Instruments of Mortals, page 2
"Just today? Then how can you ....?" I began to ask with a furrow of my brow.
"When you know, you know!" she said, with a high pitched sigh.
As much as I was happy that she was so over the moon, I had to be the adult in this situation — somebody had to. "Well, I'm happy for you, mom but ... don't get your hopes up."
"Can't you just be happy for me!" she said, sitting up and glaring at me. The shift in her mood was so sudden that for a moment, I swore the temperature in the room dropped. "I finally find someone who makes me happy and you're trying to bring me down."
"No mom, that's not what I-" I tried to placate her, to make her understand I was only worried.
But she rose, towering over me and coming for me, angrier and angrier. The deeper her scowl, the more she resembled that other woman, the one that I had so feared returning. "You're trying to ruin this for me."
"No mom," I said, shrinking under the ire in her glare.
"You are. You're trying to drive him away like you drove your father away-"
She was beginning to step closer, and that fear of her that never fully left began to pound in my veins. I stepped away as she tried to advance.
"Drove my father away? I don't even know who he is. Mom, you're scaring me." I tried to appeal to her, rather than the other thing the medication placated. I just wanted her to stop. I heard my blood roaring in my veins, and my throat felt tight, and my breathing was becoming shuttered.
‘I’m panicking.’ I realized though I wasn’t surprised; I was never too far from panic when it came to her.
"Well, you should be scared," she growled, backing me against the wall. I felt the plaster of the wall behind me creak in protest as I pressed myself flat against it. "You should be very scared."
She hit the wall with her fist, centimeters from my head. It seemed to echo in the otherwise spartan room, and I could feel the wall behind me give, just a little, where she had struck.
I screamed and for some reason, this seemed to shock her out of whatever strange angry trance she was in.
"I ... I'm sorry, baby girl," she said. She took a few faltering steps away, back closer to the desk I had been doing my homework at. "I ... I don't know what ... My god, did the woman come back? Did she?"
"What woman, mom?" I asked worriedly[6], walking away from her. There wasn’t much in the living room— only the couch, desk, and TV taking up space, but I moved behind the couch; it put something between the two of us. It was something that made me feel a little safer. "I thought the medication was working?"
"It is working. She just must have found a way to break through. I'm going to have to do something. I'm going to have to do something," she said, pacing back and forth.
For a few moments, she said nothing, and only the faint creaking of the wooden floorboards beneath her feet filled the still air in the room. I felt the tension mounting, thick enough to cut with a knife, and resisted the urge to shout in frustration.
"Do what, mom? What's happening with you?" I asked, near tears.
"We're going to be fine, I promise. That's why I need to marry him. When I marry him everything will be back to normal."
"Marry him? Marry who?" None of this was making sense, I just wanted all of this to stop.
"Doug," she said matter-factly. Despite the sudden calm in her tone, her eyes were wide and wild as she looked at me. "Then we'll have a man to protect us."
"Why do we need a man to protect us." That irritated me, hearing other women who thought that once they met a man to take care of them, all their problems would go away. What my mom needed wasn't a man, but stronger medication as far as I was concerned.
I hoped it was just a passing phase, that in another week or two we'd never hear about this Doug guy again, but it didn't happen that way.
Even to this day, thinking about the day I met him gives me the willies. He was bald and ugly with pasty skin and blotches on his face. I didn't know what she saw in him. He looked like a toad to me. My mom was beautiful, she deserved an amazing guy of her caliber. I tried to mention that to her[7], but my mom refused to see what was abundantly clear, he was a scumbag. A week later they snuck off to the City Hall to get married, without telling me.
I'll never forget the night after Doug had moved in, she slapped me when I told her I didn't trust Doug and that he looked at me funny. I remembered the way the noise echoed faintly in the hallway, loud as a gunshot. She said I was, "Ungrateful," and was trying to ruin her only shot at true love.
