But Victor didn’t feel the same things others did. Plus, he had Casimir’s mother. Aunt Halina. Victor smiled as he continued to pet the dog, remembering her clear green eyes, like sea glass he’d once found on a beach.
He’d loved Aunt Halina more than anyone, with the exception of Casimir. His cousin had inherited his empathy from Halina. Casimir had never treated Victor as anything but family. Never made fun of him for not being as smart or for looking like a scraggly troll, as Victor’s mother used to say.
Unfortunately, Victor hadn’t cared much for Casimir’s father. Victor’s uncle acted and appeared too much like Victor’s own father for him to ever love the man.
Once he’d turned nine years old, he’d had enough. After killing his parents, so carefully and craftily no one had ever suspected the fire he’d set hadn’t been an accident, he’d moved in with Casimir and his parents.
Only to find, to his surprise, that they weren’t the perfect family either.
Casimir was special. Everyone knew it. The smartest boy in the village, he had been reading since he could hold a book. Numbers always made perfect sense to him, and he remembered everything he was told.
Unlike Victor, Casimir instilled awe in those who knew him, not fear.
With the exception of his lower-class father, who didn’t understand the attention his son deserved. Uncle Marek used to tease that Casimir couldn’t be his. The boy never wanted to hold a wrench or fix a gasket. He didn’t like sports. Instead, Casimir wanted to read all day.
So Victor helped his uncle with manual labor. Victor played sports so his uncle had someone to brag about at the garage. AndVictor commiserated when Uncle Marek flew into one of his many rages about the rich keeping the poor, hardworking people of Poland down.
Casimir studied and read. Never complained. And studied some more.
Victor hadn’t known it for a while because Casimir hid what his father did to him. But when Victor wasn’t around, Uncle Marek often did his best to beat sense into Casimir. He thought that by pounding the merits of the working class into his son, that somehow Casimir would be convinced books didn’t matter.
Arealman worked with his hands. Frail flowers and women stayed inside and read books.
For a while, after Victor had learned the truth about Uncle Marek, he’d watched, curious to see how his cousin might respond.
Casimir continued to read, continued to be beaten on a weekly and sometimes daily basis. Aunt Halina knew. She tried to help him, but Marek didn’t like that much. He’d beat her for interfering.
The only one who never got in trouble was a dog given to the family by a happy customer at Marek’s garage. Azor, that lovely little beast, brought joy to everyone in the family. Even Uncle Marek treated him like a divine creature.
Azor adored Victor and followed him everywhere.
For a short time, life was good.
Then Uncle Marek lost his job. Aunt Halina was forced to work for a wealthy family, cooking and cleaning and mending.
Until the master of the grand house decided she should dootherchores to earn her keep. The fool woman got pregnant. The rich man’s wife labeled her the village whore and encouraged those in town to do the same.
As Aunt Halina’s belly swelled with child, the town’s hatred toward her grew.
With so much anger and abuse aimed at her, it had to go somewhere, he supposed.
He just hadn’t expected Aunt Halina to turn her pain on Casimir.
Casimir’s heart broke.
As did Victor’s.
Disappointed in the one person aside from Casimir he could count on, Victor did what he had to do to protect his cousin.
Only this time, he let himself experiment. And with each knife stroke, with every plunge of a blade into flesh, he felt better. Happy. The way he used to when he played with Azor or watched his aunt bake Casimir’s favorite cookies.
Instead of being upset that Victor had ended their life in the village, Casimir made a plan. So that when they left the village and moved to Warsaw, leaving beloved Azor behind with a good family who would take care of him as they could not, Victor put his faith and trust in his cousin.
He hadn’t looked back since.
So if August Kaminski thought he could treat Casimir like common help, Victor would soon disabuse him of that notion.
Casimir had grand plans.
