Jekel Loves Hyde

  He looked to me, questioning, one finger already tapping a key. “Do you mind?”

  “No,” I said, sort of forgetting about Mom’s rules as I recalled the beautiful song I’d heard on my computer. “I’d like to hear you play again.”

  Tristen arched his eyebrows. “Again?”

  My face got hot as I realized my mistake. “I heard you play on your MySpace page,” I admitted.

  “Really?” A hint of a smile crossed his lips. The same smile I’d seen on the first day of school in Mr. Messerschmidt’s class, when Tristen thought I’d been checking him out. “You did?”

  “I . . . I mean, Becca was surfing around and found your page,” I backtracked, cheeks getting warmer.

  “Ah, yes. Becca.” His smile faded, and he turned away from me, facing the piano.

  I remembered suddenly what Becca had said about seeing Tristen over the summer. The story she hadn’t finished. What had happened between them?

  “Well, let’s see how this neglected instrument performs,” Tristen said, changing the subject, stepping over the bench and taking a seat.

  I stood in the middle of the room, an awkward audience of one, waiting to hear Tristen make the beautiful music I’d heard before. But what I didn’t expect was the way Tristen himself seemed to transform before my eyes.

  He closed his eyes and poised his hands over the keyboard, fingers arched high, assuming a position that was obviously familiar to him. And when he actually played, his fingers lightly striking the keys, creating a sweet, soft melody like he was greeting the piano, making friends, right away I knew that I was watching somebody special doing something that was like . . . magic.

  The instrument was definitely out of tune, and some of the notes rang sour even to my untrained ears, but somehow it didn’t matter. As I listened, captivated, Tristen began to draw out of that old piano the saddest, most beautiful sounds I’d ever heard. It was almost like the sour notes were right—like he was a chef adding bitter herbs to a sweet dish so it all balanced out and was perfect.

  I edged closer, mesmerized, as Tristen took the already morose melody to an even darker place, his hands moving to the lower register of keys and his shoulders tensing. But he was relaxed, too. I could see that his face was at peace.

  His gorgeous, gorgeous face.

  Becca had been right. On any given day Tristen was hot. But when he played piano, there was no word for him except gorgeous. He was beyond just handsome, or compelling, or beautiful, even. That aura of power that seemed natural to him, it was concentrated around him when he played, like he was under a spotlight even in a living room.

  I found myself stepping even closer as Tristen dragged that sweet, bitter song toward a conclusion that was as powerful and commanding as the way he’d strode across Mr. Messerschmidt’s classroom on the first day of school. His fingers tore across the keys, and the song got faster and louder, rumbling against our thick plaster walls as he began to pound the piano, guiding the song to a breathtaking, furious crescendo. A climax that shook the rafters even harder than the thunderstorm had done a few days before.

  Then, just when I thought there was nothing more Tristen could wring out of that old instrument, when I thought the song had been carried as far as it could go, he swept his hand the length of the keyboard and wrecked the whole thing, with an expression of satisfaction that came close to bliss. When I saw him draw back his hand, I almost cried out in dismay, like I could have somehow saved the whole experience. But Tristen . . . the corners of his mouth actually lifted to hear the whole thing destroyed.

  I stood dumbstruck. I’d never seen anybody revel in ruin. Especially not the destruction of something so magnificent.

  When the house was quiet again, Tristen turned to face me, opening his eyes, and I saw the dark black bruise . . . and maybe a glimpse of the dark place where that song had come from. A place that the photograph of Tristen hadn’t been able to quite capture.

  “Wow . . . Tristen . . .” I didn’t know what else to say. Not about the music or that part of him I’d just seen in his eyes. “Wow.”

  Tristen seemed to accept that as a compliment, though. “Thanks.” He nodded toward the easel. “I like your work, too.”

  I felt my cheeks getting warm again, and I glanced toward the portrait, which looked conspicuously ill-concealed, pushed to the wall. “I didn’t think you saw that.”

