Page 5 of Enthralled

“Can’t you?”

I look up from the sheaf of papers in my hand. For an instant—an instant so brief, I must have imagined it—Oscar’s eyes are empty sockets filled with whirling darkness. Shadows like tendrils lick from the edges, fanning his cheeks. I suck in a breath. The image is gone. My brother looks at me with those large, soulful brown eyes of his. Only this time they aren’t brimming with that mingled trust, hope, and fear I know so well. There’s fury in his gaze. Fury and disgust.

“Oscar?” I say softly, my hands beginning to shake. “Oscar, I am so proud of you. You know I’ve always been—”

Oscar lunges from his chair. I utter a single cry just before his hands grip my throat and force me down upon the bed. He hovers over me like a sleep demon, smothering me with his weight. “How dare you?” he snarls through teeth which gnash like fangs.“How dare you?You act like you love me, act like you care. You pretend to support me when all along—all along, Clara—you were trying to hold me back.”

I shake my head, struggling to force words through the pressure of his fingers. “Os—Osca—” Fear bursts in my limbs. I flail against him. He’s not strong, but I am nonetheless helpless in his grasp. I stare up into the rage-ravaged eyes of a stranger, and darkness closes in around us.

A sob breaks in Oscar’s chest. He releases me abruptly and backs away, staring at me. His hip hits his desk and knocks over a pot of ink, which spills to the floor in a stream of black, like monster blood. I sit up amid the scattered review notices, my hands at my throat as I struggle to draw breath back into my lungs. Instinct tells me to leap from the bed and run from the room. But I can’t. Something holds me here. An anchor, a chain. I only know I cannot leave Oscar’s side. Not now. Not like this.

“I knew it,” he whispers, his shuddering voice both desperate and brutal. “I knew it was you all along. I knew you’d cursed me. Didn’t want me to become like Dad, right? That’s always been your great fear, that I’d turn into the old man. So you got that Prince of yours to put a spell on me, to bind me in chains. To hold me back.”

His words ring in my ears, meaningless ranting. I’ve heard the like before, though never spoken with such savagery. “You’re not cursed,” I whisper. “Even if it were possible, I would never curse you. This is foolishness—”

“Foolishness was thinking I could trust you.” My brother grasps the edge of his desk as though it’s his only support in a crumbling world. The closeness of this little chamber seems to vanish. Instead I see him, a lone figure in the vastness of a huge, terrifying world full of shadows. He looks so small, so frightened. I want to reach out to him, to let him know he’s not alone. “Oscar,” I begin.

His eyes flash. All the sweet, boyish lines of his face transform before my eyes into sharp, dangerous edges. “Foolishness was thinking you and I would always have each other’s backs. I should have known all along. You’re just likethem.”

He doesn’t need to speak their names. With that one word the image of our parents looms large between us, haunting phantoms of torment and accusation that live forever in our minds. Tears trickle down my cheeks. “I’ve always been on your side, Oscar. And I always will be. There is no curse. Curses are the stuff of fairy tales. This is real life. There are no curses, no spells, only the demon drink—”

Oscar throws back his head and utters a loud bark of laughter. It’s such a bitter sound, it brings bile rising in my throat. He turns away from me, fumbling with the items scattered across his desk. His fingers close around a penknife, and he toys with it, turning it round and round. The little blade glints in the morning light. “I thought you loved me, Clara,” he says, his low voice just audible with his back to me. “Now, however, I know there’s only one person in all the worlds who does. And I will do everything in my power to bring him back from the hell and horror you cast him into.”

He’s not making any sense. Every word he speaks is more manic than the last. Has he finally lost his grip on reality entirely? “Oscar,” I say softly, “who are you talking about? Do you mean . . . do you mean Dad?”

He doesn’t answer. His breathing labored, he bows over his desk, one hand planted against the pages of scrawled writing, the other still gripping that knife.

