Dead Seth (6 page)

The waitress took me by the hand and escorted me to the front of the shop. The store was now closed and the last remaining members of staff were getting ready to go home for Christmas. I remember some of the lights being switched off and the shop being thrown into semi-darkness. I continued to stand with the waitress by the large glass door. I began to scan the last remaining shoppers on the High Street for any sign of my family. I tried to fight it, but by this time I had convinced myself that I would never see any of them again. The police would discover that I was a Lycanthrope – then what would happen?

My lips began to tremble and pucker as I started to cry. It was then I heard the sound of knocking on the glass door, and I looked up to see my family standing outside.

A huge wave of relief washed over me.

The waitress who had taken care of me opened up the shop door. My mother apologised to the woman, explaining that they had been delayed. I took hold of my mother’s hand and gripped it tight for fear of being separated again. Once outside, I rubbed the tears from my eyes with the back of my free hand.

“Why are you crying?” my mother asked.

“I thought you weren’t coming back for me.”

“Don’t be so stupid!” she replied.

That was that. No further explanation.

The comforting thoughts that I had conjured up of my mother buying me secret chocolate novelties had also been a waste of time, as I couldn’t see one shopping bag between them.

So our first Christmas in our new home came and went. We heard nothing from our father, and Mother seemed delighted by that.

“He must’ve forgotten all about you…

see? Time for
you
to forget all about
him
,” she told me with a smile.

Kiera

I didn’t want to cry for Jack Seth. I didn’t want to shed one single tear. He didn’t deserve it, but I couldn’t help but feel the sting of tears in the corners of my eyes as he told me about how his mother had left him alone in that café. To hear his story reminded me he had been a child once. He hadn’t always been a monster. I just couldn’t get the image of that small boy sitting alone on Christmas Eve, hoping that his mum had left him alone to go and buy him some chocolate. How could she have done that, and what was the point of it? I wondered.

I looked at Jack as he sat before me. He sat forward on the chair, his arms crossed over his knees, head hung low. I didn’t want to feel sorry for him – I didn’t want to know his hurt and pain. I had to hate him if I was going to get out of this alive and save my father and Potter. To rid my mind of that little boy sitting alone, I looked past Jack and at my father again. As I lifted my head, I noticed it was harder for me to do so. My neck was stiffening, as was the flesh that covered my face and body. I twisted my wrists a little faster in their chains.

To see my father slumped forward in his chair helped push those pictures of Jack as a boy from my mind. He wasn’t that little boy anymore.

Whatever had happened to make him change had nothing to do with what was happening now – what was taking place in this room. I had to hold onto that thought, but it was hard.

Suddenly, Jack stood up. He looked down at me. I looked back up at him. He pulled the baseball cap low over his brow as if trying to hide his eyes. I stared through the shadow covering his face, but he turned away. He crossed the room to my father, pulled his head back, and looked into his face. My father cried out deliriously as the wound in his stomach opened. It looked black and wet in the light from the lamp. That was what it took to rid my mind of those images of Jack as a boy.

As if reading my mind, Jack looked back at me and said, “Ready to choose yet, Kiera?”

“You won’t make me choose,” I whispered.

Jack released my father’s hair from his fist, dropping his head back into place. He came across the room. Instead of sitting back on his chair, he stood before me and said, “I’d make your choice soon, you look as if you are cracking up.”

“I’d rather be a dead statue than choose between my father and Potter,” I said.

“We’ll see,” he sighed, reaching out and dragging a finger down my cheek. His broken nail made a scratching sound against my hardening flesh. He held his finger up in the light of the lamp and blew the dust away that had gathered there. It seesawed in the shaft of lamplight, like a cloud of dust moats.

“Time is running out,” he said, heading towards the window. “Before long, you won’t be able to open that pretty little mouth of yours to make a choice.”

With his back to me, I twisted my hardening wrists against the chains, that little pile of dust growing ever bigger on the floor beneath my chair. “You know, you don’t always have to be a monster,” I said.

As he stared thoughtfully out of the window at the falling snow, he said, “My curse will never be lifted now, you chose that for me down in The Hollows.”

“Did I?” I asked him.

“What’s that s’posed to mean?” he said without looking back at me.

“Did you let the monster out to protect your mother, brother, and sisters from your father?” I said softly.

“No,” he whispered, his breath clouding over the dirty windowpane.

“What then?” I pushed.

“I let the monster out because of…” he said, his eyes flashing yellow in the glass.

“Because of what?” I asked.

He smiled back at his own reflection.

I could tell that it wasn’t a smile of happiness, but more of regret. “What turned you from that little boy into what you are now, Jack?”

Then turning to look at me, he said, “Love.

That’s what truly let my monster out.”

“But to love is good, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Is it?” he said, coming back towards his chair. “You’re going to die – turn to stone very soon because of love, Kiera. You only came to this house today because of love. How can that possibly be a good thing? If you didn’t love, you wouldn’t be here now. You would be free.”

“And what about hate?” I asked him.

“What about it?” he shot back.

“Has that set you free?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

Silence fell between us. Neither of us able to break the other’s stare.

“I will explain,” he said as the silence in the room became almost deafening. “As the paper chains were finally pulled down, we entered a new year, not only in a new home but with new names, as well…

Jack

…My mother decided in early January we should no longer use our names, but adopt new ones. Despite her recent assurances that our father had forgotten about us all, she now believed he may well be hunting for us.

“Anything we could do to throw him off our scent will be to our advantage and safety,” she told us.

Confusingly, we could still use our birth names at school, but when at home and mixing with people living around us, we should be known under aliases. She painted a picture of our father frantically searching for us, so he could silence us and prevent us from giving up his dark secrets.

