Franz knew this child to be a blank canvas when he first held her. He actually wore gloves before taking her in his arms. They acted as a barrier between his world and hers, and that was the point. He had to ensure that this child remained pure and untouched by the world's grime when she breathed slowly against his chest, and that included concealing his own being.
He held the daughter while Věra held the son. He smiled and she smiled. The scene itself could fool anyone as a wholesome picture of a family life. But she was trapped in a prison filled with his twisted visions of perfection. She was chosen and molded to breed the perfect child that would lead the nation. The innocence of the moment was only a cruel illusion to hide her captivity.
It was almost heartbreaking to think that... perhaps he could have had the former during his youth. He fell in love young. He remembered the woman, who was just a girl when they met, and him just a boy. She never frowned, her laughter echoed through the streets of Jablonec nad Nisou, and her eyes always sparkled with mischief. They talked of their studies and ambitions and, eventually, it led to them kissing on the wet grass. Franz saw a future in her eyes, a future with her as his wife and the mother of his children... and those memories hurt all the more knowing that his father had snatched her away.
Now, it was almost heartbreaking because Franz no longer loved that woman. The memory of her faded like a photograph left in the sun, the colors bleached and the edges blurred. He no longer knew the color of her eyes and hair. He no longer felt like he was dying when he heard her name. He wouldn't even be able to tell you it anymore.
It sounded sad when Franz could recall his fury and him stripping his old man of all his humanity the same night she was impregnated... but he couldn't recall the subject matter. He couldn't recall her. The only things that stuck to him were the certainty of her existence and the frown she gave the morning she left him. It was the first and last time he ever saw such an expression.
Years later, he met another woman, who he ended up marrying. Franz was less enthusiastic about her, but he didn't marry just any woman.
She was an actress. They went to the same university, but lived completely different lives, with him studying psychology and her studying art. He knew her to be smart and beautiful, but he first encountered her theatrical nature on a night he scarcely remembered to be walking past the Performing Arts Center.
Franz was never one to ascribe to beliefs in the fanciful or supernatural— he felt such notions were a waste of time and intellect. However, as he observed her on stage, he reconsidered his skepticism. She transformed so dramatically that it seemed as though she possessed multiple personalities. It was mesmerizing. How could she embody such diverse characters, and have the fluidity to shift between them simultaneously?
Her artistic talent drew his feet closer to the stage. When her eyes briefly met his, he caught a spark flicker in those brown irises, and his heart lit fire. It was at that moment that he believed in fairytales.
It wasn't long until they fell in love and married, and his attraction to her lingered, but... after the honeymoon, he found her way less interesting than he thought.
She proved to be an attentive partner in keeping the house tidy, his clothes pressed, and his meals on time. In that sense, she was everything he needed in a wife. But, for Franz, the thrill came from the challenge of the unknown. Once he could understand how a person thought and behaved, the luster of their complexity began to fade. His subjects of psychology study were supposed to be, in his eyes, little more than ordinary humans. She resigned from acting to become his wife, and so it was with her that the captivating fluidity with which she once inhabited her personas no longer held the same allure. The sole exception was the child she had borne him. He felt that was the only thing she did that pleased him.
So when the two finally split, Franz never chased after her, nor did he have any interest in connecting with his son. While he was a living testament to their union, and perhaps the only thing that held his fascination for her, he had to let go. Just like his first love, that woman gradually faded from his memory. He hadn't thought of her for the past decade so he could not tell you her name.
Instead, he stared at Věra. He wanted to know her eyes.
God, when he saw her for the first time. It was almost embarrassing how she stole the air from his lungs, how she suffocated his heart, and how a knife twisted in his gut when she smiled and held hands with a man.
But not just any man. It was his half-brother. Franz shared that man's blood - the vile, corrupted blood of the child from his father's rape, the child born from the first woman Franz ever loved, the child that took away her laughter.
Franz intentionally set them up. Weeks ago, the mother called, begging him to take her son. The boy, she claimed, yearned for the life of a soldier, and needed a Czech's recommendation to be enlisted. Even after his acceptance, she refused to take her son back.
"Take him from me!" She cried, her arms outstretched to shield herself from her son, "Take him! Every time I look at him, I see the face of a monster!"
His brother was only sixteen at the time. After she abandoned him, something within him changed like he realized something. Oh, I get it now.
