Sorry for the delay between chapters. This was a difficult one to write and it's a long one.

CH 92

We spent our day together as a family indulging in an array of foods made by Mario and Marius, wading in the calm water, and napping beneath beach umbrellas mere steps from the ocean.

"I don't think I've had this much rest since before Lissy was born," Julia sighed.

"I don't think I've had this much rest ever in my life."

"We should take a holiday every year," Julia suggested. She turned onto her side in her lounge chair and reached for my hand.

"Twice a year," I insisted, which was met with no complaints or protests.

"Do you think Uncle Phelan will visit soon?" Alex asked in the midst of creating an impressive mound of sand he intended to turn into a castle despite the formation resembling a lop-sided heap. Beside him was a pile of smooth stones he'd found washed up on the beach, which he intended to use for steps.

"Not today," I said. "He has other work in need of his attention."

"Papa already told us he wasn't visiting today," Lisette said. She used sticks and long blades of grass tied together to make a ladder on the opposite side of the sand mound. Her ingenuity was quite impressive and she beamed once I praised her work.

"I forgot." Alex slumped his shoulders and jutted out his bottom lip. "Do you think he will invite us to his house?"

"We will see," Julia answered.

The day stretched on and eventually Lisette and Alex piled into the lounge chairs beneath the umbrellas, both of them crawling between Julia and I with Bessie curled up against my side. The five of us napped in the shade with the lapping of water and soft, warm breeze lulling us collectively to sleep.

It was a perfectly content day, one with no duties or schedules. I studied how serene Alex and Lisette appeared, how Alex took up as much space as he could while Lisette curled into a ball against Julia, her book resting on her hip.

Perhaps on our next holiday at the beach-if we decided to return to this location-there would be a third child nestled between us. Our child that we made together, I thought, a baby whose life I would be part of well before he or she took their first breath. The thought unexpectedly tightened my throat and I pushed Alex's hair back from his forehead and pressed my lips to his brow, grateful he had been given to me at all.

I had missed his first few weeks, which I deeply regretted. I knew nothing of his birth or if he had been cared for or neglected in the short amount of time before Christine left him in my care. So many times I had held him, soothed the infant with his scrunched, reddened face and felt him relax, his cries turning to incoherent babbling and finally peaceful sleep.

I had cradled the back of his small head in my hand, marveling at how he fit so perfectly in my grasp, and wondered what it would have been like to see him the day he was born, to hear his very first cries. How I longed to have held Alex sooner, to have him as part of my life earlier.

This time, however, if we were to have an addition to our family, I would know our son and daughter from the first kick I felt against Julia's belly. I would play music as requested and when the time came, when our next child was born, I imagined I would play again and he or she would recognize the melody, would recognize me.

Julia's eyes slit open as though she sensed my thoughts. She looked at me, the setting sun illuminating her in golden light, and smiled at me. I mouthed back to her I love you. Her smile widened and she reached out, draping her arm over our two children to touch my shoulder.

Given the pleasantness of our day and the countless naps we enjoyed, it came as a wrenching surprise when we retired for the night in our own bed and the nightmares started, an endless loop from which there was no escape.

Sometimes I expected to be hunted in my sleep, falling prey to a past that had been resurrected in my waking moments whether by a certain smell or unbidden thought.

Truthfully I had been surprised-relieved, even-that seeing my parents' home once again hadn't plagued me immediately with dreams of stairs groaning against my father's weight and the paralyzing fear that accompanied the sheer thought of him drawing closer.

The ghosts had waited, however, allowing a brief reprieve before they found me in an unsuspecting moment. It was like rounding a corner and discovering a half-dozen thieves awaited their stunned victim, knives drawn as they closed off all exits of escape.

It was always worse this way, to be caught unaware. If I sensed my own pending agitation I simply stayed awake through the night and read or composed in order to keep myself from sleeping, but there had been no indication of my mind betraying me once my eyes closed.

One terrible moment after another, I found myself cornered by familiar monsters and demons in no particular order. Garouche had me first inside the cage, cornered like an animal. The sultana had me strung up for twenty lashes before a small crowd, my feet barely touching the floor. My father held me by the hair and dragged me through the woods and back to the cellar, his breaths hot snorts of steam on a frigid winter night.

The last memory was the worst of all, every vivid second whipping me back to a time when I was eleven or twelve years of age, shortly before my uncle had finally taken me away for good. Unfortunately, it had not been soon enough for me.

Food had been withheld more frequently, my body weakened from lack of nutrition as well as nightly visits from my father that gave me no opportunity to heal. In the colder months he was home more frequently and the bottle was never far from his reach.

