Chapter 39
DELILAH
Two weeks without Helene attempting to cause me bodily harm has to be a win.
Some days she’ll glare at me, but there are others where she’s so kind, welcoming, I genuinely think she has a personality disorder.
The first time was after her first visit from Rowan.
She admitted to poisoning me with her tea leaves.
It was unprompted, another way for her to fuck with my head.
Today is another good day as I walk out of the front door.
“There’s a chill in the air,” Helene says. “Be sure to wrap up, sweet girl.”
Suck a dick that doesn’t belong to your son, you warped cunt.
I slowly close the door behind me, pulling my hood up to block out the wind pushing against my body.
There has to be something to help me find out where my baby is or how to get off this island.
I can’t keep following this semi-normal routine when my spying only allowed me to see how Rowan and Helene interact.
I’m a dumb fuck for feeling sorry for the prick even though he tortured me.
There wasn’t really any hope for him to be anything other than sick when he was raised by that bitch.
I walk through the grounds until I reach the cliff edge.
The sea roars, waves crashing up, shaking the iron gates as they creak from the force.
I walk around the perimeter of the cliff, making sure the gates are in view.
There’s something beautiful about the way they survive, calling to me.
Everything that once existed around them has been taken away by the waves, but they stand there, refusing to be destroyed.
As I reach the walled garden, I notice a wooden ladder thrown over the edge of the cliff, stopping on the small amount of earth left around the gate.
My eyes close as the waves get higher, the spray hitting my face on my climb down.
Calm amidst the chaos. I breathe in the salty air, listen to the sound of the birds communicating the change in tide, and smile.
For once, there’s something natural around me.
Battling the wind, I delicately trace the intricate patterns on the gate. Some of the paint has flaked away, leaving the raw metal to rust without any protection. Yet it’s even more beautiful with the decay, like being scarred is the only way it can truly be appreciated.
I follow the cursive Latin across the gates with the tip of my finger to follow the scrolling text.
“Non est finis in morte,” Helene says behind me as I move my finger across the left gate. Then as I move to the right, she reads, “Nulla vita sine umbra.”
I’ve given up on questioning how she manages to pop up everywhere. The amount of different doors, all of her surveillance—her creepy personality—make it pointless, wasting the mental energy on preempting where she’ll be.
Instead, I ask, “What does it mean?”
She scrapes the top of her stick against the left gate.
“There is no end in death.” Moves it along to the right.
“There is no life without a shadow.” She stares through the black and pewter spokes as she digs her stick into the ground.
“This was a beautiful garden once. My father was buried here along with my uncles and their shadows.” She raises her stick through the gap in the metal to point into the water.
“Further back, there was a maze where we would entertain. The children enjoyed running through the groves.” Her good mood doesn’t last as she smirks in my periphery. “Your first-born was defective.”
I react without thinking, grabbing her stick, throwing my fist forward at her fucking face as I scream, “My baby is not fucking defective!”
She stumbles back wide-eyed, without that smug look on her face.
I swing again. And again. And again. Until she slams into the gates with blood dripping from her lip and a cut on her cheek.
My hand throbs. I can’t stop, so I force her stick to her neck.
Pressing my full body weight against it, I stand nose to nose with the bitch as she chokes.
“Where is my baby?” I grit.
The slats groan as I thread each end of the stick through them, the horns scraping more paint off the gate, the snake doing the same to the other side.
“I will kill you right fucking now, then see how you taste.” I grab a fistful of her hair. “Answer my fucking question.”
I slam the heel of my palm against the stick pinned at her neck. She chokes. The sound is better than music. The wind amplifies it, carrying it further like it knows her death needs to be spread far and wide.
She punches me in the ribs, but I laugh. “Your evil grandson beat the shit out of me for years. You’ll have to do better to get me off.”
“You will regret this,” she splutters.
“I’m enjoying it.” I shrug. “No one is here, remember? Only me and you, so tell me where my baby is, and I’ll let you live. Don’t, and you’ll rot right here while I watch like you’re my favorite TV show.”
She shuts her fucking mouth. I’ve got her pinned but she doesn’t tell me. Her head hits the gate with a clunk as I pull it further back, pushing my forearm on the stick.
“Tell. Me.”
Her eyes flicker to the side as she croaks, “Washed away.”
My hold on her loosens without my volition.
She grips the stick, pulling it free from the gate while snarling, “That defective thing was stupid, just like you. It refused to stop playing when the storm hit.”
My baby.
My baby washed away.
I can’t stand.
My knees crumble, hitting the hard ground as I stare through Helene, past the gates at the water raging. The water stole my baby, so I can’t save them.
Helene swings her stick, catching me in the jaw with the sharp horns of the ram as she rubs across her neck. “You will learn your place is not to question me. I protected you from the truth, now you’ve lost your strength. Pathetic.”
She strikes me again, but I take it because this pain is nothing in comparison to the water softly rippling, gloating about what it took from me. My life has been worthless, a constant cause of misery for anyone involved with me. First Kane, now my baby, whose only crime was being born from me.
