CHAPTER TEN
A sea of black proceeded through the arched doors of the church, a chorus of condolences filtering through the air.
Jesus eyed me from the cross above the altar, a crown of thorns shadowing the sadness in his eyes—a harsh reminder of the brutality of death, something not even the son of God could escape.
A hand rested on my shoulder, and I lifted my head. Father Andrej offered me a small smile, his eyes mirroring the sadness of the Lord.
It had been years since I had seen him, and in that time, the priest had lost the remainder of his hair, wrinkles creasing the skin around his eyes, mouth and nose.
Draped in white, a gold crucifix around his neck, he guided me to a chair in the front row beside Auden and my Great Aunt Vera.
I sat, like a programmed robot, staring blankly at the marble floor.
“Your dad is with God now,” he said.
I could only nod, a numbness stealing my words and my thoughts.
My father was enclosed in a black casket decorated with a bundle of white roses secured to the top. He was carried by eight men—Uncle Brady leading the procession. Lowered onto a white marble table, flowers were arranged on the floor around him, a sea of white contrasting with the black.
Father Andrej greeted the congregation as we all rose to our feet. My gaze locked on Jesus instead of my father, for if I focused too much on the fact that he was dead and soon-to-be buried, I would completely unravel.
Despite my fragile relationship with God, I remained drawn to Jesus. Perhaps it was because he had once been a man. And as a man, he understood the fragility of life. He felt our joy, our pain, our suffering and our love. He would understand me.
Do you think Jesus was angry with his Heavenly Father when his earthly father died?
I was. I was angry. He’d already taken my mother, why must he take my father too?
Because he’s the villain, the Devil purred.
A sniffle yanked me from my thoughts. Auden was wiping at his eyes with one hand, the other fluttering restlessly at his side.
I mentally scolded myself for neglecting him during the ceremony, my hand reaching out for his, squeezing gently to calm him down.
He shifted closer, my arm snaking around his shoulders as tears flowed freely down his cheeks.
Following the ceremony, we buried our father in St Augustine’s Cemetery.
Auden cried. I hung my head, fiddling with the small golden crucifix my father had given me only hours before he drew his last breath.
He’d told me to always carry Jesus in my heart, that as long as I did, I would find him again in the next life.
I’d asked him if he feared death. He just smiled, my unanswered question following me to his funeral.
Mourners gradually dispersed until only Auden and I remained, seated in front of my father’s fresh grave.
He was dead. Really, truly, dead. Swallowed by the Earth, never to see the light of day again. He was gone, and I didn’t know how to process that.
God takes everything from you. Your mother, your father…eventually Auden too.
***
He wore my mother’s face, a crucifix trembling in her hand.
It hovered inches from my face, manic laughter pouring from my mother's lips as the Devil wrapped a hand around my throat, pinning me in place.
Her eyes bled black, the same colour as the spidery veins crawling along her pale skin, her hair wild and untamed.
Flames circled me like hungry wolves, smoke smothering my lungs. I gasped for air, every breath a stab of pain that cut through my throat, slicing all the way down to my chest.
God stood over her shoulder. He had no face, no more than a blinding pale light.
I called out to him, praise and worship rolling off my tongue. Just this once, I needed him to hear me.
Augustus.
Flames bit into my flesh, devouring me like a wild beast sinking its teeth into prey. I screamed in agony, screamed for mercy, screamed for my mother to end this wicked torment.
Augustus.
The voice was everywhere and nowhere. It was not my mother’s, nor the Devil’s. For a moment, I thought it might have been God.
“Augustus!”
My eyes flew open, jaw aching from being clenched in my sleep. Sweat drenched my bed sheets, heart racing as though I had been running in the woods behind North Lane.
I had hoped the nightmares would not follow me to Cambridge with Great Aunt Vera.
But there was nowhere I could go—nowhere the House on North Lane would not follow.
Even in my dreams, I surrendered to her cold embrace.
Her claws were buried deep into flesh and bone, I no more than an animal on a leash.
At her command, I always slithered home to her chains.
“It’s okay, Guses, it was just a bad dream.”
There was an arm wrapped around my middle, a head of hair on my shoulder. I glanced down, surprised to see Auden holding me the way I had once held him when he couldn’t sleep. A stab of guilt slammed into me. I must have woken him up during my nightmare.
