New Year, new chap!
Interesting to see how perceptions on different plot points somewhat vary, but the consensus is that Gladys can choke. That tickles me.
Also, scenes of CSA and CA in this chap. They're not too graphic, but I still need to give a warning.
"What do you mean stand down!?" Jorgen groused, swiftly running out of patience as he pounded a fist which reverberated in his desk, rippling small waves through his third mug of dark roast. Brows slit in his irritated glare towards the magical portal displaying the rocky ceiling supported by Alabaster columns, shadows of the stone walls and teak floors of the throne hall alight in orangey hues with great braziers. Stately Windows broad and imperial framed in striped drapes, colored in streaks of yellow, blue, pink, purple, and turquoise.
Cowering beside his boss, Binky turned back to the eight monitors lined in rows of two. Frowning to the twelve-year-old rushing to his whimpering yellow retriever in the discovery of his injuries.
"Alondro Milagro did not sustain anything life threatening; he shall have bouts of discomfort, yet he shall live." Councilwoman Treebelle ensured the Fairy Commander, yellow eyes shrouded by the hood of her turquoise robe. Seated in her throne polished in yellow gold, engraved with star and crown carvings with the backrest and seat cushion adorned in turquoise velvet.
"You say that as if this is not the third instance a godparent has been attacked in the last two months alone…" Jorgen groaned, frankly frustrated. First was Juandissimo Magnifico, one of his vets, attempting to protect his godchild from a predatory nanny. Making it out with a minor concussion that was another blow to the head from becoming a full-blown TBI. Then was Nyekundu Uchawi, younger yet highly proficient, getting drugged by some brainwashed teenager. All to then ruthlessly assault his own baby sister whose only crime was caring about him.
Now was Alondro Milagro, the same rank as Nyekundu, reduced to a fricking kick sack by some bitter old hag. Not to mention Cosmo and Wanda Fairywinkle-Cosma, two halves of a whole idiot, having their fair share of life-threatening mishaps with numerous godchildren of the past…
Is this why the Council seem so invested in these godchildren? Because of this covert hex with this crop of godparents?
"We are aware and share in your frustrations." Councilman Persimmons declared in his gruffy voice, robed in the taffy-pink that corresponded with the velvet backseat and cushion of his yellow-gold throne. "However, there is no need for you to take action."
"We had anticipated this off-rail, and we shall also take action upon another godchild's harrowing predicament." Councilman Plumfrost's tenor tone added, clothed in purple with folded arms in his yellow-gold throne accented with lavender velvet. "We the Council hast handled what is priority to be rectified."
Looking away from the monitors in the midst of Gary shouting at his grandmother, Binky could see Jorgen furrow his brow in his both agitated and puzzled grumble "…and that means…?"
"Becalm and keep observing." Head Councilman Birchwind's baritone stated with an air of patience in his admonishment, cloaked in the boldest blue. His throne at the end of the row with periwinkle-blue velvet accents. "You shall see soon enough."
The Fairy Commander grimaced, more agitated by his lack of rebuttal. Resorting to facing the monitors once more alongside his assistant just as rage and thin patience cracked in an exasperated shriek.
"I HATE YOU! I FUCKING HATE YOU!"
Tremoring fists wadded as tears pricked the corners of Gary's scowl. Blue eyes burning with a fierce, unyielding hatred that nearly made his arms shudder. Even after moments of psychosis that had led their better judgement to ship him off to a mental ward three separate times…he loved his grandparents. Loved them for taking him in as the offspring of the son they despised with every fiber, loved them for loving him with their whole hearts and their will to do whatever they can for him.
But this…hurting his godfather for no plausible reason…was a straw the camel didn't even know could break its back.
Alondro strained to lift his feeble head, more worried for his godson than the surge of pulsing pain shooting from the top of his fur to the bottom of his paws. Depending on the severity of his episode, Gary was prone to aggression or dissociation, one or the other. Other times, aggression tunneled his rationality which would result in retaliation from whomever got the brunt of it, driving his fragile mind into dissociation. A worst-case scenario that Alondro feared Gary was tumbling towards.
"…p…p-pe…que…" he grunted in his whisper, wrecked with coughs soon after. Hoping to bring Gary back from the brink, though it may have already been too late.
Unseen by the occupants, peering through the sole window of the room was the golden retriever that'd been tied up by the column on the front porch. He had somehow set himself free, or, rather, had the capability to free himself when he'd heard muffled shouting through the walls. Supporting himself on his hind legs, Buddy braced his front paws on the exterior sill of the window, scanning the situation at hand. Eyeing the three adults in the room, the child was invisible from his angle. However, he was able to spot the back of the yellow retriever's head from the glint in his gold crown, and though he could mostly see his crown, Buddy knew he was hurt.
