The air was still cool, despite the strong sun overhead. He scanned the expanse of land before him. Grassy hills and knolls, the stable and caretaker’s quarters, both rundown. Beyond the stables were the guest houses, the main house, and on the far edge of the property, hidden from view, the family cemetery. Ien shuddered thinking about his name carved on a plaque to mark his final resting place.
You never should’ve done that, Mother.
He fantasized about killing her again, fantasized about finding Kiera and living life anew.
But first he had more pressing matters—shelter, food, and a place to plan. Ien again scanned his property, settling on the stables. He nodded, a slow smile forming on his lips.
Carefully making his way across the knolls, Ien reached the barn. His arms and legs ached. His mind was still chaotic and raw. Taking a quick look around, he pulled on the heavy doors. They groaned from lack of use. He pulled again, gritting his teeth as the hinges creaked. The door opened and Ien ducked inside, quickly closing the doors behind him.
His breath came in heavy pants. Every muscle hurt, every joint was stiff. His head pounded and his stomach clenched. He took several deep breaths, willing himself to relax. Finally, his pulse slowed.
Ien walked to the center of the barn. It was large and empty. Spider webs hung from the rafters and the roof had caved in some areas. The stables were neglected, decaying from lack of upkeep. Just like Ien.
“Perfect,” he said to the empty spaces around him.
No one came to the stables now, not since Erik’s death. Father sold the horses the day of Erik’s funeral.
What have you done now, Ien?
He ignored Mother’s taunts.
Your fault Ien, it’s all your fault
.
He pushed her voice away, determined to chase it out of his head.
I know you killed my boy. He should’ve been the one to live. Not you. Never you.
“Stop it!” Ien shouted, disturbing a family of doves nesting in the rafters. “Leave me alone.”
He repeated the words over and over until Mother no longer invaded his thoughts. Ien had regained control. For now.
There was a time when Ien thought he could stop the voices that plagued him after his brother’s death. Voices that blamed him, threatened him, shamed him. He used to bundle them into a sheet of music and hide it deep inside. It worked for a week or two. But, they always came back, louder and stronger.
Until he’d met Kiera.
Ien’s mind started to spin with thoughts of Kiera. Need and longing mixed with vengeance and hatred. The concoction released the slight hold he had on his mind.
…Kill Mother...
...you owe me…
…she tried to kill you…
…Kiera can never be yours until Mother is gone…
…Kill. Her. Now…
The phrases fed his contempt, speaking to the deepest desires in his heart and unleashing the monster he feared most of all.
He opened the barn doors, his eyes trained on the main house.
Erik stepped in front of Ien and smiled. “It’s time.”
21.
Man’s insanity is heaven’s sense;
and wandering from all mortal reason,
man comes at last to that celestial thought,
which, to reason, is absurd and frantic;”
~Herman Melville (Moby Dick)
~~
An overwhelming rage unleashes through me as Erik continues to fan my hate. Mother, revenge—it’s all I crave. All I need.
“Tell me your plan.”
I ignore his voice, refusing to let it, him, dictate my vengeance. I’m doing this for me, not to satisfy a madness that grows wilder each day.
“You are the madness, Ien. And we are you.”
The words coil around me, through me. There is a truth to them I want to ignore. “I’m not listening to you, Erik. What I do, I do for me. Not because of you. And definitely not because I’m insane,” I say in vain.
“Accept it or not, you know what’s true. And I won’t hurt you, brother. We want the same things. Mother
must
pay for everything she has done. To both of us.”
Blinding light streaks across my vision, distorting the world around me. I grab the barn doors to keep from falling. The landscape turns into my house, the unstable ground now a mahogany floor, the stable door now the large oak doors of my bedroom. My hand cramps, straining to hold onto the door knob to keep it from turning.
Mother suspects
.
Voices whisper in my head.
You cannot let her know about us. She cannot find us.
Louder and louder they get, blocking out the other sounds.
I release the door handle and cover my ears. “Stop, stop, stop,” I say too loud.