“He’s dead.” The words fall from my lips with clear certainty even as fog roils in my brain. It’s the truth. I know it’s the truth, I simply cannot remember how I know. “He’s dead, Oscar,” I repeat more firmly and step closer to my brother, extending a hand to his shoulder. “He’s not coming back. You’re safe now, you’re—”

With a ragged cry, Oscar whirls. The penknife flashes; pain slices across my palm. I cry out, stagger back, more shocked than hurt. Blood oozes from the cut, runs down my wrist, staining my sleeve. I clutch my hand to my heart even as I back to the open door. My gaze never leaves Oscar’s face. He is white as death, his mouth open, his chest heaving.

“We’re never safe from him, Clara,” he breathes. “Not really. But we can get stronger. And we can do what must be done.” The penknife falls from his trembling fingers. He clutches his head with both hands, his mouth a leer of pain. “Get out of here. Get out now. And don’t come back.”

The light in the room fades. Darkness closes in, creeps up the walls, swirls beneath the writing desk, and envelops his feet. I look into his eyes, see again the emptiness of void in his gaze, shadows licking from the corners, spilling onto his cheeks. He isn’t Oscar, not anymore. In that moment he is a monster. A monster with a beloved, terrifying face.

I turn and flee that room, flee that house, slamming the door shut behind me.

I stop and vomit right there on the doorstep. I don’t want to. I’d sprint down Clamor Street if I could. The last thing I want is to remain anywhere near those shadows, those phantoms, those memories. But my body simply folds up and empties my stomach onto the broken stones.

Finally empty, dizzy, I stagger on. Only once do I look back and peer up at Oscar’s window, half-hoping, half-fearing I’ll see him there, watching me. Uncertain what that sight will do to me. But he isn’t there. No doubt he’s already bowed back over his work again, lost in the flow of words. Forgetting his sister, forgetting our bond. Forgetting everything that once mattered to us.

A little whimper escapes my lips. I didn’t invite him to the wedding! How could I have forgotten? My fist closes tightly, trying to stop the throbbing pain of that cut in my palm. What should I do? Will I go through with it tomorrow? Will I walk to the chapel, make vows of eternal devotion to Danny, and . . . what then? That will be the end of it. My heart thuds, a dull weight in my chest. I will be forever drawn away from Oscar, my loyalties necessarily shifted, our paths irredeemably diverged. And the prospect feels like death.

“Stop deluding yourself.”

I hiss through my teeth, closing my eyes as that unfamiliar voice appears in my head again.

“You cannot save him. How can you not see the truth?”

“Who’s there?” I demand in a whisper. Opening my eyes, I turn in place. The people of Clamor Street come and go, bundled up against the frosty air, pursuing their daily business. A washerwoman with a basket of laundry on one hip pauses to shoot me an uneasy gaze before hurrying on her way. But the speaker, whose voice is so clear in my head, is nowhere to be found.

“Some people cannot be saved because they do not want to be saved.”

I press my fists to my temples. “Who are you? Who are you, who are you? Why do you keep saying these things?” Am I going mad? Perhaps. Madness runs in the family, doesn’t it? First Dad, then Oscar. Now me. It’s the only reasonable explanation. I look back at the house, certainty swelling in my breast. I’m going mad, and those shadows that seem to pour out of the windows and beneath the door are all part of my delusion. They aren’t real, they aren’t real, they aren’t—

Whirling on heel, panic flooding my veins, I take two strides in flight. Before I can take a third, I hit a broad chest clad in a striped waistcoat. Strong arms close around me, and a voice speaks in my ear. “Clara! Clara, what’s wrong?”

“Danny!” I gasp. Relief floods my veins, so overwhelming I could faint. My knees buckle, and if his arms weren’t currently wrapped around me, I would sink to my knees right there on the street. Danny slips a hand around my waist, pressing me close even as his other hand finds my cold cheek and tilts my face back so he can peer into my eyes.

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