“I’m fine, Auddie, I’m fine,” I assured him.
“You were calling for Mumma and–”
“I’m fine,” I cut him off gently. “Are you hungry? Let’s eat breakfast.”
“Aunt Vera says no breakfast before seven.”
“Aunt Vera can kiss my ass.”
Great Aunt Vera lived in a large house—a mansion, if you will. Though I would not call it that in front of her. Four bathrooms, eight bedrooms, two kitchens, three living rooms, a two-storey library, a wine cellar and an indoor swimming pool—it may as well have been a palace.
In the heart of Cambridge, she lived close to public transport and beautiful public parks, the university mere streets away. She was a retired university professor, having written three academic books on the history of feminism and feminist epistemologies.
With nearly one hundred and fifty thousand people, Cambridge was a vastly different demographic than the small, sheltered population of Rose Chapel.
Before Auden and I moved in, Aunt Vera had lived alone with only a housekeeper and a gardener to share her grand hallways and luxurious block of land.
Most of her time was spent travelling Europe with her wealthy, academic friends, the house left in the care of Mrs Brighton while Mr Leyton tended to the garden.
Although she wasn’t thrilled to have been given the responsibility of our upbringing, she ensured we had everything we needed.
She refused to even consider letting Uncle Brady raise us when his idea of child-rearing was sending a child into the wilderness to learn to survive a cold night alone.
And besides, it was her name listed on my father’s will, not his.
“I don’t like children,” she had said when she first brought us home, a displeased scowl on her face when Auden and I stood awkwardly in the doorway, coats and shoes still attached.
Uncle Brady told me of her struggles to conceive a child with her late husband Norman. Perhaps her dislike of children was a result of her inability to have her own.
Auden and I grew on her, though.
Once she learned of my passion for art, she had Mrs Brighton order me a mountain of art supplies, dedicating one of the spare bedrooms as my own art studio. Canvases, easels and paint palettes lined the floor, white sheets covering my unfinished work.
I was hesitant to pick up a paint brush at first. With my family torn apart, I had little inspiration to bring any form of art to life.
But it was an itch I could not scratch, and my fingers wrapped around a brush with the eagerness of a frog snatching up a fly.
I painted the only light in my life. Auden.
Other than his blue eyes and straight hair, Auden was becoming a mirror of me. Painting him almost felt like I was painting myself, but where I was all dark colours and rainy days, he was sunshine and warmth.
He adored the library. Aunt Vera made him his own little retreat where he could read in comfort, surrounded by a cushioned fort draped in expensive blankets with fairy lights hanging from the corners. It won him over, just as his smile of delight won Aunt Vera over in return.
A black cat meowed at the foot of my bed the second the clock chimed seven. Shakespeare, Aunt Vera’s eleven-year-old cat, crawled toward Auden, nuzzling his face with contented purrs, requesting breakfast that Auden had adopted as his morning chore.
Shakespeare and Auden were inseparable from day one. I, on the other hand, avoided the cat, his yellow eyes eerily similar to my mother’s hazel ones when illuminated by flame.
I climbed out of bed and groaned when one of Shakespeare’s toys crunched beneath my feet. He was always shepherding toy mice into my room in the middle of the night, wanting to play with Auden who had snuck into my bed.
“Go feed that monster, and I’ll meet you downstairs,” I told Auden.
“He’s not a monster,” Auden pouted.
Shakespeare meowed in agreement.
“Could have fooled me,” I mumbled as I entered the bathroom attached to my room, a white towel covering the mirror so I wouldn’t catch a glimpse of the Devil when I brushed my teeth.
On the opposite side of the room was a walk-in wardrobe where my school uniform hung—a white-collared shirt, grey buttoned vest with matching grey trousers and a dark green tie.
My new school was a private one, much larger than St Augustine’s, and enrolling five weeks later than everyone else had been daunting.
My father’s death, moving to Cambridge, adjusting to Aunt Vera—it meant I was far behind everyone else in my age group.
Aunt Vera assured me I would catch up, but it felt like the end of the world to be the only one sitting in a classroom, not knowing what the teacher was talking about when she referred to the article they had read the previous week.