Chapter 27 #2
“Nuh-uh. Eyes on me.” I snap my fingers, drawing her gaze back. “What did I tell you about the basement, Billy?”
Her lips are trembling non-stop now, and her weak little voice shakes. “Th-that, that it’s only a b-bad place if…if…”
“If what, Billy?”
She swallows, squeezes her lips shut. Like she can’t bear to say it.
“It’s only The Bad Place if The Witch is here.” I tighten my hand on the back of her neck, drawing her a little closer. “And what have I told you about the dark?”
She finds her voice, a little more sure now that I’ve eradicated the threat of The Witch. “Light shows what eyes shouldn’t see, the dark—“ she hitches, losing her place in our mantra, then rallies splendidly, blurting the rest out all at once, “—the dark keeps bad places safe for me!”
It took me a while to come up with that. I’m terrible at rhymes.
“Well done,” I tell her. She bites down on her lip, swaying a little as she shows me her teeth.
There’s nothing but a sparkle left of her unshed tears.
“I was keeping this for your birthday, but it’s close enough, right?”
“My birthday?” Her green eyes sparkle as she searches my face.
“You didn’t forget, did you?”
She shakes her head, but the way her mouth hangs open, I think she did.
We don’t celebrate birthdays, but she’s read about them in books. We even saw one once at the diner, back when Sybil was five and Evelyn still took us out of the house once a month for supper.
That stopped over four years ago. Right around that day, in fact.
Coincidence?
Most certainly not.
Seeing all those kids having fun. Stuffing their face with processed carbohydrates and refined sugar. Laughing, playing.
Sybil began asking questions.
Started throwing tantrums.
Mother became Evelyn became The Witch.
And the basement became The Bad Place.
“Eyes on me, Billy.”
Her eyes snap into focus again, fixating on me, then my hand as I reach behind a crate full of automotive parts that hasn’t been touched in years.
The flame is burning my fingertips. “Light another match. Quickly.”
Sybil’s hand shakes as she snatches the match box and fumbles out a match. I smile when she shivers at the quick flare as the tip ignites.
My fingers close around smooth glass, and I let the moment draw out as I drag it out from behind the crate. Sybil’s eyes go bigger and bigger, her mouth falling open as she catches sight of the jar.
I’m grinning like an idiot now, but screw it, it’s worth it ruining the surprise.
That’s not just the match’s flame sparkling in my little sister’s eyes.
It’s joy.
Motherfreakin’ joy.
“Oh, Bash!” She claps a hand over her mouth, letting out a muffled, “It’s so beautiful!”
“Go on.” I take the match from her fingers, holding it close as she carefully takes the mason jar from me.
Inside, a Northern Blue flutters frantically.
“She’s so pretty!” Sybil breathes as she cradles the jar to her chest.
“How do you know it’s not a boy?”
“Boys aren’t pretty.”
“It’s usually the opposite in the animal world, you know. Birds, for example. The males usually have much brighter plumage than the females.”
“I don’t care,” she says. “It’s a girl. Stop ruining everything.”
I hold back a laugh, happy to watch Sybil watching the butterfly. For a few moments, everything else ceases to exist. I can forget about The Bad Place, about The Witch, about what happens when we’re not satisfactory.
Sybil taps her fingernail against the glass, but the butterfly is oblivious. All it’s concerned with is trying to find escape.
I should feel sorry for it, but I’d capture another one in a heartbeat, just to see the awestruck glee on my sister’s face.
I guess that’s what The Witch saw too.
I’m guessing she didn’t like it.
Not. One. Bit.
Harsh, fluorescent light strips away the shadows, the hiss-click of the long tubes on the ceiling making my skin crawl.
Evelyn appearing as a tall, slim silhouette at the foot of the stairs makes me want to heave up every bland, nutritious thing I’ve eaten today.
Who forces their children to eat steamed kale and sludgy egg whites for breakfast?
The witch currently descending the stairs, that’s who.
If I had the courage, and the strength, I’d smash the jar and try to ram a piece through Evelyn’s jugular. And one in each eye, just for good measure.
But that would be stupid, because if I failed, we’d both suffer for it. I can’t take the risk.
Sybil tries to cower behind me, but I’m right up against the shelving, so all she can do is squeeze against my side as The Witch approaches. The rim of the jar digs into my side, and Sybil’s panicked panting warms my flesh.
