Maryjane laced her fingers together tightly, head tipped back in religious fervor as she began to pray furiously. 'Father, before we enjoy this meal, we give thanks for the cycle of growth, and change. Bless this food, and may it nourish us in all its stages, from seed to rot. And with our hearts sick with worry for our Mallory, we beg your grace to guide her back to us, fed, unharmed and as pure as snow, as pure as she'd departed-'
The house rattled, then-it was likely an earthquake (which was fairly common in Alaska) and ceased prayer.
Maisie's attention strayed. She wanted to leave as there was nothing keeping her here anymore. But if Mallory were to return- she had to make sure her sister was okay, so, she remained in place for the time being. It was hopeless to search, she'd already tried. So, begrudgingly, she suffered through a whole evening with Maryjane.
Maryjane didn't conclude her plea till the house stopped trembling. 'Amen,' she finally muttered. Looking pointedly at Maisie and her clasped hands.
'Amen.' She gave it to her this time. The control her mother so deliriously wished she had over Maisie, and released her digits.
She swallowed nervously, viciously, guiltily, miserably. There's the slightest crack in her plate, and she knew who'd been responsible for it. Mallory, oh, Mallory.
Maryjane's voice pierced the carefully webbed barrier she'd built between her mind and reality. 'Is there something wrong with the food?' she tsked with appraising eyes, her own plate full to the brim.
Maisie avoided eye contact. 'No, it's simply overwhelming. There are too many dishes to choose from,' she evaluated with a sweep of a look. 'It doesn't seem like a table set for two.'
A simple platter of cold, rice-stuffed grape leaves with the tiniest bits of raisins for additional sweetness, olive oil, fresh herbs, and adorned with lemon slices; creamy red pepper pasta; steamed broccoli; garlic sautéed spinach; roasted asparagus; rosemary loin lamb chops; and venison steak conquered the entire table much like chess pieces on a board.
Her mother grinned pleasantly, picking up her cutlery. 'Always so observant, Pearl.'
Maisie grimaced. 'How are you acting so nonchalant? Your seven-year-old daughter has practically vanished into thin air.'
Her smile turned sour, poising her utensils over the feast on her dish. 'It isn't the first time,' she snarked.
Maisie almost laughed. 'I was fourteen. Double the age.'
Mother's eyes softened ever so slightly. 'What difference does it make? You'll always be my baby.' Soft.
Maisie didn't allow herself to be swayed nor distracted. 'You're missing my point. What kind of seven-year-old will be able to navigate the outside world, let alone such a sheltered child?'
Maryjane sawed into the deer meat with a steak knife, speaking dismissively almost like a verbal wave of her hand against fictional smoke, 'don't underestimate your sister.'
Maisie slammed her own hand down, hard against the timber, quivering. It sounded like a gun-shot. 'She's seven for fucks sake!'
Maryjane flinched.
Maisie lips parted, startled at the unsolicited expression her action brought. 'I'm...'
Her initial reaction was to apologize as she knew what she'd unintentionally replicated.
Elias Knightley possessed a short fuse.
'Even though you aren't blood-related. You really are your father's daughter,' whispered Mother without looking at her.
Scarlet rushed into the apples of her cheeks.
It's so unbearable. So humiliating to hear.
The words she'd always run from being methodically eased from her mother's tongue like a string of bittersweet honey was devastating to say the least.
'Ma-' she stopped herself. Ma.
Ma looked to her, then. Awaiting Maisie to acknowledge Maryjane as her mother. To say it and to fully mean it.
You've raised me terribly mother, from seed to rot.
But when Maisie made no move to do so, it was a slip of the tongue-a Freudian slip if you will-Ma suddenly stood up as if making up her mind. 'You vulgar, ungrateful little girl.' Ma pinched her cartilage and skin-the helix, dragging Maisie up on her feet by the ear. 'You evil, ugly girl! After everything I gave you, all the sacrifices I made so you-'
Maisie screaming, the noise seeping throughout the paper-thin walls and reverberating like a mimic. Blood scorching-hot-heart rabbiting in her red-tipped ears at the pressure, feet dragging against the bare, cold floor. Every scrap of cloth she wore catching dust as her mother conversed with herself, terribly mad.
'You chose to be a victim, you didn't have to be.'
'I didn't choose to be anything!' yelled Maisie as a last-ditch effort to snap her mother out of this almost drunken state, struggling against the grasp that slipped into her hair. Agony.
