kill Claudius to keep his ill-considered promise to his father.

  One of Hamlet’s ghosts prowls between the back of the house and the gardens, a pillar of light the same ice blue as the lining of his casket, my dress at his wife’s wedding, the blue that trims my uniforms and the tablecloths up at the school. Ice blue, cold blue.

  Dead blue.

  A gunshot cracks through the night.

  My hands clutch my arms, but the splinters aren’t there anymore. I can only squeeze against the echo of pain in the hopes that it will engender more, pain to keep me still, pain to keep me silent.

  The bean sidhe sing louder, the cries feral and inhuman. The death they’ve been waiting for has happened, but there’s no triumph there. They define greatness very differently than a human does. Someone important has died. It matters nothing if it’s in truth someone good, only that it is, in some eyes, someone great.

  I shouldn’t mourn Claudius.

  I don’t mourn Claudius.

  But still the tears come, blinding, choking, until I fall from the chair to huddle against the wall like I can hide from the fear and the grief that freezes my blood. The whirling spin of the star of my heart drowns out the laughter, drowns out even the song, until all I can hear is the endless whisper of danedanedanedanedane and the slap of wet cloth against the boards.

  CHAPTER 32

  Hands pull me gently from the floor by the window, hands that shake with fear and pain.

  Dane.

  I bury myself against his chest. Is there a star that burns there? What shape does his pain take within his own body, when it spins in an orb of flames in mine? He lifts me up and carries me to my bed, places me gently on the sheets. His hands shake, but there’s such a terrible calm in his face.

  Is it done? Is it finished?

  But the star still burns. Perhaps it always will.

  He peels away my blanket, my nightgown, and then his own clothing drops to a pile on the carpet. Everything in him trembles with tenderness. The lips that push air into my seared lungs. The fingers that linger against all the bruises that paint my skin.

  Before, I was consumed, everything I am taken into him to fill the great and endless emptiness that freezes his soul. Now …

  He kisses me dizzy, traces every inch of my skin as though he would memorize me. He seeks nothing from me, needs nothing from me. This is the Dane who watches me with wonder, who treasures me as more than the receptacle of his pain. This is the Dane who first gave me his ring, the Dane that kissed me for a crown of violets.

  The Dane who loves me more than he hates Claudius.

  He whispers the words against my skin, against every mark and bruise, every throbbing ache, and slowly the spinning star takes up his words, replacing his name with syllables that mean the same thing. Iloveyouiloveyouimsorryiloveyouiloveyouimsorryiloveyou.

  The house is in an uproar beneath us, full of shouts and cries, but here in the room there’s only Dane and the voice that dances and twirls where my heart used to be.

  And then he’s holding me against him, sweat slick on our bodies, clammy where the cold of the room gradually takes back its control, and our hearts race in time to the murmur. Just holding me. One finger traces the words against my spine, a tattoo without ink or pain but equal in permanence.

  “They’re going to send me away, Ophelia,” he whispers against my temple. His arms tighten around me, pull me even closer.

  Any closer and our skin would join.

  “They’re going to send me away to my own little cold place, only they choose to call it England. They’ll send me to guardians, but they’re friends of my uncle, and they guard only his concerns. I think he’ll have them kill me.”

  Something’s wrong. There’s something there that’s missing, or rather something there that shouldn’t be, something extra, but his hands keep tracing promises against my skin and the thoughts scatter.

  “He bought the tickets this afternoon. One for me, one each for the sheep he thinks to call collies.”

  The Toms.

  “He wrote letters for them, letters with requests, letters with promises. I haven’t read them yet, but I will, and then I’ll know exactly what he’s asking. But if I weren’t here … he’d have Mother entirely to himself. Mother …” He swallows back the pain, takes deep breaths against the words that try to crack his voice. Then he kisses me, like I’m the balm that lets him speak. “For a moment, I thought she understood. I thought I finally got through to her about what she’s doing. I thought she finally understood how wrong it was to marry her husband’s brother, and so soon. Just for a moment … and then Father came and she couldn’t see him and it scared her so badly I don’t think she’ll ever understand.”

  He strokes my hair, still damp from the showe
r and now with sweat, until it spills around me on the coverlet and pillows, a night-purple spill against white fabric. “Who am I, Ophelia?”

  Who is he?

