Open Heart {Under Revision}

Chapter 29- Bluest Blues

'I lost someone in blizzard that night. Someone who never got a chance to meet me.'

—Charlotte Turner, private statement to Dr. Brown which she noted as important.

Manchester, Twelve Years Ago...

Finally, eons later my father decided it was time for us to cleanse our house of evil and take a break.

So we went to Manchester, all except Uncle Shawn. He stayed back to handle our hospice and I was rejoiced for that brute's absence. And so was Sylvan. After what uncle had done to him...he had been encased within his sphere to graduate quickly. He was staying with us for which was making others behave strangely. As a girl who had to grow up quickly in pain, I could understand those 'thoughtful' looks which my cousin used to label as 'treasure seeking'. It wasn't that...it was melancholy.

Manchester was my birth place. Coming back was a change but it was so...cold. We came in winter and they were often harsh especially in our family's estate—acres of frozen green land, beautiful yet unrelenting. My grandfather had transformed a castle into his hearth yet fading signs of regency lingered behind the walls.

Father hadn't touched me for six months and I was crossing my fingers when this calm phase would end and he would begin again along hands and belts. He rarely talked to me and so did my mother so most of time, it was me and Sylvan studying together. He was a great tutor. And together again, we let our skin grow over our scars.

Everything was alright until the day before Christmas.

My eyes snapped open due to arguing voices. And they were so loud that even the blizzard whipping outside couldn't suppress it.

The voices came from room adjacent to mine—my father's study.

I forced myself to sleep but as arguing grew louder and louder every second, I was forced to creep outside to circular hallway above living room where fireplace was the only source of illumination, crackling softly. And over it—clashed my parents.

"Why...." that was my mom and she sounded like...struggling to speak? "Why Steven, why! I trusted you. I-I loved you!"

"Loved me?" my father thundered, "You don't now?!"

I kept my frame to shadows, shrinking beside a column. They argued sometimes but...not in this manner.

A pause lingered after which my mother uttered in a tone that bared her pain to me—for first time. "What is a love that isn't enough for a man who never unlocked his wife's heart? You...you are a bastard."

My eyes widened. Oh no....mother...she knew how father was...

"Marlene." my father's tone emanated that lethal note which was similar to calm of storm.

"You are a bastard!" my mother threw again.

Crack!

I flinched and recoiled back at the familiar sound of my father's hands making vehement contact.

"Don't you ever dare to speak to me like that!" he growled, making hair to rise on my hands. The fire below swirled angrily, shaping long lithe shadows of flames in walls. And outside, the actual storm let out an ominous moan.

My mother screamed, "Oh, I will. I will a lot because this time you made the mistake! This time you are the one who is going to break this family apart." then her voice quavered just like me, "My daughter...oh, my daughter—you don't let me come near here. You don't let me be a mother to her—you keep her locked away. You beat her senseless...you...you don't love her. No. you don't love anyone of us. You used to but now you don't and now these...secrets? You destroyed that boy!"