Focusing his visual aim on the fellow canine, brown and blue shimmered with periwinkle-blue sparkles. Sparkles that soon glittered around Alondro's entire body in an anesthetic coat, soothing the aches in his bones as blood dried from his lips.
Alondro was confused; where was this healing magic coming from if Cosmo and Wanda were not here? But, before he had the chance to finish the thought, a heavy pull of fatigue fluttered in his eyelids. The side of his head flopped back to the ground as blackness encroached the edges of his vision, and his eyes blinked until he was unable to open them again.
All the while, the elderly woman stood frozen, catatonic. Unaware of the magic enveloping the yellow retriever, elm eyes lasered on her Vnuk, the grandson she could no longer recognize. Stunned and betrayed, she shed a single, wounded tear. Breath shaky in what she managed to whisper next, the usual warmth expressed towards Gary replaced by a distant coldness in her hushed tone…
"…plokhoy mal'chik…"
Blue eyes bulged in a haunted horror. A sharp breath caught in his throat, terror tightening his chest. She…she called him a bad boy. No…babushka had never called him that before. Even at his worst, even when he was bad. No…h-he can't. He can't be a bad boy. B-Bad boys get punished…
Vlad noticed his wife charge towards their grandson, a sickening wave of despair welling from his belly. She'd been pushed to her breaking point, and if she acted on her pain, it cannot end well. "Gladys, do not-"
THWACK!
The only sound to echo through the walls was the cracking slap of Gladys's palm, twisting Gary's neck at an angle when his head recoiled. The burn of a handprint reddened into his left cheek, and the flame that once burned in blue eyes had been snuffed into a vacant stare.
"TY MONSTER! TAK ZHE KAK ON!" she snarled, screaming that Gary is just like the monster he'd come from, the devil incarnate she had been cursed to give birth to. The son that twisted and churned her insides with revulsion and contempt. So consumed by angry hurt and livid betrayal that she failed to realize how her rash action had sealed her fate. Oblivious to the glitter of periwinkle-blue shimmers enclosing around the left side of her chest. Concentrating behind her ribs, entrapping her heart…
She doubled over, grunting as a squeezing pressure clenched her breasts. Struggling to breathe from the radiating pain throbbing in her neck, shooting through her arms. She staggered backwards, clawing at the left side of her chest. Weakness unsteadied her balance, and aging legs gave out. Standing behind her, Tommy hurried to catch her with his arms, preventing her hard drop to the floor as her husband, too, hurried to her aid as fast as his legs willed.
"Ty v porydake?! V chem delo?!" Vlad probed, panicked to know if she was alright, to know what was wrong. Yet Gladys could not move her lips to speak from the sharp, stabbing pain shooting up her gritted jaw.
A cold sweat broke in her forehead, burning waves pulsing in her chest as her heart pounded thunderously. Beating dangerously fast to where it could barely contract as periwinkle-blue sparkles continued to narrow her arteries, cutting blood off from circulating. The lack of circulation constricted in her lungs, the thinning of her airways made her choking gasps for breath all the more difficult. And the inability to breathe darkened the blurry distress of her husband of fifty years and the fuzzy distraught in the grandson she never knew…
Skull-crushing dizziness distorted Vlad's cry to her, the last she would hear in her mortal plunge into darkness…
Careful in shutting the door to the shed, Timmy's short legs then scurried across the backyard with his pink winter coat to keep him warm from the nightly chill. Sophia had come crying to him about the escalating horrors happening in the house; Cosmo and Wanda had wanted to come with him for moral support, but Timmy had insisted they stay as to not disrupt their nighttime routine with Poof, and he didn't give them any room to argue in his intentional rush out the door.
Bursting through the backdoor into the house, Timmy barely shut the door in his dash through the living room, hearing voices down the hallway of his grandfather's pleads for his love to come back to him over Tommy who sounded like he was counting out loud. Reaching the wide-open door of Gary's room, he halted in the doorway as he spotted periwinkle-blue sparkles glistening around the yellow retriever kayoed on the ground. Bemused by this on its own, he also saw Gary's slack jaw with a red blemish forming on his cheek, seeing the disconnect in his hollowed stare. No longer fully present in the moment, empty thoughts elsewhere.
Timmy's attention shifted to Tommy kneeled on both knees, performing CPR on the elderly woman as she lay limp. He found himself frozen, unable to tear away from elm eyes rolled back into her eyelids, no inhale or exhale of breath past lifeless lips.
Vlads's shoulders shook, sobbing into his palms as the heels of Tommy's hands pumped compressions into Gladys's rigid breastbone. Feeling his arms fatigue, Tommy huffed in a second's pause, regaining the strength to continue when Gladys's chest did not rise. Returning to his efforts, he happened to look up, noticing the ten-year-old's presence. "Timmy! Call 9-1-1!" he frantically instructed, blinking Timmy out of his shock.
