3. Chapter 2

The sun has fallen over the trees by the time I make my way back inside. It"s quiet, not unusual, and easier now that I don"t have to take alternate routes to avoid my sisters. Medla and Adriel were always together, and they followed the same routine every day. It was easy to memorize. Cedric was hardly ever home, as he spent most of his nights amongst the ladies employed at the town brothel. His absence does not bother me.

Of course, Father is in his wing of the castle, where only my sisters frequented, I was not to go near there. So, I kept to the servants" quarters or outside and only ended the days in my own room, which I sometimes think was out of the way on purpose. All the way on the east side, where no guest would need to pass by on their way to the library or picture gallery, and another way to ensure I was not seen by Father, ever.

Making my way down the long hallway, I pause as I hear footsteps above that could belong to no other than my Father now that we are the only two left. I become as still as a deer that hears a twig snap under a hunter"s foot. The air feels thin, like I can"t get enough into my lungs. The marks on Adriel come to mind. Has he really become so taken by this sickness? The footsteps are further from me. I knew he was losing his mind, but those cuts could have caused more damage or even cost her life.

When I reach my room, it"s with near silence. I open the door slowly and meticulously, a practice I"ve perfected over the years. I take all the right steps into my bedroom so the floor does not squeak under my weight. Then, as I have always done, I light all eight candles, placing them strategically around the room so there are not too many dark spaces. Another measure I take to go unnoticed, this time it"s not my sisters or Father or Cedric and his friends I hide from. Instead, it"s the void, the darkness, the boogie man, the thing that makes my imagination bleed into reality. The Shadows have become more demanding as of late. Always teasing me with whispers that I cannot make sense of.

Not even Lupita knows what ails me. She has told me stories of what happens to those who suffer from insanity. Condemned as a witch or locked into asylums. So, I keep my secret, taking these extra measures to ensure they don"t drive me entirely into a madness I cannot escape. I prepare myself for a cold night, curl into a ball covered in all the blankets I can find, and close my eyes, praying to the Gods for sleep to come quickly before my candles burn out.

My sleep lasts only a few hours. I"m awoken by an almost melodic sound, one I"ve never heard before. As if the sound senses my consciousness, it stops. Only one candle near the window remains lit. The smaller I am, the better, I tell myself, pulling my knees into my body. The whispers make their way to my bed. I hold as still as possible, not affording them the attention they seek.

Fear takes over, I feel myself start to sweat, which makes the cold of the night unbearable, sending shivers down my spine. Just close your eyes. I try to coax myself back to sleep, but the whispers are in my ear now. They surround me. It"s not just dark, it"s empty, there is nothing. The small blurs of light you can normally see from behind your eyelids are nonexistent.

Then, as if I"m underwater, weightlessness.

There is no more bedroom or worn candles, there are no sounds or coldness, and even the feeling of my heart slamming into my ribs has stopped. It"s just black. Perhaps I have fallen asleep once more.

When the world recreates itself around me, when my feet bear the weight of my body, and a cool breeze blows at the hem of my sleeping garments, I open my eyes reluctantly. There is a door in front of me, elaborately carved designs, faces with eyes that do not move from me, Father"s door.

I would rather have stayed in that abyss forever, warm and weightless, I would rather be anywhere but here. Run. To the left of me is a giant porcelain statue of a warrior. Run. To the right, a seemingly endless hallway. Run. But my legs do not move.

A pool of black spills from Fathers" room, through the cracks and into the hallway. This can"t be real. It"s a dream, I try and fail to convince myself. The darkness slithers through the keyhole before wrapping around my hand and guiding me to the handle. It seems I cannot move, cannot stop it from twisting my wrist until I"m looking into Fathers" room, my hand still glued to the knob.

The bed is disheveled, as if he were just here, and the window is cracked slightly, pulling in a breeze. Quickly I shuffle to the other side of the room to close the window. No wonder it"s so cold in here. I look down at my bare feet and then around the room, illuminated by the night sky that spills from the window. "Just one more day," a voice says from far off with excitement, like Adriel used to sound when dressing for a party. It does not belong to anyone I know, certainly not Father. The Shadows have never been more than whispers and commands but short, undesired words. But these words are fully formed, nothing like what I have heard the darkness say before.

