“My brother’s death is still a fresh wound on our hearts,” he begins, his voice carefully modulated to carry through the room but not appear overloud, “a grief that will renew as the students return and mourn his loss for the first time as fact. His loss must be a constant memory, his legacy our only concern. This hallowed institution formed the foundation of his life, its excellence his greatest passion, and I will dedicate myself to that in his name, to keep this academy as he has always wished it to be.
“To that end, though I hope it causes no offense, I have decided not to bind us to the Monticello Academy through its offered exchange program, a decision I have great faith in the Board of Governors to uphold. Our traditions must guide us through these changing times and this period of uncertainty, and the education of our students must be foremost in our thoughts. Our curriculum has done us much good in every venue, our graduates among the most prestigious that can be named. To change that now, when we have seen so clearly the success of it, is to invite a lesser standard that will go against everything this school has held dear for so many generations.”
“Such pretty words,” mutters Dane, heard only by Horatio and me. “How long do you think it took him to come up with them?”
“Though our hearts are made sore by loss, our lives must, and do, continue. The beautiful Gertrude, whose grace and poise have been an ideal example for our charges these years past, has become my wife, and I am grateful beyond speech can convey for her love and affection.” He lifts her hand and presses a kiss against the glittering ring. A charming blush gives her face warmth and color beneath the powders. “In even the deepest loss there is something of hope and life, and I find it in the woman I have dearly loved since childhood.”
I doubt his audience cares much for his personal happiness; their concern is for the school and their children, not his incestuous bliss.
“Ladies and gentlemen, a toast if you will, to the continued greatness of Elsinore Academy, to the strong legacy of the Danemark traditions, and to the excellent school year ahead.”
Nearly everyone lifts their glasses with his. The light from the chandelier bounces off the pale liquid as from chocolate diamonds, a fierce glitter half lost to shadow. “To Elsinore” drips from two score mouths, not quite in unison, and they all take small sips of the sparkling wine to seal the toast.
Dane’s knuckle pops around the stem of his glass, his dark grey eyes riveted on his uncle-stepfather and mother. Then, with a convulsive, jerky gesture, he lifts the flute to his lips and drains it all at once. “Such pretty words,” he says again, “and no one insufficiently dazzled to look beyond them to the ugliness beneath.”
“They like the glitter,” Horatio tells him quietly. “If they look past the glitter, they have to see everything else, and no one wants to do that. No one wants to see the ugliness of a thing.”
“Unless it’s the ugliness they can rally against, the ugliness of something outside their realm.”
“But that’s a very different thing, isn’t it?” Horatio takes a cautious sip of his champagne, the sweet wine such a change from the harsh burn of the vodka we pass in flasks. “After all, your uncle is one of them, born and raised in this world. Whatever his ugliness, they’re nearly obliged to overlook it.”
“Closing ranks?”
“Pretty much.”
In a gesture of goodwill, Claudius shakes hands with Messrs. Cornelius and Voltemand, the ambassadors from Monticello Academy, and gives them more pretty words to take back to the Fortins. With Polonius and Laertes nearly on his heels and Gertrude’s hand light on his elbow, Claudius makes his way through the gathering to join us against the far wall. He smiles at the sight of Dane’s empty glass. “A true toast, Dane. I’m pleased to see it.”
His jaw tight, Dane turns his head to one side and says nothing.
I catch his eye and touch the longer silver chain at my throat. His gaze tracks down to where the chain disappears under the neckline, to the hollow of my breasts where he knows his class ring resides. His face softens, not into a smile but at least to something almost neutral.
“Laertes, your father hinted that you wished to ask me something?”
My brother clears his throat, unwontedly nervous. Of Hamlet we would never have hesitated to ask anything, but none of us knows Claudius enough to make us comfortable in his presence. “Yes, sir. I … I had hoped, that is, I very much wish, to go to France on the study abroad program. It is a wonderful opportunity, one I would like to take advantage of, with your permission, sir.”
