Epilogue

Epilogue

Twenty-One-Years Later

I stand in front ofour house, watching them through the window.

This is a part of my daily routine when I come home from the city, and I don’t have the slightest idea as to why I do it. Glaring through that wide window always rustles a feeling in my gut. Is it anger? Jealousy? Pure bitterness? I never take the time to analyze it. Why would I? I’ve felt it like a fire threatening to smother me since I was old enough to understand the dynamics of our household.

In truth, I don’t know who I am without this cynicism. It’s shaped my personality, my brain development. The resentment molding into my spine like a parasite has made me an impenetrable wall to the kids at school that like to pick on me during history lessons.

Why wouldn’t they tease, poke, and gawk at me and my brother?

The chapters that cover our parents are never ending and so fucking dramatic, to say the least. Krimson believes the stories, though. His heterochromatic eyes, brown and green, always gleam with admiration at the tale of how our father faked his death. The first time we heard it, he went home and sobbed for hours, hugging our mother’s waist and soaking her dress in tears.

But I stopped crying from hearing the bullshit in the first grade. Why?

Niklaus Demechnef.

That’s why.

He drew a picture of my dad in an asylum uniform being manipulated like a puppet on strings. He did all of this to make the class laugh as I sobbed in my hands while our teacher was trying to comfort me.

I stabbed him with a pencil.

And even though Aunt Marilynn and Uncle Niles were called in, they didn’t blame me for my outburst and made him apologize for taunting me. The harassment from their son was only the beginning.

I unclench my hands before walking into the house. Staring at her hovering over that bed for too long isn’t good for me. It sparks a hatred for my mother that I know is toxic and unwarranted. She’s good to me, kind, and does her very best to give me and my twin brother, Krimson, the best life she can, even though she raises us all alone.

“Stop staring at them like a stalker,” Krimson hisses, bumping into my shoulder on the way to the front porch.

Stalker. Peeping Tom. Creep.

If the shoe fits, I guess.

“I’ll go in when she stops talking to his limp body.”

Krimson twists his head sharply to scowl. “Shut your goddamn mouth, Sapph. Have some fucking respect!”

I bow my head in shame. I hate when he gets mad at me. Krimson is the sweet boy that my mother says reminds her of a specific alter. The one she’s known since she was a child.

A shadow passes through the kitchen as Krimson steps through the front door, setting his bag down with a clunking sound.

“Your kid was gawking through your window again,” he announces.

My mom chuckles, turning the corner to greet me at the door.

“Are you gawking again, Sapphire?”

I sigh. I’m surprised she didn’t say my full name. She loves to, even though I go by Sapph.

No one ever understands why I cut my name short, why I don’t shake hands and announce my full name, why I don’t claim it with pride and acceptance. Do I want to be stared and whispered about? Do I want to endure rumors on the state of my mental health?

“Maybe she’s like her father, maybe there are other alters living in that head of hers.”

“Look at those different colored eyes. That must mean something, right?”

Hello, my name is Sapphire S. Valdawell.

The daughter of Skylenna Ambrose and Dessin and Kane Valdawell.

Buy tickets to the freakshow.

Everyone’s waiting to see if the spawns are freaks too.

To be continued in…

The Novella between books 4 & 5:

The Fortress and The Figurine

A story of Warrose, Ruth, Niles, and Marilynn

Then…

The fifth and final book of the series:

The Clock and The Carnival