* * *
My dad had come home to spend time with me on my birthday. He had avoided my pool party, namely because he despised mom’s friends and their preening and gloating. Even though my dad had made space in his schedule for me to make me feel special, in all honesty I felt like I was with a stranger. I guess you could say I had zero familial feelings where my parents were concerned. And even though I no longer needed a nanny, Isabella was still employed to attend to my every whim and help me with my schoolwork, and now her duties also involved cleaning the mansion. She had been more of parent to me than they ever had and recently, the vivid nightmares I’d been having about brutally murdering my parents had resurfaced, where I would wake up in a cold sweat terrified and frenzied, checking for blood on my clothes and wondering if the dream was real like the first time I dreamt of bloody murder, when I met Bess. Maybe mom was right. Maybe there was something off about the doll and it was cursed and was making me have horrific dreams, but deep down I knew that they meant something, and I was determined to find out what it was.
That evening, I was sitting on my bed with Bess, after spending a good hour or so cleaning her up and getting all of the soil out of her hair. I heard the humming, but ever so distant, yet Bess wasn’t moving around like she had done when I was six. She was just a plain old doll. I felt myself drift off into a sort of daydream where I saw cheerleaderscheering and a bonfire behind them. It looked like a pep rally. There was a beautiful dark-haired girl, a cheerleader, with haunting green eyes, standing next to the glow of the flames, and enjoying the festivities. Then, it was like the celluloid had melted and the mood changed. It was dark and I couldn’t really ascertain the location, but it was somewhere secluded, some place where no one would hear the screams. Hands tore clothes, and I could see blood everywhere and hear male grunting and the futile pleas of the girl telling them to stop. I couldn’t see who the attackers were, but I felt the girl’s anguish and fear. I came back to the present and my cheeks were damp with tears. I also noticed that Bess’ were too.
“What are you trying to tell me?” I asked, jumping as I heard the sounds of a vicious argument and a loud crash. I tiptoed out of my room and down the hall to my parents’ bedroom.
“I can’t believe I didn’t see it. Right under my own roof!” I heard my mother snarl, followed by another crash. I opened the door a crack and could see my dad diving behind the bed as she threw a vase at him. She then picked up an expensive lamp from the bedside table and got ready to aim it.
“For Christ’s sake stop throwing things Taylor!” my dad wailed, “it’s not like you haven’t cheated on me, you’re fucking Youri. You even converted the attic into a little love nest for you both.”
True, my mom had made the large atticinto a yoga room. It spanned over half of the total area of the house, and it was a cool, Zen space. She’d put sky lights in the roof making it bright and airy. Youri held Pilates and yoga classes there, both private and for mom’s channel, and she had converted one side of it into a living space for him, and he now lived onsite like the rest of the help. But it seemed my parents liked to fuck the help.
“Youri can’t get pregnant!” she shrieked and lobbed the lamp. My dad narrowly escaped it, but the gilded, gold mirror didn’t, and the glass shattered ominously. Seven years bad luck. Now I understood why Isabella had been wearing clothes that were too big for her, to hide her growing belly. She was glowing and though I noticed she’d put on a little weight, I thought it suited her and was just down to her good cooking.
“Look, you can keep the house. You can have it all. That’s why I came back. I’m moving her into a beach house near the coast,” dad said matter of factly.
“But what will everyone say!” my mom lamented, “I will be known as a failure. My perfect life ruined!”
“Come on Taylor, it hasn’t been perfect for years, not since high school, not since what happened. I need to move on and so do you.”
“But Braiden, I still love you! Youri is just a diversion. He doesn’t mean anything to me. It’s just sex. I get so lonely when you’re away all the time,” Mom said, softening and undoing her blouse, revealing a lacy white bra that pushed up her heavy mounds. Manshe had great tits. I felt my cock twinge. She pulled him in for a kiss, but he pushed her away.
“No Taylor, your charms are lost on me. I don’t love you anymore.”
“You love her! With your bastard child! A servant!” mom growled, stalking to the dresser and lighting a cigarette.
“She isn’t obsessed with keeping up appearances. She makes me happy, and I love her, more than I ever loved you, the fucking ice maiden.” Wow that had to hurt. I could see that mom’s eyes were wet with uncried tears.
“Get out of my fucking sight!” she wailed in anguish.
“We’ll be gone in the morning. She’s packing now. Just stay out of our way.”
Hurriedly, I went back to my room before I was discovered eavesdropping. So he hadn’t come to see me. He didn’t even care about me. I was just one of his mistakes from his old life and now he had a new family, he wanted to cut all ties. And Isabella, who I thought would never betray me, was going to abandon me to start again with my dad. I would be alone. I felt a quiet anger burning in my chest and my heart felt empty.
I fell into an unsettled sleep, tormented by my own feelings as well as vivid images of the dark-haired girl naked and bloody with guys on top of her. At one point, I felt her look straight at me, hergreen eyes blazing.
“Avenge me Caspian!” she pleaded, her face turning into a grimace, “make them all pay!” I sat bolt upright, and Bess smiled at me, the familiar grisly teeth looking menacing once again.
“At last you’re awake. I’ve been shaking you for five minutes,” she said jumping off the bed and going towards the door. A dream within a dream, I mused and followed her wondering what would happen this time. We padded down the stairs and went into the kitchen. I almost had a heart attack when I saw Isabella pulling clothes out of the washing machine.
“Caspian! What are you doing up?” she said guiltily.
“I needed a drink,” I lied, going to the refrigerator and picking up a bottle of juice. Bess clung to my ankle, but Isabella hadn’t noticed as she piled her laundry into the basket. It was then that I saw the pronounced curve of her pregnant stomach. I gritted my teeth. That thing inside her was what had broken up my family. I heard the voice of the dark-haired girl, like it had infiltrated my mind.
“Your dad doesn’t deserve happiness, not after what he did,” she said, her wrath dripping from the words. My dad had hurt this girl, of that I was certain, but it wasn’t just him, there were many. I didn’t fully understand, but then I heard the nursery rhyme again and the melody made my insides hum. I felt a tug on my ankle. I looked down and Bess handed me the mask and now I realized that the animal was aweasel. I moved to the counter and slid one of Florian’s chef’s knives from the knife block. Bess began to sing, and it was like her words were coming out of my mouth.
See the weasel, know it’s time for you to fall down wounded. Rip your insides, spill your guts, pop goes the weasel!
Isabella turned around startled as the knife sliced into her stomach. She fell backwards onto the floor, knocking the wind out of herself and coughing, the blood filling her mouth. The knife sliced through her skin like a well-cooked shank of meat.
“Please!” she gurgled, “don’t kill my baby!” Bess jumped onto Isabellas’s chest, her little hands curled into claws. Isabella shrieked in terror.
“You were going to leave me behind,” I said, my voice again sounding raw and animalistic, “I thought you were different, but you’re just selfish, the same as my parents!”
“Caspian, I’ve loved you and looked after you all of your life. Your father and I didn’t mean to fall in love, but now we have a real chance to be happy, and we both deserve that. It doesn’t mean he loves you any less,” she said, mucus and blood trickling down her face. The knife was still embedded in her skin and I contemplated not going any further, but the music began again, and Bess started to sing, dancing on Isabella’s chest.
“I’m seeing things,” Isabellamumbled.
