“Tell me everything, Erik’s death, your mother’s reaction. I want to hear it all.”
Ien hesitated again. He wanted to trust Sister Anne with the secrets he’d locked away for too long. But he couldn’t. So he told her the same thing he told everyone else. “Erik slid off the ravine. I tried to help him, but I couldn’t.”
Liar!
The words screamed through him as he continued, the lie shifting into truth.
“I think Mother always blamed me. She never said it, but she changed after his death. Everything changed. Father never looked me in the eyes again. And Mother, she hovered too close, protecting me from everything. She almost refused to let me go back to school. But I had to take over the business. Every Montgomery had graduated from Chadwick. Every Montgomery went to college. So she had to let me go back.
“But she watched everything I did, called on me too often, refused to let me breathe.”
“She didn’t want to lose another son.”
“No, it was more than that. She no longer trusted me. Blamed me for Erik.” Ien swallowed back the shame surging through him. “Anything Mother didn’t trust, she tried to control. When that no longer worked, she condemned me. To death.”
“She was distraught. Confused. But she is your mother, Ien. You need to go back to her. You don’t belong here anymore.”
“Go back? It isn’t possible for me to go back. She told the world that I was dead and buried me next to my brother. She ordered Sister Agnes to kill me. There is no going back. Not now. Not ever.”
“She’ll forget about all of that once she sees you.”
Ien wanted to believe her words. He wanted the fantasy of a loving mother. He touched his face and remembered…
Katherine Montgomery was incapable of loving him now.
“All she’ll see is this face, my curse.”
“You aren’t cursed, son.”
Anger swelled inside of him. Not cursed? Not cursed? Of course he was cursed. He had been ever since he killed Erik, maybe even longer. The scars and deformity only mimicked the evil that had always existed inside, waiting.
“I can’t go back. I won’t. You might as well kill me now.” Ien broke from her grasp. The walls of his room moved closer and closer. Anxiety exploded across his skin. He had to get out.
He turned the knob and pulled on the door. Nothing. It wouldn’t budge. The walls continued to cave in. His blood again pounded in his ears.
Grasping the doorknob harder, he pulled and turned. Turned and pulled. The door refused to open.
“Let me out!” he screamed. “Sister, let me out!” He spun around to face her.
Emptiness.
Sister Anne was gone.
Ien unleashed a feral scream, pouring the fear and anger into the air around him. He pulled at the door, trying to release it from its hinges. The more he pulled, the tighter it became. And the closer the walls closed in around him.
He would die in this room, buried alive by the weight of his life.
Erik’s laughter erupted around him. “Ready to accept your fate?”
You aren’t real. You aren’t real
. Ien repeated the words over and over.
“You are about to find out exactly how real I am.”
“No!” Ien screamed as the walls pressed in around him and the door refused to budge. His mind spun out of control, Erik’s threat lingering in the air.
“Still think I’m dead, brother?” Erik’s voice tickled the back of Ien’s neck.
“Let me go. I have to get out of here.” Ien’s voice trembled.
“I’m not holding you prisoner. You are. You and your guilt.”
“The walls, the door—”
“Are all your doing.”
Ien froze for a moment. He hadn’t considered that this could all be an illusion. Some wild hallucination. He released the door and closed his eyes.
I am Ien Montgomery. I am alive.
“It’s far too late for that. Your mind is failing you. You have to trust me to help you now. Only I can lead you out of your hell.”
“No.” Ien pushed the thoughts of Erik away, along with the fantastical images exploding across his vision.
The fire.
Mother.
Kiera.
“Wake up. Wakeupwakeupwakeupwakeup.”
Erik’s laughter filled the void formed by the vanishing images. “You’re already awake.”
Ien turned away from Erik’s voice, squeezing his eyes harder.
“Stop fighting me. I’m not going to hurt you.
You
are causing all of this. Only you.”
The truth in Erik’s words was impossible for Ien to ignore. He opened his eyes slowly. Erik stood inches from him. “I told you a long time ago, I don’t blame you for my death. I was rotten to you. Heck, if the roles were reversed, I’m sure I would’ve done the same thing.”