Every time the latch on the cellar door clicked, every time I heard him bumble down the stairs and growl my name, I held my breath and closed my eyes, willing him to reconsider. Not again, I would silently plead. Not again tonight, I said to myself on this particular evening. My father had already come for me once, fuming with anger he wished to release on me.

The first time I hadn't hid from him; I sat obediently beneath the stairs and braced myself, clearing my mind of thought, sending myself mentally elsewhere while he punished me for breathing too loudly or burdening him in some manner I didn't understand. The more compliant I stayed, the swifter the punishment. He struck me to his satisfaction and weaved his way back upstairs, disappearing until the following evening or early morning hours when he was stinking drunk and furious again.

But this night, bruised and bleeding, I nearly passed out when I heard the latch click for a second time. I couldn't endure his wrath again, not twice in one evening. I was certain my tears had been silent, that I had mimicked his breathing so that when my father exhaled as he struck me, I did the same. He wouldn't hear me grunt upon impact, wouldn't hear me fight off the strangled scream I could barely contain as the pain intensified and I could not mentally hold myself at a distance.

Everything had hurt down to my bones. My head throbbed, my throat sore from containing emotion that begged to be released. My back and sides were tender, my scalp on fire from my hair pulled out at the roots, and my face radiating with pain from being slapped a dozen times. There was not an inch inside or outside that did not ache. There was no part of me that could remain intact if he struck me again in his drunken rage.

Please, I wanted to say to my father. He was at the bottom of the stairs then, teetering slightly with the bottle in his hand as he searched for me, for my hiding place in the middle of discarded rubbish. Please be merciful, please have pity on me. Please don't do this. Please, please, please...

He called my name, a vicious snarl of a command to show myself, to offer myself up to be beaten and humiliated a second time. But I wouldn't come willingly. I would hold my breath, my heart pounding, and hope my father gave up and returned to bed or to the tavern. I sat with my fists clenched, afraid he could hear my blood rushing through my veins and the drum of my terrified heart.

Please turn and walk away, please turn and walk away, please turn...

But he didn't turn. Our eyes met and my heart sank. I swore I felt the heat of his anger engulf me as my blood ran cold. There was no mercy in his eyes, only hatred.

He found me beneath a broken table, smashed up against the wall with my knees drawn to my chest. The pits of his eyes stared through me, his jagged teeth bared as he stalked forward and I braced myself, reaching for something solid, some means of anchoring myself in place so that the monster would not claim me.

I had never cried out, not as far as I could recall. Not once had I given my father the satisfaction of knowing how deeply he had broken me, how greatly he had managed to unravel the very fabric of what I should have been.

But this time...this time there was nothing left of me to be broken. There was nothing left to salvage and nothing left for him to take from me.

And yet he still grabbed me by the leg and dragged me out, as my fingernails found no purchase in the dirt, as I twisted and hit my chin on the uneven surface and inhaled dead bugs and dust. To no avail I pleaded aloud with him. One time. One desperate, awful, humiliating time, I begged my own father to spare me a beating.

"Please, please do not hurt me again," I had cried out. "Please do not hurt me again."

I woke from my nightmare to a loud thud, a sound that I thought was the table crashing down on me, pinning me in the cellar rubble, but there was no table and no dark cellar. There was bright sunlight and a warm breeze and I sat up, my heart pounding as I blinked rapidly, my left foot tangled in the sheets that felt like a hand gripping my ankle. Violently I kicked, attempting to free myself from the danger that was in my head.

It took several moments for me to recall that we were on holiday, that we were near the old house where I had spent so many years languishing alone. I swore I could feel my father towering over me, dark and angry despite the sunlight and breeze.

I sucked in a breath and balled my trembling hands into fists in a failed attempt to keep them from shaking. Julia's spot beside me was empty and I sat up, frantically unwinding my foot from the sheet. My heart rate was still quite elevated, an effect from the nightmare that took time to rectify itself, and I cursed under my breath.

Bessie jumped up onto the bed and wriggled her head beneath my arm. She leaned into me, furiously wagging her tail to garner my full attention as she licked my chin and lips.

"Did you knock something over?" I whispered as I scanned the room to see if something had fallen and created the sound that woke me, but I saw nothing out of place and assumed it was the window shutter beating against the house. I rubbed Bessie's ears and ran my hand down the length of her spine several times as she nuzzled me and whined with concern.

"Erik?" Julia called. She knocked softly on the door before peeking inside. Her eyes met mine and she forced a smile despite the concern in her eyes. "Your brother is here."

