The English Descendants

32

1879- Entry 1

Mother found us together. We are monsters in her eyes. There is nothing we could ever say to make this better, to make her less disgusted, to save ourselves from the fate she has in store for us, whatever that is. She will separate us forever, that much is certain, whether through death or by other means. I have considered burying myself in the mine, never to surface. I am twelve. Is this something any twelve year old boy should feel? Do others love their sisters in this way when they have no one else to love them? Or when their sister asks for recompense for years of shielding, a bit of gentleness in compensation for the abuses taken out of protection and love?

Had our parents loved us at all, would I have sought her shelter and she the touch of skin in her bed, now shared? Would I have resisted more fiercely had she still asked?

1879- Entry 2

Lucille has been locked away from me. I am distraught. But there was no whipping. I think that was saved for Lucille. She is older, so mother assumed it was her idea entirely and that I was unwilling...which was true, at least in the beginning. But now? It is love, and something I have never felt, even if it is dreadful as well. I would have gladly told Mother that it was payment for years of kindness I never had from anyone else, but she would not have listened. I am not sure if it would have made things any better for her to know that my willingness was only because of the abuses she and father visited upon us.

1879- Entry 3

Mother is dead. Lucille is covered in blood. I am stunned. She dragged me from my solitude to see what she had done and to watch the black moths come for Mother's soul. I do not understand where she learnt this, but it was something she felt so strongly would happen that we sat for the better part of the day beside her corpse in the bath, the smell of iron on the air, waiting. But they never came. There were no moths, not even those that usually flutter through the house. I do not know what to think, but Lucille says I should never tell anyone what she has done. She will scrub herself and burn her clothes so she will not be caught. But I suppose I should have thought she could do this- she did say she would kill anyone who tried to tear us apart. She never said there was an exception for our parents. And she has now killed them both.

Something changed in my sister when the moths did not arrive. As though her entire view of the world shifted when she realized that our mother's soul was not going to leave this house. That she is trapped here, and we are still trapped by her. I do not know if we have souls. Lucille says we must, for otherwise what would be the difference between a corpse and a living being? I have never thought about this much. But at the same time, she has said that there is no hell, for what could be worse than our father? And heaven would be anywhere but here. Where, then, do souls go when they leave us and why are they not cluttering up the world? Or do they cycle back into new babies with each birth?

They will take us from one another for certain if they find out. Possibly if they don't. Thinking that they will leave two young people- fourteen and twelve- alone in a manor such as this, is foolish. They will separate us, and then what will she do?

1879- Entry 4

They know. The cook found her. And everyone knows we were the only people in the house when it happened. They likely suspect us both. Would they believe that it was not me as well? And was it? Lucille defends herself through lies. This is a pattern, I have seen it. If something happens and she cannot fathom it, she goes backward until there is an action not her fault and rebuilds the story from there. Other people are always to blame, no matter now untrue.

They are sending her to an asylum. Some place they think she might recover from whatever it is that caused her to kill Mother. I think they know that our lives here were brutal and she was not entirely unjustified. Otherwise, she would hang.

As would I. But instead they are sending me to Aunt Florence, my mother's sister. I am not sure she will want me in her house, knowing my sister has killed hers. Perhaps she will be kinder in her rejection than her sister.

1879- Entry 5

Boarding school. She is sending me to boarding school. But I cannot complain- there will be time to think, time to read. It will be calm and warm. And perhaps someday, I will see Lucille again. I hope she is faring well in the asylum and they are not too cruel to her there.

I hope they are not too cruel at the school. But how could they be worse than my own father? If they are terrible, it will still seem like relief after years of living with our parents.

The semester has already started, but I will be attending Saint Andrew's by the end of the month.