He had no concept of how long he was there, weeping alone in the dark. All he knew was that a point came when he felt a hand touch his shoulder. Edwin whipped over onto his back and scooted backward frantically, one arm up as in defense, the other bumping the crate. Regis had found him again. He was going to torture him further. He was sure of it.
But instead, he saw a boy with blond hair, perhaps a little younger than himself. He was illuminated by the candlestick he held. His position—drawn back awkwardly at the sudden movement—seemed to say it had been his hand on Edwin's shoulder.
"I-I'm so sorry, sir," he said, fearful, perhaps, that he'd made things worse. "I didn't want to frighten you, I…" He hesitated, then looked at him, face full of careful concern. "Are you… all right?"
"Do I look all right?!" Edwin snapped, and choked on it. The boy drew back again, even more worried of his conduct. Edwin drew a shuddering breath. Then, he pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, his back up against the crate. As he buried his face, he whispered, brokenly, "Please go away."
There was silence for a moment, too much silence than to hope that the boy had begun to walk away. Then the silence vanished.
"…I saw what happened, sir."
Edwin peeked over his knees to look at the boy. He looked nearly sad—how could he look sad? What could any of it be to him? Edwin hardly knew him. He had no idea what his name even was. Yet sad he looked, troubled, worried, apparently for him.
But if that was so (and Edwin tried to push this distrustful doubt from his mind), why had he only watched?
"When the lights didn't come on at once, I began to think something was wrong," he explained. "When they came back on and I saw you, I knew it. You never looked like that in rehearsals, it never looked that genuine." He made an uncomfortable face, as if something had come out wrong, but he went on. "T-the ropes, too, they didn't look the same. The way they seemed to be tied. And he…" The boy trailed off, trying to continue, trying to describe what could only be Regis. "Oh, he was…" He broke off in a shudder.
"Real." The word came out of Edwin before he could stop it, and it had an odd ring in his own ears.
The boy nodded solemnly, then glanced away, avoiding his eyes. "I'm sorry to say it, but… I think that was the main thing that kept me from rushing onstage to try and stop it. He was…" and he drew his arms closer to his sides, almost shrinking, "…he was too frightening."
Edwin unfolded his arms and raised their hands, shakily, to the sides of his head. His eyes were shut tight, and he didn't care that they forced out more tears. "I could never blame you for that," he whispered hoarsely.
The boy took in a breath, then reached out. "Sir, your wrists."
Opening his eyes, Edwin looked at the joints of his trembling hands: there was half-dried blood on them, marking where the ropes had cut into his skin. He grimaced and rubbed one of these. "When I stood up, I think. The ropes were so tight, that made them strain enough to—"
"Here, don't rub them. You'll make them start bleeding again." The boy carefully took something out of his pocket, something white: bandages. "I caught a glimpse of the cuts when you fell, I-I thought you might need these, sir." He hesitated, looking at him hopefully.
Edwin, too, was hesitant, reluctant to let a virtual stranger handle his injuries, but his experience had left him with little fortitude to resist. He quickly gave in, and held out his hand, lowering his knees. The boy dropped to his, and put down the candle. Then, he began carefully binding the wounds.
They were both silent for a few moments. Then, out of curiosity, Edwin took a closer look at him. The light from the candle was dim after the blazing stage lights, and he did not expect to make much out. But to his surprise, he actually did recognize him.
"You're… you're that younger stagehand, aren't you?" he asked quietly. "The one that was always reading back for us with our lines."
"That's right. Walter, sir."
"Walter. You were backstage tonight?"
Walter looked down, as if shamefacedly, and his wrapping of wrists slowed. "Yes, sir." After a moment, he resumed his speed and looked back up. "I-I did what I could, though. I sent one of the other stagehands after Mr. Elm, so he could see what was going on and put a stop to it. I should've gone myself, though. It took him ages to get back. By then, Teddy had already blown the trumpet, and the moment was really over."
"The trumpet." Edwin scoffed softly at the memory, and shook his head. "And they call it music. It nearly gave me a heart attack."
"It was a trumpet, sir," Walter replied, almost laughingly, trying to lighten the mood. When silence intruded again, he added, "And at least it broke them up before they could do anything."
He finished with the left wrist, then took the right and began again. His face furrowed in confusion, thinking as he worked. "I can't understand it, though," he said, half to himself. "Master Regis knew the play better than anyone—if he wasn't in rehearsal, he was constantly poring over his script, making notes." His voice dropped. "I-I suppose he was making plans for this." Then he shook his head. "But then it was a terribly flawed plan! Surely, he can't have expected to get away with… with doing any harm…" (he had chosen his words cautiously) "knowing all the while that the trumpet blast would interrupt him. If he had planned it properly, he would've had the trumpet delayed, or at least not spoken all of his lines, like he did. As it was, he couldn't have possibly gotten away with it!"
"He didn't want to get away with it."
