Will tried to breathe.
But his mother's bony hands were still clenched around his neck.
"You heartless scourge!" She shrieked in his ear, still choking him.
"How could you!" she ranted, tussling with him at the foot of the stairs.
He tugged at her hands, but they did nothing to pry her off. He was gasping and sputtering as she yelled on and on. His feet scrambled underneath him, trying to escape her. He couldn't even process what she was saying.
Augustus quickly appeared after hearing the commotion. He rushed down the stairs so fast he almost slid.
Margaret let Will go and he gasped, falling to the floor.
"What is wrong with you?!" Augustus cried.
"Me?!" she yelled, shoving him. "YOU are the problem here!"
"And what exactly have I done?" he shot back.
"You have corrupted him. Ruined my family!" she raged, pinning him against the wall.
"Oh, really." he retorted. "And how do you propose to know I've done anything of the sort?"
"They-" Will croaked, still wheezing for air as he stood. "read it."
It hit Augustus. He'd left Will's journal downstairs! Margaret must've found it!
His eyes widened. His line of defense disappeared. Shit.
"You horrid, disgusting little wretch!" she cried, pinning him again.
"We bring you into this home and you do nothing but ruin us!" she ranted, slapping him.
Will rushed over and planted himself between his mother and Augustus.
"GET AWAY FROM HIM!"
Will shoved his mother away, fury raging through him.
He'd never been violent to women. To anyone.
But this was different. His mother had accessed something deeper and darker, now beyond her usual condescension.
Sadly, neither of them had picked up on Margaret's obsessive study.
Even back in the spring, when she had only a vague impression of their true relationship, she'd been suspicious.
Even when her husband dismissed her concerns.
Even when it seemed unfathomable that Will would deviate this much, and be this certain he could do anything he wanted.
Yet once it was clear that Will didn't care for Sarah-and Margaret realised the impact on her own prosperity-she got even more suspicious.
And ever since his birthday, she was willing to make her move by watching them, as a tiger waiting in cool grass. She saw Will with Sarah, nervous and silent as they met again.
Later that same day with Augustus he was carefree and open: laughing, chatting away, even holding hands! There was no comparison.
But she needed an in, with definite proof. She was slowly circling them, waiting and watching.
They detected no sense of danger in the hushed silence around them.
Her prey was blissfully unaware.
Until she pounced.
The pages of his transgressions were laid bare, and her teeth sank into Will's neck.
Some predators eat their young, and no protection remained for either of her unsuspecting victims.
"Get your things." Margaret demanded, now shoving Augustus into Will's room.
"If he leaves, so do I!" Will growled.
"You aren't going anywhere." she shot back. Her wounded prey was helpless.
"And you're not leaving." she snarled at Augustus with faux sweetness.
"Yet."
If prey isn't immediately killed, the teeth remain until the thrashing subsides.
"Oh really." Augustus sneered. "Then why get my things?"
"Well, since there's no hope in reforming you, you clearly need someone to control you. And wouldn't you know it." she turned from Will's room and pointed.
"Our guest room is right across the hall, and it's currently empty."
"How convenient." Augustus mumbled, throwing handfuls of clothes into his trunk. He sighed sharply as he tugged it out of Will's room.
He looked back and Margaret stood between them, glowering at him.
Will was nearly crying, trapped behind his mother as she literally wedged herself between them.
Once Augustus had sadly crossed the hall, Will and his mother were alone again.
Will said nothing. He just glared.
"I am being extremely lenient with you." she claimed, staring him down, hands squarely on her hips.
"He is the problem and I think there's still hope for you. By God, how could you let him do that to you?" she snapped.
"Do what?" Will shot back. "Care about me? Listen to me? Love me?"
"You call your deviancy love?" His mother snarled.
"Why not? You call your abuse love. Do you really love me?"
Fury raged through Will once more as she stared blankly.
How much more trouble could he really get into at this point?
"Do you really think father loves you?"
"How dare you!" she growled, shoving him once more. She turned and flounced off, slamming his door behind her.
~*~
Margaret huffed her way down the stairs.
Once she re-entered the living room, she saw Lily and realised she had yet to scold her. Thanks to Will's journal, she knew Lily had lied to her.
"And you," she began in a low growl, "you've been lying to me for months!"
"What are you talking about?" Lily replied with equal aggression.
"'Extra food to keep warm'," she stalked towards Lily, who backed away in apprehension as Margaret spoke.
"'Too cold for your morning walks'? Three inches?!"
Lily chose to cease lying. "Well I'm sorry mother, but I don't want to be sold like a...damned cow!"
Her rage boiled, but looking back at her mother's empty eyes, she slowed down, her emotions pulling at her. A certain small, but painful loneliness she'd been trying and trying to ignore was now resurfacing.
