“What?” Dolly asked, sniffing back her tears. She took my hand in hers and squeezed.
I looked at our hands and tried to imagine life if Dolly left me. If I never saw her again, like I wouldn’t my mama and papa. This time I didn’t feel nothing . . . I felt everything. I felt fire in my blood and anger so bright it burned my eyes.
“You mean something,” I said through gritted teeth. “You ain’t like everyone else. I couldn’t give a fuck about anyone else. Not a single fucking soul . . . only you.”
Dolly’s wobbling lips moved into a slow smile. She threw her arms around me and hugged me. I couldn’t stand anyone touching me but her. And all she did was touch me—hold my hand, hug me. Her hands were always on me.
No one else would ever come close.
“Good,” she breathed. “Because you’re my favorite person ever. Ever that has ever existed in all the world.”
The rip in my stomach vanished.
Dolly lay back down, resting her head on her hand. “You’re gonna live with us now, Rabbit.”
I nodded. Mr. Earnshaw told me that after my papa had died. Told me he was my legal guardian, and that it had been arranged with my papa when I first came to live here. If anything ever happened to my papa, I’d belong to Mr. Earnshaw. Now I did. He said he was making a room up for me.
I wanted it to be the room next door to Dolly’s.
Better still, I wanted to just share Dolly’s room. I didn’t really sleep anyway.
There was a knock at the door. We sat up just as Dolly’s nanny, Mrs. Jenkins, came through. Her eyes narrowed on us lying on the bed, close. “Heathan,” she said. “Mr. Earnshaw would like to see you in his office.” She looked at Dolly and folded her arms across her chest. “Where are your mourning clothes, Ellis? It’s disrespectful to dress in color on such a sad day as this.”
“I told her to change,” I said, sitting up. I didn’t like Mrs. Jenkins. Didn’t like how she spoke to Dolly, hovered around her. “I always want her in color.” Mrs. Jenkins looked at me. I glared at her, my lip hooking into a sneer. “Never in black.”
The blood fell from her face.
“Come, Mr. James,” she said, flustered, and turned for the door. I looked at Dolly. Her head was bowed, her shoulders hunched. I got up from the bed and put my finger under Dolly’s chin. Her head lifted slowly, and eventually so did her eyes.
“I’ll be back soon,” I promised. I tipped my head in the direction of her favorite book on the nightstand. “I’ll read to you when I return.”
She smiled, and everything was okay again.
“Mr. James!” I snapped my head to Mrs. Jenkins, who was tapping her foot impatiently as she waited by the door.
Putting my hand in my pocket, I ran my fingers over the face of my watch. I followed Mrs. Jenkins down the hallway. We were traveling the back route to Mr. Earnshaw’s office.
Mrs. Jenkins looked back at me. When I met her eyes she quickly faced forward again. “There’re no kids here today,” I observed as we came to a halt at the private elevator that led to the hallway outside Mr. Earnshaw’s office.
Mrs. Jenkins froze. She slowly turned to face me. “Wh-what do you mean?”
I studied her. Her cheeks flushed as the blood beneath her skin rushed to fill her bloated face. I wondered what that blood smelled like. Wondered how quickly it would spurt from her vein if I dragged a knife over her throat. “This hallway.” I paused, my attention now on the throbbing pulse in her neck . . . Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock it sang out, drawing me in. It was getting faster and faster, like it would burst free from her neck at any moment. “I’ve seen kids walking these hallways at night, brought to the front door in a blacked-out van in the dead of night.”
She swallowed.
“I watched them being brought into this home by you and Dolly’s uncles, and then led up to this floor. To this back route to Mr. Earnshaw’s office.”
Mrs. Jenkins’s mouth dropped open as she tried to speak, but just as she did, the elevator pinged and the door slid open. We stepped inside, and as the door shut, I said, “Both boys and girls. About my age, I would say.”
Mrs. Jenkins’s back bunched. She shook her head. “Really, Heathan, you have such strange delusions. You’ve seen no such thing.” She laughed nervously, the sound grating on my bones. “Children coming into this house in the middle of the night? Whatever would that be for?”
She was lying.
I didn’t know why.
I’d seen them.
I knew it.
So did she.
