Chapter 35: No clever chapter title this time guys.
I'm pulled to the Stoll household and see Rose and Dad walk into their once warm house. I watch all of them find out who died. Dad just runs into the kitchen and pulls out a bottle of vodka and then runs to his room.
Aunt Rose doesn't want this to be real. She wants none of this to be real. Their mother is useless for the moment because she does nothing to comfort them.
Every day until he goes back to school I watch Jacob sit every day in the cold snow near her tree. He talks to himself, laughing, crying, he's crazy. The war has made him different. Everything has. The stress of life was too hard on him. And Vincent called him weak. I don't know if it's true or not now.
A year goes by and Rose watches him pack things. A part of her doesn't want him to leave. He's moving but he's getting an internship in France and he's moving in with Caleb.
Time goes by and then I'm stopped at this one point in time. Aunt Rose is older, about 15 or 14. "Um… Mom?" she said timidly.
Katie looked up from her laptop. She was reviewing the lab she made. "Yea Rosie?"
Rose leaned a little bit on the couch arm and played with the hem of her shirt. "How would you feel…" but she trailed off and swallowed. Was she coming out of the closet? "How would you feel if you knew that I killed people? Would you still love me?"
Katie set down her laptop and stared at her daughter. "What?"
"Well, let's just say that I've killed a lot of people before, would you still love me?" Rose said, not looking up.
"How… Rosalie, have you've killed somebody?" Katie asked.
"Forget it, it's stupid. It's been a couple years already." she said, blushing.
"Rosalie, tell me if you've killed somebody!" Katie ordered.
Rosie looked at her mother. "I'm so sorry…" she sat down next to her mother and buried her head in her hands. "I killed so many people…"
Katie scooted near her daughter and hugged her close to her. "Honey, tell, me, it's okay…"
"I-In the war Mom, the damn war!" she sobbed as she leaned into her mother. "I still see their blood on my hands but not matter how much I scrub, it's still there!" She stared at her hands. "And they will always be there…"
When I was a little girl I always wondered why Aunt Rose stared at her hands for periods of time. It could span from just a few seconds to a few hours. Now I knew why she stared and I feel sorry for yelling at her now asking why she did that.
She would always look at me and apologize. Her apologies were always meaningful, as if she was talking to lost lives. I guess she was.
Time moved on, I saw Rosie get her first girlfriend, Dad getting new friends from college like Croft, who looked totally different from now, and then there was this woman who looked an awful like Anita.
Her name was Abbie Sanchez, she was pretty and she soon married that famous guy named Reese Robinson. She killed herself a few years into the marriage. I was there when she died. She took one of his designer belts and hung herself on a ceiling beam. Nobody discovered her body until a maid was walking up the stairs and saw her employer hanging like a marionette puppet.
Daddy took care of Anita until Reese took his daughter back. She's just like her mother, she's was always running to our house and hanging out there until his assistants came and took her away. I miss Anita; she would always let me play with her straight, beautiful brown hair. But I killed her, along with so many other people I loved.
Then it was the rest of the family's turn to pay for what we were. I watched as Katie paced the floor nervously, knowing what was going to happen. I watched as Rosie declared that she was going to go shopping a.k.a. going on a date.
"Alright honey, have fun," Katie said, uncharacteristically now overly happy.
Rose stopped in her tracks. "Mom, why are you so happy?"
Katie smiled that smile for the last time. "Honey, I love you, please, just have fun and don't come home for a few hours, okay?"
Rose blinked a couple of times as her mother hugged her tightly and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "Mom, it's not like you're never gonna see me again," she said hugging back, except with less emotion than the other hugger. "I'll be back in a few hours."
Then Rose left, leaving Katie. She watched Rose leave making sure she didn't come back. Then they came. And they brutally killed that little girl that I raised who called me Nana. They killed that bossy girl from the Demeter cabin that Travis Stoll fell madly in love with. They killed the mother of the mistakes that she couldn't take back. They killed Katherine Stoll, only leaving her barely alive.
The Gods killed everybody in the family except for Dad, Aunt Rose, and Jana.