The door opens. Erik stands in front of me, no older than twelve. “Is it happening again? The nightmare?”
“Yes,” I manage to say. “It’s worse now.” Every word I say to my brother brings a chorus of
No!
ringing through my ears.
You must not tell.
“You have to ignore them. Just push them out of your mind.”
“I can’t,” I say. My eyes fill with tears. I want the noise to stop. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.
The scene fades. For a brief moment I see the stables before a new memory blossoms. Once more I am in my room. Once more the nightmares overwhelm me.
“I can’t stand it anymore.” I yell.
Don’t tell. Don’t tell.
The voices are too many, the sounds too loud. Disturbing images cloud my vision.
Fire.
An explosion.
Blood.
I pinch my eyes shut, desperate to obey Erik’s commands, push the voices and images from my thoughts. But I can’t.
Maybe I am too weak.
“You have to stop yelling. They’ll hear you.” Erik rubs my back. “You can’t let them hear you.”
“I don’t care anymore. I have to make it stop. Get Mother. Get. Mother!”
Within moments Mother is sitting on my bed. She runs a cool cloth over my brow. The voices scream at her touch and I pull away.
“Shh. It’s okay, Ien. Everything will be okay.”
Sulfur invades my nose, along with the faintest scent of…incense. Myrrh.
No no no no
.
The voices rise to a feverish pitch.
“Erik, you can go back to your room now. I will take care of Ien. Mother
always
takes care of Ien.”
“But—”
“Erik,” Mother’s voice is tense. Angry. “I will not tell you again. Leave. Now.”
Erik drops my hand and walks away. I look at Mother. Something sinister grows in her eyes and panic spreads through me.
“Just relax, Ien. This may hurt. But I promise, it will help. The demons will leave you.”
The smell of incense and fire is overwhelming. I can’t see the brand, but I feel the hair on my legs begin to singe. Again I stare at Mother, desperate to quell the rising terror inside.
“Just close your eyes and let me help you.”
Her inferno comes closer. No voices speak now. No images stream through my thoughts. Only the singular instinct to survive.
“No,” I say through clenched teeth, the heat almost too much to bear. I writhe against Mother’s hold as the brand comes ever closer.
Blinding agony rips through me as my skin sears. I can see the brand now, see my flesh melt. Bile and panic swirl through me. My eyes roll up in my head.
“It’s for your own good, Ien. I have to chase the demons away. Have to…”
Her words end and the memory collapses around me. I open my eyes, sweat pouring from my brow. I reach down to my calf, feeling the raised brand ever-present on my skin.
“I’ll never forget how you screamed that night. I’m sure you woke the entire household.” Erik still stands near me.
“Why didn’t anyone stop her?” I manage to say through the anguish of my thoughts.
“No one could. She thought she was helping you.”
“Setting your child on fire isn’t helping.”
“Which is why she must pay.”
He speaks my thoughts.
Mother must pay.
Settling my fears, I stretch my back, my shoulders, my neck. Mother has tortured me enough. It’s time for me to end this. “Yes, she’ll pay. Tonight.”
A new cacophony of voices rise up through me.
...Make her pay…
…she tried to kill you…
…because of her you are deformed…
…because of her, Kiera is gone…
The chorus repeats and I listen now. My strength grows through their words. I feel my face, my back, my calves. All of my scars, all of my pain—all from Mother. And Father.
Take your life back, Ien. Kill them both and reclaim your life.
I walk away from Erik, my eyes focused on the main house. Only one thought fills me now, propelling me forward.
Vengeance.
“Don’t do this, Ien. You cannot kill her.”
Hers in the one voice I refuse to embrace.
“Ignore me or not, we both know this isn’t you.” Sister Anne’s words are too loud. “Please, Ien, don’t do this.”
Ignore her. Ignore her. Ignore her.
The voices surround me, chiming in unison.
“I’m not leaving. Once you go down this path, everything changes for you. There’s no turning back. I won’t let you ruin your life for them.”
