A Pirate's Boy

Chapter Eleven- The Storyteller

Author's Note- There's no way that anyone of importance would have taken so long to update, so I think we can all conclude that even if Pirates of the Caribbean did belong to me, I'd be deemed unfit to care for it.

School. That's all I have to say. I hate to deprive anyone who bothers to read this of another moment of his or her amazingly interesting life. Perhaps I'll add more entertaining of an author's note at a later date, though seeing how nicely I handle promises, I'd say it's unlikely. Regrettably, there shan't be responses to reviews at the end of this chapter, my dears. This is not to say that I haven't read, appreciated, and prized each and every one of them. The reason is simply that you ought to be fairly eager to put an end to this hellishly long gap between updates. For this, I apologize most sincerely, I really do. If you'd like a reply, tack on the phrase Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow to the end of your review and I'll gladly have a long and winded chat with you over the private message system. But enough stalling. Let's get on with it, why don't we?

I'm such a troll—one more thing! I'd just like to forewarn you all that this chapter is primarily a flashback. Ergo, I'd like to bring light to a few paltry points. One is that young Edward Teague has a sweet little brother named Jack. Womanizer though he may be, Teague was not makin' babies at sixteen. I'd like this to be clear. Secondly, there is a dreadfully confusing flashback within a flashback that I've tried my best to make plain with those cute little XXXs. Third, this chapter is not rated T for, let's say, Tinkerbell. It is rated for Teen, because although I know you all to be very brave people, it contains some homicidal insane people and sticky murders. Finally, this segment is dedicated to George Weasley, because let's face it. Fred gets all the glory.

He supposed that perhaps his mother had been right. Maybe she had been justified in proclaiming him to be entirely bonkers, or having gone round the bend, or being mad as a hatter. After all, wouldn't any lucid individual be petrified with terror at the thought that they were currently sailing toward an illustrious British fort where they would be hanged within a fortnight?

But no, Jack Sparrow was not fearing for his life, nor was he specifically put out by the fact that he was being held within the belly of an unfamiliar frigate (again). In fact, he may have not minded the aforementioned much at all if he hadn't been so dreadfully bored.

True enough, the restless child had admitted that the accommodations had improved substantially since his last experience in a prison cell. He and the weathered captain had been perfunctorily thrown into the same cramped unit, but it was decidedly uninteresting nonetheless. Teague passed a good deal of the time flat on his back with his boots propped against the miry walls of the timber ship, apparently lost in thought. Otherwise, he slept. These activities, unsurprisingly, were emphatically declared to be ridiculously dull by the fidgety boy. And naturally, his father paid no heed to Jack's grouses, vexing the six-year-old all the more.

In a despairing attempt to free himself from tedium's chokehold, the child had taken to devising a potpourri of amusements for his entertainment. None of them, however, were fulfilling their purposes of diverting his thoughts from the horrible monotony of life in the dark brig. Imaginary chess against himself, teaching Mary Lou (a gray slug that he had proclaimed his pet) arithmetic, and reciting curious words that he found humorous (tommyrot and codswallop being among them) could not hold the attention of the dark-haired juvenile for much longer than a quarter-hour or so.

A counting game, then. Though not exceedingly rewarding, it was certainly a welcomed lull in the lack of excitement. Not being able to count past the number thirty, Jack had grown weary of the exercise relatively quickly after counting each bolt in the iron door several times over, and had hurriedly reversed tactics. It goes without saying that it was far more fun to count the beads in the slumbering pirate's tresses than planks or nail heads. Teague's rhythmic snores added another droll component to the sport. Each puff caused the boy to hastily withdraw his hand from the miniature silver crucifix (trinket number eight, if he had counted right), giggling all the while—until such antics ceased to strike him as comical anymore. There was but one thing to do, needless to say, and that was to add another degree of danger to the activity. In retrospect, Jack should have realized that determining exactly how many hairs the murderer's eyebrows consisted of was likely not the cleverest scheme to carry out. Of course, the child did not have much time to reflect upon his wrongdoings, as a newly awakened and very startled Teague had spastically thrashed out and clouted the unsuspecting boy in the jaw, sending a front tooth skittering across the sodden floor.