I blinked at her, my heart sinking with dread at the thought of my brother hearing my muffled pleas. "I will be out shortly," I mumbled.

She closed the door and I realized the sound I had heard was the same that woke me. The blood in my veins chilled and I sat very still, recalling the last moments of the nightmare and knew Phelan had heard me quite clearly shouting in my sleep through the open bedroom door.

Please do not hurt me again.

Again.

Madeline had often come running up the stairs when she heard me screaming in the middle of the night. She would wake me, jostling my shoulder or taking my hand until I realized where I was and that the beating or torture was not real-or rather not really happening a second time.

I hated that Madeline witnessed me violently tossing and turning, desperate to escape something that existed only in my mind. Often she sat with me afterwards, offering comfort or conversation, both of which I refused as an adult purely out of shame. Despite my protests, however, Madeline never left my side. Sometimes she sat in silence rather than speaking, but she always stayed.

But now I shuddered at the thought of Phelan hearing me, of what he would think of my outburst. For a long moment I stared at the closed door, debating whether or not I should take my time dressing in hopes that he would tire of waiting and leave.

I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror as I stood, the wretchedness of a beast that had been tormented time and again for years-for decades. I stared angrily back at my unmasked face, repeating the words over and over in my head until I felt sick to my stomach.

Please do not hurt me again.

Of course my father had not considered my pleas for mercy. I had been foolish to think he would have walked away from me. In the full light of morning, I could not blame him for his anger and disgust at the creature that lurked beneath his home. I had always disappointed him, always proved my lack of worth. Often I wondered why he tolerated my presence at all when he had every right to be rid of me for good. One hard shove and he could have very well killed me, but he constantly left me crumpled in the dirt, a creature too vile to put out of its misery.

My hands were still shaking, my throat dry as I fixated on that evening. At last I forced myself to finish dressing and fit my mask into place. I walked out of the bedroom, my heart still pounding, and faced my brother at last.

"I will be certain to consult you for more tips if I have the pleasure of seeing Mademoiselle Leach again prior to my departure," Phelan said to Julia. They sat across from one another in the matching armchairs on the opposite side of the room. Julia's chair faced the bedroom and she offered a small smile when our eyes met.

"I would be more than happy to share a bit of my knowledge," Julia assured my brother. "And of course I will also tell Gertie about you as well."

"Flattering details, I hope?"

Julia eyed him. "If they are deserved, yes."

I cleared my throat as I approached the two of them. "You're visiting quite early aren't…" My voice trailed away momentarily as Phelan stood and faced me. "What happened to your beard?"

Phelan touched his freshly shaven chin as though he had forgotten. "Ah. Yes. That."

"You look ten years younger," I observed, grateful for the distraction.

"Should I be insulted that you previously thought I appeared ancient or flattered that you now perceive me to be younger?"

"Flattered," I said.

He grunted. "Ten years is quite generous. Julia said five."

Julia looked at me and offered a slight smile as she stood. "Breakfast is prepared if you're hungry. Marcus set the table outside and Alex has already had a second helping," she said before excusing herself from the room.

"Did you shave because of Lisette?" I asked once we were alone.

Phelan shrugged.

"That was thoughtful of you," I said.

Phelan waved off my comment. "I shaved because I was tired of facial hair," he replied. "The upkeep is unbearable in the summer and it really was becoming more gray, undoubtedly due to the number of insolent fools I find myself surrounded by frequently. Lisette's words were merely encouragement to retrieve my razor. " He turned from me and glanced at his reflection in the oval mirror on the wall, evaluating his appearance. He gave a nod of approval and adjusted his shirt sleeves. "Do you honestly think I look ten years younger?"

"At least," I answered. "Although I suppose it will be much more difficult to identify yourself as a donkey this year," I added lightly.

Phelan grunted. "Quite amusing, little brother," he said. "Given the manner in which you woke this morning, I was not expecting such a light-hearted exchange."

Immediately I looked away from him and stared at the woven rug, which was bathed in sunlight that cut across the room. The stained glass window in the kitchen touched the very tip of the rug in a sea of blues and greens, which seemed to amplify the warmer colors of the woolen rug.

We stood in silence for a long moment, the absence of words unbearable, an invisible weight lingering between us. Again I heard the unanswered echoes of my pleas fill my mind.

"Kire," Phelan said, his voice low.

"I have navigated this...this plight for as long as I can recall," I said without looking at him. "I have no desire for conversation regarding this aspect of my life."