"But part of me wanted to tell you. You're my mother. You should be the person to help me with that! But I couldn't," she admitted tearfully, as she sank onto the couch, looking up and feeling hopeless, tears shining on her cheeks. "Because I can't trust you to use it for your own gains. I needed you!"
Upstairs, Augustus was shocked and miserable. He surveyed the guest room. It was designed to be relaxing, but felt stark.
The walls were light blue and the large bed pushed against one wall had a mahogany frame and thick Korat-grey blankets with a fancy brocade pattern. An ornate nightstand stood next to it, with a small doily and a trident of unlit candles. An empty wardrobe and the trunk he'd dragged in were the only other items in the room.
It felt stark because he was alone.
He turned from the room and returned to Will's room. He belonged there.
Will was curled up in bed, a vast haze of shock washing over him. His body felt thick and heavy, warm and useless.
"They finally know. Is it strange in some small way I'm relieved?" he asked Augustus from his bed once his door was closed and locked.
"We've both been keeping a huge secret for months." Augustus sighed heavily, sitting on the edge of the bed.
"It had to come out sometime."
"I hate this." Will complained resentfully.
"Are you all right?" he sat up and carefully touched Augustus's face. It was reddened from Margaret's infliction.
"I'll be fine." he assured him, staring at the floor.
"We can't stay here."
Will shook his head and moved next to Augustus on the bed. "We're not safe."
"Leaving could be dangerous too. I hate them, but having a warm place to stay, and food every night? You don't know what it's like in the city now." Augustus pointed out. "People our age get in fights and sometimes killed, while fighting over a stale biscuit people like your parents just throw away."
Will suddenly had a very strange sensation. He wanted to defend his parents.
"Hang on, what do you mean 'people like my parents'?" He asked. "I hate them, but we don't waste food."
"That's...not exactly what I meant." Augustus replied, sighing.
Will winced, hearing familiar voices in an unpleasant back-and-forth.
"Wait. What is that?" he squeezed his eyes shut and sighed.
"No! I think my mother's arguing with Lily now. I hate when they do this!"
Will groaned, throwing himself onto his bed.
Yes, the eldest women were still bickering:
"You are dead-set on making my life what you want. Why can't I want something else?" Lily argued.
She looked up at her mother, longing for the shred of compassion she still may have had left, despite all her cynicism.
"I am able to help your business and if you'd just give me a chance, you'd realise I can do the work--"
"I KNOW YOU CAN DO THE WORK!"
Margaret shouted at her daughter. She immediately regretted her outburst and slowly backed away from Lily, covering her mouth, as though she were afraid of what she'd just said.
"What did you just say?"
Francis's unmistakable voice held a gruff timbre, a low growl to display his superiority.
Margaret turned and faced her husband, voice and body trembling alike.
"N--nothing. Nothing at all." she pleaded.
"You said Lily can do the work." he replied, looming over her.
"No you misunderstand me." she insisted through the shiny veneer of an anxious smile.
"What I meant was that--"
"We've discussed this." he declared, lumbering towards his wife, like a fox to a trapped hare.
"You know this is how it's supposed to be." he stared his wife down. "Why would you cross me like this?"
He drew nearer to her, Margaret shrank back, scarcely able to speak.
"Darling, please, I--I didn't mean to cross you, I just, I--"
"You what?"
"She has her own opinion!! What is wrong with you?!"
Lily jumped between them, pushing her burly father away from her mother, face twisted in equal parts aggravation and shock. "You're really that arrogant?!"
Lily never expected she would be defending her mother, especially now, but his threats were right there, and Margaret was clearly scared.
"You would treat your own wife this way? And yet you claim to love her? What kind of love is that?" she dared, her face tight with anger, mind scattered into utter confusion.
"So I don't know who disappoints me more." Lily said, folding her arms as she sternly glaring at her parents. She began with her father.
"You have an absurd, overly stubborn way of thinking about everything; and you," she turned to her mother, "know it's wrong yet you choose to do nothing because you're uncomfortable? I'm sorry he treats you this way," she said, shaking her head thoughtfully. "I genuinely am. But saying nothing and going along with him every single time, you speak volumes about where your loyalties lie. You always choose appeasement. And you have no idea what you're missing."
With her voice weakened by stress, Margaret gently said: "As women, our choices are never easy. But we must make them all the same."
Lily turned and walked away, angry and confused.
How can I despise and defend the same person? She thought approaching the stairs. We were arguing, clearly at odds, yet I felt I had to be by her side. I'm glad I helped her, but why is she so unwilling to see past his view?
The shouting had finally ceased. Will wasn't trying to eavesdrop, he was just nervous about their conflict, curled up in his bed like a child. Hearing their frequent arguments made him anxious, and he couldn't focus on anything until he was certain it was over.