“Don’t punish her.” I try to sound calm, but my voice is shaking like a damn leaf. “I made her come down here. I was bored. I thought we could organize the shelves. It’s very dusty down here. We should clean it. May we clean it, Mother? Let us clean it, then you don’t have—“
The witch’s backhand cuts me off so violently the last word is little more than a huff. “—to!”
“Are you saying I’m lazy, child?” Evelyn’s voice is as bleak and sinister as the fluorescent lights streaming into my eyes as I blink back tears and straighten to face her.
Sybil starts to cry.
Tiny, gulping, pathetic little sounds she desperately attempts to suppress.
But she’s too young to hold back fear.
It took me twelve years to master my fear of Evelyn. But sometimes, especially at night, it still finds a way to sidle out, terrorizing my mind until dawn.
Right now, I’m struggling to hold back the barriers. Struggling to hold in my own damn urine.
What was I thinking?
I’m an imbecile.
A stupid, selfish, pathetic child.
“What have you got there?” Evelyn’s sharp gaze darts away from me, latching onto my sister where Sybil is trying to burrow into my side. “Show me before I lose my patience.”
Sybil’s tears hitch, her mouth a twisted, shaking mess as she reluctantly turns to Evelyn.
A thin hand stretches out, palm out, and Sybil nearly fumbles the jar as she tries to pass it to Evelyn. Thankfully, my reflexes are excellent, and I snatch it out of the air before it can crash to the ground.
Evelyn sniffs as I hand her the jar, then angles away from us, holding it up to the light.
Despite the faint humming whine of the fluorescent lights, I can hear the butterfly’s wings as they tap against the glass.
“Genus?” Evelyn snaps.
“Plebejus.”
“Species?”
“Northern Blue. Male.”
“How long has it been down here?”
“Two days.”
“You’ve been feeding it?”
“Honey water, soaked into a cotton ball.”
Evelyn’s narrow chest rises as she takes a breath, then she tips the jar over, and unscrews the lid. With it upside down, the butterfly is still trapped as it strives forever upward, to where the sky used to be.
Sybil wipes the back of her hand over her eyes, her crying having simmered down to a sullen, “Uhu-uhu.”
But she must hold her breath then, because there’s silence as Evelyn reaches into the jar and snatches out the butterfly by an iridescent sapphire wing.
Wing dust floats down as the insect’s struggles grow more violent. I know they’re actually tiny little scales, but with the fluorescent lights glaring down, they look more like fairy dust than ever.
“You caught this for Sybil.”
“Yes.”
“How nice of you.”
I think it’s my imagination. Evelyn’s voice is always the same monotonous drone, every consonant perfectly articulated yet somehow lacking any intonation whatsoever.
But I hear it now.
The tiniest emphasis she puts on nice.
Just like I immediately answer anything asked of me, I know to step back when Evelyn advances on Sybil. It’s an automatic gesture, like ducking when someone raises a hand to strike.
I might have put Sybil in this position, but it’s survival of the fittest. I’m not ending up as collateral damage.
Sybil’s sobbing starts up again when The Witch grabs my little sister’s face. With a practiced motion, she pinches into Sybil’s cheeks, forcing the child’s lips apart.
My chest closes up, breath trapped in my throat as my stomach clenches painfully. But I stand there, hands behind my back, and I watch.
Because that’s what Evelyn expects.
And doing what she expects means—mostly—that I don’t get punished.
My eyes shift of their own, trying to look across the room, to where the dark had hidden the Bad Place.
Sybil’s howl drags them back.
And I don’t know what’s worse in this moment.
Watching as Evelyn, the woman who birthed me thirteen years ago but whom I shall never, ever call Mother in my head, forces that pretty blue butterfly inside my sister’s mouth and makes her chew…
…or the two chairs bolted to the floor in the middle of the room.
I can smell the leather straps attached to the arms and feet of the chair. Can feel the smooth, worn surface of the wood against my pants. The splinters at the tips of the arms where my fingers fold over the edge.
But those chairs aren’t the worst.
Not even when I hear a crunch and Sybil gags.
What’s worse of all down here in the Bad Place, is the Wall of Death.
The one the bolted-down chairs face.
The one covered with the neatly positioned corpses of nearly a hundred small, furry creatures.
Some dried out like beef jerky.
Some crawling with maggots.
Some still fresh enough that blood glistens from the fatal blow that ended their brief lives.