A door peeled open with a stretched creak, nudged by the heel of Maryjane's foot, and then, Maisie was thrusted into the cobwebbed closet harshly; a pink rotting crib; a pile of nursery rhymes; teether toys-and a urn. A sharp sting crowning her scalp-skull. Her knees raw with friction burn. Throat pulsing.
'It's your fault Mallory's missing,' Maryjane struck, breaking out into tears.
The door slammed, juddering at the hinges, the sight of her weeping mother concealed behind the wooden portal. A twist of a knob-turn of a key. She ran up to it, trying the handle, slamming on it, yet it was no use.
No matter how hard she'd kick and how loud she'd scream that night, Maryjane wouldn't make a sound, and no one would come to save her.
There's claw marks at the bottom of the door from previous years, she isn't sure whether or not they're hers.
Pearl collapsed.
NOAH
Noah looked fixedly at the silver-rimmed picture frame soundlessly, he stared at it as if it'd trapped his mother inside-like with the right tools-a hammer, perhaps-she'd be able to step right out-in the flesh. To hold him, again.
It was polarizing how he dazed off about his mother in his loveliest of daydreams while Maisie had dreadful nightmares about her own.
Why did such an evil woman like Maryjane get to live on longer than Nadine, his God-fearing mother who was subjected to such a mundane death? A death so tragic yet it was a story that'd been retold hundreds of thousands of times. Cancer.
Was it a blessing in disguise?
Would one woman suffer on Earth while another lived amongst the kings in paradise? In the words of Shakespeare, hell is empty. And all the devils are here.
But was that really the case? There was no other explanation, no other way to justify its unfairness. That had to be it. This was hell.
Nico and Nereus never really understood his grief as they were mostly in their father's custody. And even when they'd visit, they seemed more interested in the next door neighbor than their mother.
Noah couldn't help but hate Maisie sometimes as she'd unintentionally deprived him of a cohesive family.
NICO
Nico tripped his brother on the stairs-slewfoot- when they were fifteen. Quite vexed by his lukewarm attitude, he didn't possess the outer nor inner-workings of a human boy. Noah had always been closed off, he'd always been so unlike Nico and Nereus but this had felt different, as if something inside of him had forever changed, and it worried him because if he couldn't read him-one of his other halves- who could? Even when he had intentionally swept his foot from under him, Noah didn't break, didn't show any normal reaction. No anger. No sadness. Nothing.
What's the matter? he'd asked one day when Noah was being especially quiet.
Noah had looked at him as if he should've known what and Nico couldn't help but feel guilty because he hadn't.
He'd never asked again.
Till this moment. 'What's the matter?'
Noah glanced back at him, placing down their mother's picture. But this time, he doesn't stay quiet. 'You're blinded by her. It's ridiculous.'
Maisie.
Nico shifted on his feet, arms crossed. 'And you're telling me that? I overheard you in the kitchen, you were acting all possessive over a girl who you say abandoned-'
'You think I actually gave a fuck?' he snapped back. 'Really? Thats what you think? That I want her all to myself?'
Nico gave him a narrowed look. 'Yes, that's exactly what I think,' yet his voice was hesitant.
Noah scoffed, almost offended, as if it was beyond him to want her. 'Well, you're wrong. I acted so desperately overprotective to redirect her attention. I even warned her against you, but I probably came on too strong. You saw what happened to Nereus, what she led him to do. He killed for her and when the circumstances arise, you will too.'
'What the fuck are you talking about?'
A blank expression. 'He ruined his entire life for that plain girl.'
Nico seemed taken aback. 'She was being horrifically abused. Elias deserved it.'
'It's not about who deserved what. It's simply not our place. I admit, I may've had a soft spot for her as a child, a silly crush, but it was only because she was pretty. That's all she really is and you need to see that.'
Nico made a noise of disbelief. 'I don't believe you. I think you're just trying to make sense of everything that's happened to all of us and you're shifting blame onto a third party. It wasn't just Maisie that pushed Nereus to kill, you know that.'
But before Noah can speak, the warehouse door swung open. Daichi Miyamoto walked in, hair dripping from the rain, Mallory-sleeping soundly in his arms.
Nico shot an incredulous glare at Noah. 'I told you not to involve her little sister.'
Noah shrugged, and began to walk off. 'It's necessary.'