Jack sullenly rubbed his bruising cheek at the memory, though he was tenably proud of the recently acquired hole in his grin. He sat in the corner for a moment of atypical quietude, contentedly listening to the muted pitter-patter of the feathery raindrops as they danced against the flanks of the ship. The boy sighed and allowed his head to drop backward against the wooden wall, contemplating what his father's reaction might be if he were to start singing—loudly. Images of another bloody gap in his smile flitted through his mind as he glanced toward the corsair's dejected-looking figure. The pirate lord lay on his back, sable tendrils of matted hair splayed across the floor in a pathetic array, his gnarled claws erratically gesticulating in the air as though narrating some inaudible fable. His lips were mouthing his thoughts, his brows furrowed in apparent frustration. Jack looked on in bemusement, trying to suppress his sniggers.

"Da?" he finally called after a minute of watching the criminal soliloquist arguing with himself. The man started slightly at the voice; momentarily redirecting his attention toward the child before letting his head fall back to the floor and continuing his internal conversation. "What are you doing?" Jack asked again, crawling on all fours until his boyish face hovered over his father's scowling one. "Why are you talking to yourself?"

"I'm not talking to myself," Teague lied in an irritated voice, crossing his arms petulantly over his chest.

"Yes you are. Are you going crazy? Mum always said you were a little bit crazy. Old Mrs. Lee always said so too, but she mostly called you a damnable son of a b—"

"Jackie!" the older man reprimanded, abruptly sitting upward and knocking his skull against his son's in his haste. (Ouches were issued from both parties.) Teague sighed and massaged his forehead. "I was thinking about how to get out of here."

Oddly enough, the pirate was, at least for once, being perfectly honest. He had nearly exhausted any and all ideas of escape by that point, his thoughts ranging from improbable to utter cockamamie. The majority of his half-fabricated plans would have been entirely plausible, had it not been for the unforeseen complication of a four-foot-tall child. Most of his concepts resulted in an unscathed captain giving account to his wife as to how young Jack had come to meet his untimely demise. And dying, Teague had resolved, was not an option, specifically not for a boy who had yet to reach his seventh birthday. As a whole, it was a proper reason to be in a disagreeable mood. But Jack, being both he and the innocuous age of six, did not recognize the criminal's dour disposition and persisted to act as what some might deem, let us say, bothersome.

"So, did you think of anything?" the child asked, blinking guilelessly up at the murderer, genuinely curious. "Because I was thinking too. When we get hunged—I mean hanged—I'll just hold my breath really good so I don't choke and die when I drop, you know? And then I'll climb up the rope and untie me and you and everyone else, y'know, those smelly redcoats, will be so surprised that they won't know what to do, because they never saw'd a kid like me be so smart. So then we'll go down to the docks and get another boat and send a letter to Mum and tell her to come and find us in, um, Hungaria or whatever, right Dad? I'll be a hero and Mum'll be so happy to see us again, and we'll live happily ever after, just like in Bill's stories! Hey, and then you can take me back to Scotland to see Bill too, could you? Get it, Dad? Da? Da, I bet you never thought—"

"JACK!" Teague barked, having finally expended his patience. "We aren't going to get out of here! We're not going to go home! There's not gonna be a happy ending! And if you're still too thick to get it, we're going to be dead by next week! You're not going to see your mum again!"

Jack, for a change, was stunned into silence. Surely, his father had misspoken. "But I thought you could do anyth—"

"Well, you were wrong, boy." The older man snarled spitefully. He glowered for a moment at the pitch-coated floorboards, his anger slowly draining from his person as he seethed. Gradually, his opium-addled mind registered the consequence of his outburst; although it was chiefly truthful, it was certainly not the most appropriate thing to have said to a child. Teague frowned and kneaded his temples with ringed fists. His heart sank as he became aware of the actual content of his choleric words. "Cor, Jackie, I didn't mean to… I wasn't really…"

"Will you tell me a story?" Jack asked abruptly.

