Chapter 17
THE NEXT DAY
Octavius Button woke to the sound of screaming.
Or at least that’s what it sounded like to him at first, anyway. With his colossal hangover, even a whisper could sound like thunder.
He buried his head inside the cove of his pillow, trying to block out the noise, but still the sound persisted, growing louder and more unpleasant. A sharp, sustained, tuneless string of notes, like the hungry bleating of a Welsh mountain goat.
After some thorough investigation—namely, lifting his head, squinting his eyes open, and surveying the space around him—Octavius realized that the screaming was not in fact screaming at all, but was instead the distant sound of the west wing bell tolling, calling them all down from their various corners of the Manor for breakfast. The bell was a sound he was not used to hearing anymore.
Octavius winced in pain when he opened his eyes wider now and the bright rays of the morning sunlight streamed into his room and assaulted his irises.
He sat up, holding his pounding head in his hands. Who on earth let him drink that much last night?
But in the midst of trying to will his hangover away, Octavius heard the bleating noise grow closer.
“I’m coming, I’m coming!” he yelled, as if he could be heard by anyone but himself in his mostly soundproofed room. He pushed off from his bed and slipped into his pajama bottoms, a nightshirt, and fuzzy slippers before finally exiting his room.
As expected, standing right by his door was one of the maids, holding up two bells and swinging them into the air like a woman possessed. Octavius had forgotten how much he hated mornings in the Manor.
The maid finally stopped when she saw the discontented face of Octavius watching her disdainfully from the doorway. He must have slept through the general morning bell, so she was probably sent here to personally torment him.
“Breakfast is ready, Master Button,” she announced. He grimaced at the title. Master. Another thing he hated about this backward place.
“Thank you …,” he started, then searched her uniform for a name tag but found none.
She nodded and curtsied at him and then marched away, her job of disturbing his sleep and giving him a permanent head injury finally done with.
With a sigh, Octavius went back into his room to brush his teeth, rubbed some soap under his armpits, and then dragged himself down the spiral staircase that led to the foyer.
When he got downstairs, he found the ground floor crawling with Manor staff roaming the halls hurriedly, carrying large bouquets of bright red hydrangeas, white reams of decorative ribbon, tall vintage candlesticks, and golden candelabras.
They were heading in the general direction of the east wing.
Octavius heard one of the staff mutter to another something about brunch, and that’s when it all clicked for him.
They were setting up for the Button Banquet Brunch—the event that always happened the morning after the Prodigy Ball.
In a few hours, the guests from last night would return, this time to the Manor, for a grand brunch event with his father and a whole horde of his very impressive guests, where they’d spend hours eating caviar and kissing each other’s asses—aka Octavius’s personal version of hell. For one, he hated caviar.
It made sense now as to why they were heading to the east wing; it was where the banquet hall was located.
Octavius shuddered at the idea of going to another one of his father’s pretentious events.
Last night was enough for an entire lifetime.
Thankfully, the brunch was not something he or his siblings were obligated to attend, so they never did.
He wove in between the busy staff, and when he finally reached the dining room for breakfast, he was immediately struck by how unchanged the room was.
He hadn’t been in the dining room in years and yet it felt like he’d never left.
His siblings were already seated around the long table.
Fola, who, as always, looked the most awake and well-groomed of them, was already dressed in what he always lovingly referred to as horse girl apparel—a blazer and boots.
Octavius took what used to be his usual seat next to her and gave her a grin that she did not return.
“Thank you for joining us this morning, Octavius,” Henry said, smiling at the boy fondly. Henry stood at the edge of the room, his usual charcoal-gray suit pressed, his hands clasped together and his expression kind, as always.
“Can we have breakfast now?” Bilal asked gruffly.
Octavius wondered how long they’d been waiting for him. It wasn’t even 8:00 A.M. yet, the time their family breakfasts usually started—or used to start when he still lived here, that is.
“Yes, go ahead,” Henry said with a nod, jutting his hand out as a gesture for them to begin eating from the porcelain plates.
The sounds of silverware hitting china filled the room as the Buttons all dug in.
Fresh pastries, pancakes and crepes, toasted sourdough with an array of various spreads, and small baskets of sliced fruit were laid out in front of them.
It had been so long since they’d done this, had breakfast together, and in the relative quiet (relative only because Octavius could hear Bilal scoffing down his pancakes nearby) Octavius allowed himself to remember the last breakfast they’d had together, three years ago.
The morning he’d left home and vowed to never return.