I was taken to Rose. "Um, Erika, I have to go home, I think there's something wrong," she said nervously as she got up from the bench. "See you tomorrow,"
Her girlfriend smiled. "Yea, okay, don't sweat it,"
"Bye."
"Bye."
She didn't even bother taking her car, she just ran into an alley and teleported home. She rang the doorbell first and waited. Nobody answered. That was when she started to panic. She dug franticly in her purse and pulled out her keys. She missed the key hole ten times before getting it in.
She dropped everything when she saw what happened. "Oh my Gods…"
Dying Katie Gardner looked up. "Rosie, I told you to leave," she said sternly, even though it was weak. She was leaning on the couch, clutching her stomach.
Rose looked around franticly. "Mom, what the fuck happened? Why is there blood everywhere?" she asked, rushing to her mother.
Katie stared at her daughter. "Why are you here? I thought I told you to leave, everything would be okay if you didn't see this," she said, not talking like a mother anymore.
"Mom, tell me what happened!" Rose yelled.
"Honey I'm dying, see," she said, lifting up her hand and revealing a large gaping hole on her stomach. "I didn't want you to see this. I didn't want you to see me die Rose."
Rose stared at her mother in disbelief. "Mom… you're dying?"
"You really think that the blood meant nothing Rose?" Katie asked cringing as a ping of pain rushed through her.
"But Mommy… You can't leave me. You can't!" Rose said, slowly realizing what was happening. "You're all I have left!"
Katie's eyes softened as she coughed up blood. She made a face of disgust and wiped it off her face. "Rosie, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry I'm leaving you. But I had no choice. I'm sorry." she whispered, tears rolling down her cheeks. With her other hand she wiped off tears running down her daughter's cheeks. "The Gods, they chose this, they did."
"Why does this have to happen to us?" Rose sobbed. "We didn't do anything bad!"
"It's my fault Rosie," Katie said softly. "It's my and your father's fault. I'm so sorry. But you guys were the best things that happened to us, really."
"It's not your fault!" Rose argued. "It isn't!"
"Rose, please don't make this difficult, I want to die without people arguing," Katie said staring at the ceiling. "Rose, I'm sorry I'm leaving you, you may call me whatever you like when I'm dead, selfish, stupid, whatever. I don't really care."
"Mom, you're not gonna die!" Rose yelled.
Katie smiled at her daughter. "You can be so much like Travis sometimes,"
With that Katie died with her eyes opened, smiling, smiling thinking that thought about her past husband and her youngest daughter. I watched as Aunt Rosie's eyes went wide with sudden fear, realizing what happened. "Mommy?" she asked silently to the now silent house that now housed one person. "Mommy, wake up, please." Tears were spilling down her cheeks as she was reduced to talking like a small child.
She got up from the ground and backed away from her mother's body. "No, no, no! This can't be happening!" Rose said, panicking, running her fingers through her hair. She started pacing around. Finally she grabbed a phone and dialed somebody.
"Hello?" a voice said over the phone that belonged to my dad.
"OH MY GODS, OH MY GODS…" was all Rose could say, which was understandable.
"Rosie?"
"Jacob! Come home. RIGHT NOW!" she snapped.
"Why?"
A sob came from the back of her throat. "Just come home right now! I need you." She waited for a response but then she was met by a dead end.
She whipped around when she heard a door unlock. I wondered how he could get here so fast until I remembered that he teleported or something.
"What's—" but before he could finish she ran towards him and hugged him, burying her face in his chest. He looked alarmed by the sudden embrace but then his eyes lingered up and saw her.
"Oh my Gods…" he pulled Rose from him. "What the fuck happened?" She sat on the couch and stared at her feet.
"I came home from shopping and… I found her like that…" Rose said, holding back more tears. "They killed her Jacob. They killed her."
Dad's face was blank as he looked at his sister in disbelief. Just then his phone rang. He answered it and on the other end there was Jana. Poor Jana found her parents dead and their grandmother dead. When he found out he dropped his phone. She kept screaming for him to pick up. Finally he did and told her about what happened to Katie. He dropped it again and went over to the dead body of his mother.