Sister Anne’s words continue, no matter how I try to block them out. They bait me, challenge me. Part of me wants to kill her too.
“Ien!”
Guilt clouds my intentions. I was never a killer before.
Things change.
“What about Kiera? Have you seen her yet?” Sister Anne’s words stop me in my tracks.
My thoughts grow unbalanced. I want to respond, want to tell her that Kiera will never accept me if I’m weak. I’m doing this for her.
For us.
“She wouldn’t want this for you. She loves you.”
“No!” I yell in frustration. “Don’t speak about Kiera.” My voice bounces off the guest house I pass.
“You didn’t answer my question. Have you seen Kiera?” Sister Anne’s insistence unsettles me as a pang of longing bursts forward.
…Stop listening…
…Stop listening…
…Stop listening…
The symphony of voices resume, drowning out Sister Anne’s words.
…Vengeance, you must seek your vengeance…
“It’s time,” Erik says, appearing next to me again.
“Yes,” I say, in a trance. “Time.”
“See Kiera. Go see Kiera.” Sister Anne’s voice screams through me.
The bombardment of noise—Erik, the chorus of voices screaming ‘kill’, Sister Anne’s pleadings—consumes me.
I am lost to the chaos, lost to my hatred. Clouds swirl too fast overhead, covering the sun.
“Stop!” My voice cracks on the word. I am buried under the weight of the expectations pressing in around me.
“Make a decision, Ien. Choose a path.” Erik and Sister Anne speak the words together. “Do it now.”
I swallow hard, standing in front of my house. The air is heavy with moisture. Rain is coming.
A moment passes and everything quiets. I give into the silence, losing myself to it.
Another moment elapses and I step forward, opening the door to the servant’s entrance. “Time to end this,” I say, the door closing behind me.
22.
“Hatred and vengeance, my eternal portion,
Scarce can endure delay of execution,
Wait, with impatient readiness, to seize my
Soul in a moment.”
~William Cowper
~
Ien slipped into the house, undetected. His breath came shallow and ragged. Sister Anne’s voice still pleaded with him, begging him to stop his quest for revenge. He refused to listen. It was time to make his parents pay for every injustice: the expectations, the emotional blackmail, the abuse. Everything. He had to reclaim his life and if the price to pay was murder, so be it.
He crept through the back of the estate and up the stairs to his bedroom. It was exactly as he had left it. Nothing had been moved or changed over the past few months. He opened the drawers and closets. Every item was exactly where it should be, like a museum set to remember a moment in time; the moment before the explosion, before his ‘death’.
Ien rifled through the drawer closest to his bed. Far at the bottom was the knife he searched for, a hunting knife given to him by his Father before the unanswered expectations and abuse. Back when Ien was still loved.
He caressed the blade with his thumb. It slit his skin, sending a thin trickle of blood down the length of the blade, staining it. “It’s still sharp,” he mused. “Good.”
…Kill her…
…Kill them both…
The voices tugged at his thoughts, sharpening his attention. He slipped the knife into his pocket, crept from the room, and tiptoed down the hall.
His parent’s bedroom was located at the end of the elongated hallway. He stood at the large mahogany doors, silent save his memories of the angry voices that always seemed to leak through the walls. His parents fought about him, always. And the shame trapped within the house still managed to weigh him down.
Ien leaned his ear against the door, listening. Convinced he had nothing to fear, he slipped into the room. The air was thick with the unspoken expectations he had felt every day.
“Do your duty, Ien.”
“Music—you have no time for that now.”
“Stop acting crazy.”
“Be the son we wanted. Be Erik.”
The words had been woven into the fabric of his childhood, his adolescence, his life. He took a deep, settling breath.
This ends tonight
, he thought as he walked to the closet and searched. He needed something, anything, to mask his face.
Feminine clothes of every color and shape filled the first closet, along with drawers filled with items Ien didn’t want to know about. He quickly closed the doors.