Pockmarked forehead wrinkled as Teague tried to make sense of his son's sincere request. "What?"

"Tell me a story, Da," Jack repeated, his voice quivering only slightly, "Tell me about… about lots of things. About your adventures and pirates and Mum, too."

The pirate opened his mouth, a skeptical retort preparing to make itself known, when he thought better of it. He'd already snapped at the boy once that day; no need to make things worse. Thoughtfully fingering a bead in his hair, Teague began hesitantly. "Once upon a time," he started, "There was a stupid kid named Edward."

Edward Teague was not unlike any other sixteen-year-old boy of Britain. He would swagger down the cracking streets, mob of admirers in tow. He was terribly inept around pretty girls, no matter how waggish and canny he thought himself. He and his companions would thieve small cakes from the blind baker on Westgate Street, chuckling merrily at their own deviousness as they fled while an impressive throng of the old man's well-chosen curses trailed after them. On Sundays, Edward and his brothers would stick bits of chalk or twigs into Mrs. Crimmons' (who sat in the pew preceding his family's) elephantine blonde wig, once managing to lodge a sizable silver fork between two artificial curls.

His fellow miscreants held Edward, as both the cleverest and the tallest of his company, in quite high regard. The younger children took any and all things that their idol would say to heart, regardless of whether the witticism was actually worth noting or not. Those who could boast of their friendship with the boy in question did so liberally, often receiving their own brand of prestige simply because of their admirable relations. The esteemed teenager's fame became so widespread overtime that the word Teagueish was admixed to the youth of Canterbury's vocabulary, only to be used when someone had done something particularly exemplary. Young Edward Teague ought to have felt very much like The King Of The World—Capital Letters Of Importance and all. And yet, such a title could not have been much further from the truth.

"Ed? Ed?" a dark haired child tugged insistently at his eldest brother's sleeve, awaiting some sort of acknowledgement. "Ed?"

"What? What could it possibly be, Jack?" Edward snapped, brusquely jerking his cuff from the boy's fingers.

"Can you stay home today?" Jack implored.

"No."

"Please, Ed? I don't want to stay home by myself!"

"You won't be by yourself, stupid," the older boy said impatiently, untangling himself from his brother's arms that had wrapped around his left leg, "George and Cletus and Willem'll all be here."

Jack moaned in frustration, "But I hate Cletus! He always pounds on me! And Willem thinks it's funny and George never stays home anymore anyways!"

Edward snorted, "Oh, that's right. George has to keep that awful Fellings girl from getting lonely every hour of the day. Poor bloke must be too handsome for his own good."

At that moment, a gangly redhead deftly clambered through an open window, a pathetic bouquet of weedy dandelions clutched tightly in his fist. He somberly patted Jack on the shoulder as he passed and said seriously, "It's true. To be this attractive is a helluva lot of work." He then proceeded to shove his older brother and taunted, "And you. Don't call Emily awful just 'cause you scare off every girl you talk to." George dodged Edward's customary return shove and took off laughing.

Jack, choosing to ignore his other sibling's interruption, slumped theatrically against his brother's form. "Puh-leeeeease, Ed! Please!"

The firstborn had been, by this time, quite fed up with the six-year-old's groveling. He indignantly propelled the boy from him and said querulously, "No, Jack! If you're so lonely, go take care of Mum or something!"

The child's dark eyes widened, appalled at his role model for insinuating such a caustic subject as their mother. Helena Teague was, to quote the eavesdropping housewives that lined the remainder of Burnaby Street, a horrid old loony. Her sons, being Teagues, would reiterate doggedly that she was nothing more than humbly unusual. But then the childish taunts between young hoodlums would evolve into a shameless war of fully-fledged insults, which, in turn, would progress into a vehement fistfight, and the Teague boys would conclude the day with bloodied lips and broken noses—and the family honor upheld, of course. Yet, even the brothers, despite their great defensiveness of their curious parent, each knew that there was something incontestably wrong with Mrs. Teague.