I remember the way he stood at the shadowed end of the hallway, peering out at us from the doorway to her — to their — bedroom, his eyes burning in the dark. Even though it was warm in there, even though my cheek felt on fire from where my mom had struck me, I remember how cold I felt, seeing him look at us like that.
I kept my distance from him even as I saw my mother slipping away.
CHAPTER 4
Raven
My hands were shaking as I gripped the paper in my hands. At first, I didn't want to believe it. I'd only ran home to drop my backpack off before I headed out with my friends for cheerleading try-outs.
"Mom!" I said, looking for her. She was normally in the living room watching her soaps about that hour. In fact, she'd never missed an episode of her favorite one, but instead, as I popped my head in there, she was gone.
That was strange. Maybe she and that horrible Doug had gone out to grab some groceries. It had been quite some time since there was any decent food in the house. Then again, since my birthday was coming up, maybe they were going shopping for me. My heart skipped a beat at the thought. I'd been hinting at some things I'd wanted for a while. Not the least of which was not wanting to live with Doug anymore.
I hadn’t thought I’d come home to anything out of the ordinary— or at least, what was the new ordinary with Doug around.
A new ordinary that I had, for at least a little while, hoped would be changing. I had thought I’d gotten through to mom with my last confrontation with Doug. It had been a moment where even mom had been uncomfortable with his behavior when he suddenly trapped me in the hallway and demanded to know where I was going when I had left my room. In a move that surprised me, she had intervened, and I had told her he made me feel uncomfortable, unsafe. I told her that it wasn’t the first time that he had done it — because it hadn’t — just the first time he had been caught by her.
"I have to look around corners before I move around the house, Mom," I had admitted to her, my voice still trembling from nerves. "I’m...I’m so worried[8]."
She had seemed to take my words to heart — at least more than she had since she had met Doug. I had thought that it would at least be the start of her seeing the light and realizing we needed to leave him behind.
"Mom!" I called again, looking down the hall.
My voice seemed unnaturally loud in the empty space. Even though nothing looked out of the ordinary to me— same couch, same desk, same TV— I felt like I had walked into a different home entirely. The air felt… different, in a deeply unsettling but indescribable way. Even looking down the hallway filled me with a strange sort of dread, like I was about to walk into some kind of horrific scene in one of the rooms.
Her bedroom door was open. "Doug?" I said, though the name made me cringe, I was desperate to find anyone. I stepped inside the dimly lit bedroom to find the drawers and closets open and empty. I ran out of the room looking in the bathroom, even my own bedroom. None of my things had been disturbed, but the bathroom had been cleared out; medicine cabinet raided, only a single towel left behind. "Mom! Where are you?"
Running back through the hallway, I passed through the living room and into the kitchen; maybe she left a note on the refrigerator or something, I reasoned. It was a small enough space, making my search brief. That's when I found the note on the dining room table. The pen she'd used to write it was laying like a paperweight on top of it. The table itself was otherwise barren, the pale blue tablecloth smoothed out and pristine as though it had never been used.
I love you, Raven. Be good. I'll be back tomorrow. - Mom
I sighed with relief. I thought ... I don't know what I thought. That perhaps Doug had talked her into something awful. Collapsing in the chair nearest me, my heart started to calm down. I guess I had flashbacks to when they took her away into the mental institution and I thought maybe she was gone forever.
I took a deep breath, holding on to the paper for dear life. Why was I still shaking? "Calm down," I told myself. I should have been relieved and yet something deep inside me, something in the pit of my stomach told me something was wrong. "I'll be back tomorrow," I read the note to myself trying to give myself peace of mind.
Only tomorrow never came. When it was clear that no one was going to come for me and I was on my own, I scraped by with a part-time job. It barely paid the utility bills but left a little money for food. Living on my own was more demanding than I was fully prepared for, and though I tried to keep up the ruse for over a year, eventually the child and protective services found out she had abandoned me. Despite my best protests, my insistence that this was fine, that I was fine, and mom was coming back any day now, my pleas fell on deaf ears. The little house I had known, with its sparse decoration, narrow hallway, and dark memories, were put behind me once again. Once again my voice went unheard, and the authorities sent me to live with my Aunt Naomi, in Peterstein, Oregon.