Frantically, I search for who the voice belongs to. Movement near the unlit fireplace catches in the corner of my eye, but when I try to trace the object, I see nothing. Brush, thump, brush, thump. Footsteps from the hallway, they make their way closer to the door. I"m not sure who I"m more afraid of in this moment, an intruder or my own Father. Silently, I wait for someone to enter the room. I begin to make up things that I know can"t be true. Father must have gone for a walk or to gather firewood. I try to convince myself. If it is indeed him, he will be furious with me in his wing of House Luz when he spent years telling me I was to stay away.

The knot in my throat prevents me from letting out a cry of terror as a strange animal limps onto the colorful rug at the foot of the bed. I glance at the door. The animal stands between me and the only exit. Well, the only exit that doesn"t send me plummeting towards Stone.

A large nose, shiny against the moonlight, lifts into the air as it takes in the smell of me. This is no animal I"ve ever seen before. It licks its large yellow teeth, its tongue long and dark red. The stench that comes off its labored breathing is foul.

I"m frozen. This time, it"s my own fear that keeps me in place, not the darkness that seems to hold me at the door. Coward. That can"t be my last thought, but too weak and too scared to get away, a coward is what I am. The beast lets out a low growl and readies its feet to pounce in a motion that I have seen many times before when an animal strikes its prey.

Finally, my voice cracks with a scream. Doesn"t matter, I say to myself. No one is here to help me, I"ve been left behind.

The beast lunges at me. I dodge the attack but hit the floor with a thud, a stabbing pain in the wrist that I used to soften my fall. When I turn over, I prop myself up, practically dragging my legs across the floor as I clumsily try to distance myself from the animal. My back hits a chair, which I use to pull myself up, but when I look back at the animal it is no longer pursuing me.

Instead, it falls to the floor after me, unmoving, a small whimper escapes it as it hits the hard wood. I do not take my eyes off the creature. I look to the door, and I"m ready to make a run for it, but the beast lets out a shallow breath. Instead, I take two slow steps toward the beast, peering over the top of it. It"s wounded badly, a trail of blood in its wake.

It"s not a dog, man, or boar but a mix of all three. As it lies in a pool of moonlight, I can see half of its ugly face clearly.

I blink away the blur of tears as I try to make sense of what is in front of me. I dare another step. a small glint of metal catches the white light that comes through the window. "No, no, no," I whisper as I recognize a copper pendant, a yellow stone set at its center, the official gem of House Luz tied by a leather string around its neck.

Hansel Luz, my Father, lay before me in the shape of a beast, unrecognizable had I not seen him wear that pendant every day for the last 18 years of my life. I reach for it, holding it in the palm of my hand. It"s covered in a sticky black substance, blood, his blood.

He is heavy, but I push him onto his back and find the source. He shudders a breath in pain when his weight shifts but does not wake. A broken arrow runs through his ribs and sticks out his side. Small whines escape the beast with every heave of Father"s chest.

For a moment, I just stare, waiting. Maybe for his chest to stop the rise and fall that signals life. My hands shake, I look towards the door. There is nothing stopping me, this is a dead man, just as my sisters said, I could leave him here. But that would make me no better than my sisters.

Quickly I get to my feet, grab a blanket off the bed and wrap it around Father. There is half-burnt wood in the fireplace. I start it just as Lupita taught me.

Next, I find strips of fabric and a healing salve in the bathroom meant for minor wounds. I can make them work. I begin to heat water over the flames.

Father"s limp came from a large gash just above the knee. I once saw my Father wrap Cedric"s leg after a fall from his horse. I made sure to memorize the technique as I hid in the corner stall of the stables. Always hiding.

Once the arrow is removed, I throw the yellow feathers from the fletching into the flames and begin wrapping Father"s torso. With each sound he makes, I flinch slightly, ready to run if he wakes.

When I finally finish, my hands are coated in red. I sit on the wingback chair near the fire, counting the seconds between the beasts" breaths. Throughout the night I check Fathers" dressings and stoke the fire that is soon to run out of fuel.

I don"t let myself close my eyes and even though the Shadows have not spoken, I still feel like eyes are on me. The feeling is not new. I hug my knees to my chest. His breathing is becoming more even now, and the healing salve seems to have eased some of the pain because the beast"s face is no longer contorted.

Father sleeps well into the day. I fuss with his dressings once more, then bring a pillow from the bed to place under his head. The morning birds sing a melody. Perhaps they would not sing such a happy tune if they saw the bloody mess in here.

