Page 2 of The Devil

My mother sounded exasperated when I finally heard her tired, somewhat frantic voice. Paul and Mom always took to the living room after dinner, so I came to the logical conclusion that I had missed the evening meal in my attempts to punish her by sulkily remaining inside of my room for hours. Though that didn’t bother me nearly as much as the obvious disdain lacing every word that was coming out through my mother’s lips. Lips that smiled at me, lips that uttered placations - ‘I love you baby’, ‘I’m proud of you, son’, and ‘whatever you want, mio topolino’ – lips that kissed me goodnight. However, the words escaping through those lips now were anything but affectionate and reaffirming. Now, I got to hear what she really thought of her ‘topolino’.

“Oh, come on, Elenore, you love Lucius,” I heard Paul practically begging her. “He’s a nine-year-old boy being a nine-year-old boy. That’s all!”

“Do I, Paul? Do I love him?” Her words hit me like a sledgehammer covered in torturous spikes that were ready to pierce through every crevice of my heart. “How can I love someone that reminds me ofhim? He has those same eyes, that same smirk, even that same cruel laugh. He is an exact replica of his biological father!”

“You can’t think like that, Elenore.” Paul’s shoes shuffled across the room before coming to a dead-end stop, presumably closing the gap between him and the woman who can’t even bear to look at me. “He knows nothing of his birth father, and besides, it’s not Lucius’ fault. That boy idolizes you, adores you, how can you say these things?”

“I can’t help it; I see the same evil in him,” she replied, sounding desperate, as though a monster was about to unleash itself from her son’s human casing any day now. “I didn’t at first, he was just a little kid, but today, I saw it. I can’t ignore it anymore, Paul. How can I love someone who has that in him? My poor boy is going to end up alone. No one can love him, he’s the product of a monster, can’t you see that?” Her words began to spill out in a jumbled mess of contradictions before she finally cried out the words that could never be taken back, could never be forgiven, and would never allow me to trust another woman again. “I should have terminated him!”

“I don’t know how you can talk like this! Have you been drinking?” Paul gasped at the same time as his shoes took a few steps back over the parquet flooring. “Elenore, darling, I love you, but I’m worried about you. Lucius can never hear you talking like this.”

“Maybe,” she mumbled, more to herself than to anyone else. “Maybe you’re right; maybe I need to go to bed.”

Her rational brain might well have been starting to take over at this moment, however, my head was anything but rational. Paul was not my blood, and my mother, my unconditional love and protector, had just wished I never existed. She’d condemned me to loneliness and a lifetime of therapy I would stubbornly refuse to go to. So, ask yourself, what would a nine-year-old boy do in my position? I cannot speak for any other kid who has found himself questioning everything in a life that had been built on lies, but as for me, I got the hell out of there and enclosed my heart in an icy case, vowing to never let anyone near it again. Self-preservation turned me into the devil of an asshole I would become.

Years on and now with a dead mother, my mind is clearer, harder, and lacks the capacity to suffer fools like Tommy Slater. The imbecile shouldn’t have tried to jump me on the day after my mother had ended her life. He should have left me well alone. But being one brain cell away from an amoeba, he ignored my warning and tried to attack me anyway. I was forced to teach Tommy a hard lesson by gifting him with a broken nose and a black eye. It was not only worth it to see his pain, but to also show the gathered crowd what would happen if they tried to replicate Tommy’s blunt course of action. People soon came to realize that I had absolutely no qualms about beating someone to a bloody pulp if I so chose to. I had no qualms about telling anyone exactly what I thought of them, even when it led to a parent-teacher meeting that would have Paul reaching for the top-shelf whiskey bottle afterward. I had no qualms about destroying anything or anyone if I felt it was necessary for my own amusement.

I don’t want their pity or their understanding, I want them to realize that if you come after me, I will destroy you. If you try and get close to me, I will burn you. If you try and hurt me, I will not break, I will make you crumble.