  “It looked very accurate,” Tristen said, and I saw that he was laughing at me yet again. “At least, I thought it looked just like you—although I barely glimpsed it before you hid it away.”

  So, he’d noticed that, too. My cheeks got hotter. “It’s not done yet.”

  I was embarrassed not only because I’d been caught trying to hide the painting but because I knew that my work paled in comparison to Tristen’s. Nobody would ever laugh at what he’d just created or say that it didn’t capture who Tristen was. I barely knew Tristen, but both times I’d heard his music, I knew that I was seeing him. Including the stuff that might be beautiful in a way but which wasn’t exactly pretty.

  I found myself looking to my easel again, confused.

  Was that what was missing in my own work? In my eyes? The darkness that I sometimes saw there now when I looked in the mirror? Darkness that wouldn’t be reflected in my junior year portrait, taken before Dad’s murder . . . and the flashes of utter blackness that I tried to force away since learning about his theft from me.

  But who wanted to see that in a painting? The loss that I always felt and the newer rage . . . they were ugly. Weren’t they? Aspects of myself that I shouldn’t just hide but banish. Exorcise, even.

  “Jill.” Tristen called me back to reality, standing up and stepping away from the piano bench.

  I turned to him and nervously tucked my hair behind my ear, surprised to find that he had grown very serious while I’d been staring at the back of my painting. “Yes?”

  “Enough about art,” he said, moving toward me. “Let’s see that box.”

  Chapter 14

  Jill

  “I HAVEN’T BEEN inside this office since my dad died,” I confessed, trying to insert the key, which I’d borrowed from my mom’s jewelry box, into the lock. But my hand jerked a little. What would it feel like to see Dad’s stuff?

  “Why not?” Tristen asked, standing close behind me in the dim hallway. “Why is the room off limits?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted, kind of wishing he’d give me room. “It just is.” My fingers kept fumbling with the key. What would I see in there? Was this a mistake? Why had Tristen changed his mind about the contest, anyway?

  “Jill.” Tristen sounded impatient. “Here.” He reached around me and folded his fingers around mine, compelling me to insert the key into the lock and twisting my wrist, firmly but gently. I felt his hard chest pressing against my back, pushing me forward, opening the door.

  And the first thing I saw as the door swung open, illuminated in a shaft of moonlight, was my father, smiling at me.

  Chapter 15

  Jill

  “DADDY . . .”

  The childish name that I hadn’t used since I was maybe six years old sounded loud in the musty room. I probably should have been embarrassed to have said that in front of Tristen, but I’d kind of forgotten he was there as I walked woodenly toward my dad’s desk and then picked up the picture in the black frame.

  My parents and I squinting into the sunlight, the Atlantic Ocean in the background. Dad had his arm around my shoulders.

  I traced his shape under the glass. Daddy . . .

  That had been the day he’d gotten stung by a jellyfish, and he’d come tearing out of the surf howling and laughing, because he’d known he looked silly, with his red trunks flapping around his legs, skinny and pale like mine. We’d walked to a nearby store, and Dad had bought vinegar to pour on the wound, telling me how the acid would neutralize the toxins. I smiled a little at the memory, even as a tear splashed on the glass.

  Dad . . . alwa
ys a chemist, a teacher, even in pain. What a wonderful day that had been . . .

  “Are you okay, Jill?” Tristen asked, coming up behind me and resting a hand on my shoulder, squeezing.

  I took off my glasses and swiped a finger under my eye. “I don’t know . . .”

  “You three look happy together,” he noted. His hand felt warm even through my shirt.

  “We were,” I said, eyes fixed on the picture, fighting a new, stronger wave of tears. My body shook as I struggled against a sob. Why had Dad changed? Done terrible things at work, and to me?

  Tristen stepped directly behind me, wrapping his hands around both my shoulders like he was shoring me up again. “Jill,” he said softly. “I told you that it gets better, and I didn’t lie. But it takes time. When my mother vanished, it was nearly two years before I could go a day, now and then, without thinking of her. And that’s hellish, too, in its own way, to think that I’ve started to forget her. But you have to carry on, right?”

