3. 2
True, my mom had made the large attic into a yoga room.
It spanned over half of the total area of the house, and it was a cool, Zen space.
She’d put sky lights in the roof making it bright and airy.
Youri held Pilates and yoga classes there, both private and for mom’s channel, and she had converted one side of it into a living space for him, and he now lived onsite like the rest of the help.
But it seemed my parents liked to fuck the help.
“Youri can’t get pregnant!” she shrieked and lobbed the lamp.
My dad narrowly escaped it, but the gilded, gold mirror didn’t, and the glass shattered ominously.
Seven years bad luck. Now I understood why Isabella had been wearing clothes that were too big for her, to hide her growing belly.
She was glowing and though I noticed she’d put on a little weight, I thought it suited her and was just down to her good cooking.
“Look, you can keep the house. You can have it all. That’s why I came back. I’m moving her into a beach house near the coast,” dad said matter of factly.
“But what will everyone say!” my mom lamented, “I will be known as a failure. My perfect life ruined!”
“Come on Taylor, it hasn’t been perfect for years, not since high school, not since what happened. I need to move on and so do you.”
“But Braiden, I still love you! Youri is just a diversion. He doesn’t mean anything to me.
It’s just sex. I get so lonely when you’re away all the time,” Mom said, softening and undoing her blouse, revealing a lacy white bra that pushed up her heavy mounds.
Man she had great tits. I felt my cock twinge.
She pulled him in for a kiss, but he pushed her away.
“No Taylor, your charms are lost on me. I don’t love you anymore.”
“You love her! With your bastard child! A servant!” mom growled, stalking to the dresser and lighting a cigarette.
“She isn’t obsessed with keeping up appearances. She makes me happy, and I love her, more than I ever loved you, the fucking ice maiden.” Wow that had to hurt. I could see that mom’s eyes were wet with uncried tears.
“Get out of my fucking sight!” she wailed in anguish.
“We’ll be gone in the morning. She’s packing now. Just stay out of our way.”
Hurriedly, I went back to my room before I was discovered eavesdropping.
So he hadn’t come to see me. He didn’t even care about me.
I was just one of his mistakes from his old life and now he had a new family, he wanted to cut all ties.
And Isabella, who I thought would never betray me, was going to abandon me to start again with my dad.
I would be alone. I felt a quiet anger burning in my chest and my heart felt empty.
I fell into an unsettled sleep, tormented by my own feelings as well as vivid images of the dark-haired girl naked and bloody with guys on top of her. At one point, I felt her look straight at me, her green eyes blazing.
“Avenge me Caspian!” she pleaded, her face turning into a grimace, “make them all pay!” I sat bolt upright, and Bess smiled at me, the familiar grisly teeth looking menacing once again.
“At last you’re awake. I’ve been shaking you for five minutes,” she said jumping off the bed and going towards the door.
A dream within a dream, I mused and followed her wondering what would happen this time.
We padded down the stairs and went into the kitchen.
I almost had a heart attack when I saw Isabella pulling clothes out of the washing machine.
“Caspian! What are you doing up?” she said guiltily.
“I needed a drink,” I lied, going to the refrigerator and picking up a bottle of juice.
Bess clung to my ankle, but Isabella hadn’t noticed as she piled her laundry into the basket.
It was then that I saw the pronounced curve of her pregnant stomach.
I gritted my teeth. That thing inside her was what had broken up my family.
I heard the voice of the dark-haired girl, like it had infiltrated my mind.
“Your dad doesn’t deserve happiness, not after what he did,” she said, her wrath dripping from the words.
My dad had hurt this girl, of that I was certain, but it wasn’t just him, there were many.
I didn’t fully understand, but then I heard the nursery rhyme again and the melody made my insides hum.
I felt a tug on my ankle. I looked down and Bess handed me the mask and now I realized that the animal was a weasel.
I moved to the counter and slid one of Florian’s chef’s knives from the knife block.
Bess began to sing, and it was like her words were coming out of my mouth.
See the weasel, know it’s time for you to fall down wounded. Rip your insides, spill your guts, pop goes the weasel!
Isabella turned around startled as the knife sliced into her stomach. She fell backwards onto the floor, knocking the wind out of herself and coughing, the blood filling her mouth. The knife sliced through her skin like a well-cooked shank of meat.
