Chapter 9: Goodbye Brother

If all stories have a happy ending, then William's would've been with Grell as the two of them built a new life for themselves elsewhere. But this story doesn't have a happy ending. In fact, neither William's, Sebastian's, or my own life have a happy ending.

Three days is what it took for word to get around our tiny village that William was leaving. While some were genuinely sad to see him go, others that had come to believe the rumors floating around began causing problems, especially when they realized that Grell was also planning to leave the very same day.

The things that they said to them were so horrid, I don't dare to repeat them. But Sebastian and I were able to see the damage they were causing. Grell cried almost every day. A flash of red and there he would be on the street corner sobbing. William would try to comfort him, but it was useless.

Sebastian and I tried to urge them to leave sooner. Catch a ship, find a carriage, buy some horses; heck, walking was better than putting up with the abuse they were facing from the townspeople. There was no law that said they had to leave on Sunday. But William said that they weren't ready. It was a two day's travel to the nearest town by horse, and they didn't have the supplies to get them there.

And then they started to pluck William apart. It started when he lost his job, and then the town's people started swooping in. They called him vile names, threw dirt and trash at him, and on the occasion a vendor in the market would refuse to serve him. While his facial expressions didn't outwardly show it, you could see in his eyes that he was hurting.

Sebastian and I could only sit back and watch as William started to mentally and emotionally tear himself apart.

And then it happened.

William was very careful not to wake us up that morning, because both Sebastian and I woke to the sound of Detective Miller knocking on our front door. He had that same look on his face, that sour look that said that he had come with bad news.

William and Grell were dead.

Completely unplanned and uncoordinated, Grell had slit his wrists on the second floor of his family's townhouse sometime overnight. And early this morning, before the early risers had to took to the village streets, William had jumped from a fifth story window of a building in town. Many people had apparently woken up to the sound of his body landing on the cobblestone street.

Sebastian, of all people, seem to be the most upset. He cried so hard, I was sure he was crying someone else's tears apart from his own. Perhaps he was crying Grell's tears. I'm sure this wasn't what the looney redhead wanted to have happen. Or maybe he was crying William's tears. The pain from losing a loved one is never a dull one, and William probably wanted something better for Grell than to be with him. We may never know. Grell's suicide note only read, "Goodbye, my love. Perhaps we'll meet again someday." And William hadn't written a note.

While I was sad, I was also very confused. Not by why exactly William had killed himself, but why Sebastian hadn't. Call it selfish thinking on my part, but Sebastian had gone through more trying times than William and Grell probably had put together. How the hell did Sebastian find it in himself to move forward? While I had stopped only one suicide attempt, there should've been countless others.

It wasn't a thought that I liked to entertain, but it was a fact. Sebastian should be dead, not William.

William and Grell were buried side by side underneath an old oak tree beside the river. It had the silence of the pines, the hiss of the rushing water, and the wildlife I knew William would have admired. I could picture the two of them sitting together and spending hours in this one spot watching the sunset over the trees.

The days following the deaths of William and Grell were tough. The townsfolk were reeling from what had happened, and it didn't help that it took a lot more time than should have for the blood to be cleaned from the streets where William had taken his life. Many of our neighbors came to offer their condolences, and it was a while before Sebastian or myself returned to work.

It took time for Sebastian to move on. He didn't cry as much, but his night terrors returned with a vengeance. Not only would he act as though he were being beaten viciously, he'd talk in his sleep, as well. And not incoherent mutters that were hardly a full thought, he was making full sentences, like there was somebody in the room with him. I often wake up to him screaming, "I didn't do it!" Or "What other choice did I have?"

These outbursts terrified Angela, and Ash refused to allow them to be together until we figured out what it was that was terrorizing Sebastian. But much like things had gone with William, whenever I asked him about it, he'd avoid the topic.

