What did I really have to lose here? I already knew I wasn’t going to leave this place alive, so why shouldn't I revisit the root of all of my rage? They wanted a meal? Well, I’d give them a feast.
“Follow me if you’re hungry,” I said, heaving out a long, tired breath. It took everything in me to pull away from their touch and take the next few stairs upwards now that I was free from the house’s grasp.
They kept pace behind me, creating a coldness that washed over my back, raising the hairs on my arms. I stood unmoving at the top of the stairs, where I could see all the way down the darkened hallway, remembering the last time I stood in this exact spot, staring into the eyes of the man who took everything from me. I remembered the way his eyes had followed me as I shook uncontrollably, as if he couldn't wait to get his hands on me.
I could still hear the echoing screams of my father's voice, even after all these years. They were guttural and so terrified, and it sent chills down my spine, even after the monsters I’d faced. He’d screamed for so long that I heard him as I fled the house. I heard him as I ran down the desolate country road through the fog, searching for someone to help me. I’d run for two hours, stumbling, bloody, and exhausted, still hearing his voice in my head.
“They all died here,” I said to the shadows who flanked me on either side. Their forms were almost fully corporeal now, and if it weren’t for the fact that their coloring was unnatural, I might have even believed they were human. Then there were those glowing white eyes, like gazing into starlight. They stared back at me, waiting for more. I walked down the hall, letting my fingers graze the wall. “My mom went first. She was hung by the neck from the banister while the bastard let her guts drain out onto the foyer. I slipped in them on my way out that night…” My stomach lurched at the memory. "Then it was Magnolia, my younger sister. He took an ax to her face…" I choked for a moment before clearing my throat. "He dragged her body down this hallway while I begged him to take me, and then he laughed as he mutilated her in front of me. My dad was last, and the police never told me how exactly it happened but it…wasn't fast, and I heard his screams."
“Who…?” Cyn asked, his low voice barely more than a whisper.
“Tell us who,” Cilas added, echoing his twin perfectly. The two of them really did exist in tandem, like two parts of one soul.
The ornate narrow carpet through the hallway was stained with bloody footsteps, and along the walls were the remnants of blood, where my hands had dragged, leaving dark smears on the wallpaper. There were scratches in the plaster, and I remembered how it splintered under my fingernails that night.
“I thought we were star-crossed lovers,” I said, my lips twisting into a bitter smile. “He was older by ten years, and I should have known better. His dad was the groundskeeper here since I was five. Henry was like a grandfather to us for so long, but it wasn’t until his son returned from the army one summer that everything changed.”
There were voices now, whispering to me in the back of my head, telling me that I should have died that night too. My stupidity and naïvety was to blame. The voices told me that Magnolia should have been the one to make it out, that the world would have been better off with her bright spirit instead of mine. What did I ever contribute to this fucked-up world but misery?
Magnolia would have made something of herself. She probably would have had bucketloads of children who loved her and could have made this world a brighter place. If it were up to me, I would go back to that night and beg him to spare Mags and take me instead, but I already knew what his answer would have been.
Cilas and Cyn kept pace with me as I walked, stopping every few feet to admire the portraits on the walls. My family smiled back at me from behind cracked and dusty picture frames.
“I spent the summer fucking Peter whenever we could steal moments together, thinking we were in love. I was almost eighteen, so I thought it would be okay. I was almost an adult, and soon, Peter and I could run away to the city and start our lives for real.” I huffed out a bitter laugh, shaking my head. “I should have seen the signs when he started hitting me or showing up to my school randomly. He would fly into jealous rages when I wanted to hang out with my school friends, or when I was invited to homecoming the next year. At the time, I just thought he was being romantic and I blamed the violence on his PTSD from the military.”
I knew it didn’t excuse the fact that Peter had been a predator, but at the time, I couldn't see it. All I knew was that I was falling head over heels for a mature man with eyes that I could drown in, who kissed me like I was a grown woman and not the teenager I was. That man should have been in prison long before he came after my family.
“This man…” Cilas said as I paused in front of our school photos, arranged in a sort of collage. I peered up at the shadow creature. “He killed your family but spared you?” His clawed fingers gently brushed along my long hair in soothing strokes.