According to our mother, he was furious with us and if he ever discovered our secret location, he would murder us in our beds. She would often tell me if she hadn’t have taken us away when she had, she believed my father would have murdered us one by one.

I had nightmares for weeks after hearing that. I dreamt my father was climbing the wall beneath my bedroom window, his claws scratching against the brickwork, his bright yellow eyes watching me through the glass. Silently, he would climb through the open window, coming towards me on all fours, teeth gleaming in the moonlight. Then, with his fur bristling with excitement and drool swinging from his jaws, he would lunge at me. I would wake, sitting bolt upright, gasping and clawing at my chest.

During this time, I became evermore terrified of seeing my father and was finally becoming grateful to my mother for rescuing me from the caves and him. So I was first to accept the notion of changing our names. As Mother sat among us, she explained it would only take our father to come onto the estate where we lived and ask the other children that hung around, if they knew of a Lorre, Kara, Jack, or Rik. Apart from my name, none of them were commonly used by humans. The other children might then unwittingly lead him to us. So we all agreed, for our own safety, we would change our names at home and in front of our neighbours.

Mother decided that Lorre should be known as Teresa, Kara would be called Mary, Rik would be known as Nikolaou, and I was to be known as Paul – named after Father Paul, who it seemed had done so much to help us. At first it seemed odd, but as one day melted into the next, we just became accustomed to being known by our birth names at school and our aliases at home.

Rik had the hardest time trying to comprehend what was taking place, so he gave up his name and adopted Nik permanently.

During this time, there was one other change of name that we all had to get accustomed to. By spring, we were no longer calling the Blackcoat, Father Paul, but in the sanctuary of our home he would let us call him ‘Dad.’

Father Paul had become a constant visitor to our new home, visiting us at every opportunity he had. He would often bring with him sacks of food and odd bits and pieces for the house.

Everything we had was due to Father Paul in one way or another. I believe that as much as he had become a surrogate father to us, we had become a surrogate family to him. He had his own slippers at our house which he would slip into while visiting. He would often change out of his flowing black robes like any father coming home and changing out of his work clothes. Father Paul would often eat an evening meal with us, and after we would all gather around him as he read. My favourite book was ‘
The Wind in the Willows.
’

I loved the water colour illustrations, and wanted to be able to draw and paint those characters he read about in the book. Then one night, he arrived at home with a small set of water colour paints, some paper, and paint brushes.

“Who are these for?” I gasped as he handed them to me.

“For you,” he smiled down at me, his bright grey eyes staring out of his pale face.

“Why?” I breathed, looking down at them.

The last present I had been given was the racing car.

“I thought that perhaps you could paint some pictures of Toad, Ratty, Mole, and Badger for me,” he said, taking a seat at the table.

“Really?” I asked, excitement bubbling away inside of me.

“Will you help me?” I asked, sitting up at the table next to him. I had done plenty of drawings before, sitting in his house on a Saturday afternoon while he and my mother were someplace else praying, but I had never used water colour paints before. I didn’t want to disappoint him. More importantly, I didn’t want to make myself look stupid in front of him.

Sensing my reluctance, Father Paul picked up a paint brush, then placing my hand over the top of his, he slowly showed me how to paint. So we sat at the table, Father Paul watching over my shoulder, as I slowly dragged the paintbrush over the paper as I started to paint pictures of the characters from the book he had read to me. By the time I had finished, it was bedtime and Father Paul had to go home. With his encouragement, I had painted several pictures, which I was really proud of. Without saying a word, my mother had sat watching from the corner of the room with my brother and sisters.

When Father Paul left in the evening, Mother had developed the habit of always walking him to his beat-up old truck, which he parked at the end of our garden path. She would return minutes later, always in a good mood. That night my mother walked him the short distance to his truck, but on her return to the house, she was furious. She slammed the front door with such force that it rattled in its frame. I looked up at her as she stormed towards me, and again I saw that spark of yellow in her eyes which I had seen when she was fighting with the woman at the safe house.

“You selfish child!” she roared. “He doesn’t just come here to see
you
!”

I remember giving my usual meek reply by apologising to her. I always fucking hated myself for doing that. She ignored my apology and continued to scream.

“What do you think you were doing?

Hogging him to yourself like that all evening!”

I apologised again, although I still wasn’t sure what for. I tried to explain I had only wanted to do some painting with Father Paul. She shouted over my explanation as she continued to seethe at me.

“
Paint!
You can’t
paint!
Even Father Paul was getting sick of you! He kept looking over at me and shaking his head in
despair!
”

That fucking hurt. Was Father Paul really doing that? Was he really making fun of me as I sat and painted with him? I couldn’t believe he would do that.
I wouldn’t believe it.
Father Paul had bought me the water colour paints. He had
helped
me to paint, and that had meant so much to me.

In an instant, my mother had thrown my beliefs into doubt. I looked up into her burning eyes as she glared at me. Without even thinking, I said, “Sorry.” I know that sounds fucking pitiful, right? But that’s what I said.

Turning away from me, she replied, “
You
ruined Father Paul's evening and everybody else’s. Now get to bed!” Then taking the pictures I had painted of Toad, Ratty, Badger, and Mole, she tore them to shreds with her claws.

With my heart racing in my chest, I looked at my sisters and brother. Were they coming up with me? I hated going upstairs by myself. I still wasn’t used to sleeping on my own. At least Nik would come up with me. I looked at them, but they all seemed to have found other objects far more interesting than me to look at.

“I said,
get to bed!
” Mother barked.

On my way up to my bedroom, I made the loudest stomping sounds that I could. Not in defiance, but to hide the sound of my sobs. I wouldn’t let her hear me cry. Something inside of me wouldn’t let me.