"I'm sorry about that; I hate when they argue." Will sat up, and sighed. Their constant tussle for Lily's freedom was painful for Will, and this wore his comfort thin.
But Will didn't want to fight like they did:
"Do you want to try explaining what you said again? I'll listen." he moved to the edge of the bed and looked intently at Augustus.
Augustus was extremely grateful.
"Thank you." he replied warmly, shuffling over to Will.
"Well, what I meant was that as awful as they are, being someplace that's warm and safe and dry? That's a luxury to a lot of people. Yes, I want to leave here." he said, clasping Will's hands into his own. "And find someplace where I can just...be with you. If no one knows about it, they can't hurt us. But we have to really think about where we could go. I mean, something like this,"
he looked around Will's room observing the fine quality of curtains, sconces, and a maplewood wardrobe, "might be a bit more than I could afford, but I want to...provide for you."
"Awwww." Will purred, clasping his hands, smiling at Augustus's offer.
"That's very sweet and I like the idea, but I'd rather have a life where I'm happy with little money, than making my entire life a lie for the sake of creature comforts. Having things ensured with money brings no actual happiness, and that is something I do know." Will declared.
"What do you want to do, then?"
Augustus knelt down on the rug and looked up at him, just like his mother had done to him months ago.
"Be with you." Will said in a thin, defeated voice, gently caressing his face.
"Anything else?"
"No." Will shook his head and sighed.
"Just you."
~*~
Later that night, Augustus couldn't shake the image of coming downstairs and seeing Margaret choking Will. What kind of mother chokes their own child? If she'd kept going or held tightly enough, Will might've passed out, or worse.
Maybe it was seen as wrong to do what they'd done, maybe Will shouldn't have recorded every last detail, and yes, he should've brought it back upstairs, but he wasn't used to parents being so sneaky as to rifle through their children's belongings when it suited their needs.
Even if what they had done was immoral, physical harm and invasion of privacy didn't seem like a particularly rational response.
The Garnetts' abuse was now out in the open, no longer confined to snide comments or haughty rants about "obligations".
He despised the idea of adults being so unkind. How could parents do nothing to encourage their children's own dreams and interests? And then feel perfectly justified doling out punishment and blame for not living up to their ridiculous expectations?
Will was right: they didn't deserve to be mistreated, and leaving would solve many of their issues. However, he knew that he was also right. Leaving could be very dangerous if they had no plan of where to go, no money and no other resources.
What if they went to his parents instead?
When this crossed his mind, he once again wondered what his parents would think about him being with Will.
Such things were never discussed, so he had no sure idea of their opinion. He was at ease recalling their strong moral commitments to not judging others.
He wondered what kind of advice his mother would give him about dealing with Margaret, or what she would do if she was in a similarly unsafe situation.
He knew Caroline would pray about it. If there weren't a lot of things that she could do in her life, she'd turn to God.
God was something to rely on, something to receive comfort from, and sometimes even answers. God had given them their lives and their family, she'd taught him, and their task was to make the best of it. If things weren't working one way, she'd try it another.
He just hoped his parents non-judgmental attitudes would remain if he ever told him about being with Will. He doubted he ever would ever willingly tell then, but he was certain they knew Will was very important to him.
Would they judge him? Would they stop caring about him, the way Margaret and Francis had? He assumed probably not, but what if they thought it was wrong, even against God?
What if they wanted to keep them apart for what they saw as his own good or even his salvation?
Again he doubted it, but his concerns grew as the production he'd seen of Romeo and Juliet came back to mind.
Their situation was rapidly becoming more dire, and he remembered Uncle Deus telling them to not let Margaret and Francis take their feelings away to maintain control and then drive them into hopelessness. Now that they had found out about them, they clearly had the upper hand.
They had already experienced so much from the story: Will's parents were as pushy as the Capulets, intent on marrying him off before he was ready, to a virtual stranger for purely political, or in Will's case, financial reasons.
They were equally domineering and disinterested in what Will wanted for himself, as Juliet's parents were.
Romeo had been unhappy about Rosalind, but that dissipated quickly when he met Juliet.
Sort of like his sadness over his sister had ended once he'd spent time together with Will.
He then recalled the metaphor where Romeo described Juliet as "the sun in the East''. Will had quickly helped him recover and feel some sense of hope, after weeks of discomfort and mourning, like a gloomy night that ended with the warmth and comfort of a bright sunrise.
Uncle Deus was so thoughtful to have them watch something so important!
But it was only a play. It wasn't real, and he had to focus on reality.
He couldn't just dream about a better future with Will.
He had to make real plans, before darker forces in the Universe started to rip their lives apart.