And that's where everything changed.
CHAPTER 5
Raven
She locked me in my ‘room’ again. My Aunt Naomi did that whenever she did not want me to leave, which was why I missed so much school. Evidently, even that wasn’t a good enough reason to be let out of my attic space turned cage.
From the moment I met her that rainy day in the coastal town where she lived in that old Victorian house, I knew it was trouble. That she was trouble. She’d glared at me, with those pale eyes in her pasty white face, through the barely opened the door.
"Take off your shoes before you ruin my floor," she’d said, opening the door just wide enough for me to step through before she slammed it shut. No, "Hi, I'm your Aunt Naomi, welcome to our home." No, "I'm so sorry your mom abandoned you, don't worry, we'll take care of you."
I shivered, slipping my shoes off looking for where to put them. The old house was immaculate, well-manicured, and primly decorated. Even from what I could see from the entryway, the house was filled with furnishings and baubles, but the decor seemed deliberate, just a way to fill the vast spaces in the rooms. Maybe it was the overcast light filtering through the tall, narrow windows and the vaulted ceilings, but the whole place seemed awash in grays and cold colors, as if to match the home’s owner.
"Well, put your shoes down stupid," she said and she wasn't joking when she said it.
"Oh, ah, sure." I didn't have the energy to get snippy with her. I had already had a horrible bus ride to her town, several bus rides actually. Her long driveway was full of muddy gravel and all uphill. The dense bushes completely cutting it off from the rest of the neighborhood. [9] Its windows had glowed orange from the lights inside and I had seen two small figures staring out the window, which I later found out were her twin sons, my cousins, Buck and Tuck.
"‘Oh, sure?’" she said, as my eyes met hers. She tipped her chin up just so she could stare down her nose at me. "In this household, we say, ‘yes ma'am’ and ‘no ma'am.’ We have respect for our elders, something you clearly didn't learn from your mother."
I swallowed around the lump in my throat. I had to calm myself, my blood was boiling. I clenched my hands at my sides to keep them from shaking. I didn't like anyone talking about my mom like that but I feared she'd throw me out of the house and I had no other place to go. So instead, I said, "Yes, ma'am."
She squinted her eyes at me as if she didn't completely believe my respectful performance. "Come with me," she said and I did what I was told, gripping my bag as I followed her up the stairs. "The house is spotless and I expect it to remain that way. Floors are swept, windows are washed, ceilings are dusted. The rugs must be steam cleaned thoroughly every Wednesday and the trash is to be taken out twice a day."
"You have a beautiful house..." I said quietly and hoped it would be enough to smooth over her clearly ruffled feathers. Despite the soft carpet that lined the floors, her footsteps seemed to thunder in the tense silence.
"It will do for now. Are you listening?" She asked, her voice shrill in my ears.
"Yes, ma'am," I yessed her as respectfully as I could manage.
"Breakfast is served promptly at seven o'clock in the morning, lunch at 11:58, with tea time at 3:30 pm and dinner at 7:45 pm," she said as we walked up the curved spiraling staircase on to the second floor. It surprised me that even the stairway was well kept; none of the floorboards creaked under our feet. I couldn’t help but wonder how often the house was maintained.
"Yes, ma'am," I said, sensing she expected an answer. When we had reached the top of the stairs and there was carpet under our feet once more, the rumbling in my stomach compelled me to ask against my better judgment, "Do you have anything to eat? It's been a long trip."
She spun around and slapped me across the face so hard it nearly made my knees buckle. "Do not interrupt me. Did you not hear what I said? I said dinner is at 7:45 pm. It is 8:17 pm."
I was so shocked, I didn't know what to say as I touched the hotspot on my cheek. Even the brush of my fingertips stung. Her eyes were shrewd, cold, and unfeeling. I shivered again, the wet chill from the rain paling in comparison to the ice in her eyes.