Watching a mother give up her child so easily enlightened Franz as well. He felt stirring in his stomach, not dread, but something else, something he couldn't quite name. All he knew was that it would be useful. And so, he made a mental note in his head...
In dire circumstances, anyone will give up their child.
Just because you were born doesn't mean you were wanted.
He watched from afar as they laughed and talked and walked. Every glance, every touch, every kiss was documented, all the while he planned on his brother's demise. In the dead of night, Franz would lay awake, tormented by visions of Věra's body intertwined with his own, her skin against his, the taste of her breath, her cries... He wondered how the two made love. Did she like it rough or gentle? Did his brother grip her hips he drove into her, both crying between the slaps of flesh? Or did he plant feather-light kisses across her flushed throat as she rode him carefully? Sleep invaded everyone else's home except his. The deprivation was maddening despite the pleasure he let himself feel.
He wanted to devour her, but, instead, everything about her devoured him.
He knew he was going to die because of her, but that didn't matter. He was not going to let her go.
It was why, when the two sought to run away together, he panicked. He would be given nothing if she left. Only crumbs lazily dropped.
Franz couldn't live with that, so he took her, and his brother was dead by morning in a poetic execution.
The circumstances reminded Franz of Beauty And The Beast. It was the first book he had ever read in French, but he had always loved the story growing up. It was the immense tragedy that made it beautiful. The prince caught himself enchanted in an awful situation and sought the love of the empathetic, even after treating her unkindly. But the beauty grew to love the beast in the end, while Věra swore to hate him for all eternity. Any ounce of humanity within her, any sign of a heart, died with the father of her children. No more chance for redemption. He was already reaching for the darkest of the dark.
"Come what may, I will never forgive you."
That's what she had said to him as he sketched her pregnant figure. Her hands held her stomach as if protecting her unborn from him. Those children were caught in the middle of such a warped fairy tale.
"You say the most amusing things." When he was finished with his drawing, he kissed her unloving lips. She cursed at him, but he ignored her. To acknowledge her words would be to accept the finality of her rejection, and smear the art he crafted in slow strokes - the perfect woman for him, tamed and obedient, a beauty who would come to love the beast.
...
Věra died after childbirth. Franz saw the life drain from her eyes. His fingers pressed against her chest and he connected with her lips to offer his breath. The cycle of pumping her chest and breathing into her lungs repeated for hours, his mind filled with a single, desperate prayer: Please come back. Please don't leave.
Her eyes fluttered open and her gaze met his. But there was no gratitude in her eyes. Only unwavering hatred. Franz knew just by the look that she was perfectly happy to die at this moment. She wished for it.
He had brought her back to life, but in turn, he condemned her to a future filled with his twisted visions. He had given her life, but he had stolen her soul.
And so those children grew up soulless. Franz didn't notice until years later...
When he took one of them.
In dire circumstances, anyone will give up their child. And just because you were born doesn't mean you were wanted. Franz knew he was right when he felt the daughter's hand in his. Before he left, he looked at the family he tore apart.
Věra sobbed hysterically, which was to be expected. She squeezed her son too tightly and soaked his shoulder with his tears. The boy did not budge even slightly, nor did he ever lose eye contact with the man in front of him. His face was known as a mask of stoicism, with his eyes often cold and empty, rendering him an icy figure, but a simmering hatred ignited in that same face that made him seem hot to the touch.
Franz knew it all too well. He knew because the same thing happened to him. Something birthed inside this boy, something that would not be easy to contain when he got older.
His sister was taken from him. The girl who laughed and smiled with him. The girl who embraced and loved him. The girl he knew he couldn't live without... And this man had snatched her away.
Franz felt like his father at that moment, even more so when he walked out of Three Frogs with him restraining the girl who kept crying for her older brother.
He was disgusting, revolting, and sadistic.
But this was an experiment.
...
It had been four weeks since then, and the weather had gotten colder.
The chilly wind that could be felt through sealed windows still surrounded the interiors of the dark mansion. It was silent for several minutes as Franz and the girl stood in front of the fireplace until her small finger pointed at the oil painting above them, "Is that mommy?"
Indeed, it was. Not long after Věra had run away with her newborn children, Franz drew her daily to compose himself... He swore to remember her face, her voice, her presence... And all his drawings turned into a giant painting of her figure sitting down, subdued, while holding a bouquet.