The door opened, and I followed her toward the office. Mrs. Jenkins knocked, then she held the door open for me as I stepped inside. She shut the door behind me and left me alone.
I cast my gaze around the room. Mr. Earnshaw was sitting behind his desk, and Dolly’s uncles were sitting before the fire. They were always here. I assumed some of them lived in this house—it was big enough—and I rarely saw them leave the estate. There were six uncles, and as I stood there, they all stared at me.
“Heathan!” Mr. Earnshaw got to his feet. He was dressed as he always was, in a dark pinstriped suit. His dark hair was slicked back, and he held a cigar in his hand.
He stopped before me and placed his hand on my shoulder. I froze. He wasn’t Dolly. No one else was allowed to touch me. Just as I was about to rip his hand away, he pulled it back and sat on the edge of the desk. “How’re you doing, son?” He shook his head. “Such a tragedy, what happened to your father. A freak accident. I’m so sorry. Life can be so unfair.”
I didn’t reply. Instead I glanced at Dolly’s “uncles”—I knew they weren’t really her uncles, just her papa’s business partners, who she’d known all her life.
“How’re you feeling about living here now? In this house, with us?” My attention went back to Mr. Earnshaw.
“Fine.”
Mr. Earnshaw smiled, then he reached out and ran his finger down my cheek. Ice trickled down my spine at his touch. I didn’t want him fucking touching me. Mr. Earnshaw dropped his hand and moved to the small bar at the back of the room. “We have your room all prepared. It will be on this floor, not far from my office—”
“I wanna be next to Dolly.”
Mr. Earnshaw turned and made his way back to me, a drink of liquor in his hand. I frowned. “You’ve had a long day. You deserve it, son. Whiskey always makes things better.” He pushed the drink into my hand.
“I wanna be near Dolly. I want the room next to hers.”
“Now, son.” He paused. “I see how y’all are with each other. It wouldn’t be . . . appropriate to put you next to one another.” He smiled, and I wanted to rip out every one of his lily-white teeth. “Ellis is still only nine years old. She turns ten very soon.” The smile he gave made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. “She’ll be older before long, more of a young lady than a child and able to do . . . more with herself and others. You understand what I mean, yes? You’re already eleven, almost twelve. You’re already a young man, and as such, I want to keep you nearer me. To safeguard you.”
I felt my eyebrows pull down, but just as I was about to argue, Mr. Earnshaw put his arm around me. “Come, have a drink with us.” He led me to the circle of seats, and I sat in the spare one beside him. I met each of the uncles’ eyes. They all were watching me.
I hated the way they were looking at me. It made my blood run cold . . . colder than it already did.
“To Derek James.” Mr. Earnshaw raised his glass in a toast to my dead father. The uncles repeated his words and drank their whiskeys. Mr. Earnshaw’s hand came underneath my glass and guided it to my mouth. I shook my head, not wanting the drink—I’d never tried alcohol before—but he kept going until the rim of the glass was at my lips. He tilted the glass higher, and the whiskey poured down my throat. He kept it there until I coughed at the burn. The glass dropped to the floor without smashing. I wiped at my mouth and faced Mr. Earnshaw in shock. He cupped my face. “It’ll make you feel better,
son. Believe me. It’ll . . . loosen you up. You’ll begin to like both the taste and the effect in no time.” A pause. “We want you to be more relaxed around us. We’re your family now.”
Suddenly, I felt dizzy and the room started spinning. I hated it. I didn’t like what the liquor was doing to me. I didn’t like not being in control.
I must have fallen asleep soon after. When I opened my eyes, it was to find Mrs. Jenkins leading me clumsily to my new bedroom. It was only two doors from Mr. Earnshaw’s office. She opened the door and I stepped inside.
The room spun as I dropped to the bed and fell asleep.
I never got to go back to Dolly and read to her.
I blinked my eyes open as there was a knock at the door. I lifted my head and rubbed my hand down my face. The knock sounded again, then the knob turned and Mrs. Jenkins entered my room.
“I wanna see Dolly,” I growled the minute her eyes met mine.
“Mr. Earnshaw wants to see you in his office. Ellis is busy.”