[…t-there's no point…] Timmy heard Sophia's crestfallen voice tremble, laced with tearful defeat [It…i-it's already too late…]
He bit down on his lip in a sharp inhale that caught in his throat, reaching the same conclusion for himself from the active paling in his grandmother's chalk-white skin. He felt his muscles stiffen as his eyes lowered, shoulders hunching forward. Chills raising goosebumps in his skin of how, once again, a member of his family was alive one moment and dead the next. Shamed by the tiniest yet blaring sense of relief. Said family member can never again make him feel more like bottom of the barrel crap than he already did.
"Timmy!" Tommy's yell stripped Timmy from his thoughts, distress etched in his brow. "What are you waiting for!?"
"Dude! She's dead!" Timmy snapped back when he found the voice to speak, his grandfather having just realized he was there as he shot him a tearful gawk.
Shuddering a breath, Tommy froze with palms pressed between the breastbone, bulging eyes drifting down to the skin drained in a deathly hue. Her chest failed to rise and fall on its own, mortally stiff like her arms and legs. Coming to the harsh realization that death has stolen the grandmother he'd only just met.
Vlad whirled back to Tommy in realizing that the young man had ceased all efforts and removed his hands from his wife's chest. "Why you stop!?"
"He…he's right…" Tommy breathed softly, tears sheening over his eyes. He could barely muster the nerve to lift his somber gaze to the elderly man desperately holding the seams of his sanity together, his next words whispered in his despair "…I'm sorry…"
A tremoring whimper hiccupped, emotions breaking through the façade of strength. Heartache had chipped away his armor, exposing the vulnerability beneath. It started with a single tear tracing a path down his flushed cheek as a silent testament to the depths of his grief, lacing quivering arms around his wife's body, supporting the back of her head as he leaned down to her. Burying his face into her neck that felt icy to his forehead, ragged sobs shaking in his shoulders.
This cannot be…the love of his life cannot leave him like this. No…not like this…not like this!
Wrinkling his nose, Timmy turned his head when he could no longer stand to see his grandfather cry. Instead, he bunched his brows at the unresponsive yellow retriever and his cousin's lack of reaction to the world around him.
Country club members all cumulated inside the Fancy Schmancy Theatre, spilling in to fill the seats with less than a minute to curtain call. Curtains were already manually drawn to reveal the empty wall where the seventy-five-inch screen was once mounted, and spotlights shined down upon the single chair central to the stage, slightly cattycorner in front of the grand piano awaiting its debut.
Hillary joined the popular kids along the middle row, taking her seat beside Veronica in the midst of laughing at a newly created inside joke between them. As the Griffin brothers occupied the two seats between Veronica and the most popular girl in their school, Tad and Chad looked to their left towards Trixie's arms crossed over her chest, brow furrowed to the white boots crossed in quiet tension.
Since returning to school from Christmas break, Tad and Chad had witnessed the best friends bicker back and forth more often than they laugh and gossip together. There'd been a notable strain in Trixie and Veronica's friendship, and Veronica's gravitational pull towards Hillary in their attendance at the country club only further confirmed this assumption.
Choosing a seat at the end of the very back row nearest the middle aisle for when he'd ich to sneak an exit, Remy allowed his purple ferret to leap into his lap once he lowered himself into the chair. His grandparents (more like his grandmother with his grandfather concurring without objection) had obligated him to stay for all three compositions to be performed which included a concerto, a sonata, and a suite with three full movements. If he truly wanted to, he could disappear back to the solace of his room and just wish himself to automatically return within the last three minutes of the last movement of the last suite…that way, they'd never have to know he was gone.
But alas, Remy obliged himself to at least sit through the concerto as validation in the event they'd somehow catch him slipping. Something he never had to worry about when his parents were alive…
Stepping onto the platform stage from behind the red curtains, the third-gen Buxaplenty stopped near the center edge. Waiting patiently as the dimming overhead lights signaled the audience to settle into silence as a single spotlight set the stage alight. Gaining the attention of the audience, he cleared his throat to address them.
"Ladies and Gentleman, thank you so much for being here with us on this wonderful and wealthy Saturday night!" Orvy began, his sociable demeanor affirmed in self-assurance. "As you all are aware, my wife and I had made the executive decision to cease inviting underprivileged families to mock them; we are richer than they will ever hope to be, and we found no value in continuing to flaunt that fact for arbitrary and, frankly, cheap entertainment."
Seated among the front row next to a reserved space, Frances smiled fondly in an absent nod to her husband's statement of truth.
