1213 P.M.—The Button Manor #2
Henry beamed at him, like the suggestion that he’d been missed made up for everything Octavius had done.
“Likewise.” Henry checked his watch. “The press conference hasn’t started yet, but your other siblings are already dressed and are upstairs waiting to be briefed by Claire while the journalists set up. ”
The press conference, Octavius thought bitterly. It was the reason he was being forced back here after so long.
There wasn’t usually a press conference.
Previously, Octavius would show up to the yearly ball at his own pace, avoiding the Manor altogether.
But this year was the tenth anniversary of the Prodigy Ball—the event his father had created to welcome and celebrate child geniuses from all over the world—so his father had planned a whole series of special events in celebration.
The first of those being the press conference, which Octavius was “not under any circumstances allowed to miss”—a direct quote from the strongly worded letter his father had sent to his boarding school a few months ago.
Like the ball itself, missing the conference would lead to “dire and long-lasting consequences.”
The consequences were always the same for all of Octavius’s transgressions: his removal from his father’s will.
Octavius’s share of his father’s fortune had already decreased significantly when he’d had his huge mess-up (if you could call it that) and had been shipped off to boarding school as a result. However, not attending the Prodigy Ball at all would decrease his inheritance to zero.
And so here he was, enduring yet another one of his father’s games in order to hold on to a share of the family fortune. Octavius placed his hands back into his hollow pockets, feeling the weight of the emptiness inside.
“Why don’t you both head over to the west wing for your fittings before you join the briefing? I’ll come up with some excuse for the delay,” Henry said.
“Thanks, Henry, you’re the best,” Fola said, looking relieved.
She gave Henry a quick one-armed hug before rushing off, not waiting for Octavius.
Before Octavius could follow, he felt a gentle hand on his shoulder and turned to find Henry’s weary expression staring up at him.
He hadn’t remembered Henry being this small.
Had Henry shrunk? Or had Octavius just grown?
He watched Henry pause, waiting for Fola to disappear around the bend before he allowed himself to speak. “How are you doing, Tavi?” Henry asked quietly, a strange tautness in his tone.
The shadow of the same bloody memory edged dangerously in Octavius’s mind. He blinked away the blood, the pain, the guilt. “I’m fine, Henry.”
“Are you sure you’re fine? I know you might find today of all days difficult and—”
“Yes, it’s fine—I’m fine. You don’t have to obsessively check in on me like I’m some ticking time bomb waiting to go off,” Octavius snapped, his tone cold and abrasive, much harsher and much more defensive than he’d meant it to sound.
“Why wouldn’t I be fine?” he asked, his voice cracking slightly around the edges.
He was daring Henry to bring it up first. To unearth the monster they’d buried three years ago.
Predictably, Henry did not bring it up. Still, a look of obvious concern flashed across his tired, aging face, but he only nodded.
“Okay. If you’re sure,” Henry said, and then straightened, quickly going back into secretary mode.
“You have about twenty minutes to get ready, so I’d better let you head off to the dressing rooms. I’ll see you at the press conference.
” He finished with a curt nod, not waiting for Octavius’s response as he turned away.
“Henry, wait,” Octavius said.
“Yes?” The secretary turned back to him with a strange expression, though he answered kindly, as Henry always did.
“Is … he here already?” Octavius did not have to say who he was.
Henry nodded. “Yes, I believe your father is already upstairs.”
Octavius felt his muscles tense, but he managed to nod anyway. “All right, thank you,” he said.
Henry lingered a moment, as if wanting to ask if he was okay again, but clearly decided against it.
Octavius watched Henry disappear, feeling once again like the world’s worst person.
He should not have snapped at Henry like that, but this house always seemed to bring out the worst in him.
It wasn’t just the house either. It was this day every year.
It turned him into something unrecognizable. Something monstrous.
He sighed and began dragging his feet along the black-and-white marbled path that led to the west wing.
It truly was weird being back in the Manor. And it was not just the memories (which were definitely part of the weirdness) but the place itself too.
