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“Why are you showing me these? What are they used for?”
“They’re passed down from generation to generation. Each brother has his. This is what Gregory said to me in Gallo’s office. What you were asking about.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You do. But I’ll explain anyway. See, there is a way out. Your aunt took it. If one of the brothers wants to keep the girl, she has to agree to be marked as his.”
This is insane. Stuff from the dark ages.
I endured the marking ceremony.
“It has to be her choice. It can’t be forced. This would have been the brand my great-uncle would have burned into your Aunt Helena’s skin to claim her. See, another way the Willows destroy us. Destroy our family.”
“You kidnap us. We have no choice.”
“I’ll give you a choice, Helena.”
“What are you saying?”
“Do you want him?”
“What?”
“Do you want him? My brother?”
“Are we back to this?”
“Because he will claim you. He told me as much. It’s why I was sharing you, hoping it wouldn’t come to that. Hoping he’d be happy enough to leave it be. Leave you be.”
“What?”
“He’ll take you from me when the time comes.”
“I won’t go.”
“It won’t be your choice. Not then. Not anymore. That’s why I’m giving it to you now.”
“He can’t make me.”
He laughs outright. “Really? Look around you. Where are you? We can make you do anything we want.”
I don’t have an answer.
“He’ll take you and he’ll break you. He swore it.”
“He wouldn’t…hurt me.”
“You don’t know him.”
“That’s what he says about you.”
“Unless I mark you as mine.”
I hear him. And even though I understood what this was about, it’s different to hear him say it. To hear it out loud.
“You’ll brand me?”
Sebastian nods.
“With that?”
He doesn’t nod or answer, but I see it in his eyes.
I shake my head and back away and run up the stairs, tripping, catching myself on the filthy, damp stone. Once I’m outside, I run to the house. I think about what I saw on my Aunt Helena’s neck during my dream. It was the edge of the brand. It explains why, no matter how warm it got, she’d wear high turtlenecks.
Why she always kept her neck covered.
She hadn’t wanted to show her shame.
That she’d loved a Scafoni monster.
Loved him enough to let him burn his mark into her skin.20SebastianWhen we were little, my brothers and I would go down to that older part of the mausoleum to play chicken. We scared the shit out of each other. Gregory in particular was good at it. Even though Ethan was older than him, Greg could still get him.
Lucinda caught us once. I was ten or eleven and I still remember it clear as day. Hell, that’s one memory I wish I could forget.
The mausoleum was off limits for us. One of the few things that was. We never let that get in the way though. It was one of the best places to play, especially after dark.
She only found us because we’d been stupid enough to light one of the torches we’d found for light. It was the first time we got a proper look at the place and I remember the stink of the rat that was decomposing in the corner. We’d found some sticks and were poking at various parts of it.
I’ll never forget the sound of her heels as she descended the stairs—slow and calculated steps, our fear mounting with each one.
That was part of the thing with her. She liked scaring the shit out of us. She’d even do it to Ethan and Gregory from the time they could walk.
She blamed me, of course. That wasn’t anything new. I thought she’d just cane me, like she always did. It hurt like fucking hell, but I knew the risks by then and I manned up when it came time to take my punishment.
I wouldn’t let her cow me. Wouldn’t let her think she had the upper hand, not even when she lay stroke after stroke down. I never cried. Never made a sound. And it probably only made things worse on me.
But that night, Lucinda got creative.
She led my brothers up the stairs but when it came time for me to walk through the gate, she stopped and turned to me. With only a grin instead of words, she closed the gate slowly and wove that chain through, delighting in drawing it out, relishing the fear on my face.
“Sleep with the dead tonight, Sebastian. See how they like it when you disturb them.”
I’ll never forget her words. I still shudder at the memory and I understand Helena sleeping with the lights on. I did for a long time after that because that torch we’d lit, it lasted about an hour and I’d still had the long, black night ahead of me.
I’d been so scared, that at one point, I’d pissed myself.
