There was only twenty more minutes of quiet for our shrinking family. I spent the first five of them frozen in father’s chair. I shivered a bit in both disbelief and slight pride in my younger brother. He had told off the big brute! Little Joey had stood firm in the face of the grizzly and scared it off into the woods. My only sore spot was the fact that the grizzly, no doubt, would return. I smirked slightly at this. We had just been fighting, and I wasn’t planning to let it go.
“Nice going, Joey,” I sneered, hissing towards him as I scooted slightly out of father’s chair. “You’ve just poked the bear with a stick. I can’t wait for him to spank you when he comes back.”
I watched as his back shuddered violently despite him sitting in front of the fire. His voice had a tinge of frailty, raspy and quiet. “He won’t lay a hand on me.”
I snorted at him, finally slipping off the chair and striding towards him a bit. “Don’t bet on it. Now that mum and dad are gone, I bet he’ll slap you silly. Maybe get out the whip,” I jeered, wanting him to rise up, hit me. Perhaps, just this once, I could get him to loose his temper. When I peered around his curled figure and saw his face, however, I discovered something that made my heart drop like a rock. He had already snapped.
I watched as the fire withered at a face my brother had never made before. It was cold, filled to the brim with wrath, and disgustingly warped with hate. I saw lines that I had never noticed before form on his brow, and the eyes he used… I was unaware they were even his. What had this disgusting monster done with my brother? His cracked lips opened slightly, though it looked as if he wasn’t even speaking; as if there were a demon inside him that was speaking instead.
“Go away.”
I straightened, feeling that face and that hoarse voice grip my chest for just a second. I shrugged and turned to the door on my heel, stuffing my hands in my pockets and pretending to be casual about it all. I didn’t want to admit it to myself, but those last moments I had witnessed of my brother’s pent up rage had frightened me. I was scared of Joey, wished to get as far away from the maniac as possible. I used his words as an escape route, unaware that they would be the last words I would ever hear from my brother.
I spent a good ten minutes wandering around the kitchen, avoiding both the living room and the stairs. I didn’t want to see either of my siblings. Not even Clara.
At the thought of Clara, I gazed at the stairs, wondering if Elaina had been taking care of her. It was a most likely, as Elaina was a girl. Girl’s always thought about babies. I shrugged, though, humming to myself as I ascended up the stairs. I’d rather bump into Elaina on the second floor than Joey on the first.
Upstairs, all I could hear was the grandfather clock in our parent’s room. It rang for half an hour, it’s last note echoing through the halls for a good thirty seconds. It was as if the house were empty.
The first sign of life I found was, in fact, baby Clara. Someone had put her in her cradle, yet she was obviously not there to nap. She wiggled and mumbled incoherent gibberish in restlessness. She had been put there so no one would have to watch over her. No one wanted to look at her right now. As it was unanimous, I, too, left Clara alone in our parent’s room to wriggle. I planned to lock myself in my room, no doubt something that Elaina had also done.
In walking down the hallway, however, I noticed a slight scratching noise. Like the scurrying of a rat or the scraping of a pen against paper, it itched at my ears and hooked onto my interest. I followed it, shocked to find it led to Elaina’s room. I slowly turned the handle, finding it to be unlocked, and slid it open silently.
Elaina sat on the floor, surrounded in brown and grey fluff, with a stuffed rabbit in her lap and scissors in her hands. Half a dozen stuffed animals were sprawled around her, mauled.
