15 Years （And a Few Months） Ago
THE BUTTON MANOR
In the beginning, Henry Xu thought of it all as nothing more than a harmless game.
But as he watched the twisted scene unfold before him, he understood there was nothing harmless or entertaining about any of it.
It was like something out of a dystopian novel:
Mr. Button, seated on his brown leather chesterfield throne as one of the maids placed each child at the edge of the room, and another maid distributed the items in a row in the center—a chess piece, a violinist’s bow, a gold medal, a paintbrush, and a pencil—before they returned to their places, awaiting further instruction.
The staff had been preparing for the day’s events for several months.
They’d ensured that the room was at an ideal and exact temperature for brain stimulation, that the items had been vetted by experts as optimal choices for the purpose they would soon serve, that the staff on duty would be up to their tasks and aware of the stakes at hand, signing NDAs and receiving healthy bonuses for their cooperation as well as their silence.
Each person would be a player and each player would become a pawn. As Mr. Button’s personal secretary, Henry Xu had made sure of it.
After several moments of nothing, Mr. Button surveyed the room, his gaze landing on the motionless infants all seated before him. He sighed loudly, uncrossing his legs and pushing himself out of the leather armchair.
“Children, I must remind you, today is a very special day—one you will be defined by for the rest of your lives. There is a lot riding on this going perfectly, so it is of utmost importance that you get this right. Capiche?” Mr. Button said, staring sternly down at the plump toddlers as their wide eyes blinked up at the tall, graying man who was more or less still a stranger to them.
It was impossible for the children to truly understand a word the strange old man had said, and yet Mr. Button nodded, as though the children had given him a satisfactory response.
“Very well,” Mr. Button continued with a wide smile, before returning to his chair.
Henry cleared his throat and fixed his tie nervously.
He couldn’t wait for this day to be over.
Unfortunately, in his naivete, he did not realize that this day was just the beginning.
There would be no end, no happily ever after.
Things would just keep getting worse for the occupants of the Button Manor.
In retrospect, it might be hard to see how Henry could have missed how wrong this all was when the signs were always there.
Indeed, an onlooker might’ve gestured to the bloodred flags undulating in the stifling air of the Manor.
And yet, as though color-blind, Henry never saw the issues coming—at first, anyway.
Months after this date, Henry would come to regret not stepping in sooner. Not questioning whether this was at all moral. Subjecting children to this, making the children choose who they would be for the rest of their lives without understanding what it would mean for any of them.
To be unwilling science experiments. Chess pieces.
To live out the Orwellian fantasy of a billionaire.
It wasn’t so much the practice Henry found unethical, but more so Leontes Button himself.
He was almost certain that Mr. Button had gotten the idea of placing items in front of children for them to choose their futures in this way from Henry’s ancestors.
It wouldn’t be the first or last time a man like Mr. Button would steal and bastardize something sacred.
Zhuazhou (also known as Doljabi in Korea). A one-thousand-year-old Chinese custom, similar only in theory: the practice of allowing children to crawl toward their own destiny on their first birthday.
Henry barely remembered his own choosing ceremony, but his mother always spoke of it fondly.
He imagined her holding him tight, kissing him on the forehead like she always used to, before letting him go.
He imagined that she’d set him down, as all of his relatives and those who loved him most stood around and dreamed up a future more bright and more brilliant than anything he could ever imagine for himself.
A future much better than the present, where he was the secretary to one of the world’s most powerful men.
Unlike whatever it was that Mr. Button was doing today, the ceremony in its original form was about hope.
And there was certainly no hope here.
“Come on, children! Hurry along,” Mr. Button yelled at the unstirring toddlers, all of them still seated in the far-reaching corners of the large office space. He clapped fiercely at them and startled everyone in the process—Henry included.
The first toddler to move was of course Bilal. He was never one to sit still for long.
The staff held their breaths as the child crawled toward the items, stopping in front of them, head moving from left to right as he appeared to examine each one.
His little brown fingers wriggled as he grabbed the gold medal.
“That’s my boy!” Mr. Button cheered as Billy placed the round object in his mouth. One of the maids lifted him up and carried him away, handing him over to his wet nurse.
One defenseless child down, four more to go, Henry thought.
Henry had only been working for Mr. Button for a few short months, though according to the other staff, he’d been the longest secretary to last in recent history. The previous three had all quit in under a month.
At first, Henry didn’t understand it. The pay was generous—triple what his previous job had offered—and he even got his own room in the Manor.
The hours were flexible, and the job itself wasn’t as taxing as one might assume.
All he had to do was manage a portion of Mr. Button’s affairs and, on occasion, tend to the children.
But as the days stretched on, Henry found himself understanding why it was the other secretaries had quit.
It was the darkness that did it. The inescapable emptiness one felt when they stayed too long in the Button Manor.
The Manor had that cold, quiet charm of a graveyard.
The security it offered was much like the icy embrace of a ravenous ghost. Unpredictable and cruel.
It was as though once you stepped inside, the smoke and mirrors cleared, and it was evident that you would never shake the feeling of unease again.
Henry would come to theorize that the house was indeed cursed, and that the longer you stayed, the easier it became for the darkness to nest and eat away at you until you were nothing but bone dust. Haunted and haunting, starved and ravishing everything inside of it.
Henry could feel the house rotting him from the inside out.
And yet he stayed.
Over the years, he would watch Mr. Button assume the role of a god, bearing witness to the sin at its point of origin, first starting here in Eden, and ending catastrophically with the billionaire’s five unwitting heirs. Mr. Button’s touch shrouded everything and everyone in darkness in his wake.
Henry tried to shrug off the darkness now, continuing to observe the perverse scene unfolding in front of him.
The next child to move was Fola. Her competitive nature was clear in the way she moved with quickness and determination toward the objects on the carpet.
It did not take her as long as her brother to choose what would become her fate.
She let out a small girlish laugh as she grabbed hold of the chess piece on the ground—the pawn, ironically—before she was carried away, like her brother.
Her prize for conforming was the privilege of food from her own wet nurse.
The other children—Romeo, Perdita, and Octavius—soon followed in the footsteps of their siblings.
Mr. Button’s eyes lit up as he watched his five heirs giddily move about, clutching their carefully orchestrated futures in their undeveloped grasps.
Watching them, it should have been clear what would become of them all.
If Henry had known what would become of them, he might have intervened. Might have risked his job and potentially his life to put a stop to this.
But how could he have known what the events of that day would trigger?
How could any of them have known?
“This is a cause for celebration!” Mr. Button announced to the dimly lit room, only to be met with silence. The only sound present was that of raindrops hitting the roof outside.
“Henry, please fetch us a bottle of the finest wine we have,” Mr. Button said as the evening sky purpled, bringing more darkness into the room with it.
Henry paused, looking from Mr. Button to the maids, who all had their heads bowed, to the five children clinging to their prizes.
“For just yourself, sir?” he asked, unsure of the lengths to which his employer would go. After all he had seen, it wouldn’t at all be surprising if Leontes Button thought it suitable to give each of his children glasses of pinot noir.
Mr. Button laughed. “Of course not!” he exclaimed. Henry’s heart stopped. “Glasses for you all as well, and juice for the children. They have done well today.”
Henry let out a sigh of relief.
Thank the heavens, he almost whispered.
Before he left to fetch the drinks, Henry turned to look once again at the children. His gaze lingered on the one who held his own object with a frown as though, unlike his siblings, he was aware of the gravity of his choice.