Just short of a year prior, Canterbury had been stricken with a grisly strain of influenza. More than half of the citizenry had been afflicted. Though not typically lethal to all but the especially old or the especially young, the illness left several sufferers blind or enfeebled, but still, very much alive. The Teagues, however, by means of either the unnumbered Hail Mary prayers or the questionable home remedies, escaped the epidemic with nothing to show for it but a rasping cough of Willem's. Or, they thought as much.

Around a month or two following the outbreak, Edward's father, Warren Teague, had returned to the small terraced house and remarked irascibly that there had been eight new patients committed to the hospital since Tuesday; apparently, this was an unheard of number at the asylum.

Mr. Teague worked at Saint Barr's Institution For The Mentally Unstable, and, like the inhuman, prison-like nuthouse, he was not an especially forgiving man. Ghost stories and fairytales were forbidden ("That's the beginning of the dementedness I have to deal with!"), imagination was highly discouraged; not one of his sons could bring to mind the sound of their father's laugh. One of Warren's preferred hobbies was to beat the younger children whenever he was in a disagreeable mood—that is to say, when he was in a worse mood than usual; it was also favorable to be carrying something heavy at such times. Things never got out of hand, of course, but only because of the rigid Catholic statutes that the man clung to so arrogantly—and because of Mrs. Teague. For whatever unjustifiable reason, Warren would not have dreamed of reprimanding his wife for her fancifulness, and would recourse to sitting sulkily in his weathered armchair as Helena told the younger boys of knights and mermaids and witches. There must have been some form of love between the two spouses at one point, but that must have been quite long ago, indeed. Now, there was nothing but tolerant silence from Helena, and purple-faced chagrin from her husband.

"Poor things," said Helena to her husband's complaints of his work, "Everyone's jus' scared nowadays with the sickness, I s'pose. Don' even wanna care for their own families."

"They're mad! They deserve to be locked up! They'll just pollute the rest of the community!" Warren responded. "Why, if any of my family went crazy, they'd be sent off sooner than you could say lunatic!"

His wife chose not to reply and returned her gaze to the knobby sock she was knitting.

Another month later, George had gone looking for his mother, hoping to win a shilling or two for housework (he had exhausted his own scant collection of coins on licorice and flowers for the cobbler's pretty daughter). "Mum?" he called, peering into the modest parlor room, "You there?"

And, in fact, she was. She occupied a mauve settee and was currently engaged in an animated conversation with what appeared to be the rocking chair opposite her. "…I know, dove," she was saying, "All your brothers and no one to talk to. I 'ad two sisters, y'know, so we could always count on each other, couldn't we? We'd always pick dandelions together. I love dandelions. But anyways, what I'd do if—"

"Mum?" asked George hesitantly, placing a hand on her shoulder, "Who're you talking to?"

"Oh, George! Didn't see you come in! Alice and I were just havin' a chat."

"An' who's Alice?" the redheaded boy inquired slowly as he sat cross-legged next to his mother.

Helena looked skeptical. "You're sister, of course!"

"I don't have a sister." George explained with faux patience, fighting against the uneasy nausea building in his stomach. He laid a hand over her unwashed fingertips. They were shaking.

"What are you talking about, love? She's right there!"

"There's no one there, Mum."

Helena blinked. Her eyes defocused and clouded with puzzlement. "Hello, George!" she chirped happily. The fifteen-year-old did not answer, but led the disoriented woman to the kitchen for a cup of hot tea.

George chose not to tell anyone of the incident.

The following evening was one of the those rare occasions in which Edward would return to the home he disliked so greatly to spend the night; typically, he would stay in one of his friends' houses, or, when the weather was agreeable, he would spread himself across the chimney-dotted rooftops. Tonight, however, he had gotten into a warring fight with Elias Murrey, and he was in need of bandages for his bleeding face.