Ien began to relax.
“But that is all in the past. I am here to help you have a future. You can’t let Mother kill you. She can’t win.”
“Why do you even care? You always did everything Mother expected. You were the good son, remember?”
“No. I knew how to play her game. But this time she’s gone too far. You need to leave this place before she kills you.”
“Leave?” Ien asked, almost laughing. “Leave and go where?”
“To Mother. Do what I couldn’t. Make her pay. For both of us.”
Confusion clouded Ien’s thoughts. “I don’t understand.”
“She always pitted us against each other. She made us hate each other. My death was far more her fault than yours.”
Ien paced, desperate to believe his brother.
“And then there’s you. She took Kiera away from you. She made certain you’d never heal. Didn’t you ever wonder what was in all those medicines she gave you? She guaranteed your death, Ien. One way or another.”
Erik’s words illuminated all of Ien’s fears, awakening the vengeance that lay dormant deep within him.
“She will kill you here, Ien. Unless you stop her. Only then can you have your beloved Kiera and your music. There will be nothing to stop you. Stop us.”
Ien stared at Erik, almost tasting a promise in his words.
“Get rid of Mother once and for all. Do it for me. You owe me that.”
Ien owed him more.
So much more.
~
The sounds of footsteps pulled Ien from his murderous thoughts. He leaned against the door, straining to hear.
“My son, has he healed?” Mother’s voice chilled the air around him.
“No. The wounds are too deep. I’m afraid he will never heal.” Sister Agnes’s voice was devoid of emotion.
“Very well. You are prepared to do what you must?” Mother’s voice cracked on the words.
Repulsion filled Ien’s body. How could Mother sound saddened by his fate, a fate she was creating?
“It will be finished today.”
His blood boiled. He was not ready to be put down like a dying horse. Erik was right. There was only one way to deal with Mother.
“Good. I want to see him.”
Ien sucked in a breath. The air stiffened with anticipation.
“That is ill-advised. He got out earlier. We had to heavily sedate him.”
“Got out?” Mother’s voice bordered on hysteria.
“Yes. But you needn’t worry. The situation is completely under control. We will start his procedure this evening.” Sister Agnes sounded inhumane. Cold. Sterile.
“Fine. Fine. I will be back to check on your progress this evening.”
“Very well.”
Mother walked away without seeing him. Without saying goodbye.
I’m dead to her already.
He released the breath he’d held too long. “I won’t let them take me.”
“Then find a way out.” Erik’s voice floated through the room, encircling Ien.
He drank in the vengeance that flooded him. It stripped away the madness and fear, the guilt and regret. Only pure hatred remained.
His breathing slowed into steady inhalations as he fantasized about killing his mother.
One…two…
There is a panicked look on Mother’s face when she first sees him: a smile that fades to a grimace, terror blooming in her eyes.
Three…four…
His fingers close around her throat, tightening. Forever tightening. Her eyes begin to bug and she gasps for air. A slight moan leaves her lips and her life fades away.
Ien’s excitement grew as he imagined releasing her crumbled body. He could almost taste the exhilaration in knowing he was finally free.
His fantasy continued with every breath.
Five…six…
He searches for Kiera; finds her in the conservatory, crying. She looks up, shock turning to joy. “You’re alive,” she whispers as she runs towards him “You’re really alive.”
Seven…eight…
Their lips crush and he is again whole.
Nine…ten…
Kiera’s screams shatter his fantasies into a thousand shards as horror blankets her expression.
Ien’s heart beat wildly, his hatred overflowing.
“You will never kill me. You are too weak.” Mother’s words cut through the silence in Ien’s room. “The wrong son died.”
The room implodes under the weight of her words.
Kill her. Do it for both of us.
Ien pictures his fingers around Mother’s neck again, urged forward by Erik’s words. He squeezes and her eyes bulge. Her breathing slows and he tightens his grasp.
Do it. Do it now.