"We had felt it best to let that silly tradition die with our son, so we also extend our gratitude to all of you who were not quick to cancel their membership out of outrage for this decision. You all are the true fancy and schmancy of Dimmsdale!"
Remy could have ripped his own hair out from the irritation of sheer corniness all in that fricking sentence.
"In this jarring yet swift transition, we are excited to have our special guests of tonight, the first of many live musical performances! I introduce to you a young and talented cellist along with the pianist who had helped foster her love of music since the tender age of two. The renowned virtuosic duo of whom have performed for hundreds of concerts on numerous occasions all across the country." He outstretched a hand in a dramatic gesture towards the two performers waiting stage right out of sight. "Please, help me welcome to the stage, Missy Phirman and her father Michael of the Phirman Philharmonics!"
As Orvy exited stage left, a round of applause erupted once Missy stepped into view with Mike close behind holding his books of sheet music, walking tall with her shoulders back as she carried her cello and bow towards the chair. Once Mike stood in front of the piano's bench seat and Missy stabilized her cello on its end pin in front of her chair, father and daughter looked out at the audience and took their simultaneous bows. The applause subsided once Mike propped his sheet music on the piano's music rack as Missy adjusted the back of her tulle skirt to sit, ensuring her skirt didn't bunch in the back.
Though she'd thoroughly tuned in the warmup room, Missy calmly waited for Mike to press his A3 key, giving her a reference pitch to ensure her cello was in proper tune with the piano. Bowing her A string, her musical ear recognized her tone was slightly flat against the piano, turning the peg to give minor tension to the string before her perfect pitch was satisfied with this adjustment. She moved the center of her bow to the C, G, and D strings, checking their pitch with a max of two bowings each.
Then, closing her eyes, she breathed into her nose and out through her mouth. Mentally wishing for the Spirit of her mother to guide her before she opened her eyes and nodded to her father with the okay to begin.
Positioning his fingers over the white keys, Robert Schumann's orchestral introduction to his concerto came in the form of piano fermata chords in an A minor chord progression, rendering Missy time to enter the headspace and focus required for the next twenty plus minutes. Three chords led into a measure of eighth notes which signaled her to position her bow and finger along the fret to present the first note of the soloist's main theme.
The concerto's theme sang from the strings, her bowing smooth like butter in each meticulous stroke of the strings. Effortless fingertips and cyclic hand movements added dramatic emphasis in the rich beauty of her vibrato. Mike's fingers glided along the black and white keys in fluent succession, brilliant in his own right yet mindful in not overpowering the true star of the show. His vivacious and sometimes poignant harmonies interweaving with Missy's lyrically clean and often recitative phrasing, captivating the audience in their melodic resonance.
Cradling his ferret close to him, the young billionaire observed the natural sway of Missy's upper body as her left fingers navigating the fret coordinated with her right hand bowing the strings. He observed her unmitigated passion, enhanced by her expressive facials expressing intentional emotion with each note. As if music was the very essence of her soul, giving her life meaning. He wondered what that was like. To feel passionate about something…passionate about life.
He almost didn't notice the slouch in his shoulders, mentation drifting out of the suffocating grip of his troubles, meandering aimlessly through the music's entrancing waves. His head felt full of emptiness, thoughts flowing in a wind with no breeze. His mental fatigue welcomed the chance to take a pause from overthinking, allow himself to just zone out. To just…be. Except a distant echo kept repeating between his ears like a nagging whisper.
"Spirit keeps telling me that everything that has ever happened to you is starting to poison you."
Remy furrowed, eyes fixed on the soloist on stage. Sociable, polite and mannerly, syrupy sweet. Simple terms to describe the musical prodigy who was simultaneously complex like trying to study Calculus. They'd never met before tonight…how could she have known that something happened to him? Was he that easy to read? Or was she eerily intuitive?
And her choice of wording…poison. As if a front-row witness to him drinking the poison pouring from his mind. Someone who already knew the answer to him questioning why he felt so sick…
Remy soon felt his thoughts sink below the music's surface, submerging into unwanted waters. Unable to resist the tug of the awful memory that solidified the toxic relationship between a child and a grown man. A grown man who knew exactly how to manipulate an innocent mind into giving him what he ultimately craved…
Considering the memory itself, he realized it was not as dramatic as his nightmares. What he mostly remembered was this agonizing pain, a pain that, at the time, he'd been coerced into believing was normal. Normal for a child and an adult to show how much they love each other in the ultimate act.
Perhaps his psyche was now so damaged that it dramatized and exaggerated the memory into the truth of what it was…
Sick. Abhorrent. Disgusting.