  I spun slowly to face him, forgetting for a second my own grief. “Your mother . . . vanished?”

  “Yes,” Tristen confirmed, still holding me. “About three years ago.”

  Vanished. It was like a magic word. It made me think of red velvet curtains and men in black capes and ladies in spangled outfits who disappeared into tall boxes . . . and came back. Slipping my glasses back onto my nose, I searched Tristen’s face, wanting to see some hope there for his mother. “Do you think . . . ?”

  “She’s dead.” Tristen was matter-of-fact. “Murdered, I’m convinced, although my father disagrees and the case remains officially unsolved.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I whispered, horrified. “So, so sorry.”

  It all made sense suddenly. Tristen’s presence at the cemetery, and the way he’d understood when I was about to fall apart.

  “It’s okay, Jill,” he said, like he was comforting me about his own misery when I should have been consoling him. “It’s okay.”

  We were face-to-face, closer than we’d been even at Dad’s funeral, and I felt at once warm, and soothed, and nervous, too. Finally somebody understood my grief. Somebody strong. Very strong. In fact, all of the qualities that made Tristen Hyde seem powerful and compelling from a distance were magnified up close. His height, the way he stood, the mature planes of his face . . .

  Although the room was lit only by the moon shining through the dusty windowpanes, I could see a trace of dark stubble on Tristen’s jaw, darker than the shock of dirty blond hair that fell over his forehead. A lot of guys in my school still had curving, boyish cheeks, but Tristen’s cheekbones were angular and defined. I looked into his eyes again and saw that, although one was framed by the dark bruise, they were an unusual shade of deep brown, and warm, warmer than I would have expected, but shadowed with sadness. Troubled but beautiful, like his music.

  My fingers tightened around the picture in my hands, and I remembered my dad, and suddenly felt like a traitor again. I was mourning but feeling something else, too . . .

  Tristen’s eyes stayed trained on mine for another long minute, like we shared a communion of misery. He was the first to break away, looking past me and squeezing my shoulders a little harder. Like maybe he was excited. “Is that . . . ?”

  I turned and followed his gaze right to the box, on a high shelf in the corner of the room.

  Chapter 16

  Jill

  “YES, THAT’S IT,” I told Tristen.

  But he was already tossing down his messenger bag, which he’d brought upstairs with us, and walking across the room. He reached high and took down the forbidden battered metal container. When he had it in his hands, he stood in the middle of the room, looking down at it almost like I’d just looked at my dad’s picture, which I set back on the desk, turning on the lamp.

  Tristen still didn’t move. His eyes were fixed on the box. He stroked the sides with his thumbs, seeming lost in thought.

  “Tristen?”

  He looked up, and for the first time since I’d met him, he looked a little uncertain. But he quickly shook it off. “Do you have a paper clip, Jill?”

  “What?”

  “To pick the padlock,” Tristen said, bringing the box to the desk. He pulled out the chair and sat down, and I had a momentary urge to protest. That was Dad’s seat . . .

  Pushing away the impulse, I joined him, standing at his side. “Do you know how to pick locks?”

  “Of course,” Tristen said, like it was a skill everybody should have. “It’s not difficult, especially with padlocks. The Internet is filled with demonstrations.”

  “Are we going to open it now?” I asked as Tristen pulled open the top desk drawer, fingers searching the interior. “Right now?”

  “Yes.” Tristen dug deeper. “Why not?”

  “Tristen, stop,” I said. He was going too fast, touching too much of Dad’s stuff . . .

  But he’d already found what he wanted. Fingers moving surely, as confidently as they’d moved across the piano keys, he uncurled a clip, bent one end to form an angle, and inserted this into the lock, moving the makeshift tool in what looked like a systematic way.

  “Tristen . . .” Should we be doing this? I needed time to think. Maybe rethink.

  It was too late, though. Even Tristen seemed surprised—jumping a little—as the lock popped. And it was Tristen who seemed taken aback, muttering, “Oh, shit, Jill,” as he slipped off the padlock and opened the lid to reveal the contents of that small space—which was even more off-limits than Dad’s office.