In theory, he would have thieved a roll of gauze from the family's limited medicine cabinet and hastily darted back into the streets, but as he crept past the lightless kitchen, a hand from the shadows caught his shirt; fingernails dug into his arm, refusing to release its prize. Whipping around instinctively in alarm, he found his mother staring up at him, the faint shafts of lingering light reflecting eerily off the teardrops that dappled her cheeks. "E-Edward?" she breathed, "You're… you're back!"

"Course I am, Mum," he said, awkwardly patting her back as she hugged him tightly. He wasn't absent often enough to merit this sort of welcome, was he?

"How'd you get here?" she asked between snivels, brushing her wet face with the back of her hand.

"Just through the front door—"

"No, no, I mean, how'd you get back here?" Helena waved vaguely around the hall.

"Wha—"

"Well, blimey, Eddie! You've only been dead for two weeks!"

Edward squinted and opened his mouth to retort; no words came. He pressed a finger to his parted lips, his visage warped with unalloyed bewilderment. "I've been… dead," he said dumbly. He blinked again and queried carefully, "Er, how exactly did I die?"

The stout woman raised her hands to her mouth in disbelief. "You honestly don' remember? Oh, it was awful. You caught the sickness, see—"

Something gnawed in the back of the boy's mind. "Are you sick, Mum? Did it, um, go to your head?"

She scoffed indignantly. "No, of course not! I can' get sick with all your brothers to take care of!"

And then, without any sort of warning, the delusional woman's knees buckled beneath her and she crumpled against the doorframe, screeching. Her body writhed convulsively; her eyes, wide with terror, rolled back unnaturally in her head. The mother's disquieting shrieks pierced the otherwise untroubled night air.

"GHOST! GHOST! OH, LORD ABOVE, DELIVER US!" she howled wretchedly, rocking back and forth and tearing at her dark ringlets with shuddering hands. Edward was there in a moment, striving to soothe the madwoman with comforting words of nonsense and prying her fingers from her skull, so as to prevent her from harming herself any further. He bit his lip as Helena thrashed feverishly, a horrible feeling of auguring dread building in his innards.

Screams abruptly converted to throaty sobs; she cried out that it hadn't been her fault, that she had done all that she could have, and that it had been too late to save Edward. "I—didna' mean to—It was too—late—"

Her eldest son merely enfolded the hysterical woman in his arms, aiming to restrain her flailing limbs should she be overcome with another paroxysm. Such precautions, however, proved to be unnecessary. With one final heaving bawl, the mother went limp, her head lolling comatosely against the dark-haired boy's shoulder.

She's lost it, Edward thought soberly, sweeping a tangled curl of hair from Helena's harrowingly peaceful face. My mother's gone crazy. And now Dad's going to lock her up. And she's gonna die in there.

As though the thought had summoned him, Warren Teague came stomping waspishly into the dingy hallway, his permanent expression of displeasure now even more pronounced. "What happened?" he demanded tetchily, "I heard screaming."

"I… Mum…" Edward's mind raced. He couldn't tell his father, he couldn't; then again, what choice did he have? Warren was sure to find out soon enough, but still—

"Hullo, Edward," piped Helena buoyantly, having only just awoken, "Have you seen your sister?"

The teenager looked anxiously between his stony-faced father and his deranged mother; he laughed uneasily, hoping to diffuse the weighty tension that hung oppressively in the air. "Oh, sure, Mum." He glanced at Warren and explained hastily, "We started to, er, we call Emily Fellings our sister now, because, um, George spends so much time with her now, and, uh—"

"What the hell are you talking about, Eddie? Your sister, Alice, of course! I need to talk to her, see, she'll want to know that you're back from the dead." Helena finished matter-of-factly.

Warren frowned, his tight lips slowly mouthing the words back from the dead. Edward leapt to his feet, hauling his mother upwards along with him and half-led, half-carried her toward the rickety staircase. He continued to spout unthinking phrases like, "You're always so funny, Mum," or, "Alice, isn't that the nice old dressmaker down the way?" as he went. He hurried the dazed woman to her room, insisting that she get some rest, all the while feeling the oddest sense of role-reversal. Helena was humming contentedly to herself now as her son pushed her into the bedroom and locked the door promptly behind her—succeeding in both closing her inside and closing his father outside.