He started shaking her and repeating, "Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom," I watched as tears streaked his cheeks. He was also reduced to talking like a child. "MOMMY! WAKE UP!" He broke out sobbing. "Wake up… Please… Please…"
The Fates pushed him off of her and took her limp body. The two currently last Stoll's watched, their expressions portraying the feeling in the air. Pain and sorrow filled my lungs as if the air was made out of it or my breathing chip was taken out in my era. It almost choked me. I wanted to throw up.
I hated that life would be like this for the good people. But all this badness built my life. It built Vincent's life and Vincent was doing pretty well with his. People in movies try to change their pasts when they see things like this. Risking everything. And when they do no bad consequences happen to them, just good things. But if I changed the past then I don't know what would happen because I didn't.
But don't get me wrong, I don't want my life like this. I want to be Desiree Stoll again. I want Emmet back. I want to see my friends again, Gods, I don't even know if they're alive even! I didn't even have time to see if they were fine even when I was time traveling! I wanted to tell them I was sorry for possibly killing their loved ones, I wanted to hug them and talk to them for the last time, even though they probably wouldn't know me since I've lost so much weight due to the torture and I'm unable to gain it back and the hair.
So anyway, back to that era… I followed as the Fates took her body, both Stoll children staring, helpless. "So what are we going to do know?" Rose asked quietly as the Fates left.
Jacob then looked at her. "Pack your things."
"What?"
"Pack your things," Dad said. "You need to leave this place; too many people with godly blood lived here."
"Where will I live?" Rose asked. He rolled his eyes.
"I'll just drop you off at a corner of a shady street then," he said sarcastically.
"B-But…" but she got up and headed upstairs. I watched her as she threw stuff on into a suitcase, not really caring anymore. Her eyes were twitching a little bit like she was holding down something. She headed downstairs but stopped at the top steps and took a deep breath and closed her eyes. That would be the last time the last living Stoll child of Katie and Travis would be standing in that house where so many good memories were made.
She opened her eyes and went downstairs. "Are you ready?" Dad asked. Rose nodded and I watched them leave the house. I watched as my father gave a wandering glance at the house where he grew up. Then they teleported.
To my surprise, I wasn't fading yet. I wondered why so I wandered around in the empty house. It seemed so empty without the sound of children running around. I looked at the tree in the backyard, slowly the tree started to turn an unhealthy shade of black, then it just rotted and fell to the ground. I noticed the plants around me dying, slowly withering away into nothingness. The only plants still intact and healthy were a small tomato plant hanging from the kitchen ceiling and a potted daisy.
In the corner of my eye I saw a small vine covered with flowers crawl from the cracks on the wood paneled floor. I turned around and I thought I saw a little girl in a white sun dress. She had wavy brown hair and freckles starring her face. Her green eyes flickered with a devious look and she smirked. When I blinked she was gone as well as the flowered vine.
I thought I was hallucinating for a moment, the shocks that they gave to me scrambled my brain and sometimes I can't see or I can't talk for long periods of time or I don't remember who I am. It must have been my brain suffering for a moment.
Then the scene fades and I watch as Mom and Dad run into each other again. It sparks off something. Then I'm stopped at camp again. I watch as Aunt Rose comes out of the closet, I watch as she almost gets raped and I watch her as she runs from camp, tears spilling down her cheeks. She calls the camp and tells them that she's leaving. As she takes a taxi home she looks back at the camp where she spent her summers. She never went back.
I finally understood why she scowled when camp was mentioned, why she barely wore her camp necklace anymore, I finally got her. She was so lonely after the war. Always sitting alone, invisible to the world. I wanted to tell her sorry for being so rotten to her when I was a kid, but I never had a chance.
Life moved on like always, I watched as the start of my generation started. I watched myself getting born, Vincent. I watched myself get sick. I watched my parent's make painful choices about me as voices rang in my head to kill myself, that I was useless and I shouldn't be here, that my wife hated me and that my children hated me. That voice wasn't meant to go to me.
"Jacob," they rang. "The Gods would very much like you dead. That's not a bad idea, you're useless Jacob, you really are Jacob. I don't understand why you ignore us Jacob. LISTEN!"