"It is. Good eye." Franz observed intently at the streaks of paint on the edges of what was supposed to be her wedding dress. Its white color should've brightened the scene, but it only drowned her in more gloomy sorrow.
"She looks so sad..."
"She was."
The girl trembled as she brought herself closer to the painting, reaching out with a hesitant hand to touch it.
"Don't touch her," he snapped.
She turned around swiftly and stumbled back. With this, Franz realized he could look at both faces at once. She was a spitting image of her mother. They had the same nose, the same hair, and the same...
"Eyes. You have your mother's eyes— both you and your brother. So innocent at first glance but when you stare longer..." He laces a strand of hair at the back of her ear, and his fingers trace her cheek, "you realize it holds so much more depth."
"How do you know her?" If it wasn't for the way she talked, he would've forgotten that this girl was only six.
"I saw her at a cafe..." —talking to your father— "...Your mother... she was a cruel woman..." yet his voice softened as he reminisced her memory. "But that never mattered to me. When you love someone as much as I love her, you'll accept anything. I loved her for looking at me, for talking to me. Her flaws were her beauty, and I favored them because when I see myself reflected in her eyes, I'm not frightened."
The girl looked down before speaking. She was thinking, "She never mentioned you, but now I think it was because you were bad."
Franz dropped the grin and the friendliness in his tone, "Do you think I'm bad?"
She didn't respond. She just stared, unblinking. Strange child. Strange, yet beautiful, smart, dainty, intriguing child. She never showed any sign she was intimidated by his sudden switch in behavior.
Everything in his tone returned only a few seconds later, "Why else would she scream at me, right? Remember how I said she was cruel? It reminds me of those fairytales."
The girl hummed, confused.
"Mommy never read to you?"
"We had a few books..." Probably a copy of Obluda, one of the few books he noticed Věra stole when she ran away.
He waited a minute before speaking, "You and your brother are like Hansel and Gretel." Even though she showed no knowledge of the story, he asked, "Are you familiar with that one?"
She shook her head, and Franz chuckled, baffled. "How Shocking. Every child in this nation should know it. It comes from the roots of our culture." He studied her unease, "But you're not like every child. You were isolated in a cramped inn with two other people for six years. What should I be expecting?"
There was a pause before he continued, a pause in which she refused to look at him, "This version is not how many people remember it, but it's the one I grew to learn, and the one you will learn as well. I see the story as a mirror. It reflects the darkness that lies within us all. It's a reminder that even the most innocent of souls can be corrupted by a monster, that even those who fight against darkness can become consumed by it."
"It sounds scary."
"It's only scary to those who don't understand it. It's about two children, twins, a boy and a girl, Hansel and Gretel, who are abandoned in the forest by their cruel parents, their mother the one who initiated the idea. After wandering for days, starving and exhausted, they stumble upon a house made with bread and cake. It seemed harmless, but it was a trap a wicked witch set."
He clutched her shoulders, his grip a little too tight, and turned her back to look at the painting above.
"That witch was an excellent liar. She lured the children inside with promises of warmth and protection, but her intentions were far more sinister. She wanted to fatten them up, so she could feast upon their flesh. While they managed to escape right before being cooked and eaten, there was one thing the monster took away from them... their innocence. So naive and trusting they were at the start, but she corrupted them, and twisted their minds with lies. They were never the same, those two..." his voice echoed in the vast emptiness of the room, "Over time, they became the very monster they were meant to escape."
"...Who's the witch?" She whispered. His hands dug into her shoulders as he stared at his pitiful painting.
"You tell me."
She, in fact, never told him. Instead, her head spun in directions all around the room, seemingly taking in her surroundings as if noticing them for the first time, "H-How does it end?"
"I wouldn't know. The story doesn't have an ending yet. I don't know how it will be or when it will happen, but I know we'll be there to experience it together."
The girl shook her head, "But my brother would never let that happen. We protect each other."
Not only did she show no sign of unease with his fairytale, but she talked of her brother with unsettling fondness. He couldn't see her eyes but he knew they were glazed over in awe. Her voice was pitched high, as if she reliving a dream. She was barely a woman, barely a girl for that matter, still stuck in the early stages of childhood.