Fortunately for most, if they leave me well alone, I usually lack the inclination to bother with them. Unfortunately, for my little mouse, she ignited a passion for more, as well as emotions I had wished to repress. She never intentionally set out to cross me, but cross me she did, and in the cruelest way possible. She brought my heart back to life; she made me fall in love with her.

Chapter 2

Helena

My favorite film of all time isThe Sound of Music. Cam used to jibe me about it, telling me I was the real-life version of Maria, the nun who fell in love with Captain Von Trapp, the uptight, grumpy, but oh, so handsome hero who melted over Maria’s gentle heart and nurturing nature. I never took his words as an insult, for I could fully relate to Maria. Like me, she hid herself away in a house that taught her subservience, obedience, and virtue. It wasn’t wholly my daddy’s fault for being as old-fashioned as he was, he was merely a product of his time and his parents’ stern upbringing. And my childhood, though less adventurous than what my brothers were allowed to get away with, was a good and happy one. But perhaps that’s because children know no different from their own experiences. When I reached puberty and attended high school, I saw the stark differences between me and other girls my age. They had so much freedom, so much confidence, so much of what my brothers had, and of what I did not.

I remember watching them with curiosity, studying the way the boys would flirt with them, and how they would flirt back without fear. Sure, I had seen it with Cameron and his friends, but this was different; these people were my age; they were who I was supposed to make friends with. Not that I did. I lacked the confidence to engage in any sort of conversation with them. If they tried to talk to me, I would have to run through what I might say before I uttered the words out loud, by which time, they had given up and moved on.

Now, at seventeen years old, I still haven’t spoken to a boy in any real depth other than with my brothers. Cam and Nate always tell people it’s because I am shy, which I am. So painfully so, I’m amazed I’ve made it this far, standing in front of my cousin’s house that is miles away from my hometown. Worse still, I’m about to spend the entire summer here. I say ‘house’, but it looks more like a five-star resort, something that wouldn’t be out of place in a centerfold in a property guide for the rich and famous. I literally have to crane my neck to see the terracotta tiles decorating the roof of this fancy villa. It makes our five-bed detached home look like a hovel in the middle of a dystopian slum city.

The first thing I notice, when I get close enough, is a huge set of wooden double doors that stand between me and the interior of this ridiculously lavish abode. My eyes soon travel along the fancy tiled brickwork, all the while I struggle to get over the countless intricately designed windows lining the equally numerous sets of walls closing it all in. Just over the back, there is a circular centerpiece that adorns a set of skylights. It must be pretty spectacular to be up in that room at night; I could quite happily live in that part of the building all on its own.

This excessive piece of real estate is way out of my comfort zone and makes me more nervous than mixed-sex swimming lessons at school. I feel exactly like Maria when she arrives at the Von Trapp grand estate, feeling small and nervous. I can do academia, I can do exams, and I can do pop quizzes, all in my sleep. I can write an essay with precision, facts, and flair and hand it over with a smugness my brothers usually reserve for when they look at themselves in the mirror. I know I will ace it and can predict my A plus before the teacher has even read it. But this? Staying with unfamiliar people, even those to who I am related, is like my own version of Dante’s seven circles of hell.

So, why am I here, you may well ask. Why have I traveled over seven hours in a hot, stuffy metal tube of a train, with no air conditioning, sat between a man who smelled of stale sweat and a screaming toddler whose mother chose to wear headphones and listen to techno on repeat? I almost felt sorry for the little guy, right up until he kicked me in the shin and yelled in my ear with a cocktail of spit and snot spraying all over my face. I should have seen this as a sign that I had made the wrong choice. Because believe it or not, this was my choice and my choice alone.

The other option available was to attend some cheesy camp in the middle of the woods with a bunch of counselors who are probably only about a year or two older than me. The very thought of staying in a hut filled with a bitchy group of kids from a fucked-up version of the Brady Bunch appealed to me about as much as spending the summer in a nudist’s colony. Fortunately, my parents had only subjected me to summer camp a handful of times, all pre-puberty, but that was more than enough for an introvert like me.