Surround-sound speakers immersed the two occupants of the living room in the Adagio cello mixed with the piano's soft response of Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor Op. 85. Adding to the serene ambience of cackling gold auburn flames, casting a warm radiance within the white brick of the fireplace that reached the tallest height of the ceiling, framed by wallpaper panels of green dollar signs.
Facing the fire in their cuddle along the white Victorian couch was a nanny and the eight-year-old billionaire he held fondly, safe and secure by loving arms as his young cheek nestled against the chest of the grown man he entrusted with his life. Their lower halves swallowed by a wool blanket the shade of money green as the music serenaded them in their quiet, calm embrace.
Tender fingers of his nanny grazed behind his blonde spikes in a loving touch, massaging his lower back in gentle circles as his mint-green grew heavier. Tranquility fluttered in his eyelids before they drooped closed, embracing the solace of the only person to ever love him.
When he soon heard the softest snores, the nanny lifted his head from the armrest, curling a tiny grin before a low sigh lowered his head back as he continued massaging his lover's back. All was right, all was calm…
Until the temptations he fought to tame got the better of him.
His fingers drifted slowly down his lover's back, traveling beneath the blanket to the small hump accentuated in small pajama pants. An amorous grunt groaned quietly in his throat as his eager palm reached beneath the cotton fabric, fingers kneading the fleshy tuck of tush as he, too, closed his eyes.
Another groan breathed past parted lips, louder than the last. Snapping mint-green awake when the boy felt something poke against his lower torso that didn't feel like it had come from him. The eight-year-old felt his nanny begin to sway his hips, starting off faint, gradually increasing in speed.
"…Fenwick?" Remy squeaked, lifting his head to his nanny with knitted brows. "W-what are you doing?"
"Shhh…relax." Mr. Nicholas cooed, cupping Remy's cheek as his other hand continued squeezing his backside beneath the blanket. "It's okay…"
Remy didn't have time to question further before Mr. Nicholas shifted their positions with their bottom halves still underneath the wool blanket, pinning Remy beneath him with big hands gripped around small wrists. He resumed swaying his hips, pressing himself against the front of Remy's pajamas as sensual grunts breathed past his lips.
"F-Fenwick…" Remy tried to free himself, wiggling and squirming his arms and legs to no avail. Preventing him from shifting again, Mr. Nicholas pinned his legs with his knees as he maneuvered Remy's arms to cross over his head. Squeezing both wrists with one hand as the other moved to unzip his own pants, in dire need to release the pleasurable, almost painful pressure throbbing in his center.
His little heart hammered as his eyes widened, aghast at the visible point in the grown man's underwear once tuxedo slacks were pulled down. "F-Fenwick, no…" Remy whimpered, but Mr. Nicholas lowered a pointed finger over Remy's lips, shushing him softly.
"Baby, it's okay…" he crooned to his lover, eyes focused yet soft with an amorous sparkle. "We love each other…right?"
Doe eyes in helpless circles, Remy spoke in an uncertain, suffocated whisper "…yeah…"
Speakers transitioned into allegro molto motifs of cello and piano as Mr. Nicholas smirked, gazing upon the boy in loving lust. "This is just how two people show how much they love each other."
Slow and delicate in his movements, Mr. Nicholas tugged Remy's bottoms from sitting on his waist. Exposing his underwear for the nanny's starved eyes as discomfort crossed Remy's face, shifting incessantly. Part of him didn't know about this, he barely understood what was happening. But as Mr. Nicholas leaned down to brush a soft kiss to his forehead, he knew his nanny loved him too much to ever hurt him.
He then felt a pair of fingers tug at the waistband of his briefs, and just as mint-green shifted to look down at what grown hands were doing down there, Mr. Nicholas removed his hand from his wrists to handgrip under his chin. Redirecting his attention to his eyes on him as if he didn't want the 'surprise' to be spoiled. Unable to move his chin, he watched as Mr. Nicholas looked down briefly, hearing a zipper unzip before he saw him quietly grunt in his shifts that looked like he was pulling something down.
Then, he felt the waistband of his underwear lower down his leg, and he struggled to control his tremors from his body growing tense. A hot patch spread across his nose into his cheeks, and he swallowed dryly.
"Remember…" The nanny cooed affectionately, locked in his gaze. "No one loves you like I do."
Heart thumping between his ears, Remy could see the nanny look down as if to keep something steady, and before he knew what was coming, the grown man's pleasured groan was followed by a sharp, stinging pain that forced itself inside. Surging across his lower torso, burning in his backside enough to sprout tears in the corner of his eyes.