The morning of his departure came into focus.
Henry pleading with him, telling him it would all be fine, that they’d work something out, he didn’t have to leave.
Fola crying. His father warning him of his inheritance and the consequences he’d face once he left.
But Octavius hadn’t cared, he’d just needed out. And that out was boarding school.
“Henry.” Fola’s voice disturbed the memory. “When is Father joining us for breakfast?” she asked, cutting into her sausage.
Octavius glanced at her wearily. Some things never change.
His sister would forever be obsessed with the old man. He never saw the point in wanting to impress his father as much as she did. It was a fruitless endeavor; trying to please their father was like trying to make quantum physics make sense.
Henry looked across the room at the vacant seat at the head of the table. “Good question …” Henry frowned. “I imagine he is still preparing for the brunch at eleven. Everyone should start arriving soon.”
“I suppose he might also have had late business?” Henry continued. “He usually does after big events like these … I’ll call his office to check. You know how your father is; he’d rather die than miss out on the most important meal of the day.”
Suddenly there was a sequence of loud thuds from upstairs, like footsteps. It forced their gazes up to the ceiling. This was quickly followed by the clatter of cutlery, and then by the sound of chair legs scraping against the hardwood floor of the dining room as Bilal stood rather abruptly.
“Henry, may I please be excused?” Bilal said, looking down at his plate with the oddest expression on his face.
Looking closely, Octavius realized his brother’s skin was flushed, his eyes bloodshot, and he had the general appearance of someone sickly.
It seemed he wasn’t the only one who’d had a little too much to drink last night.
Henry nodded, and without any hesitation or acknowledgment of his other siblings, Bilal stalked out of the dining room as quickly as he could—which wasn’t quickly at all given the cast around his leg.
How strange, Octavius thought.
Bilal’s sudden departure was met with more taut silence.
The siblings all sat in the quiet, moving their food around their plates.
Caught up in finishing his breakfast as quickly as he could, Octavius didn’t hear the gentle padding of feet across the floor, or notice as the owner of said feet tried to make themselves more discreet.
It wasn’t until Henry spoke that Octavius’s bone-white head shot up again.
“Anwar? Anwar Shah?” Henry asked, as all of the siblings looked over to the arched dining room entrance, where Prodigy of the Year Anwar Shah was standing barefoot and dressed in what appeared to be last night’s attire.
Octavius took in the boy’s disheveled tartan-patterned tuxedo and then the direction the boy seemed to have come from—the east wing, where Bilal’s bedroom happened to be located.
The boy looked around the dining room, his face the very picture of embarrassment.
“Oh, sorry to interrupt your breakfast, umm, I was just looking for the, uh … exit,” he said, not offering any explanation for his sudden appearance at the supposedly highly guarded Manor.
Not that Octavius or the others needed one. They had all put two and two together.
Octavius smirked, sharing an amused glance with Fola.
Henry smiled. “That’s okay, Anwar. I’ll show you to the door,” he said, walking out of the dining room with the flustered boy in tow.
Octavius shoved a piece of toast into his mouth. “It appears Bilal has a boyfriend now, how delightful,” he said.
“Anwar’s his ex-boyfriend,” Perdita clarified, barely looking up from her granola bowl.
“Oh. The plot thickens,” Octavius said with a grin, chewing his toast obnoxiously.
“Please don’t chew with your mouth open, Tavi. It’s ill-mannered,” Fola said disapprovingly.
“Nothing ill-mannered about celebrating young love, Fola. It’s great that Billy gets to have it.
Some of us are unlovable and will likely die alone, so it’s nice to see that even those with a permanent stick up their asses can find someone who isn’t completely turned off by them,” Octavius said, and Fola shot him a disapproving glance.
Luckily, before she could reprimand him, a loud crash sounded in the distance, followed by the echo of someone running toward the dining room.
Moments later, Henry returned looking very pale, his expression grave.
“Henry?” Perdita asked, frowning at the secretary, who looked like he was seconds away from fainting.
“There’s been an incident,” Henry said, trying and failing to steady his voice.
“What is it? Did Bilal break his other leg?” Octavius asked, which only earned him disapproving glares from everyone, even Romeo, who usually never reacted to his comments.
Henry shook his head, opening and closing his mouth like he couldn’t believe the words he was about to utter. “No, no, not Billy … It’s Mr. Butto—your father,” Henry said, his eyes unfocused as he looked over each of them. “He—He’s been found … dead.”