Feather Bound (24 page)

I buried my face in my hands.

The day passed without a word from Hyde. I wouldn't give up. So, at 5 o'clock the next morning, I slipped on my shoes and walked out the door, dialing Hyde's number. “OK, this is the last time I'm going to call you. Meet me at Grand Army Plaza in front of the Bailey fountain at half-past five. If you don't come, I promise I won't bother you ever again. But you have to come, Hyde. You have to. Because I'm like you. I…” I paused, clamping my mouth shut. “I have them too.” I clicked off. Was it too vague? It was too vague. I could have told him what I was – what we were. But saying the word just made it all too real.

No point in chickening out now. I sat down on the bench and waited calmly, mesmerized by the monotonous flow of the fountain's stream. Years passed. Centuries.

I wondered what it had been like, the first time they sprouted from his back. What made it happen? How much pain had he been in? How old had he been? What did he do afterwards? How did he deal? Who did he tell? The questions kept coming, louder and fiercer by the minute. I just needed to see him. All of the words he'd refused to say since seeing me for the first time in nine years. I needed to hear them now. I felt as if I'd break into pieces if I didn't.

Another year. Two more. I looked down at my watch, shocked to find that a single hour had passed. Was he with her now? Were they tangled under the sheets, nothing between them but sweat and misery?

I bit my lip.

And then I saw him approach through the rippling water. Hyde.

Hyde was here.

Holding my breath, I stood up.

“Hyde…” His eyes were sunk into the deep black circles carved into his face, bulging as if haunted by the fresh nightmares that had stolen his sleep. I didn't know where to start. For a time, I stared at him, waiting for him to speak, to utter a sound. But when he didn't I knew it was up to me. And I had to start somewhere. “Hyde–”

The moment he was within reach, he grabbed my shoulders and pulled me to him. The sheer intensity of the desperation etched into him kept my eyes locked onto his. I couldn't look anywhere else.

“Is it true?”

His voice chilled me from the inside. Low and hoarse, the weakness of it made me shake. His fingers dug into my skin.

“What?”

“Did someone hurt you? Are you…?” At once he let go, shaking his head, pacing in front of me. He paced, and paced, and paced. “Oh God.” He shook his head again. “I didn't know… Did someone–” He stopped, hanging his head, though I could see his lips pursed, trembling. Before I could blink, he rounded on me again, this time shaking me by the arms. “Deanna, did someone hurt you? Did someone take them?”

“No, no!” I pushed him away, wrapping my arms around myself. His face flamed a deep red, his coarse fingers sliding through his hair as if that one action was all that kept him from falling apart. “I'm… No one's… no one's taken them. My…” I paused, letting a rush of air fill and empty my lungs before I told him. “My… f-feathers.”

I'd practically mouthed the word and yet even the breath of it broke Hyde in two. He visibly drooped; his arms fell limp at his side. For a moment, all he could do was shake his head.

“I didn't want this for you,” was all he said, after a lifetime. “I never, ever wanted you to have to go through this. I–” He stopped to breathe, long and deep. “When?”

“When did I find out?” I swallowed, hoping it would unclench my throat just enough to let the air through. “At Anton's birthday party.” Now that I was finally,
finally
telling Hyde the truth, the words seemed to tumble off my lips. My pulse raced. “It was when I fell into the table, but my back had been hurting for days before then. Adrianna took me home, but I was still so messed up… That's why I didn't answer any of your calls.”

Hyde's fingers twitched. “I didn't know.”

“I didn't want you to know. I didn't want anyone to know. I was ashamed.” I leaned over, searching his eyes. “But you know how that feels, don't you?”

Hyde wouldn't look at me. He stared at the fountain instead, silently considering the cascading streams, his lips pressed tight to keep the secrets in. It was the last seal to be broken. But I knew it wouldn't give easily.

“I'm not even sure how I figured it out,” I said, my dry hands frigid against my bare arms. “There were just too many broken pieces, and too many holes to fill. I woke up one night and… No. I'm not even sure how I figured it out.”