"O-Ow…" the eight-year-old choked out, squinting when his tears stung too much for a clear view of the nanny shifting up and down on top of him "…it…it h-hurts…"
"Relax, baby…" Mr. Nicholas whispered between his movements, his breaths becoming little huffs of excitement. "It only hurts the first time…"
"B-But…it…" His tears blurred over his eyes as he whimpered, his lower half burning like a thick knife stabbing itself in repeated, rhythmic thrusts. Yet Mr. Nicholas simply shushed him with a palm to his lips. Too entranced in his own growing pleasure as Mr. Nicholas increased the velocity of his movements to the same scherzo as the concerto's sixteenth-note motive.
Remy could hardly breathe from the excruciating pain, could hardly think. Only realizing the whole ordeal ended once grunting moans followed a final push-
"…Remy?"
Mint-green fluttered in a jolt, brought back to the country club theater by the march-like character of the concerto's main theme through the Sehr lebhaft of the third movement. A glossy blur distorted the view of the purple ferret's frown, and when Remy reached a finger to wipe the inner corner of his eyes, the gloss cleared to the unmistakable sight of warm, clear liquid wetting the tips of his fingers.
Shuddering a breath, Remy used the back of his hands to wipe away at the tired eyes he soon realized stung sore. But no matter how much he rubbed, the outpour of sadness and guilt refused to cease.
Juandissimo crinkled his brow, studying Remy as he scrubbed at his tears. He had thought to ask if Remy still wanted to leave after the concerto, but when he'd turned to face him, he saw his ahijado staring off with silent tears streaming. Aside from being deprived of proper sleep, Remy had seemed relatively okay throughout the day. Now he was upset to the point of crying, and without an explanation, the fairy godfather felt somewhat helpless.
In the allegro finish to the concerto's end in the upbeat key of A-Major, Missy's fluent fingers guided across the fret board in eight-note arpeggios that reached all the way through the grand finale. As she and her father made one final statement with their last fermata chord, they allow the notes to resonate before the crowd erupted in applause. Missy took a deep breath and smiled, looking to her father whose warm grin concurred that this run through had been the best they ever performed this concerto.
Standing for another bow before moving on to the sonata up next in their repertoire, Missy skimmed the audience and spotted the fifth-gen Buxaplenty in the very back through the dark. Sympathetic to the streaming tears of sorrow as she and her father took their bows.
Moonlight seeped past the sheer material of pastel-pink curtains, piercing through the shroud of darkness within rose-pink walls as the brown-skin girl cradled her red ferret atop her cerise duvet embroidered in white lace. Facing the white bedroom door from her pearl-white bedframe propped against the cerise flowers accenting one of the walls.
Silent tears damped her cheeks, brown eyes staring off with a distracted gaze to the plush magenta rug covering white French oak floors. Mentally battered and emotionally defeated, the prickly aches in her right shoulder her physical reminder that she will always be othered as the blackie in their white fortress…
Within the sunny yellow and spring green pallet of the preteen's bedroom, Hillary sat on her bed with a crinkled nose and brows bunched in the middle, her blond ponytail draped on one side of her black and gold Versace party dress. Her baby-blue glower burning with animosity towards the little black girl using a cloth to dust the nightstand, wiping the surface with her right hand ringed in bright-red.
Her father had tasked her with the job to ensure Hazel completed all of her daily chores before the three of them were to leave for the country club, essentially giving Hillary permission to treat Hazel however she deemed fit. Throughout that entire day, Hillary had made a point in salting Hazel's wounds. Yelling out demands, belittling her progress, purposefully destroying any progress that would force Hazel to go back and correct or start over completely, threating severe repercussions if Hazel disobeyed or rebelled in any way…
All a missing whip away from treating a little girl like her own personal house slave.
"You missed a spot." Hillary snarked, tone laced with disgust.
Scanning her work of the nightstand so far, Hazel furrowed, mustering the voice to speak "…n-no I didn't."
"Yes you did!" Hillary snapped sharply, pointing at a random spot on the nightstand where there was no visible speck of dust. "It's right there!"
Looking again, Hazel jutted her lower lip, frowning towards Hillary. "No, it's not…"
Hillary shot to her feet, inching forward with the intent to intimidate Hazel into backwards steps. "Look here, Spook; when I say something's not clean, then something's not clean! Got it!?"
"Stop calling me that!" Hazel squeaked, her pout deceptively managed as tension corded her neck. God, was she tired of Hillary spitting out that word like a punchline…
"Shut up, Spook." Hillary mocked, arms crossed in her entitled sense of domination. "Or I'll tell my dad how much you've been talking back!"
The cloth trembled in her hands with suppressed rage, a rage which burned a withering fire in the center of her chest. Boiling her blood in the scorching heat glowing in her glare, sparking the impulse to act upon the intense flood of her frustration as she threw the cloth in an aggressive toss to the ground
"You better pick up that cloth right no-"
Hazel shoved Hillary with all her might, flat palms pushing her backwards by the stomach. Sending her stumbling backwards on her feet, she tripped onto her back as the back of her head smacked against the side of her mattress, bumping against the metal frame of her bed.