“Please!” she gurgled, “don’t kill my baby!” Bess jumped onto Isabellas’s chest, her little hands curled into claws. Isabella shrieked in terror.
“You were going to leave me behind,” I said, my voice again sounding raw and animalistic, “I thought you were different, but you’re just selfish, the same as my parents!”
“Caspian, I’ve loved you and looked after you all of your life.
Your father and I didn’t mean to fall in love, but now we have a real chance to be happy, and we both deserve that.
It doesn’t mean he loves you any less,” she said, mucus and blood trickling down her face.
The knife was still embedded in her skin and I contemplated not going any further, but the music began again, and Bess started to sing, dancing on Isabella’s chest.
“I’m seeing things,” Isabella mumbled.
“My dad chose you and your spawn over me!” I howled and pulled down.
The blood ebbed profusely, covering the pristine floor in its thick, scarlet hue.
Isabella tried to scream but instead began spluttering on her own bodily fluids.
Bess clawed at her eyes, her little porcelain nails tearing at the eyeballs, obliterating them so that Isabella was blinded, her sockets now filled with a milky, jelly-like liquid, resembling an egg white.
Her body began to convulse with shock, and I grabbed the knife once more pulling open the wound I had made, dragging out her intestines merrily, marvelling at how they magnificently glistened.
Bess dove inside the open cavity, delighting in the gore.
Her dress was full of blood and guts and, like me, the slaughter invigorated her.
Though small, Bess had immeasurable strength.
She emerged from the tangle of viscera holding a baby not much bigger than her.
It was completely formed, so Isabella must have been ready to drop any day.
It was dead now, much like its mother who lay lifeless in a pool of her own innards.
I took the little corpse from Bess’ porcelain hands and ceremoniously cut the umbilical cord.
For reasons unknown, I threw it into the washing machine, putting it on a boil wash, then I placed the knife into Isabella’s blood-soaked hand, feeling absolutely exhausted all of a sudden.
I picked up Bess and we washed up in the kitchen sink.
She playfully splashed at me, delighting in the bubbles from the soap.
I took off my pajamas and rolled them into a ball and put them into a garbage bag.
I walked damp and naked back to bed and hid the pyjamas at the back of my closet, but this was only a dream, so I knew none of this had really happened anyway.
We got back into bed, and we drifted away feeling content, as did the dark-haired girl.
“Thank you,” I heard her whisper, “I know that you’ll be ready when the time comes. I hated the idea of you all when you were born, but now I realise that you are the only ones that can help me.”
Ones? I thought, as sleep coddled me, but I was too tired to ponder it further.
It was screaming and my father’s wailing that rudely woke me up the next day.
I put on a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt and blundered into the hall and Florian, Youri, my parents and the rest of the house staff were running into the kitchen looking agitated and frightened.
I walked in and saw the carnage. Isabella on the floor dead, just like in my dream, her belly sliced open.
I glanced at the washing machine and saw a messy red splat on the inside of the glass door.
“Why did she do this?! Why?!” my dad wailed as he fell to his knees beside her corpse, “it’s all your fault Taylor! You intimidated her didn’t you!”
“I did nothing of the sort! You told me to stay away from her, so I did. Perhaps she got cold feet and couldn’t stomach the thought of being with you for the rest of her life!” With that, my dad jumped up and slapped my mom hard across the face, leaving a glowing red mark.
“Stop it! Both of you!” shouted Youri, “the police are on their way, so don’t touch anything, let’s go into the den and calm down.
” But I couldn’t calm down. Not now that I knew my dreams were real and I was being groomed into being a murderer by a phantom girl and a cursed doll.
It couldn’t be real surely. It had to be coincidence.
I went back to my room, feeling afraid. Not because I’d killed someone, but because I’d liked it.
It all felt part of a bigger plan, something that needed to happen in order for this unrest to cease.
I opened my closet and looked for the garbage bag, but there was nothing there.
I began to laugh. Killing had made me feel alive and had evened the score by punishing them both for wanting to leave me, such a shame it had only been in my dream, but it felt so real, I could smell the tangy scent of Isabella’s spilt blood.
I felt confused yet invigorated, disappointed, yet relieved.
Bess was sitting on my bedside table, just a doll, but for a split second I saw her sharp teeth grinning at me.