My jaw clenched, and I swiped my arm out along my nightstand. The glass of water beside me smashed to the floor, shattering on impact with the thin carpet. My arm ached at the movement. Mr. Earnshaw had invited me into his office every night this week with him and “the uncles.” And every night, he’d made me drink his whiskey until I couldn’t see straight anymore, telling me I needed to relax. Every day since, I had been barely able to open my eyes during the day. I felt weak. I couldn’t remember much of what happened in the office after I’d drank, but parts of me always ached the next day. Parts I wasn’t sure should ache . . . My head always felt fuzzy and I found it hard to focus.
“Heathan!” Mrs. Jenkins said. “Come along. They’re waiting.”
Wanting to fight it, but having no energy to do so, I got to my feet and followed her out of the door. I straightened my vest, skimming my fingers along the familiar pocket, feeling the watch inside. My stomach rolled as we stopped at Mr. Earnshaw’s door.
Mrs. Jenkins knocked as usual. But when I walked through the door and she closed it behind me, things seemed different. Instead of being in front of the fire, the uncles were sitting in a circle in the center of the room. And instead of being behind his desk, Mr. Earnshaw was sitting in the circle too.
“Heathan.” he said, turning in his seat to look at me. “Come here,” he ordered. I walked toward him. “Move into the center.”
I walked into the center of the circle and felt all of the uncles’ eyes on me. My legs felt like they would give way at any moment. I was so tired . . .
“Now, Heathan,” Mr. Earnshaw said. I looked at him sitting there, smoking his cigar. He acted like he was a king in this house. “We need to have a chat.” I didn’t say anything, just waited for him to continue. “About how you had no other family to take you in once your father died.” He smiled. “So I agreed to be your legal guardian. This much you know.” He shook his head sadly. “But what you won’t know is just how much it costs to raise a child.” I frowned in confusion. “Food and board. Your schooling—”
“We don’t get any schooling. No one ever comes to teach us. Hasn’t since I came here two years ago and I was told I’d get a tutor. None came.”
Mr. Earnshaw waved his hand in the air dismissively. “Well, you see, Heathan, your papa owed me a lot of money.” I looked around the fancy office. Nothing about the office made me think Mr. Earnshaw was in need of money. The whole Earnshaw estate was the biggest and most lavish thing I’d ever seen in my life. “I took the money he left you, in repayment . . . but it wasn’t enough. And now I have you to care for. I have to clothe you, feed you.” He shrugged. “It all costs money.” He relaxed back in his chair. “You’re a young man now, not a child. Question is, what are you gonna do to earn your keep? To pay back what is owed? It’s a man’s duty to never be in debt.”
A chair creaked behind me. I turned around and saw Uncle Clive had risen to his feet . . . and he was staring right at me. Uncle Clive was the biggest of the men. And by big, I meant fat. His hair was thin, and he wheezed when he breathed.
He disgusted me.
He reminded me of a roasting pig.
And worse, he always smiled. A huge, creepy smile.
Right now, that smile was on me.
Uncle Clive flicked his head toward the door. “Come with me, Heathan. I have an idea about how you can start these repayments,” he said, and I felt my fingers twitch. “I want to help you . . . now that you’re family.” My skin prickled under his attention. He brushed past me, his arm against mine, and walked out of the door.
“Go with him,” Mr. Earnshaw ordered sternly.
I made my feet move and stumbled out of the door after Uncle Clive. When I entered the hallway, he was waiting by my bedroom door. He walked into my room, and I slowly walked in behind him. I didn’t see him at first, but when the door slammed shut behind me I realized he’d been waiting behind the door.
My breathing echoed in my ears. My palms grew wet with sweat. Then Uncle Clive moved. He took four steps in my direction, then he stopped. He started undoing his belt. His forehead was sweating like it always did, and his cheeks were mottled with red patches.
My nostrils flared when my eyes snapped to his. His pupils had dilated as he watched me. I stepped back and stepped back until the backs of my legs hit the edge of my bed. I tried to keep my balance, but my feet moved from under me and I fell to the mattress. The room spun from all the liquor I’d been given lately. I felt weak. I didn’t like not being in control.
Then Uncle Clive was before me, his belt and pants undone.