Of course, he knew that things were never going to be the same.

Though Warren never spoke of the harrowing occurrence again, Helena was restrained to the stark room behind the heavily bolted door from that night on. Whenever the younger children would ask what had happened to their mother, Warren would growl something like, "Don't you dare tell a soul." Apparently, despite his previous threats of carting her off to the institution, the man couldn't bear the thought of the embarrassment and gossip that would befall him were the local housewives to find out about the family's predicament. And so she stayed, locked away, screaming or crying or chattering contentedly about the many uses of dandelion heads throughout all hours of the day.

And weeks passed. And then months. And a perplexed Jack would tentatively ask his eldest brother what would happen if Mum were released—just hypothetically, of course. And Edward would have to say that he wasn't sure. And that was that.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"No, Jack! If you're so lonely, go take care of Mum or something!"

The child's dark eyes widened, appalled at his role model for insinuating such a caustic subject as their mother.

"Sorry, Jackie, I didn't mean it. I'm sure Mum's fine." Edward mumbled.

"It's okay. Tell Peter 'ello from me, alright?"

"Whatever you say, kid." Edward sounded annoyed, but he was smiling. Jack liked to see Edward smile—it didn't happen often, anymore.

"Bye Ed," he called as the older boy took off down the street.

The dark-haired-child watched the lanky figure grow smaller and smaller before disappearing altogether around the corner of the watchmaker's shop. He caught himself wondering whether today would be the day that his brother didn't come home—as he did every time that Edward left the house. He might be gone for only a day or two, or a week, or a month. Or maybe he'd find a job on some ship and be off to the colonies like he used to say he would, and never even think to say goodbye…

Jack sighed, bored of such melancholy thoughts. Today, he decided resolutely, was as good a day as any to do something absurd.

As it turned out, it was necessary for Edward to return home that very night—a promising date with a pretty Spanish girl had resulted in a sharp slap across the face and a significantly deflated confidence. He had anticipated being home alone with his brothers, as Warren was likely to be working late into the night. Ergo, he was more than slightly startled to be greeted by his mother at the door—his supposed-to-be-locked-away mother.

"Where've you been?" she demanded. "You've missed dinner."

Edward's mouth opened and closed like a stupid goldfish before thoughts made themselves coherent in his mind. "Mum! Wha-what are you doing out?"

"Don't you play stupid with me. You better not've been with that smelly ol' sailor man again," she chastised, fists squared on her wide hips. She let out a clipped hey as her son hastily pulled her through the crumbling doorway.

"Mum," he growled, desperation present in his tone, "Who let you out?"

"Cor, Edward, you let go of me this very min—"

"Mum. You've been locked in your room for months. You haven't been out except for washin' up. Who let you out?"

Helena's eyes widened fearfully. The teenager prepared for her to begin convulsing or shrieking like she had so many nights ago. As soon as she had tensed, however, she sighed, shrugged indifferently, and said flatly, "Jackie did."

"Jack? My brother?"

"Yep," she replied cheerily, popping the P. "I told 'im I was feelin' fine, so he unlocked the door. He's a good boy."

At that moment, there was a clattering disturbance from the kitchen and a grinning George twirled into the room, his ginger hair in a terrible state of disarray. "Hellooo, Edward Teague! I prob'bly I don' say it enough, but I love you, Eddie. Eddie, Ed, Edward, Edward, Edward Teague!" Even from the opposite end of the hallway, the elder brother could smell the lingering odor of sour two-bit alcohol. So he did only that which had to be done: Edward clouted his sibling smartly across the face.

George stumbled, apparently having been startled out of his booze-induced stupor. After he had righted himself, he mouthed with apparent difficulty, "Mum?" Then, upon noticing his brother at Helena's side—"Edward? D-did you just hit me?"