Franz knew the intricacies of the human heart and recognized the signs of infatuation quickly — a crush, people call it. But there was something more to this, a feverish intensity her young mind couldn't even come close to understanding.
The boy probably felt the same for her, if not more, judging by the look he gave when she was stolen from him.
It was all so sickening that he thought of killing her.
He wanted to kill her. He wanted to cut off her tongue and silence her words. He wanted to pierce her eyes and erase the image of her brother. If he cut her head open and twisted her brain, maybe she would think differently.
But then, he was baptized by a wave of calm, and he sighed. He must control himself. He was a monster, but he was also a scientist, a doctor, a scholar, a man of reason.
People can become whatever they want to be.
He reached out and cupped her quivering face with one hand.
"You're such a precious jewel."
Please stay that way. Please don't become a monster.
...
Franz knew they would escape Three Frogs someday, but he did not know they would survive.
Seeing their faces on the news was so surreal - hearing their names had his world spinning... They had names now. Johan and Anna. Such beautiful names for such beautiful jewels.
Franz found a way to get in touch with The Lieberts who had adopted them. He had to see them. He just had to see their faces in person. The couple were all too eager to let him in to see them. He could sense the nervous energy in the air by the way they both gulped after opening the door. It crackled beneath the surface of their forced sense of hospitality.
He only had to look at them once and he knew they did not love those children. They were afraid of them. The news revealed how they held themselves, how they avoided eye contact with Johan and Anna, and how their smiles were strained. Only Franz could catch those details... nobody else would need to think further of what went on behind those expressions... because only he had witnessed first-hand what lingered inside both of those young minds.
As the press spoke, Mrs. Liebert held onto Anna as Franz did when she was a baby, shakily and carefully, almost fearfully. The scene was an act of pretending. With its curated images of a happy family, the news footage starkly reflected the illusion surrounding the twins' birth.
Their arrival was far from a blessing.
"You're a refugee as well..." Mr. Liebert spoke, his wife lurking too closely behind him.
"Yes," he confirmed, "from the Czech Republic." The words tasted like ash in his mouth.
"And you say you know everything about them?" Mr. Liebert's hand hovered near the door, as if ready to close it in Franz's face.
"Let me see them. Even if it's only for an instant..." His hands trembled as he cleaned his glasses and put them on his face, "Just their sleeping faces."
Convince me they are in a happy place. Convince me that they remained pure and untouched by the world's grime. Convince me that I did just one thing right.
The Lieberts died that same night, and he knew it to be his fault. The news of their murder was a blow to his chest. It felt as if the lost souls of those children came to him purely (though their intentions were far from pure) to terrorize him until his heart gave out.
Though Franz left the room as quietly as he entered, he knew the boy, the son, had seen his face and panicked. He was the monster that took his sister and he was back. The monster had come to take them away. All the bullets The Lieberts endured were intended for him. For Franz.
...Come what may, I will never forgive you...
...They were never the same, those two... Over time, they became the very monster they were meant to escape...
...But my brother would never let that happen. We protect each other...
And just like that, the facade was broken. The purity was corrupted. His perfect vision was no more.
Everything became a nightmare. Franz had failed them. He had broken the promise he made to himself.
Those children have become monsters.
Franz cursed himself for memorizing their mother's face so well.
Because he can no longer watch the news. Věra's presence pierced through the screen, menacing and unkempt.
Because he can no longer look in the mirror. Věra's staring behind him, unmoving and unkind.
Because he can no longer close his eyes. Věra's above him, threatening his life with her hands around his throat.
He would let her kill him if there ever came the chance. He deserved it. And in what world did he want to exist with seeing her hurt prologued?
He imagined Johan thought the same thing when he was shot in the head.
It had to be her. It had to be his sister that shot him.
Anna... that little girl, the baby he held, had her brother's blood on her hands...
Against his better judgment, he thought of the scene.
Beneath all the blood and the eerie silence of a mansion stuffed with corpses, he saw his cheeks tear-stained and mouth closed in solace... But were his eyes open and lifeless like his mother's? When she died right in front of him? Before he brought her back to life, forcing her back into the cruel society he created just for her? Did the daughter tower over her brother's body, traumatized and confused, mind racing and heart pounding?
Did she hate herself?
When Franz knew that girl was capable of murder, it was one of the few times in his life he was truly horrified.