Claudius already knows this, of course, given the three applications that sit on his desk, but I think it pleases him to be asked in this way. Like a king granting audience. “And what does your father say to this? I know, Laertes, that your father is in every way the backbone of this school—utterly invaluable. I would not act against his wishes as concerns his family.”
Father smiles slightly and shakes his head. “By virtue of much argument, he has gradually swayed me to his thinking,” he answers, effortlessly matching Claudius’ carefully structured formality. “He has my blessing to go, to see the greater world before he returns to take his place, and I would join my voice to his in asking your permission for the venture.”
“Then by all means, that permission is granted. France is a beautiful country with much to offer to an enterprising young man; I hope you will take full advantage of it and return to us afire with your experiences.”
“If not afire from syphilis,” Dane mutters.
I choke on my sip of champagne. With a frown, Father takes the glass from my hands, as if the wine had anything to do with the reaction. But then, he didn’t hear Dane’s commentary, so I suppose he has nothing else to blame for it.
“Mr. Tennant.”
Horatio stands straighter against the wall at Claudius’ address. He looks uncomfortable in his suit, bought by Gertrude for the wedding and worn again now where the uniform would be inappropriate. “Sir?”
“I seem to remember your name being on a study abroad application as well. Germany, was it?”
“Ah, yes, sir. Wittenberg, to be precise. The university there sponsors an excellent philosophy program for the exchange students.” He glances beside him at Dane, whose interest has sharpened at this mention.
“I am told you are an amiable, hardworking young man with a great deal of potential. Certainly your records reflect that, and my brother saw much in you to be sponsored. My dear Gertrude tells me she wishes to grant you this opportunity, should you wish to accept it.”
Another glance at Dane, more uncertain this time. “Thank you, sir. I’m very grateful.”
Two of them gone and surely three, for why would Gertrude finance Horatio if she doesn’t intend her son to go? I close my eyes to identify the knife-sharp pain in my chest. Get used to this pain, Ophelia; it will be your constant companion these next months when they’ve all gone away.
“And Dane, I had a chance to see your application there as well.” Those green eyes study the young man next to me. There’s affection of a sort there on the surface, but it doesn’t go very deep, doesn’t offer any warmth to the emeralds in his face. “After discussing it a great deal with your mother, we would ask you to stay here with us this year.”
We all stare at him, even Laertes. Even Father, whose slight frown is such a habitual part of his expression that it’s hard to decide if it’s even real anymore.
Gertrude reaches out to touch Dane’s face, her touch light and loving, elegance in every graceful motion. “It’s only a year until you go off to college, darling, and the great wide world with all its opportunities.” Her words sound rehearsed. At her side, Claudius looks pleased with the delivery. “I know it’s selfish of me, but having lost your father, being so soon to lose you to everything else life has to offer, it’s hard for me to watch you leave when I have so little time left with you.”
He visibly swallows whatever argument he’d been about to make. Against Claudius he would argue and fight until both were
flushed and breathless, but against his mother … he’ll hurt her for her disloyalty to his father, but he can’t do it for his own sake. The need to take care of her was enough to take him from his father’s graveside. It will be enough to keep him from Germany, however much he might chafe at it.
“I would not cause you pain,” is all he says, and his mother’s face creases into a gentle smile.
The pain doesn’t go away though. It actually expands, a white-hot sun in the center of my chest that burns away all the air until only searing heat remains. I press a hand against my sternum, try to force air back inside, but find only the flickering points of light that dance before my eyes.
Horatio reaches behind Dane to hand me his glass. I take a sip and feel it ease the star that burns inside my skin. I take another sip and another, until I can almost breathe, and return the glass to him. He studies it for a moment against his tanned hands, then drains it. His eyes are dark with pain, but I can’t read the thoughts behind them.
Claudius claps Dane on the shoulder, hard enough to knock him off balance, and turns to the rest of the room. “Let us now to dinner, to our celebration! We have a wonderful year ahead of us!”