Hyde's head rose, slightly, but he still didn't look at me.

“I remember when we were kids,” I continued. I needed to say it: “You… you were my best friend.”

Hyde turned away. “Yeah. You were mine too. My only friend.”

“Then
tell
me.” I took his hands in mine, not sure whose were shaking, or rather whose were shaking worse. “Tell me what happened to you. Tell me the truth. Please, Hyde.” Tears trickled down my cheeks. “I know you don't want to be with her. Beatrice. I know what she's doing to you.”

It happened fast. At the mere mention of her name, his eyes dulled. All their passion and life and light sunk into the depths until there was nothing left but two empty holes. His jaw clamped shut. His face was still, but his lips started to quiver. I could tell they were fighting against something, some invisible force, but the spell that bound them was too strong. It was exactly as Shannon had described it while she told me about her own secret horrors: the reason she'd stayed by her rapist's side for all those years with nary a whisper as to what he was doing to her. It was the curse of silence. The curse of loyalty.

The swan's curse.

Finally, just as he looked ready to break in two, he walked past me, sitting on the park bench. Bending over, he propped himself up by his arms, head bent low so that his hair obscured his face from me. He was silent for too long.

“I didn't go to Paris,” he said simply.

“I know.”

“I've never been.”

“I know that too.”

“I wasn't a chimney sweep either.”

“I figured,” though I said it with a smile. It was just Hyde. No matter how many secrets he kept, how many people tried to break him. Hyde was Hyde. It was a comforting thought, among the sea of dread drowning me.

Hyde pressed a hand against his forehead. “It was because I found out about her. My mother. After she died and I found her diary. I started reading. A few weeks later, I pieced it together. It was all there in the silences. A swan can never speak out against her captor. But she can say everything else.”

He paused and I wondered if he remembered every word, if he were recalling them now as he closed his eyes – the silent stories of his mother's horror etched into his thoughts.

“My mother… she never told anyone that she was a swan,” he said, his gaze low. “In the world that she came from, admitting that was nothing short of social death. She'd have never been able to show her face again. But I think… in her heart, my mother wanted others to know. In her heart, she did.”

What would it mean to give away your secret? Anton knew mine, and he'd almost shattered me with it. There were too many risks involved in letting others know. For a swan, giving your secrets away could mean death.

Hyde rubbed his eyes with his fingers, shaking his head. “It was Anton's father. Her own brother. He and Dad were buddies at Yale. And it was while they were at Yale that Edmund gave my mother to him in exchange for a position at the company. My dad was pathetic and obsessed and in love with her, after all, and Edmund was barely getting by on scholarships. So he told him. He told my father what my mother was and the rest just happened. It was the desperation of a scumbag.”

My stomach had tumbled so horribly I nearly let a moan slip from my lips. Did Dad know? Dad had his own circle of friends during his college days. He was still friends with most of them today. Ralph Hedley was his only friend from the upper class, the only one he talked to, and while he had his own friends, Dad had never really socialized with them. He told us as much during one of his drunken reminiscences. If Dad had met Edmund, I couldn't imagine him being anything other than disgusted. And through it all, it was Clarice Hedley who had paid the price.

I wanted to scream, but I didn't. I wasn't about to interrupt Hyde, not while the words were flowing so freely.

“My father treated everyone like that. Commodities. Items for sale. He bought me out of convenience, plucked me out of an orphanage to play the happy, healthy son of a benevolent philanthropist who headed a company that promoted ‘family values'. And with my help, he secured an advertiser: Colemans. It was a business transaction. If anyone was going to get rid of me, I'd figured it would be him. But Dad...” Hyde laughed. “Dad was going to come clean. Edmund was the one who sold me.”

I felt oddly empty trying to grasp the word that had come out of his mouth. Sold. It slipped through my fingers like tears. Sold. What did he mean? What
could
he mean? I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.