Edward was much too distraught to stomach the redhead's idiocy at the moment. "Did,"—he poked George roughly in the chest—"you,"—poke—"know,"—poke—"she was out?" Poke, poke.

"Naw, I di'n't! No one's been home except Jack!"

"Jack…" Edward wheeled around and faced his mother once more. "Where is he?"

Helena raised her doughy palms defensively and said, "Calm down love, and don't push me! Jack was tired out, a'ight? I set 'im to bed."

The two boys clambered up the rickety staircase—Edward taking the steps two at a time, while George teetered uneasily on each—and they burst through the misshapen bedroom door. A lonely kerosene lamp cast a pleasant golden glow from the stout armoire in the corner. A pile of sticky dandelions lay forgotten on the seat of a chair. Three of the four thin mattresses lay vacant and the stiff sheets were disheveled; the tidy, occupied fourth seeming all the more conspicuous. Jack's bed. A tuft of dark hair protruded from beneath the fraying quilt.

George sighed in relief, "Oi, kid, don't scare us like that. We thought Mum might'a—ah, done somethin'…" He vaulted over his and Cletus's beds and dropped down beside his youngest sibling's form.

Edward leaned quietly against the doorframe. His overactive heart rate began to slow to a more habitual beat. The knot in his throat loosened; though naturally, he would have refused it had ever been there in the first place. His self-assured mind wandered momentarily, pausing to imagine what he would have done if Jack had been hurt, had been de—

"Oh, Lord, Ed!" George leapt from the bed as though an electric shock had been executed to him.

"What?" The older Teague boy perched himself hastily atop the foot of the bunk. Jack was, as far as he could tell, still sleeping. "George, what is it?"

The fifteen-year-old raised a quivering, pale finger: "H-his face, Ed."

Charily taking the coarse textile between thumb and forefinger, Edward slid the bedspread from the child's face. Two eyes stared back up at him.

They were dark chocolaty eyes; eyes that laughed; eyes that did a poor job of concealing their mischievous intentions; eyes that said skeptically, Is that your real hair, Mrs. Crimmons— Teague eyes. They now were quite empty, those eyes. They stared unblinkingly at some imperceptible nightmare hovering somewhere about the sagging ceiling. Wide eyes. Vacant eyes. Dead eyes.

It would be difficult to say exactly how long the firstborn Teague stood there, unmoving, unfeeling. Images danced through his head without purpose or explanation. A fistful of flaking dandelions, a blonde wig, a broken nose, some bottles, a carpet of shadowy, faceless people parading about a shadowy, nameless street. Blistered lips, paralyzed in mid-scream. Lips? Jack's lips.

It was a paltry detail, to be sure, and yet it may have been the sole reason that Edward resurfaced from his musings at all. Clearly, some malignant substance had corroded the child's mouth, causing the fleshy innards of the throat to bubble and sear. It was as if the skin were a chewy cake batter, boiling in the heat of an oven.

"George," he whispered, "George, get over here."

The second Teague had curled himself into a secure ball of angular limbs, pressed stiffly against the crumbling wall. He clutched his head with his thin hands, and without looking up, replied flatly, "He's dead."

"George, come over here."

"He's dead."

"George."

"No."

"Look at his mouth."

A seemingly endless few seconds later, the redhead uncoiled himself and laboriously made his way to the bedside. Scrutinizing the corpse from a relatively safe distance, George remarked quietly, "Looks like it hurt."

"Don't say that," snapped Edward. Then, to the pale Jack, "What'd she do to you?"

"Oi! Don't you two go wakin' 'im up!"

The brothers jumped at the voice. Helena was framed in the doorway, the soft shine of the lamp illuminating her face like an eerily familiar jack-o-lantern. Light glanced jollily off a miniature glass bottle pinched between her round fingers. A thick carving knife was fixed beneath her apron ties.

Edward sidestepped between his mother and two siblings (or sibling, he supposed), advancing slowly towards her. His eyes flickered over the knife and the tiny flask. "What did you do to Jack?" he growled.