'You're holding a misguided grudge, Noah,' he called from behind him, 'don't deprive yourself of peace. Just let it go.' Nico knew it was unfair of him to say, for him to tell his brother who was still hurting from the past to simply stop. To suffer by himself, to self-destruct instead of harming others. But it's because he knew that no matter what Noah did- he would never be satisfied. He would never heal.
Noah turned on his heel to face his brother. 'Now you want to be the voice of reason?'
Nico composed himself, dry. 'You've forced my hand.'
He didn't say anything, he just started instructing Daichi. So, Nico left.
That night, everything proceeds as intended. Nereus shows.
NEREUS
Nereus woke up with his hands tied behind his back, ankles bound to the legs of the chair, a searing pain cutting into his wrists. He groaned, disorientated-there was practically nothing around him. The last thing he remembered was successfully tracking Mallory down before experiencing an agonizing blow to the head. He'd sensed that something was fishy, but even then, he continued. For Maisie.
'Morning, Nez.'
Nereus glanced to the side. A boy with willowy eyes and corded arms stared back at him, dressed in all black. A cross around his neck. Daichi.
He lowered his eyes. 'My brother's have you doing all their dirty work?' Amused.
Daichi leaned back in his chair, head tilted. 'Money is money.'
He hummed, rubbing his wrists together or at least trying to. 'Saw you stalk my girl, Noah's work?'
'Were you stalking me, then?' he avoided half of the question.
Nereus laughed, it's a hollow sound. 'Shouldn't you know the answer to that? This is why I told Noah to hire a professional, not some broke scholarship student.' If he pushed him to the brink, would he break? Get close enough for Nereus to do something?
'Got you here, didn't I?'
Nereus's clouded eye twinkled. 'With Noah's plan, I presume?'
Miyamoto goes to ignoring him now. Typing on his phone.
He snorted. 'Thought so.'
Daichi didn't take the bait so Nereus pressed harder. 'If anything happens to them. You're the scapegoat, Miyamoto,' he taunted. 'Their validation means nothing behind bars.'
A door cracked open, then. Footsteps cracked against the ground.
'Always so... uplifting with your words, Nero.' Noah walked in, nodding at Daichi. The boy stood and left as he was prompted to.
Nereus's jaw clenched. 'So...' he took the same dramatic pause, 'why the fuck did you tie me up?'
Noah advanced nearer. 'You would've left otherwise,' he commented blandly.
'Clearly, because I have things to do.'
He stood by, arms crossed. 'Right.'
'What do you want?' he bit.
'I just want to talk.'
Nereus made a face. 'Talk? Why didn't you just ask? Did you need me knocked unconscious to start the conversation, hm?' Sarcasm.
Noah grew annoyed. 'You know exactly why. You wouldn't have stayed,' he spat. 'It wasn't easy to find you.'
He shrugged. 'I know every blind spot in town, thanks to father dearest,' he whispered the last part-as a thirteenth birthday gift, Noah and Nico had gotten PlayStations and cars (which they illegally drove) while Nereus was gifted his fathers old office that Father Vale had used to watch Nadine- it held blackmail and access to all the cameras around town. 'And I'm flattered you crave my company, really. But-and don't take this the wrong way but you're rather fucking boring,' he deadpanned.
'Such riveting input, Nereus. Thank you.'
'Are we done chatting?'
'Father misses you.'
He scooted the chair up. 'Oh, shut up. Is that really why you've tied me up? Father misses me? If it's my face he wants to see, he can just look at you.'
Their voices resounded throughout the empty warehouse.
Noah leaned back slightly, hands thrusted into the pockets of his trousers. 'Yeah, only problem is that I have two pupils,' his voice kept the same monotone timbre throughout everything he said.
"Ah, yes, having two pupils is quite the achievement. Shame that's still two more than the number of people who care about you.' He leaned in, whispering, 'which to be precise-is zero.'
The boy smiled. 'I doubt you have any friends. Unless the shadows count?'
He shifted uncomfortably. 'I hide in broad daylight out of necessity, what's your excuse?'
'Ah, yes,' Noah mocked. 'How did you escape the asylum, anyway?'
He gave him a cocky smile, proud. 'Flirted with some nurses-the unhappy wives, I'm sure my attention got them high. Now can you untie me?'
Noah blinked. 'No.' He took another step. 'I have a proposition for you.'
Nereus ticked his head to the side expectantly. 'Well?'