He and Gertrude lead the way without seeing if the rest of us follow. Father and Laertes do so without hesitation, good little boys with their lines written into their tongues. The others of the gathering drift after them in pairs and clusters, off across the entrance hall to the banquet hall with tables groaning under the weight of china and silver and fine linens.
One of the maids gives us a knowing look and gently closes the parlor doors. A moment later, Dane’s empty glass sails through the air to shatter against the wall. “God, that a bullet in the head wouldn’t consign me here forever!” he snarls. He snatches at Horatio’s glass, and it too shatters in a rain of glass against the wall, a gleaming spread against the dark carpet. “Thank God my father is dead so he can’t see the whore he married. And his stupid brother, like he’s half the man he’s replaced! That whore!” His fist slams into the door, and both Horatio and I jump. “That whore, that filthy whore!” Another punch to the heavy wood. This time, blood clings to the varnish from split knuckles. “That bastard! How can … how can he keep me here to gloat?” Another punch, another bloody stamp.
Poison and pain fill the air, pour against the closed doors. Dane rages, the mockery gone in a blaze of fury. This is why there’s a sun burning where my heart should be, because Dane’s fury is too great for his body to hold. The words spill from him, quick and sharp as though the shapes singe his tongue, and they scald the air in the room until there’s nothing left to breathe.
He turns to me suddenly, and I brace myself for a bruising grip, but his hands tremble against my face, touching it only by virtue of that fine quaking. “There is nothing good to this, nothing that can be good of this,” he whispers. “Neither in silence nor in speech can good come of it, but how the heart must break not to speak of it!”
And we, who love him, break our hearts as well. The same pain in Dane’s face echoes through my bones, darkens Horatio’s eyes until they’re nearly black against his skin, but there is no word for this, no silence profound enough.
His silence will poison us as surely as speech, and all that stands between us and a verbal slaughter is the fragile thought that he must take care of his mother. How long can such a thing last against the pain that eats away everything else?
CHAPTER 16
Horatio studies the knuckle prints on the closed doors because it’s easier to look at them than to watch the pacing Dane. We should all be in the banquet hall, scattered around the great tables and picking at our food as people chatter around us, watching Claudius and Gertrude hold court at opposite ends. I don’t think any of us can stomach going in there.
After the meal, they’ll return to the parlor for sweets and coffee and try to guess which teams will vie for championships this year, how many Ivy League acceptances there will be among the senior class, or perhaps they’ll talk about some of the recent graduates and how wonderful their prospects are. Anything to keep the glory of Elsinore Academy as a whole the topic of conversation, so the ugly details never have to be even thought of.
We shouldn’t be here when they come back.
I turn to Horatio, and he nods before I even say anything, like the need to protect Dane somehow makes us identical in thought and deed. Perhaps not identical; I’m not sure what Horatio would have done with the syringe. He’s the best of us, in nearly every way, his integrity a bright flame within him.
“Dane?”
He looks over at us, his eyes tear-bright even in his rage.
“Let’s go.”
“Go where?”
“Somewhere else.” Horatio shrugs and his coat moves with him, the shoulders too broad against the expectation that he’ll continue to grow. “Anywhere else. Just … away.”
“To the gardens then.”
“We can go to the gardens.” His voice is mild, soft, the way we’re told to speak to wild animals or touchy people with more power and alacrity to insult than good sense. Like Dane is something dangerous.
We leave the parlor, the house, and there’s no one there to notice, no one to scold us for deserting our duty as representatives of the school or the student body or the Danemark legacy or whatever it is we’ve been dressed up and trotted out to stand for.
I don’t think any of us are surprised when he leads us to the alcove with the low stone couch where his father napped in the afternoons. Where he died. Dane never saw him that last afternoon, didn’t see him dead in the grass as paramedics swarmed over him.
