Page 25 of Requiem & Reverie

I peer through the keyhole again, to find grandfather’s hands at my mother’s throat, his face red, head tipped back, his hips still crashing into her legs.

My mother’s face is red, too, her tongue sticking out a bit.

I slam through the door and see that he’s strangling her. “Stop it! You’re killing her!”

Eyes wide, he directs his attention down toward my mother, and his whole body shakes. When he pulls out of her, his manhood is sticking up, fluids squirting out the tip of it, which he cups with his hand.

“Analiese, wake up! Ana!” One rough hand jostles her jaw in a way that angers me, as I watch him try to shake her awake. “Analiese, you wake up right now!”

Barreling toward him, I knock into his side, and he stumbles, catching himself on the desk.

A hard whack against my cheek sends a ringing noise through my ears, and my jaw slips like it’s unhinged itself.

“You ever touch me again, Boy, and I’ll kill you!” His whole body is shaking, eyes red and hostile, burning, as if he would send me off to death beside her.

I wish he would.

I twist back around to my mother, who lies motionless, staring up at the ceiling. Mouth wide, lips blue. Even at my age, there’s no denying she’s dead.

“You killed her.” The watery shield across my eyes softens her angelic face even more. “My mother.”

“She was my Analiese. I didn’t mean to hurt her.”

“Please wake up, Momma.” Resting my head against her chest, I listen for her heartbeat, the one that’s put me at ease on nights that she’d held me when the headaches set in.

Only silence.

I lay against her for a few more minutes, replaying the last moments of her life inside my head. I want to go back to playing the piano, back to the soothing sounds of the metronome.

Dread burrows in my gut at the thought of what’s to come. With my mother gone, life in this house will be rife with misery. Subject to the torment of both my grandfather and uncle.

“You’ll not say a word about this, or I will string you up in the shed and watch you bleed out.”

“What will you do with her?”

“Bury her. In the back woods. That’s where she’d want to be.”

As I lay against my dead mother, I stare toward the doorway and see Carl peeking in.

Smiling back at me.

At the time, I wished I’d stayed playing the piano, entranced by that hypnotic sound, oblivious to everything around me. Breaking from those thoughts, I roll my head against my shoulders and slouch down in my seat. For hours, I’ve sat watching this neighborhood, with no sign of the white van.

Jonah and Nola exit the house, likely conducting another one of their sweeps. They head out every day, a couple times a day, searching the neighborhood. I want to tell them their efforts are futile, a waste, because they’ll never find Oliver here, but I can’t say a word. The moment I do, the opportunity to find the kid will be lost, and who knows how Carl will react.

The two head off in the opposite direction from where I’m sitting. A few times, I could’ve sworn they’ve seen me sitting in the car, but the preoccupation with Oliver seems to have blinded them to anything else. Even the sleek black Audi parked a few houses down from Nola’s.

The house stands dark and quiet.

I change the settings on the security cam app to Motion Detect, as I usually do when they leave, and lean my seat back a bit. Minutes pass, and I yawn, stretching in what little bit of movement I can muster in the seat.

Then my phone beeps.

With a frown, I lift it from the passenger seat and click on the app.

In Nola’s room.

I stare down at the image on my phone, the camera’s view, where a shadowy figure moves about her room. My gaze shoots to her bedroom window, where the hallway light gives a small bit of illumination. Attention flipping from the phone to the real thing, I watch as the figure enters her room, the camera panning with his movement. He strides over to her bed, brushes his hand across the bedspread, and lifts her pillow to his face.