Pippin's POV
I slid the blanket off again and moved to the edge of my bed where I hadn't already gotten the sheets warm. I flipped over the pillow, exposing the cool side to my cheek. It was so warm that I couldn't sleep. I knew my older sister Vinca couldn't either. Her room was right across the hall from mine and she had been tossing and turning in the horrible heat as long as I had. I couldn't see her from here but her bed was a miserable squeaker. It must have been near midnight. All the doors in the house were open to give false hope of some godly breeze that would come sweeping through at any minute. In the meantime, sweat beads clung to my forehead as I pushed my blanket further to the edge of the bed. I tiny light from the end of the hallway peeked through my doorway. All I remember at that point was something cutting in front of it, and my door slammed shut.
At first I wasn't suspicious of anything. Maybe Pearl or Pimpernel had been having a bad night, even though last I knew they were both in bed. Mother didn't every lash out violently at anything, she was the kind to bottle up anger and hold in every thought and word, and absorb every hit silently. Father hadn't treated any of us wrongly in at least a month, the last time being that he found Pimpernel kissing a lad from a lower caste family and he locked her in her room for a day.
I got up slowly and slid my feet to the door. Whoever slammed this would be halfway down the hall and maybe I could at least know who it was. I reached for the handle and as soon as my fingers touched the cold brass I heard a muffled shriek from the room across the hall.
My head snapped up, door still closed, hand gripping the doorknob. I was afraid to run in too quickly, if it was what I feared, that would do nothing but anger my father more. I slowly and silently rotated the doorknob, my hand slipping on the sweat. I pushed open the door and found her door closed in front of mine. I could hear muffled sobbing as I crossed the hallway. It was dark, with a small candle lit at the very end that sprinkled a tiny reflection on the brass knob in front of me. The knob on the door was all I could see and I took it as providence. I reached for it, my arm cutting off the reflection and for a brief second the entire door was pitch black. I pushed the door open gently.
There was a candle lit in the far corner of the room, and otherwise the room was completely dark. My father had his back to me; he was pushing Vinca against the wall with his hand covering her mouth. I moved forward, my eyes searching for an object to strike with. The floorboards creaked but it went unnoticed over her muffled screams. All I could find for a suitable weapon of choice was a hairbrush. At this point I wished sincerely that I had thought of this before entering the room. She struggled underneath the weight that he pressed against her. I grabbed the wooden hairbrush and prepared to strike when he made the choice of pushing my sister to the bed. He turned around, pushing her towards it, when he froze. He saw me standing barely four feet away from him.