Covering the walls in every single hallway, and in almost every single room, were dead animal heads. Everything from deer to rabbit to zebra were mounted and staring down at him with their beady, dead but watchful eyes that reminded him so much of his father’s.
He tried and failed then to bury the dark feelings he felt bobbing to the surface once again. He squeezed his eyes shut, attempting to push away the darkness, but it was no use. He could still see the blood.
He could always see the blood.
Blood dripping from the ceilings. Blood spilling from the lifeless eyes of the animal heads on the walls of the Manor. Blood staining his white palms a bright crimson red.
Octavius felt cursed. Or perhaps it was this ball that was cursed. Only bad things ever seemed to happen here.
The Prodigy Ball was meant to be a good thing though.
Every year, an exclusive invitation was sent out to a short list of impressive individuals from all over the world.
The invite offered the opportunity of a lifetime: spending the night basking in the Leontes Button’s supposed greatness as the infamous creator of the Button Method.
This annual ball also heralded networking opportunities with world-leading experts and professionals, the rare possibility of seeing Mr. Button’s famed experiments (also known as his children) in the flesh, and the chance to win the grand prize at the end of the night—the Prodigy of the Year Award.
One lucky genius between the ages of six and nineteen would walk away with the promise of career-long mentorship by Mr. Button, as well as a huge cash prize.
Octavius had lived his entire life by his father’s famous method: tutors flown out from all corners of the world; dietitians who assigned strict meal plans for optimal progress; countless hours of daily practice and lessons with various instructors; dinners with important donors with whom he was forced to network.
A never-ending focus on nothing but excelling at his craft.
There were always competitions or recitals to enter and repercussions to be faced if he did not win.
It was a brutal method that his father had used, seeking to prove his hypothesis correct, that it was nurture, not nature, that determined greatness.
Octavius swiped some of his father’s whiskey from the pantry, before he continued on his way to his fitting, letting both the memories of his “great” childhood and the drink fill the vast chasm inside.
The story of his greatness began with his father plucking Octavius from an orphanage in Finland sixteen years ago, and bringing him back to North America, where, according to his father, a one-year-old Octavius had apparently chosen a violin bow from a selection of objects.
He’d then been trained from that point on to become one of the youngest musical geniuses the world had ever seen.
He’d learned to read music notes before words, paraded around concert halls before he could even walk, and composed his first masterpiece at age seven (one year before Mozart wrote his first symphony, as Octavius often liked to remind people).
Despite this, he had always thought it strange that his entire future had been determined by a random decision he’d made before his brain could even form connections.
Still, he was made to be brilliant, as were his siblings, and now his eternal punishment was the Prodigy Ball. Octavius wasn’t sure if he could take another year of this, let alone a lifetime.
He wouldn’t survive it.
Once he made it to his private dressing room, Octavius was the perfect puppet.
He stood still while the puppet master’s workers dressed him in the clothes chosen for him for the press conference: a dark sweater and slacks with green crocodile-leather loafers.
He did not flinch when they stuck pins in him, gelled his hair down, or pressed products onto his face that would help conceal the dark circles under his eyes from many sleepless nights.
Every imperfection was tucked away, confined.
He was made to look alive and well, instead of like one of his father’s stuffed deer.
But he was not well and had not been for a long while.
With every passing moment, Octavius could feel the monster inside begin to stir against the chains that held him.
The monster that had been growing for years, roaring at this life he had been forced to live.
He felt itchy all over, claustrophobic in his new skin.
Trapped in this role of the dutiful heir for another night.
When he was finally allowed out of the dressing room, Octavius felt the urge to escape again, this time for good. He considered whether the consequences really mattered at all. Not when the consequence for compliance sometimes felt worse than disobeying his father’s orders.
Blood … so much blood … His conscience rattled away desperately inside of him. There was always so much more blood here …
Octavius did not want to exist like this forever, in this bloody nightmare that was his reality. He did not want to return to the Prodigy Ball next year or the year after that. He needed a way out, otherwise he was not sure what else he was capable of doing to himself … to others …
Somehow tonight had to be the end of this all.
He was done being a puppet.
Tonight, his strings were finally going to be cut loose.