I caught a glimpse of his heavily-layered stomach skin and I tried to get to my feet. But Uncle Clive pushed down on my shoulder. His free hand ran through my hair. “You really are a handsome boy, Heathan. And so big for your age—tall and broad. And those silver-gray eyes . . .”
“Get off me.” I lurched to the side, trying to get away. But Uncle Clive was stronger than me. His hands did leave me, but only to reach into his pants. I closed my eyes, not wanting to see what he’d do next. His fingers gripped my shirt and he forced me back into the mattress. I struggled and struggled until his hand swiped across my face, making me dizzy. Uncle Clive’s arm was braced over my throat, his legs kept my legs pinned down, and I felt him unbuttoning my slacks. He began to pull them down my legs. I tried to shout, to tell him to get away from me, but my voice was cut off by the arm on my throat.
He pulled my pants down until they were bunched at my ankles, then wrenched me to my feet by the collar of my shirt. He dragged me across the room and bent me over the desk, kicking my ankles apart with his foot. His hand pressed my head down to the desk until all I could smell was oak. I tried to struggle, to get free, but I couldn’t . . .
I stopped trying.
I pulled out my pocket watch and stared at the face. I blinked, studying the hands, blocking out the pain that quickly came. Blocking out the grunts, the wheezing, the drops of sweat that showered the back of my neck . . . the feeling of him behind me . . .
“Tick tock,” I whispered to myself as my cheek moved back and forth along the oak surface of the desk. “Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock . . .” I kept my eyes on my pocket watch, pushing everything else out of my mind until I heard the bedroom door close. The room was plunged into silence. But I couldn’t move. My cheek stayed pressed against the wooden tabletop. Oak. I couldn’t stop smelling oak.
My pocket watch caught the light and reflected a patch of gold onto the ceiling. It was flickering. I realized it was from the shaking of my hand.
I breathed.
I breathed.
I breathed again.
I clutched my pocket watch to my chest and rose from the desk. Pain shot through my spine, but I gritted my teeth and pulled up my pants, fastening them as tight as I could. My hands still shook. My breathing felt strange.
And I had only one place I wanted to go.
I darted across the room and quietly opened the door. I peered out into the h
allway. It was empty. I ran across the carpet, jaw clenching when every step hurt more than the next. But I wouldn’t cry.
I didn’t think I knew how to.
I avoided the elevator and headed for the back staircase. I climbed each step as fast as I could until I was at Dolly’s floor. Seeing her door was shut, I burst through and slammed it behind me. I ran to the corner of the room and slumped down the wall, keeping out of sight. I tried to catch my breath.
But I couldn’t catch my breath.
Everything felt wrong.
“Rabbit?” Dolly’s sleepy voice came from the direction of her bed. I didn’t look over at where she would be. Instead I stared at my hand . . . stared at the blood coming from my palm. I slowly opened my fingers and saw that my pocket watch was still in my hand. The glass had cut my skin.
“Rabbit?” Dolly’s voice was closer this time. But I felt myself rocking. Watched the hands on my watch as they traveled around the clock face.
“Tick tock,” I whispered, swaying back and forth, back and forth. “Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock . . .” I tried to block it all out.
“Rabbit? Wh-what’s wrong?” I felt Dolly drop down beside me. I smelled the roses from the perfume she always wore. She gasped. “You’re bleeding.” She ran for the bathroom. When she came back, she took the watch from my hand and covered my palm in a towel. “Are you hurt?” she asked. I finally let myself look up. She was dressed in a long white nightgown, but the black headband she always wore was still in place. And in her hand she held her doll.
She said there were bad people in the world. Some that were close by. She told me Alice would keep me safe . . .
Dolly’s words from two years ago circled my head. It was what her mama had told her before she died.
Bad people.
She wanted Dolly protected from bad people.
Bad people close by.
Her papa . . . her uncles . . .
“Where have you been?” she asked. I looked into her blue eyes as she spoke. They were sad again. I had no words to say. “I’ve missed you so much. Mrs. Jenkins told me you have been busy with my papa and uncles.” She stuck out her bottom lip. “Too busy to visit me. To play and to read to me.” Her lip began to shake. “I’ve been so lonely without you. And now you look sad,” she said, her shoulders slumping. “I don’t want you to be sad.” Her voice was now a whisper.