"Did you or did you not hear me?" she asked.
"Yes, ma'am," I said in a whisper and lowered my eyes in the hopes it would be enough.
She composed herself, pressing her manicured fingers against her dress. She seemed satisfied with the way I responded — good. I needed to adapt to survive, clearly. "And anyway, I haven't even given you the list of allergies."
"List of allergies, ma'am?" I asked, startled. What would I need to know such things for?
"Well, of course, stupid. How are you to cook for us if you do not know our list of allergies."
I realized finally the reason she was giving me this long list of rules and regulations was because she expected me to cook and clean for them. As she showed me into the attic-like cubby hole that was to be my bedroom, she said, "Nothing in life is free. You will see that in the days to come."
Though she didn’t physically force me inside the cramped room, the venom in her scowl was enough to compel me to scamper in before she could even utter the order to do so.
She slammed the door, the echo loud and empty like my heart. My limbs felt heavy as I trudged over to the untouched, antique cot that was to be my bed. My knuckles were numb from the cold and how tightly I gripped my bag, and they creaked in protest when I pried my own grip from the handle to set it down. Even though I had been careful not to drop it, the dull thud of my bag hitting the floor seemed too loud in the empty room. I held my breath, waiting for admonishment, though when silence reigned again I had to remember how to breathe. I sunk to my knees, then collapsed on the dusty thin mattress that rested on the hardwood floor. I couldn’t help but cough as some of the dust was kicked up by my movements, though even before that, the air in the room was stale; it was clear that this room hadn’t been used for ages. One of the box springs pricked me on my back and I rolled over with a hiss. Once I couldn’t feet the sharp edge of the spring digging into my skin, I let out a shuddering sigh, looking out the window.
I was in prison, I realized as I stared at the water running down the window in rivulets, the bony branches scraping against the glass like skeletal hands reaching out to grab me. "I have to get out of here," I said barely above a whisper. What had I done to deserve all this?
"Escape is imminent," said a voice in the shadows, low and raspy, brushing against the deepest chambers in my heart. My heart stopped and I turned toward the shadows, my eyes adjusting to the dark. I rose, swallowing as I walked toward it. I tried to keep my footsteps light and soft, hoping not to alert either my aunt or whatever had just whispered to me, and yet when I had waded through the shadows to peer into the space, nothing but a large window hung on the wall.
I must have imagined it, huddled in the dark, the quiet leaving me to my grief, but still something deep inside me told me I was not alone.
CHAPTER 6
Raven
My cousins greeted me the next morning by jimmying my door open and leaping on to me at 4:45 am. I was furious at their blatant lack of manners — what was it their mother had said to me less than a day ago? It was hard not to huff at the gall.
"We're hungry!" they said.
Despite the pounding in my head and the exhaustion that still pulled at me, I tried to be pleasant. "Good morning."
"Whatever. I want Cream of Wheat!" said Buck.
"And I want freshly squeezed orange juice," said Tuck.
I sat up, clearing my throat. "What time is it?"
"It's time for you to get up and make us something to eat," they both said in unison. "And you better not wake Mother up before 6:46 am or else..." they warned.
I believed them, tip-toeing down the stairs and letting them lead me to the kitchen. I might not have heard the steps creaking under my feet last night when I arrived, but I wasn’t about to take a chance at waking the harpy that no doubt slept light as a feather. I stepped into the ornately decorated kitchen, where I gasped at the piles of dishes and pots and pans in the sink. It was clear they had left work for me almost from the moment they learned they were taking me in. I couldn’t help but wonder if this was all they had taken me in for, save for some bizarre shot at the trust fund in my name.
"Clean them so that we can eat, and you better add my favorite berries," said Buck.
"Don't wake Mother," said Tuck in a sing-songy way. Something told me they wanted to see what would happen if I did that so I was careful not to, that first morning. I made it a point to put every dish I cleaned down as carefully and quietly as I could — so what if it took me a little longer to get started on breakfast, those brats had woken me up early enough to get a head start.