When Father stirs, I jump to my feet, but he only lifts his head and shifts his weight to face the floor. His fur lined back faces me, his skin is thin, and his bones protrude from his spine like a jagged mountain. Adriel"s mangled arm comes to my mind"s eye. I lean back into the chair and close my eyes. I don"t let myself drift from consciousness as I think of this secret that my sisters have kept from me all these years. How much did they know?

Cedric has always avoided me. He being the oldest and I the youngest, we did not have much in common. My sisters used to play with me, more like a doll than a human. Adriel would braid my hair and dress me up in her old gowns. Medla loved playing house, of course it was just an excuse to boss us around and treat us as her children, which was nice, after all, I never had a mother.

Cedric and Medla had many years with Mother before she died. Adriel lost her when she was only 5. Because of me.

For a few years, things were good. Father did his best to raise four children with the help of nursemaids and servants.

One day, sometime after my 10th birthday, Father came home in a state of upset. He poured himself a drink, then another, then another. He looked like he had just seen a ghost and was trying to chase away its spirit with booze. He drank all night, crying out for Mother, listing the ways in which she had wronged him, starting with her obsession with magic and ending with me—her worst mistake.

More memories come flooding in of that day.

Letters were etched into Father"s arms, but he paid no attention to the drops of blood that traveled down his elbow, bent as he tipped his drink to the sky, savoring every last drop. Medla chased after him, following him through the castle with a damp cloth, wiping the red from the floorboards in fear it might stain.

Adriel later told me he went to visit a woman who claimed to talk to the dead. He smelled of incense, a familiar scent that I smelled at church just a few days before. Of course that was the last time I attended. I did not understand why he could not look at me. Why he made sure that I was not within his sight.

And out of sight, I remained, avoiding him at all costs.

Slowly, my siblings forgot about me. Cedric was already used to ignoring me, and Medla wasn"t much better. Sweet Adriel had no plans of following. She would sneak to my room or find me outside, and if the day was warm enough in the summer, she"d even swim with me. Soon, the visits became fewer, and eventually, they stopped altogether.

I should have known that if I was still for this long, if I gave myself a chance to remember, the images of Father"s blood-soaked hands would soon creep up.

I learned the best way to keep them at bay is to busy my hands. After only taking a slight glance at Father"s sleeping body once more, I leave. Not until I am out the door, far from Father, do I notice that my knees are quaking, and my hands feel like ice.

As I dress, I remind myself of all the freedom that Father"s neglect has given me, I enjoy the simplicity of it all. Doing as I please, as long as no one is bothered. I can"t imagine what madness I would descend into if I were to be kept where the Shadows could easily reach me. Or to have all eyes on me as they were on my sisters, their every move determining their status. The loneliness, the solitude, helped me protect my secret and I mustn"t forget that.

Both Medla and Adriel"s coming of age was painfully dull. Men were lined up at the door for no other reason than to sit in the library, which I was not allowed to be in, and stare at my sisters while they chatted of Gods know what. They would eat small sandwiches, which I was not allowed to have. Then, afterward, my sisters would exchange their likes and dislikes in a discussion I was not allowed to participate in.

Then, off to parties and balls held by wealthy men. Of course I was never to attend such places. So instead, I spent my time watching, and I even learned a thing or two, but never from the women.

I was uninterested in posh gowns and feathered hats. Did not much need the gossip that spread from one ear to the other, I had no one to pass it on to anyhow.

On the other hand, the men would line up outside, just past the garden in an open field. Under the window in which they knew my sisters and other women could see them from.

They stood in front of targets, aiming bows with arrows, I saw what worked for some and what didn"t work for others. Finally, when no one was looking, I took a bow for myself, practicing on a tree stump hidden near the garden.

Soon I had a whole arsenal: a sword, a dagger, and a slingshot to add to my bow. Keeping them hidden from Cedric. Not only would he have punished me for keeping them, but I know what my brother did with his weapons, and it was nothing short of disgusting.

Wounded animals left to rot in the forest, rabbits caught in traps by their legs for days on end, foxes and deer found with arrows through their sides. I suppose it is Cedric who gave me the practice of bandaging the wounded, setting broken bones, and placing splints correctly. Father was fortunate to have raised such a disappointing son, as I was mending his wounds in the same fashion as the animals in which Cedric left to die.