"He was tired, Edward," she insisted forcefully. "He wasn't feelin' well, alright? I set him to bed and gave 'im his medicine. Stop glaring at me, young man. I'm your mother."

The boy plucked the bottle from the woman's hand and read the yellowing label: ARSENIC—For Preservation Purposes Only—DO NOT CONSUME. Edward's stomach rolled. "Did you know what this is?"

For the most part, Helena Teague had retained her humanity in the midst of her mania—often she could have been mistaken for a dotty drunkard instead of a psychotic. However, at Edward's inquiry, all her Helena-ness was abruptly erased. A perverted, twisted character took her place. She smiled; an eldritch curl of the lip that disfigured her sallow features into a grotesque mask. Softly, balefully, she began to chant a nursery rhyme:

"Click, clock, goes the lock,

Then medicine from your mummy.

No screaming dear, they mustn't hear,

Now Warren is the dummy.

"Click, clock, goes the lock,

I know it burns, my Jack.

Just four more boys, then no more noise,

We'll have our freedom back."

"SHUT UP!" It was George. His bony hands were clamped around his skull again.

Helena flinched at his outburst. Her dark eyes glittered in the orange glow as she drew herself up to her full height, unimpressive as it was. "Don't speak to me that way," she chastised, "I'm your mother."

George shifted. Shuddered. White hands released pink ears and crushed themselves into fists. "You," he snarled, "are not my mother!" He was yelling now. "My mother is dead! She died months ago when we locked her up. You're just the sickness—You. Are. Not. My. Mother!"

"TAKE YOUR MEDICINE!" Helena shrieked. "George Frederick Teague, you listen to me! Take your medicine, now!"

She shoved her hand into her apron pocket and upon finding it bereft of the poison, chose instead to make use of the steely knife fixed to her hip. The madwoman lunged blindly at her son, screeching, thrashing. Her eyes rolled back in their sockets. Her curls flew into a furious halo about her face. Stabbing and flailing, she screamed. And George, though he probably ought to have been screaming as well, was silent. Perhaps that was because he couldn't seem to remember to breathe. The gangly teenager dodged the heavy blade and, in what he would have said years later was simple self-defense, drove his mother mindlessly into the brick-laid wall.

Now, the sound of skull colliding with stone is not only highly unpleasant, but it is also, truthfully, quite loud. Crack—went Helena's head. Thump—went Helena's limp body. Splat—went Helena's brains. Holy God—went the brothers. Holy God.

Two Teagues were buried the following eve. There was no ceremony, no parting words. Not even so much as an epitaph on either tombstone. Warren bade a stiff goodbye to the gravedigger, a confused and puffy-eyed Cletus and Willem trailing obediently behind him. The older brothers had not been invited.

If you had been sitting in the Westgate Cemetery about one hour and eleven minutes after sundown, you might have seen two lanky figures making their way through the maze of headstones. It would have been clear that they did not want to be noticed, but then again, there wasn't anyone else in the graveyard to be noticed by. They would stop at a newly filled patch of gray soil and reverently place handfuls of yellow dandelions against each marker. If you were not short of hearing and you listened very closely, you might have heard them mumbling their mother's old nursery rhyme:

A man of words and not of deeds

Is like a garden full of weeds

And when the weeds begin to grow

It's like a garden full of snow

And when the snow begins to fall

It's like a bird upon the wall

And when the bird away does fly

It's like an eagle in the sky

And when the sky begins to roar

It's like a lion at the door

And when the door begins to crack

It's like a stick across your back

And when your back begins to smart

It's like a penknife in your heart

And when your heart begins to bleed

You're dead, and dead, and dead indeed.

Amazing poem there at the end, you say? Yes, well. Thank Mr. John Fletcher for that little chestnut.
Also, I'm afraid my poor review button is faulty. If it won't let you comment properly, I'd be oh-so-grateful if you'd just leave an anonymous review instead. That seems to fix the problem.