  He was born Hamlet Danemark VI, but he’s only ever been Dane, and who is Dane, really? Dane is the boy, the young man, the sour tang of cigarettes and vodka on a warm summer night, the class ring that presses between us, imprinting our skin in equal measure. He’s the kisses that leave me breathless, the pain that makes me burn. He’s Gertrude’s son, with a million fears and anxieties and nervous habits. He’s Hamlet’s son, with honor and promises and strength of character. However much he hates it, he’s Claudius’ nephew, the one who calculates and manipulates, who plans. He’s the star who spins within my chest.

  “Mine,” I whisper. “You are mine.”

  A slow, astonished smile curves his lips, his dark grey eyes lit with wonder. “Yours.”

  And because it’s the one thing that can give him joy, I say it again. “Mine.”

  And he kisses me so sweetly I don’t care if I never breathe again.

  “You should hate me, Ophelia. You should despise me and send me away for what I’ve done.”

  He’s not the only one who’s bruised me. At least Dane’s pain is honest.

  “When you find out … I don’t want to lose your love.”

  “You never will.”

  “I will.” The calm is fracturing. He kisses me again, fierce and demanding, needy, and I wonder if there will be such a thing as Ophelia anymore. He would devour me, make us one flesh, one body, one pain with a million shattered fragments. He can’t lose what only exists within him. The star grows, expands, dazzles my eyes with points of light in colors that have never had names.

  Then he’s washing me, the wet cloth cool and soothing against inflamed skin, and the sweetness is back, the peace, the calm, the balance that lets him breathe around the solid knot of pain. He pulls his clothes back on and sits beside me on the bed, his hand stroking my hair, my face, lingering against my lips and the class ring that, more than the bruises, marks me as his.

  His voice is as soft as his touch. “I love you, Ophelia. More than anything, more than my life. I love you beyond words, beyond my ability to express. Every good thing in me, however small anymore, is yours. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for what happens next.”

  “When they send you, you’ll go.”

  “For now. You had to try to walk away to be a good daughter, and I didn’t let you. I understand a little better now.” He takes a deep breath, clasps my hand against his heart. “I’ll come back, though. I swear I’ll come back, and I’ll make it up to you, everything I’ve done will be repaid in whatever way you ask. If you want my life, it’s yours. And Horatio …”

  “He loves you.”

  His eyes close against a flash of pain. “He’s the best of us. And I’m a selfish beast who destroys the people I love the best. Whatever happens, Ophelia, he’ll take care of you.”

  “Do I need to be taken care of, Dane?”

  “Yes,” he says simply. “You need someone to protect you from me.”

  “Horatio can’t protect me from you.”

  “From everyone else, then.” He bends down to kiss me, and now I know what good-bye tastes like. Like salt and blood and nightmares. Like the bottom of the lake. “All my love and every good thing.”

  “Mine.”

  “Yours.”

  He helps me back into my nightgown and finds my robe, then presses trembling lips against my forehead. No more words.

  I sit up on my bed and watch him leave. The door closes behind him with a soft click, and there’s something terribly final about the sound. He’ll only be in England for a little while, but he’ll be back. Unlike Laertes, he’ll write—he’ll remind me he loves me. He’ll trace the words with ink instead of sweat and tears, but they’ll be just as real as the letters that form in the flares that precede the growth of my sun.

  An irate bellow roars over the furor below. It takes me a moment to place it, but when I do, the blood freezes in my veins, even as the star expands.

  Claudius.

  Dane missed.

  But the bean nighe …

  I belt the robe tighter around me and slide off the bed. Horatio will know what’s going on. He’ll tell me what Dane couldn’t.

  But who do the bean sidhe sing for?

  CHAPTER 33

  Horatio isn’t in his room. I don’t even have to knock on his door because the music that always plays through the night is silent. Every member of the household staff is out in the halls, searching through empty rooms and public rooms, most of them with robes or coats hastily thrown on over nightclothes. No one has time to tell little Ophelia what’s going on. They glance at me as I approach or wince when I address them, and then they look away, back to whatever it is they’re searching for. Some of the maids are crying, but they won’t tell me why; they just apologize and keep to their task.

  As I come down the staircase to the first floor, I see Dane walking between the Toms. They have him roughly by the arms as though they actually think they could hold him if he took it in his head to escape. He catches my eyes and gives a solemn nod.

  They’ve tied his hands behind him.

