“Elijah, honey, your father needs you in the living room.”
The sweetness that oozes from her voice grates on my nerves and makes my blood boil. It’s false. This whole damn life is false. The only part that’s real is Hell Night. That’s when the evil that resides in the adults in Sweet Haven comes out to play. It’s when the screams of pain and terror echo off the walls of The Hall. The rest of the time, the devil hides in plain sight in disguise.
She walks over to us and grabs hold of Rella’s arm. Rella’s eyes flash to mine, fear making the green more vivid.
“Trouble,” my eight-year-old baby sister whimpers. “I don’t want to go.”
I make a move to extract Mom’s fingers from Rella’s hand, but the look she gives me has me pausing. There’s a threat there. One I can’t ignore. I can handle the pain of the consequences should I push, but knowing Rella will feel them tenfold to punish both her and I is something I can’t allow to happen. She’s too weak and fragile. Too young to withstand them.
Knowing there’s not a damn thing I can do, I pick the lesser of two evils. I turn to Rella.
“It’s going to be okay.” My voice is rough, and tears prick the back of my eyes. “Go with Mom. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”
Her chin quivers and more tears leak down her face. I’m supposed to protect my sister, and I’ve failed her over and over again.
Murderous rage fills my blood as mom leads her away. Anger fuels the dark part in me, and I use it to prepare myself for another night of Hell on earth.
TROUBLE
I SIT ON THE GLIDER ON Susan’s porch and wait for Remi. I didn’t tell her I was staying, so she has no clue I’m still here, but I know she’ll be out after she settles in Elijah. Through Susan, I found out that Remi likes to sit out on the porch in the evenings.
Having these few minutes to myself gives me the chance to help settle my anger. Seeing that newspaper in Remi’s hand, knowing she was seeing a part of my ugly past, had me irate and ready to launch my fist through a wall. Remi assumed I was angry because she was caught snooping. That wasn’t the reason. I wasn’t angry because I didn’t want her to know, but because if she did find out, I wanted to be the one to tell her. The raid made national news, so it’s not like it’s some deep dark secret. It was twenty-three years ago, but there’s plenty of past articles, and it wouldn’t take much to hunt some down. Those news reports don’t give the full details. Only a person who was there could recount everything that happened.
I don’t owe Remi an explanation, but I find I want to give her one.
The door squeaks when Remi opens it and steps out. I keep my eyes forward, but I feel her surprise.
“Hey,” she says softly, timidly. I hate that I put that uncertainty in her voice.
“Take a seat.” I gesture to the glider beside me.
She hesitates for a moment. “Would you like something to drink?”
I shake my head, show her the bottle in my hand, and use my chin to point to the seat again. Her steps are slow, but she sits beside me. The glider is a three-seater, so there’s a couple of feet between us. I don’t speak right away. I take a minute to gather my thoughts and figure out where to begin. Locking my hands into fist, I rest them on my thighs.
“Sweet Haven had a very innocuous name. From an outsider’s point of view, they’d find a small, cozy, and family friendly town. The adults were nice and giving and were good parents to their children. They treated them with care, were involved in their extracurricular activities, attended PTA meetings, baked cookies for them, took them out for ice cream, bought them toys, taught them how to ride bikes, read them bedtime stories, and anything else a good parent would do. The kids were well-behaved and respectful. The town was beautiful and well-cared for. We were a private community, never venturing away from Sweet Haven. We were sheltered and kept to ourselves. Everything we needed was already here. When babies were born, they weren’t put on record. The government never knew about them. That was how the townspeople wanted it. They wanted to stay off the radar.”
I stop and take a pull of the beer I snagged from Susan’s fridge before setting it on my knee. Remi stays quiet as I gently rock us, but I feel her curious eyes on me.
“Outsiders weren’t welcome because they didn’t want people to know that the pretty and perfect veneer was a façade to hide the nightmare that really happened in Sweet Haven. You’d think with a name like that, it would be a safe place. A place to feel warm and welcome and protected, and most of the time it was. Once a month though, the devils came out to play and showed their true faces.”
Mr. and Mrs. Montegue walk by on the side walk with their dog, Rocky. They wave, and I give them a chin lift in acknowledgement.
My voice is calm when I continue, my insides are anything but. I’ve learned over the years to control the anger that resides in me when I think about my past.
“Once a month, all the children, no matter their age, were gathered into The Hall, including me and my baby sister. The Hall was basically just a large room with couches, tables, and beds. Most of the adults were there too. They called that night The Gathering. The kids called it Hell Night, because that’s exactly what it was. A night of pure hell. Each adult picked a number out of an old antique box, and whatever child was attached to the number was the child they took for the night.”
Remi sucks in a sharp breath. “Oh, my God,” she whispers when she lets it out. “How can a parent do that to their child? How can they allow that to happen, and even participate?”
“Because they enjoyed it way more than they loved their kids.” I take my eyes off the porch railing and look at her. Her eyes, glistening with tears, are wide with horror. “It was a tradition that had been happening for generations. My parents went through the same thing as children, and their parents before them.”
She swallows and wipes the tears from her
cheeks. “But why? Why put their children through the same horror they endured when they knew how abhorrent and painful it was?”
I used to wonder the same thing.
“After years of enduring the same abuse over and over again from the time you could remember, after being told it was how an adult shows their love for children, you start to believe it. You learn to block out the pain and it becomes your normal. I remember some of the other kids crying and begging and fighting for it to stop, but after years of the same thing, they ended up just like the adults. They grew up to do the same thing and enjoyed it.”