It's been six years since I first found out Oliver was a cannibalistic murderer, and there is someone knocking on the front door. I go just enough up the stairs so that I can see who it is but they can't see me.
I'm sort of what you'd call a menace, in these, my teenage years. I'm thinking I might follow the lead of the citizens and get outta here soon, kicking the British out and all that. I'm not allowed to sleep in James' room anymore. My room is the dark, wet basement. Why am I not living in the house like part of the family? Because I quit eating meat.
For two years after that first night I was locked in that basement I struggled along. I threw up every time I ate something Oliver had made, almost. Then, I just decided I wouldn't. I will eat everything else, but if it's the body of an animal, there's no way I'll touch it
Anyway, I'm sitting on the stairs, watching the door as James answers it. He still has that eyepatch. It doesn't cover the scar as well anymore now that he's grown. As we've grown, I've found that he's big and broad-shouldered and tall, and I'm just small and scrawny. He's always been bigger than me, though. So, I sit back and watch James answer the door. It's Christophe, and a thin, pale girl in a pink sailor-top dress.
James has the same eyes as this girl- well, eye, but they're this really obvious light purpley-blue- a lot like Christophe's. She also has this dirt-brown hair that's in a messy, short style. Maybe she got sap in her hair, or is recovering from lice and that's why it's so short. As I get closer to her, I see how thin her face looks, almost like a young guy's, and the dark freckles spanning across her nose, just like Oliver. I have those freckles, but my dark skin hides them pretty well. James doesn't, and neither does Christophe, but I know as soon as I see that saddle of freckles, that I'm looking at Oliver's third kid- James' twin. Looks like it is a sister.
I wondered why she never came with Christophe before now, but looking at her, she's smaller even than me, and I was one of the smallest kids in town growing up, and so frail-looking. I feel like she's sort of sickly and that's why she didn't ever travel all the way from the Great Lakes colonies. But not apparently she's here. She's pretty cute, actually.
"Uh, hi, Christophe. I haven't seen you in a long time." James says. Then he looks at the girl. "Who're you? His new girlfriend?"
The girl giggles and then when she talks... Crap, it's a guy. What's he doing in a dress, anyway? I am feeling very confused right now.
"Aw, Jamie, don't you remember me?" he asks, smiling. James shakes his head. James is really quiet sometimes, but more people know him than me. People still think I'm his slave. It sucks. The cute boy in the dress keeps smiling as he says, "It's me- Jacob!"
Then, James' one eye widens as he remembers something. He looks the kid over and smiles at him finally. "Jacob... you're all grown up now!"
"As are you!" Jacob agrees, looking up at James who has to be something like six feet tall by now. Then he, like everyone else, notices James' eye patch and the jagged scar under it. "Jamie, what happened to your eye?"
James flips up the patch to show off the black, empty socket. He stopped having to put wet bandages in it 'cuz I guess it healed up to that point. I think he still has to wash it, though. I don't know, since I'm almost never allowed out of the basement after dinner and before breakfast. Jacob looks wide-eyed at the empty hole and softly goes,
"Oh, wow. How'd that happen?"
"I had an accident when I was a kid." he says. It wasn't an accident, we both know, but it's easier on us to just say it was.
"You lost your eye on accident?" Jacob asks, not believing it.
"It was a sharp knife." James replies.
"Well, anyway, I'm glad to get to see you again, Jamie! Oh, wow, is that your servant?" he asks, seeing me. James looks me over before just a little bit of a smile comes onto his face.
"I really hope he isn't."
"Hey!" I protest, and then since Jacob the girly-boy is still looking at me, I put on my best smirky, flirty face and go, "I'm Alphonse, and I guess I'm your half-brother. You can call me Al."
Jacob extends his hand to me like the best of fine ladies and dips a little bit. "Enchanté" he says as he touches my hand, smiling serenely.
Sheesh he's cute.
"And a salad for Alphonse once we are all finished..." Oliver says, glancing at me in my place at the very end of the table. I haven't gotten dessert in years. I get breakfast scraps, whatever I can sneak for dinner, and supper after everyone is done and everything is cleaned up. Because little mistakes don't deserve to be treated like real people.
But since we have company, instead of making me sit on the floor in the corner like normal, I am allowed to sit at the table.
"Oh no, love, he's in trouble so I am making him wait." Oliver says, smiling. He made lots of salad since Jacob doesn't eat meat either, apparently. Maybe he just doesn't eat human meat. It smells great, and since I haven't been able to sneak much food, and today's breakfast scraps were ham, which I don't eat, I'm starving.
"Ollie," I start and he looks over at me, startled that I'd talk at the table. "can I please have my food now? I haven't eaten all day."
He goes on cutting up the meatloaf on his plate and says like I'm a child, "Well, Alphonse, that is your own fault."
I swallow back the spit pooling in my mouth since I'm so hungry and it smells so good and I say, "Ollie you know I don't eat meat and you tried to give me ham this morning! That's not fair!" Then the knife slams down right in front of me into the table. Oliver threw it. Then he forces that creepy-ass smile on his face and says in that creepy calm voice,
"Excuse us for a moment." and grabs my arm and drags me into the basement, where James' old bed is my current one and that's when I'm not left shackled to the wall. The wall is where I go now and Oliver produces this big kitchen knife from somewhere and I swallow hard.
"Ollie, I'm sorry, I'm just hungry! Don't hurt me, please!" I beg.
"Hmm, what to put on you this time..." He murmurs to himself. I whine through my nose. If I scream, there goes my voice box, out of my throat and in his hand. I learned that the hard way. I'm really glad that I heal from fatal injuries. As for the 'what to put on me' thing, Oliver carves words into my body. When I was little, the first one he did was "Mistake" and then "Accident" and "Worthless," "Useless," stuff like that.
"Hmm, there have been a few of the town's young girls who've come up with little dark-skinned babies, looking for you. Where else am I getting the meat, since the townsfolk are on the lookout for me, after all?" Oliver muses. I feel like I'm going to be sick. Which will get my stomach slashed open. Instead I whine again. Then Oliver's smirk spreads across his face. "Ah, I know..."
Then, he gets to work and I can't scream, or else I'll be hurt worse.
I was left un-chained tonight, so I creep upstairs to James' bed, like I often do. We shared a bed as kids and it makes us both feel better.
"Jamie..." I murmur, crawling into his arms. He stiffens up, "'S me, Jamie. Al."
Me and James are a little... sick, I guess you could call it. We aren't really related, so we give each other what we need, and it's okay. I guess it's a way we comfort each other, too, since Oliver would literally have our heads if he caught James showing any sort of extended affection toward me.
He holds me and runs his fingers through my hair, then notices the new word in my back: "Whore."
"He got you again, didn't he?" he asks. I nod and wriggle in closer. James sighs. "I don't think you're a whore." he tells me and kisses me.
That's all we can do with little Jacob sleeping on a pallet on the floor, but it's enough.