  They disappear into Claudius’ study and slam the door. Heated voices filter through, but the words are indistinguishable. One of the under-gardeners draws me gently away from the door.

  “Miss Ophelia, you should go back to your room for now,” he says gravely. There’s fear in his eyes, but not of me. Jack won’t keep gardeners who fear me or my mother’s legacy. It’s the only way he’s ever tried to protect me, the only way he thinks I need it. But this young man is afraid. “Please.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Miss Ophelia, please.”

  My father’s office is empty, but the lights are still on, the papers are still stacked neatly across his desk. He puts them away every night, gets them out every morning, but it’s a tradition, a ritual, something that lets him put the work away so he can sleep at night without his thoughts tumbling over words and numbers and names.

  In the kitchen, the cook sits by the old-fashioned hearth and weeps into her apron. She’s an old woman who’s worked here in the kitchen since she was my age, the only real home she’s ever known, and she wails like a pale shade of the bean sidhe outside. Her entire body rocks with the force of it, a steady back and forth on the short stool, a ship rising and falling in the crests and troughs of a storms-wollen sea.

  I want to back away from her pain, but the under-gardener is still behind me, trying to get me to return to my room, so I race through the kitchen to the outer door and into the edge of the gardens. Cold air slams against me, sears my lungs, such a slight difference between burning and freezing. The gravel path digs into my bare feet.

  Jack paces back and forth in front of a stretch of burlap-covered roses. His overalls cover a threadbare sleep shirt, his heavy great coat thrown over. He hasn’t even tied his boots or tucked them in; his bare feet slide inside them. His step is slow and painful, his arthritis plagued by the cold and the long day of work that’s already passed.

  “Jack!”

  He shakes his head when he sees me, rubs a hand against the shiny bald spot on his crown. “So much death, Miss Ophelia,” he mumbles. “Every year, every single year, never can keep anything alive.”

  “Jack, what is everyone looking for?”

  “They’re looking for death, Miss Ophelia, but it’s everywhere.” He sinks down onto a stone bench, his entire body bent with the effort, and buries his face in his gnarled, dirt-streaked hands. “So much death.”

  Fear is a stench within the house and gardens. I shouldn’t be able to smell anything; the cold should burn everything away, but fear stings my nose and brings tears to my eyes. So much fear, the kind of fear that only ever walks with death, but even this fear didn’t accompany Hamlet’s death.

  But Hamlet’s death wasn’t accompanied by a gunshot in the mid
dle of the night.

  So much fear.

  It crawls down my spine, erases Dane’s words from my skin, shifts the letters into something new, something foreign. I sprint across the gravel paths deeper into the gardens, but Jack doesn’t even lift away from his hands to watch.

  The flowers are draped in burlap to protect them from the cold, to let them sleep until spring and rebirth and Jack’s careful attention, but it makes the gardens a barren waste of brown and grey and dead, dead brown. Only the hedges are dark green and glossy, the leaves sharp edged and spiny and waiting to stab.

  I turn away from the paths, and my feet skid across the dead grass, the crisp blades already damp with forming frost. Moonlight glitters off the lake, a cloudless night with a whole host of diamonds in the sky to dance and shimmer against the thin rim of frost. The morgens dance and play beside the dock.

  Except for Mama.

  She stands as close to the shore as she can, only her heels still in the water, and watches the house and gardens. Her pale skin glows. She doesn’t look away, but her hand extends to me as soon as I’m within range, and I cling to it against the fear. It’s contagious, a plague that stretches out from the house to infect all it touches.

  But morgens can’t feel fear. They leave that behind with everything else, with the love and the sorrow and the pain and the anger. They just leave it behind.

  I can’t infect Mama with the fear I don’t understand.

  She takes a step back and pulls me with her, another step and another, and then my feet are in the frigid, dark waters of the lake and digging into the mud to keep from going farther. “I promised, Ophelia, and now more than ever you need me to keep that promise.”

  But there’s still a star spinning through my blood, a star that fills my chest and stomach and stretches tongues of fire down my limbs and into my throat. Soon I’ll open my mouth and the flames will take the shape of truth on my tongue, liquid glass that still shreds and tears with too much honesty. I’m not empty yet, so the lake has nothing to fill. I tug back against my mother’s grip, and then Dahut joins in on her side, leaving the dance and the laughter to try to lead me into the lake and the city that waits beneath the waters.