I shrugged. “Weird, right? Something tells me he wanted me to suffer, and he knew that killing me would have been a mercy.” In fact, I knew that was why he let me get away. He knew I would blame myself for all of it, and that I would have to live the rest of my life with the guilt. That was what Peter loved—pain.
“Where can we find this Peter?” Cyn hissed. There was a scraping sound, and I looked over my shoulder to find him scratching a deep line down the glass in front of a photo of the property from the 1800’s. The glass splintered under his nail. Turning to face me, he grinned wide. “I’d very much like to have a chat with him.”
Cilas chuckled in response. “How about we make a game of it, brother? We haven't had a satisfying hunt in years.” My eyes bounced between them as tendrils of smoke began to leech off of them, creating a black undulating fog around the hallway. They looked way too eager to find Peter and tear him apart.
I shook my head. “I appreciate the enthusiasm, but Peter’s dead. The coward shot himself and his dad before the police arrived. Trust me, if he’d lived, I would have fixed that mistake a long time ago and would have happily rotted in prison for the rest of my life for it, but I guess I took too long to get help.”
That was another thing I’d regretted for years and years following the worst day of my life. I’d been wounded and disoriented, so much so that I’d run in the wrong direction, heading farther away from town instead of finding my way to the nearest neighbor. I’d been so delirious, terrified, and suffering from too much blood loss, that directions had made no sense.
“They found me on the side of the road hours later, and it was just luck that one of the officers who responded was a good friend of my dad’s. He recognized me and sent backup to the house immediately, but by then, it was too late. Peter killed them all, one by fucking one. He made sure they suffered too, so that I would suffer.”
I tried for so long to black out the events of that night, sinking further into drugs, sex, and drinking that for a while there, I almost forgot what my sister’s face actually looked like. It scared me. The betrayal that I felt from Peter was nothing compared to the scars those sights, sounds, and smells had left on my soul.
The way Magnolia screamed for me to run echoed in my head as I continued farther down the hallway, following my own bloody footprints. The emptiness in my mom’s brown eyes as she swung from her neck on the banister flashed through my memory. My dad’s pleading as he begged Peter to spare his girls haunted me.
Mine was the first room on the right across from the first of the guest bathrooms. Magnolia and I had pretty much this whole floor to ourselves, while our parents had the top floor. My door was shut, but from underneath, I could see a slight glow shining in through the windows, peeking under the door.
The police had offered to take me back to my bedroom to retrieve some of my personal belongings, but I’d told them that I never wanted to see anything from that house ever again. Everything was tainted now.
I wasn't ready to go in there yet, so I bypassed my room, as well as Magnolia’s. Now that was one room in the house I didn't think I'd ever be able to face again. I did stop in front of the closed door, however, placing my palm on the cold splintered wood and imagined all the times I used to burst into her room to borrow clothes, makeup, or just to bug the shit out of my sister for no reason.
How many times had I slept in my sister's bed, telling ghost stories or talking about boys? How many times had I dreamt of standing exactly here, pushing open that door and facing the demons that waited for me?
Instead, I kept going, following the hall around the corner to the far end of the house, past my mom's craft room, several guest rooms, and my dad’s office. On my left was the nursery that was never used. The door was still open, and inside, I spotted the half painted yellow walls and old dusty paintcans that had long dried up next to drop cloths, rollers, and brushes.
The room was dark inside, the curtains still drawn, but something in the darkness moved right next to the old wooden crib. I squinted as I poked my head in the room and flinched as a pair of flashing eyes blinked at me. Something had made a home in the old nursery, and it raised the hairs on my arms. I swallowed the lump in my throat and walked faster without investigating.
There was a smaller staircase just off of the main corridor that used to lead to a butler’s room back in the day. Dad converted it when he and Mom bought the house, turning it into his hideaway studio. This door was already open too, so I let myself in, taking a deep breath before stepping inside. Even though every piece of furniture in the room was still covered in a dusty white sheet, I could still smell the distinct scent of oil on canvas, lacquer, and wooden brushes. A sense of homesickness came over me, festering deep in my belly as I looked around the familiar space.