Body shaking with both rage and fear, Hazel's gap chewed on her lip as Hillary blinked to orient herself. Shaking the haze out of her head, Hillary then reached behind her pigtail before her eyes practically bulged from their sockets towards Hazel, taken aback as if she had not anticipated retaliation let alone pushback.
Then, sitting herself up, her gawk iced coldly into a warning glare, filled with a smoldering resentment. "You shouldn't have done that…" she hissed threateningly, causing a stab of acid to churn in Hazel's stomach.
Thumps of charging footsteps behind the door amplified the closer they came to Hillary's room, chilling Hazel's insides into knots. Crap…Marcus must've heard the commotion and was on his way to investigate.
"Kakao, we need to get out of here…" her red ring warned cautiously, but a despairing chill froze Hazel in her spot. Running away only fueled Marcus's merciless wrath.
Of course, taking any chance to enact her talents for the next child-star grammy, Hillary knitted her brows in the middle, tears welling in her wide eyes like some innocent little puppy…
Dooming Hazel for the worst when she burst out into dramatic wails.
Hazel's heart pulsed in her throat when she whirled around to a firm foot pushing open the door in a pounding bang. His sharp eyes scowled with savage fire, fury making his stomps strike the ground in heavy chomps with his wife not far behind as she held herself back by the doorway.
"She pushed me and made me hit my heeeeeeeaaaaaad!" Hillary cried her crocodile tears, shooting a prickly sensation up Hazel's spine like a spider crawling up her back.
"No! T-T-That's not…" Hazel started to stammer, her voice a fragile thread threatening to snap under the weight of her dread. Too overwhelmed to will her quaking legs to move out of his fast and furious path directly towards her. "I-I didn't-"
She yelped when Marcus yanked hard on her right arm, snapping a sharp tingle radiating from the bone of her shoulder down through her fingertips. She felt muscles in her shoulder begin to spasm uncontrollably, sprouting more sparks of pain that brimmed her eyes moist as she screeched.
"Marcus, stop!" Angela cried yet made no effort to step foot from the doorway to intervene.
"You had no right to hurt my daughter!" Marcus shouted, mere inches away from Hazel's pain-stricken tears. So much pain burning her arm numb, all Hazel could do was cry out in her agony. Irritating Marcus more as he showed absolutely no mercy by slamming her to the ground by that same arm, further dislocating her shoulder.
"Suck it up! Right now!" Marcus shouted, towering over her wailing cries in a menacing stance. "Or I'll really give you something to-"
A gusting burst of bright-red sparkles punched the maniac square in the face, stumbling him backwards from the girl curling into herself as shaky fingers clutched the arm she could no longer move. He groaned as he cupped the throbbing pang in the bridge of his nose. Unaware of the red ring wielding her wand out of eyesight after internally debating with her morals and Da Rules.
His thin breaths huffed, unable to figure out what the heck just happened and why the hell his face hurt so much. Seeing that Marcus and stopped his rampage, Angela seized the opportunity to step in while the storm was in its calm. Hurrying towards the crocodile tears of her eldest daughter instead of checking on the child crying from a dislocated shoulder.
"Honey, are you okay?" Angela kneeled to Hillary, holding her daughter by her cheek.
"I…I-I will be…" Hillary sniffed, keeping up her act with an added hiss as she reached for the small spot in the back of her head that had already stopped hurting as much as upon first impact.
Breaths billowed through gritted teeth as Marcus ignored the mask of pain in his face, blue eyes ablaze in a murderous scowl towards the biggest regret of his life. "Can't believe we ever adopted you…" he growled with grave deliberation. "You're nothing but some black stain on our family name…"
Hazel could barely open her eyes, hitched whimpers rocking throughout her fragile frame.
"Just wait 'til we come back tonight…" he sneered, his tone degenerating into a guttural rasp. "You're gonna wish you could trade places with my son…"
Nyekundu observed Hazel's contemplative stare, both concerned for her goddaughter and riddled with the guilt of delayed action. She should have done something sooner, but Da Rules state that a godchild had to wish for it first. Ultimately, she'd decided to take a page out of Juandissimo and Rose's books and go against that rule. Unfortunately, the bulk of the damage had already been done by the time she mustered the bravery to act…and she would regret that for the rest of forever.
Just like she failed to stop Anthony from doing the unthinkable…
When Hazel had been banished to her room before the Wells abandoned her for the country club, Nyekundu had used magic to snap Hazel's shoulder back into place. Thankfully, the pain instantly plummeted from a 10 to a 2, but Hazel did not want Nyekundu to use more magic to soothe her soreness.