The image of Mother laughs. “Even your grasp is too weak.”
Ien tries to strangle her words into silence. But his hands tire too quickly, cramped under the strain and his deformities.
“You will die, Ien. Before you ever leave this place, you will die. And I will still be living.” Her laughter awakened a sleeping need, one that would never be satiated with his death.
Only with hers.
Ien erased the fantasy still playing through his mind. He pushed aside Mother’s taunts, swallowed back his repulsion at everything he was becoming.
Everything he had already become.
Now, Ien. You must leave now
. Erik’s voice grew more restless.
“I’ll have you killed long before you find your way through this labyrinth.” Mother’s voice bounced off the stones walls.
Ignore her. Leave. I’ll help you escape.
Ien turned the door knob, eager to fulfill the destiny he’d run from his entire life. “I’m coming for you, Mother.” He took a final look at his room and pulled his feeble cloak around himself, shielding his face. “I’m coming.”
His voice echoed against the stones as he broke into a run, prepared to end her life.
Or his own.
18.
“From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.”
~Socrates
~
Ien ran down the empty corridors, his footfalls echoing loudly against the stone.
No
, he thought over and over.
You won’t kill me, Mother. I’m coming after you.
The words fueled his feet, urging him further and further down different paths, crisscrossing until he was certain he was lost.
He slowed to a stop, leaning his ear against the cold stone wall.
Leave Ien, leave. They’re coming for you
.
Erik’s voice bounced around in his head, getting louder and louder.
It was joined by Mother’s taunts. “You’re too weak. You will never be able to hurt me. Not you.”
Back and forth the voices chattered, making it impossible to focus. Ien closed his eyes. Thinking of nothing but the inhalations of his lungs, he forced the voices to quiet, first Mother and then Erik. Word by word the noise ended and he could listen to the sounds outside of his head.
He pressed his ear harder against the stone wall.
Nothing. No footsteps along the corridors, no echoes of voices in pursuit. He was not being followed.
With a sigh of relief, Ien resumed the quest to leave. “Where am I?” he whispered, half expecting an answer from the stones themselves. Nothing but his own breathing greeted him, punctuated by an occasional scream from somewhere else in the building.
He walked, guided by some invisible force telling him which way to turn. He wanted to believe it was instinct leading him to freedom, or maybe Erik helping him as he promised. He ignored the growing panic in his throat and the internal voice telling him to go back.
Doors and endless hallways passed as he continued to walk, stopping every few minutes to listen for footsteps. Step after step, stone brick after stone brick, the corridor appeared to stretch. No matter how far he seemed to travel, the path out of his prison remained out of reach.
“I should be out by now,” he said, stopping to lean next to an old wooden door. His legs tired too easily. His breathing was hard and labored. Fatigue engulfed him as he slid down the wall, unable to continue. He listened for his pursuers.
There had to be pursuers, right?
Mother said he would die. Sister Agnes said it would happen today. The thoughts clouded over him as his eyes rolled back in his head and closed. His body relaxed in an instant, despite the hard floor beneath him. He released his thoughts of revenge, murder, death. Everything stopped and for the briefest of seconds he was at peace.
Until a small tapping on his shoulder brought everything back in a rush.
Ien bolted to his feet without any sense of where he was, adrenaline coursing through every vein.
“Dreams are funny things,” a familiar voice said. “Things seem so real when they are happening, only to fade instantly once the brain realizes they are mere images; shadows of the truth, but not part of it. Yes?”
Ien stared into the white pupils of Sister Anne, too shocked to speak.
“Yes,” she said, nodding. She turned the knob and pushed open the door to a small bedroom, one Ien could only assume was hers. “Are you coming in? Or was there some other purpose to your sleeping outside my room?”
Confusion mixed with the adrenaline still pulsing through Ien. He tried to shake off the haze and figure out what had happened. He remembered Erik and Mother, vengeance and murder. He thought about his conversation with Sister Anne, playing music, remembering Erik’s death. It all felt right. But he knew it wasn’t. The timeline was off, the events…wrong.