Edwin's voice, and his building thoughts, had manifested in a quiet realization. It surprised the other boy, who looked up. "Sir?"
"I see it now." Edwin stared into the distance, ignorant of any other human presence. "I see it. There was no flaw in his plan, for his plan was not to physically harm me. It was for me to think that it was." A sick feeling bubbled up in his chest like a black cauldron. "He wanted me in abject terror. I saw it in his face even then. He wanted nothing more than for me to fear him above all things. And he succeeded."
The more he thought about it, the terror hardened, hardened so it was no longer fear, hardened into a deep and fierce loathing. He clenched his teeth as his breath quickened. "And when it was all over, when I was dazed from the performance, he came to me and he smiled. Congratulated me as if he had been sitting in the third row, and smiled!" He slammed a fist on his the crate behind him and snarled. "'O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain! That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain!'"
He turned his stare down upon his hands, which turned both to claws, then tight and trembling fists. In that moment, his hatred of Regis Blackgaard was stronger than anything he had ever felt, or would ever feel again. He wanted to latch onto it with all his being, to feed it, to avenge himself on his brother (oh, what a false and wicked word it seemed now) in any way he could. In that moment, he was almost as grim and as deadly and as terrible as his twin.
But before that moment could pass, a hand took hold of his clenched fist. He flashed his eyes, dark and furious, upward once more to meet Walter's. They were blue, and they were filled with concern, with sadness, with sympathy, but with also a firm and serious certainty.
"You can't give in."
Edwin knocked the hand away and growled, glaring fiercely. What did he know of what was going on inside his mind? He was nothing. Very keenly at that moment was he aware of the remembered fact that the boy was from a servant-class family, and that this was his first year enrolled at any real school. He was far lower and baser than him. What right did he have to tell him anything?
But Walter shook his head grimly and repeated, "You can't give in to it. You want to badly, I can see it. But I know what could happen, and so do you—the same thing happened to Hamlet."
Edwin's eyes widened as the anger, toward him at least, dissipated. Hamlet? This young man, this fellow student, actually knew Shakespeare? Then why the devil had he never said anything? Or could it be he was only name-dropping for an effect? There was no chance to ask him any of this, however, for Walter continued, in the same unyielding voice.
"Hamlet was truly wronged, as you were, sir. He was wronged, he had every reason to hate his uncle, and justly so. But that hatred consumed him. It consumed his life, until there was no one and nothing left living in it besides his vengeance. It destroyed the man who wronged him, but it destroyed him in the end, too."
Edwin could hardly believe the words flooding his ears. No one had ever spoken like this, not even adults. Not to him, anyway. And this boy sat here and austerely turned his literary hero on him. His widened eyes darted down, around, away, trying to take it in.
The darting was suddenly halted; Walter put a hand on his shoulder, looking Edwin stern and square in the eyes. "Hamlet is the role of roles, but you can't model your life after his. Not like that."
Edwin stared at him for a moment, open-mouthed in shock. This last had struck close to his heart, and it nearly took his breath away.
For he was right.
O heaven and earth, he was right! Hamlet was in every way as he described. The figure that had ever stood so tall in his imagination, though still a hero to him, was laid bare in his faults—faults he had largely made his own. And now he himself had come close, very close, to that same path of hatred. Indeed, in a way, Hamlet became hatred itself, willing to do whatever he could to bring down eternal fire upon his enemy.
An image from the play appeared, unbidden and sudden, in Edwin's mind. It was of Hamlet, poised to strike at his enemy while he prayed, but staying his hand. He had refrained from it then, thus indirectly causing all the other deaths of the play. And he did so just to catch him in some unconfessed sin, just to ensure that he was thrown straight into hellfire upon his death.
He had chance to harm one he hated, and refused, for the sole purpose of making his torment greater.
That strike did not miss his heart. It was followed by a yet deeper thrust that made him shudder:
Might I be so converted and see with these eyes?
He shut his eyes tight and pressed his lips together to keep them from trembling. Edwin took a deep breath. Then, as he let it out, he unclenched his fists. All the thoughts had passed in an instant. The deadly moment was gone. He would not become a man of vengeance—no, he would not become hatred. Not with just cause, like Hamlet, and never, never without it, like his brother. He bowed his head and settled it in still-trembling hands.
"It's all right, sir."
Edwin restored his gaze, cleared at least of its malice, to the speaker's face. The boy seemed to know, somehow, that the moment had passed like a shadow.
"Is it?" Edwin asked, though the sound barely came out.
The other nodded slowly, gaze lowered, as if he remembered that, though it had passed, it had been a very dark shadow. Then he looked up and added, "It will be, anyway."
And the boy Walter smiled at him. It was a small smile, very small, almost the size of the one Regis had shown. But it was not like his. It was quietly bright and hesitatingly steady, like a candle in the dark. It was an assurance: the nightmare was over.