  “Hell,” Tristen muttered as we both peered inside. “Bloody, bloody hell.”

  Chapter 17

  Tristen

  ALTHOUGH I’D HAD no reason to doubt that Jill had told me the truth when she’d described her family’s artifact, I was nevertheless taken aback—shaken?—when I opened the dented metal container to discover curled, yellowed papers covered with cramped, faded writing.

  Experiment dated 7 October in the year 1856 . . . Addition of phosphorous, 3 grams . . .

  “Oh, god,” I muttered, scanning the notes. “Son of a—”

  “It really looks like what Dad said,” Jill noted, sounding uneasy, too. “Experiments.”

  “Yes,” I agreed, unable to tear my eyes away.

  Consumed half litre . . .

  “Could it be?” I mumbled, shaking my head. “Could it really be?”

  Although I didn’t want to get excited, I knew that I seemed overly eager as I advised Jill, not even looking at her, “We’ll need to begin work immediately. But we will have to do so in secret, after school hours. And there’s no need to tell that idiot Messerschmidt anything. He’ll only interfere and possibly try to stop us.”

  “What?” Jill asked, sounding puzzled. “Tristen . . .”

  But I was barely aware of her at my side.

  “We can meet tomorrow night, at the school,” I said. I reached in the box to remove a fat stack of papers, with fingers that threatened to tremble. There was so much to do . . . “We’ll want to transcribe each experiment, and there are so many . . .”

  I began reading more closely, my excitement spiking as I noted the writing on the top left corner of the first page. Experimental Log—H. Jekyll.

  The name that my grandfather had so often cursed, right there, in smudged but legible script.

  Forcing my impatient fingers to be more gentle with the fragile paper, I opened to a sheet about halfway through the stack. Addition of .2 grams sodium produces no discernible change in demeanor . . .

  I read the words again, not trusting my eyes. Discernible change.

  Was it possible that Jill’s father really had told the truth? Was there a chance that I held the actual roots of my twisted family tree in my hands?

  “Tristen?”

  I didn’t answer, absorbed in my thoughts, my plans.

  “Tristen?”

  My name was spoken again, accompanied by a tentative tap on my shoulder, and I looked up to recall that I wasn’t alon
e. Jill Jekel was watching me, with a very curious—and extremely uncertain—look in her unusual hazel eyes, which I’d finally really seen as I’d revealed, to the first person in America, the story of my mother’s disappearance. Pretty, intelligent eyes.

  “Um, Tristen?” she ventured, sounding almost frightened. “Why really do you want to enter the contest? Why are you here?”

  I’d expected that Jill would ask that question at some point if her father’s old box actually held what he’d claimed, and if she and I began to use it as I intended. Jill was a smart girl and certainly wouldn’t do the things I planned to do without questioning my motives. Unlike Todd Flick with Darcy Gray, Jill—though shy—would expect to be a partner, not an assistant. Moreover, my obvious excitement right then and there must have seemed very strange to her.

  Making my decision, I reached for the messenger bag at my feet and searched inside, retrieving my first edition of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I held it up for Jill to see, thinking how uncanny it was, me meeting the one person on this earth who might possess the key to saving my sanity, and asking, not quite rhetorically, “Do you believe in coincidence, Jill? Or fate?”

  Chapter 18

  Jill

  “COINCIDENCE OR FATE? I don’t really know, Tristen,” I said, confused—and a little scared. He was talking about working in secret at school, maybe after hours, without telling our teacher anything. I couldn’t do that. I glanced at the clock on Dad’s desk. And Mom would be home soon. “What are you talking about? Why did you bring that book?”

  I reached out to take the novel from his hands, but Tristen moved it smoothly out of reach. Another forbidden object, apparently. At least for me.

  “This, Jill,” Tristen said, “is a gift from my grandfather Hyde. The man who instilled in me the love of music and who first taught me to play piano. The man who set the course for my future—and who insisted that this novel is my past.”