What is surprising is that someone’s already there: Jack, with a battered watering can full of ice and bottles of beer, a candle in a tin cup at his hip that makes light and shadows dance across his wrinkled face. He doesn’t seem startled to see us. Jack rarely seems surprised by anything. He nods a greeting and continues his slow perusal of the dark flower beds.
He can’t see the brilliant, tiny pinpricks of light, the sweeping trail of sparkling dust that marks the passage of the pixies that prowl each night through the blossoms and seek stray petals for their gowns. Their wings flutter almost silently, gossamer veined with slender threads of dark light, tiny flashes of neon jewels. What little can be heard sounds more like crickets as their clumsy flight makes them bump into each other, gossamer against gossamer. He can’t see the pixies, but sometimes, when the morning dew collects in the shallow impressions their footsteps leave behind, he can marvel at them.
They make the air shimmer all around us, like living inside a snow globe. Everything is shaken up, and the glitter rains around us. It’s almost a different world, one that’s never heard of death or despair or rage.
Dane sinks down onto the grass and tugs me into his lap, his arms wrapped around me as if he thinks I might try to move away. As if I could. Horatio sits carefully next to Jack on the bench. This is his only suit. Dane and I can afford not to care about our clothing or what may ruin it. Horatio will never be that thoughtless, even if he one day has an entire closet full of suits.
Jack hands us each a bottle from the watering can, the glass slick with condensation. The champagne was for a special occasion, a single-glass concession against the law that says we shouldn’t drink, a decision that had to be brought up and deliberated. Jack just doesn’t care. The beer is thin and sour with an unpleasant aftertaste, but it chases away the sweetness of the champagne, helps ease the sun inside my chest.
We drink in silence fraught with tension. There’s something to be said, but I have no idea what or who’s supposed to say it. The very air waits for it.
After a moment, I decide the words must lie on Horatio’s tongue. He hunches over, rolling the bottle back and forth against his palms. He doesn’t normally fidget. Fidgeting draws attention, catches the eye, and he has too much of my talent for disappearing into the shadows.
“Marc Elliot called me in a panic two nights ago,” he says suddenly.
>
The pixies hiss and vanish. For a heartbeat, two, the darkness still dances with the memory of glitter and dust, but even that disappears too quickly.
“Isn’t Marc always in a panic?” Dane asks. There’s an edge to his voice, a tautness to his muscles. I nearly expect him to vibrate like a plucked string.
“This is a new one. He said he saw a ghost.”
Jack’s gaze suddenly sharpens on the empty flower beds, the only indication that he’s even listening.
I think I know what Horatio would have done with the syringe.
“I figured he was drunk, but I went up to the widow’s walk anyway, and he said it was gone. Stone cold sober, though. We both went back last night to see if whatever it was he saw would repeat itself.”
“Did it?”
“It did.” Horatio’s eyes flick between me and Dane, ceaseless and restless and anxious, things I’ve always associated with Dane rather than Horatio. “Right around midnight we saw it, bright blue-white along the walk.”
“Hell, we’ve always known there were ghosts here.” Dane’s hand strokes my hair, twines through the fine strands at the nape of the neck. I tell myself it’s this that sends the shivers down my spine, and not fear.
I know it’s the fear.
I’ve never been good at lying to myself.
“Ophelia’s seen them.”
And now I know why I was included in that nervous dance of attention: Horatio knows that. He’s afraid I’ve seen this too. It’s not hard to guess which ghost he’s seen.
But why?
Every now and then, one of the students claims to see one and perhaps it’s even the truth, but only ever in flickers. Can a ghost make itself be seen? Can they choose to be visible?
“Dane … this wasn’t just any ghost. I recognized him.”
Dane still doesn’t understand, isn’t paying attention. He’s too caught up in teasing my neck with his fingers, flimsy patterns traced against the skin.
“It was your father.”
Everything in him snaps to a sudden point; his hand clenches painfully in my hair. He stares at Horatio, his friend, the one who’s never been uncertain about him, and all the blood leaves his face. “Horatio …”
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