After a month of this, I decided I had finally had enough. I asked for Hannah's help in the matter, as she was a lot more kind and gentle than I was when push came to shove. At the time we were married and expecting a child, and knowing she made a great wife and would probably make a great mother, I didn't doubt her capability to win the trust of someone who was as timid as Sebastian. She actually managed to get him to sit down with us at the dining room table, and we slowly brought the topic back up.

"If there's something bothering you, you can always come and talk to us," she said sweetly, "William was a good man, but it isn't your fault of that he . . ."

"It's not that," Sebastian cut in, "it's about our parents."

I swallowed a lump that had lodged itself in my throat.

"Sebastian, I know what happened to you in the past was wrong, and I get it if you might not be willing to forgive them for what they did, but mother and father have been dead for so long now. They can't do anything to you anymore."

"It's not about what they did, it's about what I did."

I was instantly confused. What on earth could Sebastion have done? He was nothing short of obedient when it came to obeying our parents. He never ran away or fought back or cried for help when things got bad. He had done all that they asked, even getting up early to make them breakfast on the day they died. And he was even willing to continue this behavior months after they were buried.

"Sebastian, you never did anything wrong," I said "What could you have possibly done to them?"

Sebastian cringed, "Well . . . Remember the morning that they died? I said that they'd gone out . . . That I'd seen them go out?"

"Yes."

"I lied."

I paused.

Lied? Sebastian wasn't a liar, was he?

"Well, it was sort of a lie," he continued, "I woke up that morning because I heard them packing up a few things. It was very, very early in the morning, so I knew they couldn't have been going into town. I knew then that they were going into the woods. Remember the man I told you they were talking to the day we followed them?"

I nodded.

"He wasn't a man. He was something else. I can't really describe it. The deal they had made was . . ."

"Was . . . what?"

" . . . The deal was that you, William, and I were to be killed in exchange for immortality. They were making a pact with the devil, Claude."

I froze. Was this some kind of a joke? Was he making up some kind of story to give some sort of explanation for our parents deaths?

I let out a nervous chuckle, "That's actually pretty good, Sebastian. Develop that story a bit more, and you'll be a best-selling novelist for sure!"

Hannah tapped my shoulder, "Claude . . . I don't think he's making this up."

I looked to Sebastian again. He was shaking and looked about ready to have another meltdown. But come on! Stories about devils and demons were nothing but scary stories, weren't they? They kept the churchy folks under control and struck fear into the hearts of mortal men. But they weren't real.

"Are you telling the truth?" I asked.

"Yes! I can't lie to you; never you, Claude. You guys were the only family I had! Maybe I could have lived with it if it was just me they were after. I was nothing but a monster, after all. But they loved you, and what had you and William done to deserve to wind up like that?! So I followed them into the woods again. They were going to meet him, the devil, to get a bit of guidance on how to go about killing us. It was going to be me, then they planned on killing you and William while you both slept. I couldn't let that happen, so I jumped on them. I grabbed the knife they had brought and I stabbed them until they were both dead."

Everything in me went numb. Sebastian had been the one who killed our parents all along? And this whole story about meeting the devil . . . Sebastian . . . Why?

"I didn't want to tell you, because I knew you wouldn't believe me," Sebastian finally said, "but the guilt has been eating away at me. And then when William died, it only made it worse."

What do I say? My brother just said he murdered our parents! That's not exactly something you turn a blind eye to. Even Hannah seem to be stuck on where to take this. Do we turn him in? No, the police will just think he's insane and lock him up in an asylum. That won't do. He'll truly go mad in a place like that.

Finally, I stood up and leaned in closer to him.

"We must have really done a number to your head as a kid, Sebastian. That's quite the story, but it's totally impossible. The devil doesn't exist, and I know you weren't strong enough to kill both mother and father. One of them would have gotten away, or killed you. Now why don't you tell us what these nightmares are really about!"

Sebastian's face fell and he too rose from his chair.

"I knew you wouldn't believe me."