They didn't stop yelling in his head. They yelled in his ears all the time. He told Mom about them but she wouldn't listen, she would just say he's bluffing, denying the problems he had. I really think that she was trying to see the Jacob before the war. But she wasn't the Angie she was before the war so why should he be the Jacob before the war?
Then I stop and I find myself at my street. I look around and I look down and I see a little boy sitting on the curb of the street. His big blue eyes stare back at mine. "Whoa." he whispers.
I fake a smile. "Ah, haha?"
He looks back down at his little feet, ignoring me. I sit right next to him, I know who he is now, I almost don't recognize him without his large scar. "Hey, why are you sitting on the curb? Bad people can take you away from your mommy and daddy." I say smiling.
He glares at me. "Don't you get it weird lady?" he asks. "I want to be taken away."
I furrow my eyebrows. "What? Why?"
"They yell all the time now," he says bitterly, kicking a stone. "But not around Dessie, never around Dessie because she's sick! But always around me! I don't like their yelling!"
I pale, I never knew about this. I become mad. "Well why are Mommy and Daddy yelling at each other. I thought Mommy and Daddy's were supposed to love each other!" I exclaim.
"Because Mommy and Daddy want to get a divorce!" he argues. "Daddy does! But Mommy says that she won't let him. Daddy says he'll end up hurting somebody but Mommy says that the voices are not real. I don't know what the voices are!"
"Does Dessie know about this?" I ask, knowing the answer but I want to know why.
"No, and they actually don't think I know, they think I'm asleep," he confesses. "I'm never asleep."
Then I heard somebody screaming. "OH MY GODS, STEP AWAY FROM MY SON!" I sprang up and turned around, my mother was running towards us, my father was behind her.
"Ma'am, I wasn't going to do anything to him, I was just talking," I pleaded. I don't know why I was so scared of this. I felt like crying and clinging onto her and telling her I was so sorry.
"YOU LOOK LIKE YOU JUST STEPED OUT OF A MENTAL FACILITY!" she yelled, picking my brother up. "GET AWAY FROM MY SON!"
"Angie, calm down!" Dad yelled, pushing her back into the house. "I'll deal with this!"
"DON'T TOUCH MY SON!" she yelled as she shut the door.
"What were you doing talking to my son?" Dad asked. He looked tired, like he always did when he was done yelling.
"He was sitting on the curb and he looked so sad and—" I blubbered, and I couldn't believe it but I started to cry. "I just could leave him there sad! I had to talk to him! He's my—" but I stopped myself there.
Dad just stared at you. "Have we've met before?" he asks. His hazel eyes blinking a few times as if he was trying to clear something in his mind.
"I-I no, we haven't and this will be the first time we do," I stutter. "I believe you,"
"What?" he asks.
"D- I mean, I do believe you. I believe in the voices going on in your head," I stammered. It had been so long since I've seen my father and I was talking to him for the first time in years, I felt like crying and clinging onto him. Tears were still rolling down my cheeks.
"Who told you that?" he asked, suddenly getting defensive.
"Your son, Max," I choked.
"He told you his name?" he asked.
"Uh, yea, sure." I sigh. "Anyway, please, I need to go…" I turned to leave but his hand caught my wrist.
"Hey." I turned and I saw him look concerned. "Are you okay?"
I wanted to scream: "Daddy! No! I'm not okay! You're gone and I don't know what to do! I've become some British lady from Kent and I don't know what to do Daddy! Please I need you to tell me!"
But instead I smile. "I think I can manage, thank you."
"What's your name?" he asks, not letting go of my wrist and it reminds me of when he stopped me from climbing over the fence to the tigers when I was little.
"C-Charlotte Behr."
He smiles. "Nice to meet you Charlotte Behr."
His body starts to fade and I look around. "Jacob, you're a great father." I say.
He gives me a startled look "Um… thanks?"
He starts to disappear and I let the tears continue to fall. "Daddy, I love you." And before he can say anything he's gone.
Oh Dessie… Sorry about the April Fool's prank! I'm not leaving! I promise! Now I gotta go asleep! Thanks for reading!