He didn't reply immediately, and the longer he stared silently at me, the more self-conscious I became. I considered touching the mask to make certain it covered the scars completely, but settled for a quick glance in the mirror. I was as complete as I could appear, but far too much had already been exposed.

Over and over I repeated the words I knew I had shamefully spoken aloud in a moment of desperation: please don't hurt me again. My chest tightened, the hairs on my arms standing on end as internally I tormented myself in a way that would have delighted my father. Nine years beneath his floors had given me a lifetime to regret. I hated that he was still within my mind, taunting me for as long as I would live.

"You were speaking to Bjorn?" Phelan asked.

Briefly I met my brother's steel gray eyes, surprised by the gentleness in his gaze. He looked remarkably different without his beard, younger and less severe, as though somehow he had managed to remove part of his surliness as well as his facial hair. His words were spoken gently as well, his voice reminding me of the way our uncle addressed me when I was feral in nature and appearance.

"Did he stop?" my brother asked.

A shudder rippled through me as I considered a night that had been no different than most in my youth. So many terrible moments were woven together, a tapestry of fear and pain that enshrouded me. I doubted now, at my age, that I would ever sleep soundly.

"No," I admitted quietly. "No, he did not."

No, I had pleaded when my father had dragged me out by the ankles. No, I cannot withstand another beating physically. No, I cannot mentally tolerate another bruise to my flesh, another moment of being humiliated. No, do not do this to me again, I am begging you. Wait until tomorrow, I wanted to say to him, give me time to heal before you break me all over again.

"Are you satisfied?" I snapped.

My brother waited until I met his eye before he spoke. "I derive no satisfaction or pleasure from the way Bjorn mistreated you. Quite frankly I'm insulted that you think his abuse would please me."

"Abuse," I muttered. A single word infuriated me. I had always hated that term and had no desire to hear my brother use it when speaking of me. Abuse implied victim and victim implied weakness and I would be damned if anyone looked at me and saw weakness. I was a monster, a feared and loathed beast that had terrorized fools who believed a ghost haunted the halls. I was the embodiment of evil, an entity that inspired superstition. I was many things, but I was not weak.

"You disagree?" Phelan continued to study me, his gaze fixed on the masked side of my face.

"A creature so deformed, so incomplete," I said under my breath. I removed my mask, allowing him to see the true hideousness of the scars while we spoke. Perhaps then my brother would understand the necessity of our father's ways. "How could one resist beating such a miserable, disgusting beast?"

His mouth twitched, eyes narrowing. "You are referring to yourself in this manner?" Phelan asked.

I stared at him, his feigned ignorance making me increasingly angry. "Who else?" I said through my teeth. "What other wretched beast do you know?"

Phelan straightened his back and inhaled. He looked me over for much longer than necessary, his expression far more passive than I expected.

"Why are you staring at me?" I demanded.

"I am dismayed," Phelan answered. "Greatly disheartened by the derogatory words you direct at yourself."

"You should have been relieved," I snarled. "Grateful I was no longer desperately following at your heels when we were children."

Phelan's shoulders sagged. "As much as I enjoy a good argument, I will not waste our time together in such a petty manner. These past few days mean far too much to me to simply discard.''

My breath hitched, the words my brother spoke reminding me so greatly of my uncle that I was left unable to breathe or form a response.

In the first few years beneath the Opera House, before the horrors of Persia, I often imagined conversations between myself and my uncle. I allowed myself the fantasy of a compassionate father figure, of a man who would speak kindly to me in the moments when I hated myself the most. I knew my uncle would not have tolerated my self depreciation. He would have sternly reprimanded me without a second thought and I would have sulked for twenty minutes before accepting his words and craving his attention.

"You dream of Bjorn often?" Phelan asked.

"What does it matter?" I asked under my breath.

"You have nightmares of a man you have not seen in almost thirty years," Phelan replied calmly. "I would wager it matters quite a bit whether you wish to admit it or not. You've loaned him more years of your life than he ever deserved." My brother frowned, his voice dropping lower. "What did he do to you?"

"Not another word," I seethed. "It was absolutely nothing more than a dream and I'll not be interrogated another moment."

At last Phelan lowered his gaze and sighed. "As you wish," he said before he walked toward the back door and paused. "Perhaps it will not matter, but regardless you should know that 'disgusting beast' and 'deformed monster' are not fitting descriptions of yourself. He was wrong about everything, Kire."

I scoffed at his words and shook my head.

"Whatever Bjorn said to you, whatever he did...you were not the only one he abused. In this regard, despite what you may think, you are not alone."