“I would have ruined him, after all.” Hyde straightened up, leaning against the back of the bench, staring blankly up at the night sky. “Once I found out what Dad had been doing to my mother, I was determined to confront him, but he'd just left on a business trip. It had to be face to face.

“I found Edmund first. I hated him. I couldn't believe what he'd done, what they'd both done. I told him that if he didn't come clean, I'd tell everyone. He pleaded with me, bribed me, threatened me, but I didn't care. He even tried to convince me, the bastard, that he was doing this all for her. For both of them. He was lifting them out of poverty. He was bettering their lives. He truly believed that. He truly didn't believe he was a monster.”

Monsters never do. My lips trembled.

“But even still, I thought I knew what his limits were.” Hyde laughed, once, and though it was nearly imperceptible, the sound of it shriveled my insides. “I had no idea.”

I took a hesitant step towards him. “And then…” My knees nearly buckled. “And then he sold you.” The words scattered across the cold ground.

“And then he sold me,” Hyde repeated, eyes dead. I stood there silently, waiting for him to continue, but he'd shut his eyes, fighting against the horror of it. The blood drained from my face. I didn't even want to imagine it, but images played in my mind's eye, horrible images. Images that had haunted me since Anton locked me in a cage, except now it was Hyde's face I saw instead of mine.

I couldn't take this. I wanted to collapse onto the ground, but I couldn't. I felt as if… as if it'd be an insult to him. As if I'd be making a mockery of the courage Hyde had summoned just to lay himself bare in front of me. And so I waited for him to continue. I'd wait as long as he needed me to.

“Human trafficking is a multi-billion dollar industry, after all,” Hyde said finally. I knew it, but only because Anton had told me once, his eyes leering at me from behind steel bars. “They kidnapped me. The guys Edmund had hired. They kidnapped me and I…”

Both his hands were pressed flat against his head. “I didn't go to Paris, Deanna. I never left the country. For a long time I didn't know
where
I was. They kept me in the parlor basement with all the others. Trapped like animals in tiny cages. It wasn't enough to send me away, see, not if I could come back and screw everything up. He had to make sure I stayed away, and as much as an abomination as Edmund Rey is, I suppose even he wasn't willing to cross that moral line by having me killed. But selling a swan is so appallingly simple for a bunch of assholes with money. And faking my death – he made that happen too, all while my dad was off in China. Having the right connections and shuffling a bit of paperwork was all they needed. Once the parlor owners had my feathers, I was theirs. I…”

His voice faltered. For one, fleeting moment he stayed silent, though I could hear each ragged breath. But the dam couldn't hold forever. He buried his head in his hands and started sobbing.

Biting down the strangled cry that threatened to break out of me, I ran up to him, knelt down and threw my arms around him, but he shook me off, shooting to his feet. “I'm so sorry, Deanna. I didn't want to tell you. I couldn't tell anyone. I
couldn't
. When I got back to New York… I'd have done anything to make sure nobody found out. I was–” He clenched his teeth, shaking his head so violently I thought it'd come off his neck. “You especially. I couldn't let you know. I was ashamed. If you found out, I knew you'd never want to touch me again.”

“Hyde, no.” I wiped my face with the back of my arms, but I didn't know what else to say. What else
could
I say? I stayed on the ground, my side twisted against the bench, fingers clinging to the wood.

“One day there was a police raid at the parlor and I escaped. I ended up in a San Diego shelter. When I found out my dad was dying I came up with a plan. I knew there were people from the company I could trust – people who hated Edmund. John Roan, for one. The sicker Dad got, the less he was able to pull his weight at the company, and the more Edmund's power grew. Eventually he fired a string of people he thought would only hold him back. That's what John told me.

“My dad's old legal counsel, thrown out into the street like trash. It was all over the news. I took a chance trusting him and it paid off. And after the DNA test, after everything…” Hyde paused. “After everything, I got to see my dad one last time before he died. I had no idea the old bastard was going to hand me the company before kicking it.”