After having stayed at one of these godforsaken places, I knew I wouldn’t survive another summer crocheting friendship blankets, canoeing across murky, freezing cold lakes, or preparing for an end-of-camp production. Not to mention the enforced attendance at weekly discos where, apparently, reading is not encouraged. Keep us young, dumb, and buying into the belief that wearing make-up to gain the attention of some horny boy is what every girl should strive for in life. No thank you, not going to happen. I’m too damn old for that kind of torture.

Cam is already at college, so opted to stay there for the summer, working part-time by day and on his computer projects by night. Nate, being the party boy that he is, thrived in places like camp, so it took him less than a minute to make his choice. He was guaranteed a prime position of popularity among the masses, as well as getting plenty of action with over-sexed teenage girls.

So, what was a girl with limited options to do? Mom and Dad were going to be travelling across Europe for a second honeymoon, aka, time away from their kids, and for some unknown reason, they didn’t deem it appropriate for me to stay alone at home. If I were Cam or Nate, I would have fully agreed with their over cautious decision to not let me stay. They were a nightmare waiting to happen without proper adult supervision. But me? People joked that I was even more responsible than my folks.

Though it took me several hours of working up the courage to confront them, I eventually approached my father with an indignant stance and an expression that was meant to say confident, but most likely only revealed how nervous I was.

Mom had smiled with affection and encouragement while trying to explain that it was for my own good. She wanted me to get out there, make friends and enjoy my youth, whereas Dad spouted out his usual spiel about fearing for my safety, that it wasn’t a good idea for a vulnerable young girl like me to be staying all by herself. My point-blank refusal to go to camp with the added threat of me trying to canoe away but probably drowning in the process, had Mom suggesting that I stay with Merial, my cousin of the same age. Her mom, my aunt, had recently married some ridiculously rich guy, her very own Mr Von Trapp, who was widowed a good few years ago.

Merial and I had always got on well enough, but I can’t pretend that we would have been friends if it wasn’t for the fact that we were related. Merial is an ‘It’ girl who uses text language in everyday speech. She collects boyfriends like they’re stickers to go in the latest collect-them-all book. Shakespeare’s plays only exist in the form of the latest movie version, while her reading material consists of ‘Just Seventeen’ and other such useless information.

That being said, as much as I can sit here and judge her superficial lifestyle, I can’t deny that I live vicariously through her. She’s like my very own soap opera, gifting me stories of groping on a first date and sneaking out to college parties. I listen with as much fascination as I do with the girls at school. Now that her mother has married Mr Big Balls lawyer with a hefty income to supplement her every whim, her exploits seem to have gotten even more exciting.

Back to the here and now, trying to process all of the exuberance exhibited in this one mansion, I find myself in front of the gates of Mordor, or at least that’s what it feels like. My balled fist hardly makes a pop when I throw it against the wooden door. My sporting abilities have never really impressed anyone, unlike Nate and Cam who both made it big on the football field during their high school careers. On the rare occasions I’ve been in contact with a ball, I always found myself putting in a lot of effort only to fall flat on my face.

Muttering a curse, I draw back my hand and contemplate calling Merial to let her know I’m outside, apparently incapable of doing something as simple as knocking on a door. However, someone must be watching all this from above and has decided to throw me a pity gift because when I look to the side, there’s a small button with which to ring the doorbell.

Disney’s theme tune begins ringing from inside and I have to stifle a laugh, knowing that this will be an Aunty Jen fixture. If nothing else, she is a straight-up Disney nut. She even married her first husband at the iconic castle in Florida, much to Merial’s embarrassment. Too bad the marriage wasn’t the stuff of fairy tales and shiny, cartoon dreams. Dear old Uncle Vince had a little gambling problem, exacerbated by alcohol and drugs. When Meriel was only five years old, he cleared out their accounts and hasn’t been seen since. Another reason I’m rooting for her recent marriage to San Fran’s millionaire lawyer of the century.

---