Again I heard my uncle's sentiment with my brother's voice and something inside of me pulled taut as a bowstring. I sucked in a trembling breath, my mind racing.

My uncle had not once asked what my father had done to me, how cruel and relentless he had been over the years. I wondered if I would have opened up to my uncle if he had asked me directly, if I would have trusted him enough to reveal a part of myself I wished to keep secret for no other reason than I was ashamed and dreaded how others would react. There was no part of me inside or out that belonged with others and I was certain that no one would ever tolerate me if they knew how deeply damaged I had been as a child.

Despite my reservations, however, I had longed to tell Madeline why I flinched at her touch or withdrew when she reached toward me. I desired to confide in her, to bond with someone in an intimate manner that had been foreign to me. But every time an opportunity arose, I retracted, unable to speak the unspeakable, fearful that my only friend would abandon me if I shared the details of my life before she saved me.

The nightmares grew steadily more intense, more difficult to avoid as the years passed and I kept the horrors to myself. By the time I was sixteen years of age, I spent more nights awake than sleeping. I was exhausted, fighting against an unseen foe that constantly held the upper hand. When I did sleep, I often woke to the echo of my own screams carried across the lake. More years passed. I found myself in Persia. Memories of my father were buried beneath memories of a traveling fair and the horrors of a palace and a cruel sultana. Music dulled the constant ache, but there was no escaping what grew steadily inside of me.

Eventually I replaced the focus of my own agony with Christine's loneliness, and my false salvation provided amnesty-albeit short-lived-from my past.

And then there was Julia, who unfortunately, knew more about my nightmares than anyone else. She had wept for me months earlier when I had told her briefly of my father and the traveling fair. Many times she offered to stay awake with me, but I had no desire to make my nightmares hers.

Phelan, however, was different than Madeline and Julia. He was the only person who had known our father, and while he had not grown up under his heavy hand, my brother had suffered as well. He was unfortunately correct; I was not alone. The very thought devastated me more than it offered any sense of relief.

"Erik," Phelan said softly.

"I asked him once," I said, my voice trembling. The tension pulling every muscle taut remained steady, but not unbearable. Words I had longed to speak shook free at last. "Once in nine years I begged him to stop and he still…he still came after me, hours after he had already paid a visit to the cellar."

"Paid a visit…?" Phelan shook his head, clearly harnessing his anger on my behalf. "I see."

I swallowed back the grief and frustration of far too many years. In the back of my mind, I could not erase the image of my own father wrenching me out from beneath my hiding place. The imaginary bowstring threatened to break. I could feel it through every nerve, this desire to be released.

"I thought he would finally kill me," I whispered. I examined my mask held loosely in my left hand. "That night, I wished that he would have," I admitted.

From my scalp to my toes I felt numb, a discarded husk of the person I perhaps could have been if my father had allowed me a safe childhood. I knew asking for love was far more than I deserved, but I longed for refuge. For several days in a row where I could sleep soundly rather than fitful spurts of uneasy rest as I waited for him to come for me.

But refuge and safety had not been my fate.

Repeatedly I saw his fists drumming against my face and torso, an endless assault from which I had not been able to escape not only physically, but mentally. Please, I heard myself say, Please don't hurt me again.

"I am ashamed of what happened," I whispered. "All of it."

Phelan bowed his head and momentarily pursed his lips. Silence filled the space between us and I regretted my words. This is where he walks away, I told myself. This is where he leaves and never speaks to you again. I could not blame him for being rid of me now that he knew the extent of the damage that had been done.

"Forgive me, I didn't mean to-"

"You do not owe me an apology," Phelan replied. He shifted his weight, head tilting to the side. "Erik, I realize that given the decades we have spent apart we are still strangers, but whether it is tomorrow or a year from now, if you would care to discuss Bjorn, you have my word that I will always listen and your words will never be repeated to another living soul. And I would appreciate the same courtesy from you as well should you be kind enough to lend me your ear."

I stared at him briefly, surprised by his offer and request. I had longed for someone to confide in just as much as I had always wanted for someone to entrust me with their secrets. I readily nodded before my brother reconsidered. "You have my word."

"It would be...beneficial, I think," Phelan said. "For both of us."

"Yes," I agreed.

The imaginary finger on the bowstring relaxed, the tightness in my chest loosened enough to make breathing tolerable. If I desired an audience, if I could bring myself to speak of the years that still haunted me, Phelan would listen and truly understand. There would at long last be an outlet to the grief I harbored.

My brother looked at me one last time and nodded before he cleared his throat and opened the back door. "Favorite niece and nephew," he announced jovially. "Are you well?"