All she wanted from Nyekundu was her company, to cradle her close. To let her tattered heart feel the love and comfort it so desperately craved.
Swaddled in her goddaughter's folded arms, Nyekundu raised her worried gaze to Hazel, keeping her voice soft since it would be the first either of them had spoken for hours "…would you like to talk now?"
Hazel sniffed, quietly shaking her head. There was nothing to talk about, and even if, what's the point?
"I'm so sorry, Kakao…" Nyekundu apologized, her words heavy with remorse. "I should have stepped in sooner…"
Full lips quivered at the fresh wave of tears pooling in brown eyes.
"…it…just all happened so fast…"
"It's not your fault, Nee-Nee…it's mine…" Hazel croaked just above a whisper, dejected eyes downcast "…who am I to think I should ever defend myself…"
The sudden startle of frantic scratching spooked the child and fairy godmother in a short jerk, tiny claws scraping behind the bedroom window. Heart racing, Hazel rubbed her tears away before she blinked repeatedly in shock. Instantly recognizing the white ferret writhing as if trying to force its way inside through the glass.
"…ni nini hicho?" Nyekundu gasped, questioning what the heck was clawing at the window like a rabid animal. Hazel's lips parted in silent surprise. No way…how did he climb the side of a wall up two stories by himself?!
Lowering Nyekundu down onto the cerise duvet, Hazel slowly stepped off her bed, wincing when she rotated a crook out of her shoulder. Cautious in her approach towards the window as Nyekundu scurried across the bed to its edge.
"Hazel, what are you doing?"
"It's Schumann." Hazel spoke carefully, still processing how a ferret could stop his own fall to death. "You know the ferret I told you I met this morning?"
"Wait…that is Schumann?" Nyekundu almost couldn't believe what she saw. "Then where is this Missy you also told me about?"
"And how did he get out of his house…?" Hazel more so questioned to herself. She remembered Missy mention how Schumann usually never ran off anywhere without her.
Once in front of the window, Hazel unclasped the lock, and just as she lifted the pane, she yelped when Schumann leapt through the open space onto the magenta carpet, spinning in place before he faced her with an eager tail and beaming taffy-pink eyes.
"S-Schumann?" Hazel gaped, brows tipped up. "What are you-"
She screeched when the albino ferret crawled up Hazel's right leg like a lizard climbing a tree. Flinching uncomfortably when front paws latched onto her injured shoulder.
"Hazel!" Nyekundu worried that this ferret was hurting her godchild, until she found herself frozen, her body rendered immobile as red eyes widened in astonishment at the tiny specks of taffy-pink that began sparkling in Schumann's beady eyes. Circling a concentration of shimmers around the very area where the child's shoulder had been dislocated.
Nyekundu stared, both eyebrows forming a high arch of bewilderment. His aura radiated with intense mystical energy, energy too divine to be that of an everyday fairy. Can't be a creation of Bwana Jorgen; if you were on the Fairy Commander's radar, he'd come find you himself.
But if Schumann was not a fairy, then…
No…wait…could it be?
Hazel's limbs stiffened to the point of trembling, too stunned to move. Her mind struggling to reconcile reality when the soreness in her shoulder subsided into nothingness. Seeing that half of his work was done, taffy-pink shimmers dissipated as he snapped his neck 180 towards the red ferret adorned with a golden crown. Swift and sharp in his leap off Hazel's shoulder directly onto the bed mere inches in front of her, causing Nyekundu to take a step back, her body instinctively retreating as though her subconscious had triggered a defensive response to protect her.
"Nee-Nee? What's wrong?" Hazel grew worried when Nyekundu furrowed towards the fixed stare of taffy-pink eyes, debilitated by the intimidating force of their laser focus. Locked eyes unblinking, Schumann inched in his deliberate, measured loom forward. Nose pointed as he shortened the gap between himself and the fairy godmother who reflexively backed away. Soon, beady eyes went aglow once more. Glistening in the brightest, iridescent swirls of pink.
Glitters of pink shimmered inside rings of bright-red, and Nyekundu's stare went blank. As if the light in her eyes dimmed into a hollowness that glazed distantly before she slumped like a heavy sack.
"Nyekundu!"
Right as Hazel's panic sped towards her godmother, Schumann spun around and locked sparkling eyes on her, halting her dead in her tracks. His stare shimmered madly, brighter than the sun. Seizing the godchild's mental control in a hypnotic daze, the edge of her surroundings swaying and blurring together in dizzying waves…
Brown eyes drooped, heavy with weariness. The weight of exhaustion obscuring her clarity before her emptied thoughts succumbed to the comforting embrace of slumber.