Blood erupts from my nose as Helene knocks the top of her cane into it. I don’t even catch myself when I fall back. I try to pull myself forward to join my baby, to tell them I didn’t know she was in their life.
Helene presses the snake tail tip of her stick to the center of my throat as she leans over me, her eyes darkening, features full of rage. “Remember, silly girl, you are the one who is alone. The shadows belong to me.”
Heavy booted footsteps echo behind me while I stare at the water licking the sides of the raised ground. My fight only comes back when hands wrap around my arms, dragging me away from where I need to be.
I kick, claw at the hard ground, scream, anything to stay here with my baby.
“Get off! No! My baby!”
They keep dragging me.
Pulling me without any care.
Until the waves are further away as Helene stands in front of the gates.
“You’re lying! You’re a fucking liar! My baby’s fine! They’re fifteen! They go to school!”
The chastity belt scrapes against my ribs while I continue screaming every profanity, threat, and lie.
The masked guards punch into my ribs while dragging me through the basement under this godforsaken house.
“You’re a liar!” I sob, begging her to admit it. “They go to school!”
My screams echo off the stone walls as I’m dropped into a cell like the one I was first brought into. The steel door clangs but it doesn’t mute my pain as my throat dries from my shouts.
I can’t move.
It’s a lie.
Another thing that’s not real.
I made it up.
I’ve made it all up.
Then the ear-splitting, high-pitched tone blares through the cell, robbing me of working out her lies as I curl in on myself, covering my ears with my hands.
THREE MONTHS LATER
One step.
“It’s not real,” I mumble.
Another step with the heel of my foot pressed directly in front of my toes as I stick to the wall of my cell.
Another mumble. “I made it up.”
I continue walking around the room.
“There is no baby.”
I reach the door.
“Helene isn’t real.”
I avoid touching the walls.
“I’m still in the hospital.”
I stumble to the side as the door slams open.
My psychosis has fully taken over as the phantom Helene enters the cell I’ve also made up. The details are so clear, considering she’s an apparition. I smile with the comfort that this isn’t true as I singsong, “You’re not real.”
“Good girl,” the monster coos. “You are much more entertaining like this.”
I want Kane and the stars.
He always kissed my face in four points when I laid on his bed with my head hanging out of the window. I lift my hand, touching each point his lips would as Helene grabs my arms.
Even though it’s fake, I can feel her fingers digging into my bicep as she drags me through a stone hallway to an old staircase. The sun hits the side of my face through the large window above the kitchen sink, burning my eyes.
“You’re not real,” I say, choking back my laugh as I stretch my hand out to tickle her side.
Her fingers ping against my knuckles as I continue pushing my hand forward, literally playing with my monster.
“I know I made you up,” I whisper. “That means I’m in charge.
” Leaning into her, I drop my voice. “You’re not real, I am.
” Her boney fingers curl into her palm as she grips my hair, forcing my laugh out.
“None of this is real.” I hold my arms out while she drags me up a spiral staircase. “I created it all!”
My laughter turns maniacal as I look over the metal railing for any other characters my mind has formed. The floor below is empty though, and I pout. “Aww, let’s create more people. Have a party!”
Kane will come back if there’s a party, so I chant it like a prayer to see him again. He doesn’t like them, but the parties mean everyone’s distracted so we can be together.
My scalp stings as I’m led to a bedroom with blank stone walls.
When the fake hand in my hair pushes me forward, I stumble, catching myself against the wall.
I don’t care about the door slamming behind me because there are letters stuck in the stone.
I press my fingers into the grooves, attempting to pry the stones out to help them.
My skin breaks as I get close to removing them, but they disappear.
“Nooooo, you won’t be able to breathe.”
All the letters are the same long rectangles.
My eyes widen as I gasp, “Not letters. No, you’re piano keys.”
Peace washes over me as I lay my fingers over them, humming in time with the tune.
Kane will come back now. He always liked it when I played the piano because he said it was when I was myself.
If I’m in front of other people, he doesn’t like it.
When I play on my own, he’ll wrap his arms around me and tell me he loves me.
If he loves me—someone good that cares about people—maybe I can love me too. Yeah, I only need to keep playing.
The keys disappear under my fingers as my eyes snap open. I tilt my head to the side to watch the picture my bloody fingertips make as I drag the red paint against the stone.
“Kane will come back,” I mumble as my vision blurs.
The red edges of my painting fade to brown as it oxidizes.
I scrape my fingers against the sharpest edge of the stone as I turn, looking for a better canvas.
The bed is pushed against a plastered wall.
Perfect. I press my palm flat to the stone, above the jagged piece, then pull it down as fast as I can.
I have endless paint now.
Cupping my hand to collect it, I go to the perfect canvas as I dip two fingers into my paint-filled palm. If I can’t have Kane yet, if my mind refuses to make him into a character, my body can make him. Just until he comes back to watch the stars with me.